If you are a current American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) member, and are in a leadership role, or looking to be in a leadership role, then this program is for you. Expand your leadership skills while networking with your peers. The AALL Leadership Academy is designed to prepare you with core leadership skills and
The Geek in Review Ep. 57 – Anne Tucker and Ben Chapman on Georgia State University’s Law & Business School’s Collaborate on The Institute for Insight
Wouldn’t it be cool if a law school and a business school could collaborate on issues of legal analytics, entrepreneurial opportunities in the law, and collaboration between the university and the local business and law firm industries? We talk with a couple of professors at Georgia Statue University (GSU) who are turning this ‘cool idea’ and making it a reality. Anne Tucker, Professor of Law, Legal Analytics & Innovation Initiative, and Ben Chapman, Executive Director, Legal Analytics and Innovation Initiative join us to discuss the details behind The Institute for Insight at GSU. The Institute brings together professors from different backgrounds of Engineering, Computer Science, and Statistics and with this type of cross-pollination with business and law, the professors are looking at applied analytics
questions and bringing in their own unique skill sets to understand and solve these issues.
This mashup of law, business, data science, risk management, statistics and more isn’t a purely academic endeavor for the Institute. Following in the tradition of GSU being an urban school, the Institute works with well known players in the Atlanta business and legal community to put the ideas into real-world situations. This gives the Institute’s professors and students the opportunity to work side-by-side with the business and legal leaders to help identify, study, analyze, and potentially solve issues facing the business and legal industry. This is one of the many values which Tucker and Chapman see for not just preparing students for the practice of law, but also for the business of law.
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Information Inspirations
While Greg was busy playing guitar in his law firm’s band, Marlene was speaking at the DLaw Summit in NYC last week.
Competitive Intelligence guru, Kevin Miles from Norton Rose Fulbright gives us some nice checklists on different CI topics along with some templates designed in MS Word to help start you on the CI path at your law firm.
The Geek in Review Ep. 56 – And the Survey Says… Kevin Clem on the HBR Law Department Survey
This week, we bring on Kevin Clem, Chief Commercial Officer for HBR Consulting. Kevin discusses the HBR Law Department Survey which has become a staple in the industry over the past 16 years. There is still a bit of a Family Feud between the in-house and the outside counsel ranks, but the survey is showing that there are lots of opportunities for the two sides to communicate and collaborate, rather than keep the status quo in the relationship. GC’s are wanting their outside firms to help them beyond their legal issues, and really get to understand their business needs and pressures. Whether it is laying out strategy and pricing, or assisting the law department with their understanding of legal tools or knowledge collection, there are needs which law firms need to help with, or someone else may fill that void.
Clem has used the platform of the TV game show, The Family Feud to show his audiences of corporate counsels how they see their relationships. And the survey says… it’s not great. Some 87% of GC’s he had surveyed found the relationship to be either okay, or needing help. It’s a great conversation, and we cover a number of topics, and the one thing that we all agreed with, is that Richard Dawson was our favorite host.
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Information Inspirations:
Pepperdine’s online course makes a PR push for “nons.” Greg thinks maybe they should find another term. After all, hospital administration professionals are not referred to as non-doctors. Marlene suggests that TGIR listeners call in with suggested terms you’d like to see.
There’s some inspirational tweets out there ranging from why it’s okay to talk about your projects at conferences, to how great a brother (and customer service provider) Levi is.
The Geek in Review Ep. 55 – The Legal Tech and Innovation Pipeline – Can Law Schools and Law Firms Better the Process?
Three law school innovators, three law firm innovators, a law student, and a BigLaw Partner meet on a podcast… this podcast… and share thoughts on how to improve law students’ tech skills before they arrive at the firm. That is the setting for this episode of The Geek in Review.
Nikki Shaver, Director of Innovation and Knowledge from Paul Hastings got this conversation started on Twitter when she discovered that most of the New Fall Associates (NFAs) did not take any technology or innovation courses while in law school. This is not an uncommon story. There seems to be little incentive, either on the law school, or law firm side of recruiting which stresses tech competencies. But just because that’s the way it has always been, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. There is definitely room for improvement! So we wanted to get a group together and do just that.
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We asked Vanderbilt Law School’s Cat Moon, Vermont Law School’s Jeannette Eicks, and University of Oklahoma Law School’s Kenton Brice to cover the law school innovation perspective.
Nikki Shaver, Marlene, and Greg cover the law firm innovation perspective.
We also asked Jackson Walker Partner Matt Acosta, and Michigan State University Law School student, Kanza Khan to jump in and share their experiences with the expectations for legal technology skills.
We take a deep dive into the topic ranging from what law schools are actually offering students, what are law firms expectations for tech skills, and are law firm recruiting, and law school placement incentivizing students to be more proficient with tech before they arrive as NFAs?
