Image [cc] laughlin

Last week I had the pleasure of co-presenting with Jeff Carr on AFAs. Jeff is a great guy and way ahead of the field in embracing value billing. He made a point in the presentation that got me to thinking. His point: he works hard to avoid the need for litigation. The result is significant cost savings for his company.

This seems obvious, but at the same time overlooked by so many. Thinking about this brought two things to mind. First – my sister works in compliance for a bank. She is not part of the legal department. Compliance is easily re-named as preventative law. So why isn’t it part of legal?

Second – at a former firm I helped develop a Litigation Readiness Audit service. The service was designed to help clients be better prepared for e-discovery, so they would not be hit with large costs when litigation occurred. Very few clients were interested in this. Their response “I don’t have a budget for that.” Say what?

In all the push for cost savings, you would think something as obvious as being proactive to prevent legal problems would be high on every GC’s list. It’s the old penny-wise, pound foolish maxim.

My read on this: GCs are not much different than law firm partners. Or in other words, they are risk averse. Going to the CEO proactively and asking for extra money now to save money in the future is a big risk for them. They will then have a new responsibility and more accountability. They will have to prove the savings over some period of time. So why take on more risk and responsibility when the outcome is unknown?

Jeff Carr has obviously taken this on. While his company has grown substantially, his overall legal budget has gone … down. But then Jeff sees himself as a business man with legal expertise. So risk (and reward) is in his vocabulary.

To me this is another manifestation of the Paradigm of Precedence. Lawyers are trained to look backwards not forwards. In this case, the real risk is actually ceding the preventative law role to compliance or some other department in the company. Taking the route that appears safe is actually the path to much higher risk.

The AALL 2013 Annual Meeting Program Committee (AMPC) sent out a reminder that the deadline to provide your input via a survey for the 2013 annual meeting programming is today, Friday, August 10. The survey is intended to help the AMPC identify topics and issues that affect you most in your workplace and professional development. Furthermore, the results of this brief survey will be shared with the membership and will shape the Call for Proposals which will open in early September.

According to Julie Pabarja, 2013 AMPC Chair all are also invited to be part of the discussions in the Annual Meeting Program Ideas Community .  She states that “AALL members can use this venue to develop program ideas based on the survey results and identify members to collaborate with on a program.  AMPC members will also share information and provide guidance on the program proposal process in this Community.”

If you have not yet completed the survey,I encourage you to do so. If you don’t provide your input you won’t be heard!

[Ed. Note: Last week, I wrote a post about a company that banned internal email and brought in Yammer as the replacement platform for internal communications. One of my hopes was that I’d get Rob Corrao to follow up and tell us more about how his idea of streamlining communications at LAC-Group became a reality. Rob did not disappoint and has written a nice synopsis of his experience, and gives us a little teaser that there will be more details coming out soon on his own blog, Everything Information. I’d like to personally thank Rob for doing this and I look forward to hearing more. -GL]

We decided to make the bold move to eliminate internal email about June 2011.  Over the course of a year we tested 4 different products, finally settling on Yammer.  I’m happy to discuss specifics if anyone is interested, and will be posting the entire process on my blog (Everything Information – in the next month or so….over several posts.)

We set out to resolve four key issues:

  1. How do we preserve contributions after an employee has left?  Preserve our corporate knowledge?
  2. How do we protect internal material from being emailed to the wrong party? Or being forwarded by mistake outside the org (we have all had this happen to someone we know…if not ourselves…and know that hitting the “Recall” in outlook only makes the person actually read what you are trying to recall.
  3. How do we cut down on task duplication/trip/quad/etc… what happens when you need something done right away and email 4 people…and they ALL do it.
  4. How do we bring together a team spread across 7 offices and two continents?

