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Nothing You Can Say Can Cause Me To Retain You remains among the most important blog posts for understanding the corporate legal market. Mark Hermann, self-styled curmudgeon and then Chief Counsel – Litigation and Global Chief Compliance Officer at Aon, expertly expounds on why he is loath to add new law firms: he already has really good lawyers.

Hermann calculates a 95% probability that new lawyers would be worse than his curated incumbents. I’ll pile on. Even if we are comfortable that new lawyers would be as good as, and possibly better than, our existing lawyers, there is still a strong argument for sticking with known quantities. It is not merely that we know our incumbents. They know us. The ramp-up costs for onboarding new counsel are more than administrative (framework agreements, fee negotiations, data security audits, e-billing setup), they are substantive. Current counsel know our people, personalities, peccadilloes, preferences, procedures, and policies. New, even when it is better, comes at a cost.Continue Reading Nothing You Can Say On Diversity

[Ed. Note: Today’s post comes from guest blogger, Steve Nelson from The McCormick Group. Steve suggest the next generation of COOs will need different skills and perspectives to be successful. He is right. – TB]

A recent article in Bloomberg Big Law Business detailed the increasing sophistication of Chief Operating Officers at law firms, pointing out that many of the new COOs have managed corporate organizations, other major professional services firms, and large government agencies.

But the article misses an important factor in what law firm leaders need in today’s environment. Much has been written lately about the challenges that the AmLaw law firms are facing because of the increased scrutiny by clients and their own “chief operating officers”, as evidenced by the growth of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC). What has changed, particularly since the recession, has been a complete reevaluation of the “law firm engagement”. Clients have taken a much more comprehensive view of their outside counsel retention, not just in terms of billing rates and alternative fees, but in the way that their work is handled. This ranges from billing practices, composition of teams, and the reporting of even minor “event changes” that impacts the engagement as a whole.Continue Reading The Law Firm COO of the Future

A Watched Pot

I invented a new tech product for the corporate legal market. I have no qualms labeling it “the ultimate disruptive game changer.” I hope you are sitting down for this. The Magic Money Machine™ is a proprietary IoT cryptocurrency platform that leverages blockchain technology and deep-learning algorithms to reduce friction in the legal supply chain. Inside and outside counsel need only to both plug in the MMM (sadly, my branding team tells me that M&M, 3M, and M3 all seem to be taken). That’s it. No learning curve. No changed behavior. No implementation dip. No risk. Also I am giving it away free. I only charge for shipping and handling (order now and get a second one at no additional charge).

If both sides have the MMM plugged in, the corporate client’s costs will be reduced by 25%, and the law firm’s profits will increase by 25%. A win-win from mutually beneficial collaboration, a truly beautiful thing.

So here’s the question: how long will it take MMM to reach market saturation?Continue Reading My legal tech invention: the Magic Money Machine

Well, I had a fun shopping experience that I thought I would share–Amazon’s Treasure Truck. It is kind of internet-y and social media-y thing I can chat about.

It is yet another POS that Amazon is owning.

Basically, you sign up for text messages through Amazon to be notified when their treasure truck is in your area with a hot sale item. You then reserve the item, select pre-set pick up location, then pick it up at the appointed time. The oddest thing: no money changes hands.

Amazon Treasure Truck: yet another POS that turns shopping into a scavenger hunt

(Photo courtesy of Amazon)

Continue Reading Amazon Treasure Truck: yet another POS that turns shopping into a scavenger hunt

Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting New York City during LegalWeek and enjoying the frigid 19 degree weather that comes with visiting New York at the end of January. LegalWeek itself is typically made of of legal technology folks and lots of e-discovery vendors, most of whom are outside my normal circle of friends and colleagues. Luckily for me, there is a group of Knowledge Management leaders attends a little informal gathering and we talk and bounce ideas off of one another. During the introductions phase, I saw a trend in titles among my librarian peers. Out of the total of about 75-80 people in attendance, 15-20 people there that I knew were managers, directors, and chiefs over their law libraries. So, about 25% of the attendees were law librarians. However, only one actually had the term “library” or “librarian” in their title. I didn’t find it all that surprising, but it was something that stuck in my mind and made me contemplate once more what others think of when they hear that someone is a librarian.

Let me start this conversation by modifying something I wrote when I said that “the library is not about the space.” Librarians are not restricted to a librarian title. Creative librarians bring value well beyond what is stereo-typically thought of in regards to what a librarian does. As in many industries, as librarians move up the ladder, we expand our responsibilities and skills in a way that breaks down the walls of what people think librarians do. As a result, we take on new roles and titles that may or may not have the word librarian in it. It doesn’t mean that the librarian profession is somehow devalued, in fact, I would say that it is the opposite. Librarians are breaking barriers and advancing into positions which a decade or two ago would have been unobtainable.
Continue Reading A Librarian By Any Other Name…

First, an unqualified endorsement:

Ken Adams’s A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting, Fourth Edition is essential for every professional involved in the contracting process from negotiation and drafting to interpretation and litigation. MSCD has no peer in explaining what contracts do and how they should be constructed. The breadth, depth, and clarity are astounding. As is the usability. This is a well-organized reference containing pinpoint guidance on clause types, word usage, and formatting.

If we truly believe that we should do the best we can until we know better, then do better, we have a professional obligation to grapple with, and then make use of, the expert guidance MSCD provides. When light is offered, complacency is no excuse to continue in the dark. MSCD shines a bright light on how to best solve for complexities of contracting in pursuit of business objectives.

Anyone interested in contracts should also read Ken’s blog.

Had to get that out of the way because it is deserved and standard book reviews are not my MO.

“An unqualified endorsement” in both the sense that it is without reservation and that the person making it (me) lacks the appropriate qualifications. Reading Ken triggers my almost debilitating impostor syndrome. I’ve battled the affliction since I commenced my legal career with the observation: Clients are paying how much per hour for me? To do this? Really? Something is very wrong here.Continue Reading How much of lawyering is being a copy-and-paste monkey?

By Lisa Salazar (@Lihsa)

A UK study, Elastic Generation: The Female Edit, offers some refreshing insight into a woman’s perspective on advertising.

Conducted by J Walter Thompson Intelligence, 248 UK women aged 53-72 were surveyed. For comparison,  276 UK men were surveyed, as well.

When women push back on patronizing and stereotypes in marketing and advertising

Marketing to women

Identifying this group of females as the “elastic generation”, the report comes to this pivotal conclusion:

The two words women choose to describe advertising aimed at them? ‘Patronising’ and ‘stereotyped’. As a result, 72% say they pay no heed to advertising. Nine out of ten say they would just like to be treated as a person, not a stereotype. Elastic Generation, p. 3.

I would surmise that this general feeling floats all the way across the pond.

Continue Reading When women push back on stereotypes in marketing and advertising

Earlier this month, we were debating how to approach a client problem. There were two differing points of view, both had merit and either could be right. Either would get us to the finish line, solve the problem, score the run – insert your analogy of choice. But each position also had its drawbacks. Someone…

By Lisa Salazar (@Lihsa)

I’ve wanted to compare generated photo books for a while now. I can now cross this off of my bucket list.

What I mean by “generated” is that the platform will perform an initial import, or selection from your batch of photos on your phone.

Today, I compare Google…