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Greg Lambert

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Librarian-Lawyer-Knowledge Management-Competitive Analysis-Computer Programmer.... I've taken the Renaissance Man approach to working in the legal industry and have found it very rewarding. My Modus Operandi is to look at unrelated items and create a process that can tie those items together. The overall goal is to make the resulting information better than the individual parts that make it up.

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In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, we have seen many firms expand and publicize their diversity efforts in the community. Many of these efforts are part of pro bono programs supported by individual firms. Brenna DeVaney, Director of Pro Bono Programs and Pro Bono Counsel at Skadden and the Law Firm Anti-Racism Alliance (LFAA) have a different approach–leverage the legal and technical expertise of law firms and legal vendors as a whole while working with legal services organizations and race equity advocates to battle systemic racism long term. Brenna provides us with some insights into the mission of the LFAA and its plans for the future. [PDF of LFAA Mission]

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Information Inspirations
Bon Appétit? Apparently not if you have dark skin. Greg discusses how Bon Appetite’s popular Test Kitchen got derailed due to racist policies. He also ponders how individual freedom can hamper good solutions–in this case the use of COVID-19 tracing apps.
For those of you who can’t take being on another online call, Marlene has a hack for you. You can use pre-recordings. And while the end result is great, the effort might not be worth it. But if you do choose to pre-record yourself nodding and sipping coffee, spend your free time listening to Marlene’s summary of the recent copyright litigation of Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence.
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Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 83 – The Law Firm Antiracism Alliance – Brenna DeVaney

How successful have firms been in handling the stress of adjusting to the needs of the market, knowing how to present that message to clients, and understanding how a sustained firm culture plays a critical role in their ability to cope? Barbara Malin, Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer at Jackson Walker, LLP, and Jennifer Johnson, CEO of Calibrate Legal discuss the critical role marketing, business development, and firm culture play in times of crisis. Our guests tackle some very tough questions about whether firms know and embody their culture and if cultural bias hampers their ability to succeed. They also highlight how firms have adjusted their business development plans to support clients in light of COVID and anti-racism movements.

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Information Inspirations

Are you feeling inspired this August? We certainly are. From identifying songbirds via neural networks to Deloitte Legal’s AI pro bono project in the UK to pornography suits in Martha’s Vineyard, we share our thoughts on the news of the week.

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Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcast. Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. You can email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca.

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Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 82 – Law Firm Culture and Marketing, and How to Market Law Firm Culture – Barbara Malin and Jennifer Johnson

We’ve been off for a month and we come out swinging for this #Barpacolypse #Diplomaprivilege episode. Each July, thousands of law students and attorneys are required to sit for and pass the bar exam in their states if they wish to practice. The fairness, bias, and necessity of the test has been called into question in the past (Note: the exam is a relatively recent method to determine attorney competency to practice), but COVID 19 may finally force states to do away with the bar examination. The public has called administration of the test into question, due to COVID 19 health concerns, and the response from state and national bar examination boards and state courts have been a hodgepodge of confusion and guarding the status quo.

Today’s guests, Professor Cat Moon from Vanderbilt University, Brian L. Frye, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky College of Law in Lexington, and recent Georgetown Law School Graduate, Stefanie Mundhenk are digging deep to expose concerns and implications surrounding the 2020 bar exam and to examine creative approaches, such as Diploma Privilege and supervised practice, that not only will protect their health but may prove to be a better gauge of attorney competency. And if you think the bar exam is a good gauge, please see an excellent My Cousin Vinny tweet thread.

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Continue Reading The Geek In Review Ep. 81 – #Barpocalypse – Cat Moon, Brian L. Frye, Stefanie Mundhenk

Since Justice Antonin Scalia was not available to be on the podcast, we reached out to Northwestern Law School’s John Paul Steven’s Professor of Law, Andrew Koppelman, and Jackson Walker Labor & Employment attorney, Sara Harris, to fill in. Justice Scalia believed in the concept of textualism when it came to the Court interpreting the law, without allowing one’s personal political bias to play a role. According to Merriam Webster, textualism is “a legal philosophy that laws and legal documents (such as the U.S. Constitution) should be interpreted by considering only the words used in the law or document as they are commonly understood.” The problem, according to Koppelman is that textualism has to be balanced with context. If a Justice were to apply or misapply the context of the issue, then textualism could be made to fit the outcome the Justice wants, regardless of what the text of the law says. In the Bostock v. Clayton Co., Georgia decision, the five conservative judges split 3-2 on how textualism applied to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Title VII issue of “because of sex” discrimination, and gave the LGBTQ+ community a win in the process. We dive deep into the text, and the context of the decision.
Andrew Koppelman is also the author of the recently published book, Gay Rights vs. Religious Liberty? The Unnecessary Conflict (2020).

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Information Inspirations
After a bit of a hiatus, we bring back a few items that inspired us this week, and we hope to inspire you as well.
Greg may be retiring his In Seclusion Podcast at the end of this week (awwww), but there are plenty of legal podcasts to fill the void. Here is a couple.

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Continue Reading The Geek In Review Ep. 79 – Text, Context, and SCOTUS’ Textualism in Bostock – Andrew Koppelman and Sara Harris

This upcoming week will be the final week for the In Seclusion Podcast. It’s been a great run, and I hope that you listen to the final episodes. Last week I had a fantastic and diverse group of guests who shared their stories of life during a pandemic from the perspectives of race, changing jobs,…

On March 23, 2020, I launched what I thought would be a three or four-week project. A daily podcast, called In Seclusion, asking legal professionals how they were dealing with the changes resulting from working from home during a pandemic. My fifteen to twenty-episodes ballooned into 60+ episodes. Lawyers, law librarians, law students, law…