Top 5 reasons our staff has found that internal messages on Yammer are better than email:

  1. Yammer is a completely searchable tool that outlives any individual employee (eDiscovery compliant/accessible as well) – preserving content even post departure, rather than ending up in an archived email folder sitting on a DVD on someones shelf. It is a central repository for all messages, which enables continual growth of knowledge vs starting over/mining data (which we all know rarely happens due to time and expense).
  2. Yammer helps organize a conversation to keep track of input and eliminates the need for multiple people to have to do the research/fact finding, etc. Increasing organizational productivity.  Employees are working together to get tasks completed.  While email has tried to address “conversations” it’s simply a roll-up based on subject…and we’ve all lost a message or two that happened to have the same subject.
  3. Yammer can be as easy to use as email…or easier.  And can be faster as well!
  4. Yammer can be private – not everything has to be “public” – having a discussion that should only be amongst certain individuals – using private messages you can limit to one or several people.
  5. Yammer builds a corporate repository that allows us to search to see if we have ever had a discussion on a particular topic, client, situation, employee, etc.

BONUS: Yammer enables a concept I call working publicly.  So many times we want to know what’s going on (as managers) and rather than have to stop an employees productivity to prepare an email (ugh) to update us – we are always updated.  It’s a similar effect to what TR did with their cubicles… brought the height down – working publicly increases collaboration, cooperation, organizational awareness/knowledge and most importantly productivity.

Now to how we did it (short version).  We first ran a very tight test group, making sure that the technology worked, testing the concepts put forward by Yammer’s implementation team, etc.  We decided that we would design specific groups and not allow random group creation.  One of the groups is called “Water Cooler” and has strict instructions…no business discussed here…keep it fun – bring people together…a place to blow off (of course we also have word monitoring set in the system to prevent too much creative license with words…we still have to keep it clean).

We also put out a corporate mandate that we were transitioning internal communications and assigned our Yammer champions to re-direct to Yammer.  So when people slip, and they do, and send emails, these champions will forward the email to a group on Yammer (each group can receive posts via email as well)…and then respond within Yammer.

We officially launched Yammer June 1st.  Many of those on LAC Group’s Yammer had not actually met each other…so we made photos a must.  Each person was also required to fill out their profile (completely) so that people could get to know one another (and their skills, areas of expertise, etc).  Then it was off to the races.  Within the first few days, one of our staff members in DC asked a question that would have taken them 5-6 hours to research…a staff member in NY (who had never met the person in the DC office…or even knew they existed) answered the question in 3 minutes (had done the same search the week prior).  While this happened by chance, creating/manufacturing a similar exercise during roll out would be advised, as adoption immediately soared.

When we signed up for yammer, the sales staff told us of their most successful clients where internal email was down by 40-50% – our current stats are internal email is down by 80% (and still going).  Team collaboration is up (significantly).  Teamwork where there wasn’t any…and people are getting to know their co-workers, not just across the cube…but across the country.  Duplication of effort (for us this was huge) is down to almost 0%.  Working publicly is working, it’s been a real shift in our corporate culture.
Ending (internal) email isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be hard either.  The key is finding a reason for each individual in the company – if there is a personal gain, there will be adoption.

Success factors:

  1. Running a solid test group – creating Yammer champions – you have to have believers for any cause.
  2. Setting up the right way – Yammer implementation model of just let people go at it and they’ll get it, isn’t the right model (IMHO).  Orchestrate success – that’s how to ensure it happens.
  3. Make it fun… and have a champion for that – we have a daily post in our Water Cooler that keeps people going.  Have a stash of gift cards and make up prizes for most collaboration, most helpful this or that.
  4. Consistently push to Yammer – make sure that the team is posting there, vs email.
  5. Have some real “wins” for people – use a carrot – sticks will only get you so far.
  6. Set up email to Yammer aliases to auto-send to yammer from email – helps with adoption…and your employees don’t need to remember the long cryptic email addresses Yammer assigns to the various groups.
  7. Send regular posts on Yammer tips and tricks to help make adoption stick.  Just because we have reduced email by 80% doesn’t mean it will stay there.  Have to help back-sliders.  We have a daily tip post that goes in our Yammer 101 group.
  8. Dispel myths about email being faster – set up SMS notifications for groups and individuals, as well using the Yammer app (iPhone, Android, BB, iPad, PC, Mac, etc.) to show speed and ease of use.
  9. Use @mentions and #tags to draw attention to people and organize topics.
  10. Find a success factor for each and every participant – it’s got to personally benefit each person, or they won’t use it.