The Culturally Disruptive Possibility of CI
The past week I had the pleasure of presenting at the 13th Annual Ark Conference Competitive Intelligence in the Modern Law Firm. I am totally blown away that this one day conference is in its 13th year and still going strong. The quality of the presentations was outstanding. There were new and
The Geek in Review Ep. 54: NYU Law and Tech Conference: Serving it Up East Coast Style
It turns out that the West Coast doesn’t have a lock on law and tech innovation. On this episode, we talk with four guests who are involved in the upcoming NYU Law and Tech: Impact on Innovation, on October 15, 2019. Our guests today are Felicity Conrad is a NYU grad and CoFounder and
The Geek in Review Ep. 53 – Makerspaces in Law Schools with Ashley Matthews and Sharon Bradley
Makerspaces are becoming very popular in libraries, and today we talk with two librarians who are ready to bring the collaborative thinking and working spaces into the law school library environment. Ashley Matthews is at George Mason’s Antonin Scalia Law School, and Sharon Bradley is at the University of Georgia School of Law. Both believe there is a great benefit in carving out spaces within the law school library to allow students and faculty the ability to tinker and experiment with their creative sides, and potentially come up with the next big idea in the legal market.
Matthews recently wrote an article on makerspaces entitled “Teaching Students to ‘Tech Like a Lawyer’.” While some of us may see ‘tech like a lawyer’ as a way to stop technology, Matthews and Bradley think that the law school library environment can be the perfect place to teach law students the analytical skills they’ll need in their practice to truly understand how a legal issue can benefit from technology, and how to issue spot, reason, analyze, and resolve legal issues more effectively with technology.
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Information Inspirations
The Dangers of Categorical Thinking
The human mind is build to categorize the things we see and do in the world. It just helps us make sense of the world, whether it’s the fight or flight between seeing a stick and a snake, or the business decisions we make in selecting the perfect candidate out of a pool of ten qualified applicants. We group the hard skills and the soft skills. In this Harvard Business Review article, the authors warns not to be so caught up in the larger categorical picture, and lose sight of the details and nuances that really make the difference in the end.
Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 53 – Makerspaces in Law Schools with Ashley Matthews and Sharon Bradley
A Competitive Intelligence Workshop Just for Legal Information Professionals
Our fellow 3 Geeks’ contributor, Zena Applebaum is leading the upcoming Competitive Intelligence program in Chicago on Friday, October 18, 2019. The American Association of Law Libraries is holding this CI Foundations Course entitled, Superior Intelligence = Strategic Decision Making.
In this course you will learn to be the person who defines, gathers
Don’t Obsess Over the Details… Just ‘Tech the Tech!’
[Ed. Note: Please welcome guest blogger, Sam Harden, from vLex. – GL]
I used to watch a lot of Star Trek TNG – every episode it seemed like some super complicated futuristic technology was an instant solution to an intractable problem the crew was facing. Can’t find the cloaked Romulan ship? Modulate the tachyon pulse beam transmorgifier! I didn’t know this at the time, but things like that had become so common in the series that the script writers wouldn’t even bother coming up with the technical jargon when they were writing the script:
“It became the solution to so many plot lines and so many stories,” ST:TNG writer, Ron Moore said. “It was so mechanical that we had science consultants who would just come up with the words for us and we’d just write ‘tech’ in the script. You know, Picard would say ‘Commander La Forge, tech the tech to the warp drive.’
Some Context:
I’ll come back to this concept of ‘teching the tech’ in a moment, but first let me lay some context. vLex has me doing free consulting sessions with anyone who wants them. So far I’ve done a good number of interviews – all legal professionals, either practicing law or working in the legal sphere in some capacity.
Continue Reading Don’t Obsess Over the Details… Just ‘Tech the Tech!’
The Geek In Review Ep. 52 – Andie Kramer and Al Harris on Their New Book, It’s Not You, It’s the Workplace
While we could talk all day with the husband and wife team of Andie Kramer and Al Harris about being BigLaw Partners, it is their work on women’s conflicts and bias in the workplace which brings them on the show today. Andie and Al recently released their second book, It’s Not You, It’s the Workplace: Women’s Conflict at Work and the Bias That Built It. And we jump in with both feet to discuss how the workplace environment, even at law firms (or maybe, especially at law firms), is designed to place women in adversarial roles against one another. Andie and Al have mentored women, conducted speaking consultations, and have written books on the subject of gender communications for over 30 years. Because they bring both the female and male perspectives into this very difficult conversation, they pack a one-two punch for their audiences and definitely grab their attention. When we asked Al Harris how important it was for him to bring in men into this conversation, his answer was, “in a word… VERY!”We take a deep dive into the issue of gender bias in the workplace, and the environment which contributes to that very bias. You can learn more about Andie Kramer and Al Harris, including a question guide to their books, at their website, andieandal.com. Definitely check out the website after you listen to this week’s interview!
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What Does Your Family Think You Do??
We have one more story this week about a family member who thinks that being a library manager is a glorified file clerk job. We imagined that Thanksgiving that year was a little awkward. If you have a story to share, leave us a message at 713-487-7270 or email us your story at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com.
Information Inspirations
Come on men… it’s 2019!!
The Pence Rule of a man not being alone with a woman in the workplace, or attending a social event with alcohol without having a man’s wife present is affecting work environments, including law firms. American Lawyer senior columnist, Vivia Chen’s article, #MeToo Backlash Is Not Going Away, shows how men are less likely to work in one-on-one situations with women at a higher rate in 2019, than in 2016. This is having a significant effect on the ability for women to have equal access to opportunities and advancement. Vivia puts it best when she says “Considering it’s 2019, it’s frick’n unbelievable.” We couldn’t agree more.