I’m at rcorrao@lac-group.com if you have any additional questions.

Image [cc] MetaGRRRL

[Note: Here’s a guest post from someone riding the BigLaw Cruise ship of Whitestar, Titantic, and Iceberg LLP… enjoy, and we’ll all meet over at the bar when you’re through reading it. -GL]

In the rest of the world it’s August 2012, but at my firm it’s April 1912. You see, I work for the international law firm of Whitestar, Titanic, and Iceberg LLP and we’re slowly slipping beneath the waves. We were speeding along just fine, on route to record profits (or so they told us), when the captain made an announcement offering a “generous early debarkation” to the most experienced deck hands and engine room workers. They gave each of the volunteers a few weeks provisions and set them adrift on their own personal lifeboats. To make up for the loss in manpower, we all took on more responsibility and greatly improved our productivity. We felt like we had done our part to help keep the ship moving. The Captain and the Line were proud of us. They relied upon us. Without us, they couldn’t have done it. Nothing means more to them than our loyalty. And we continued on our way, feeling good about our progress.

There was no loud noise, no jarring crash, but suddenly some of the Captain’s minions began throwing valuable crew members overboard with only a life jacket and a baloney sandwich. When asked about it, the Captain said, “No, there’s nothing to worry about. We had too much weight on board and needed to slim down a bit. Our crew members are very valuable to us. We gave them all the resources they need to get back to shore. They’ll be fine. Enjoy the rest of the voyage.” Nobody bought it. The passengers and crew alike are now frightened and panicked; running around aimlessly trying to figure out exactly what’s going on.

When I hang my head over the starboard side of the ship, in the moments when the screaming passengers stop to breathe, I can just make out the sickening sucking sound as water fills the lower decks. The captain is either in denial, or stupid, or both. I sit with my back against the railing, watching the frightened passengers run up and down the deck checking for hidden lifeboats, but there are none, they were all given to those who chose early debarkation. Of course, there are rumors of nearby ships, on their way to rescue us, but I know that those ships are only interested in saving the first class passengers. It’s happened before. The rest of us will have to hope for passing fishing vessels, or hang on to some bit of flotsam and pray the current carries us into shipping lanes where, if we’re lucky, we’ll be picked up by an Outsourcing ship. They may pay us half our previous wages, but we’ll be so happy to be alive, we won’t really care.

In the meantime, it’s all kind of surreal and beautifully bizarre. The way the stars and the lights of the ship are reflected in the cold, dark water; I can hear the band playing “Auld Lang Syne” on the other side of the ship; old friends and strangers are huddled beneath blankets telling each other lies about the likelihood of rescue; and the Captain stands proudly at the helm yelling, “full speed ahead!” I light my last cigarette, toss the lighter overboard, and walk slowly toward the bar.

Image [cc] Fanboy30

A recent survey of law firms suggest that somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 law firms employ a “Pricing Specialist” of some sort. The report states that “the use of pricing specialists remains relatively rare in all but the largest firms.” Of course this report caught my eye since it also notes “that increasing management control over pricing decisions lead to positive pricing outcomes.” This means pricing people have a growing and increasingly valuable role within law firms.

But I digress … the first point is the real subject of this post. A group of pricing people, or more broadly Alternative Fee Arrangement (AFA) and Legal Project Management (LPM) people, has come together to form a community. We are doing this under the umbrella of ILTA. In one month’s time our group grew by 70%, which I thought was fantastic. Then I saw the survey report numbers and realized we have a ways to go to fully capture this community.

So … if you are a pricing specialist or have an AFA or LPM role at a firm or your role covers one of those functions in some fashion, please shoot me a note. I will add your name (and your firm) to the list.

The goals for our group include developing best practices and creating professional development opportunities for people in these new, emerging roles. We see the need to advance our emerging profession and look forward to expanding this group and accelerating our positive influence on the legal profession.

Image [cc]euthman

I was hopping from venue to venue at the Houston Press Music Awards last weekend, when I popped in on Leah White & The Magic Mirrors‘ show at Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar to listen to Leah’s songs about all things Houston. About three songs into her set, Leah calls out to the crowd and asks “who here knows about the Julia Ideson Library?” Being the big library geek that I am, of course, I stuck my hand up and gave a big “thumbs up” to a song being written about an addition being added on to the main Houston Public Library (HPL) building complex.

I have watched over the past few years as the building addition went up across the street from my office. Last year I had the pleasure of speaking at the same conference with HPL’s Associate Director for Planning & Facilities, Wendy Heger, at Rice University. Heger told us all the great story of how the designs of an addition to the Ideson library were scrapped decades ago, only to be revived, using many of the original specifications, and how the Julia Ideson Library ended up being one of the ‘greenest’ library buildings in the world.

Leah setting up for a show.

I asked Leah White to tell me how it was she was came up with the idea to write an entire album about Houston landmarks and how her audiences (mainly school aged children… although it was a 21+ crowd last weekend) react to hearing these songs.

LW: Sarah Gish, a local Houston preservationist, found out that I had just written the official song of the Houston Zoo, Beautiful Day. She is on the Houston Historic Architectural Commission with the City of Houston and they were looking to find creative and fun ways to celebrate Houston’s 175th Birthday. So she contacted me and I wrote 14 original songs about landmarks that they had picked.

GL: And the Julia Ideson Library song? How did it get included in the tribute to Houston’s 175th birthday?

LW: The Julia Ideson was chosen because of its history and renovation/preservation efforts in its construction. Houston has a history of tearing down all of its historic buildings and this one was actually preserved. Phoebe Tudor, a supportive Houstonian and preservationist, embraced my album. She was one of the leaders on the Julia Ideson board and she hosted a party for the release of my album at her beautiful home last September.

GL: How do you come up with the inspiration to write lyrics and music for something like a public library building?

LW: When I wrote the song, I thought about my audiences. Typically, I’ve been an artist for families but for this album I was writing for all Houstonians. A song about a library had to be rockin’ because just the thought of singing a song about a library makes most people think it might sound subdued/ lame/quiet/ studious. Libraries are far from boring so I created lyrics about opening and exploring a “big world.” So, I turned the song into punk using strong power chords giving it a lot of rhythm and energy.

GL: What sort of things stand out to you about the library and how do you include that in your lyrics?

LW: I focused on the Julia Ideson’s purpose as special collections. I write lyrics about original copies of “Moby Dick” and “Alice in Wonderland.” Homage to special collections is also captured in the lyrics “this book is like magic in my mind. read the words and go through time. Alice in Wonderland and all the nursery rhymes stay young, forever preserved in time.”

GL: What is it that you wanted to convey in the song?

LW: In this song, I wanted the Julia Ideson Library to be a magical world preserving time and history. I wanted this song to be rocking because it was the genre of music least expected. I like to surprise people in this way with my music.

Julia Ideson Library from my office

Click on the embedded song below to hear Leah White and The Magic Mirrors sing about the great big world of the Julia Ideson Library. Leah’s music can be purchased on iTunes, Amazon or CDBaby, and you can learn more about her other projects at LeahWhiteMusic.com and the Our Roots Are Strong website.

So click play and sing along to the Julia Ideson Library (Big World)…

Julia Ideson Library (big world)

Go with me today away
Like magic we’ll float away
The walls of this place will come down
With every word a new world is found

Chorus
It’s a big world It’s a big world
Full of books I’d like to read
It’s a big world It’s a big, big world
Waiting for me at the Julia Ideson Library

This place is magic in my mind
Read a book and go through time
Alice and wonderland and all the nursery rhymes
Stay young forever preserved in time

Chorus
It’s a big world It’s a big world
Full of books I’d like to read
It’s a big world It’s a big, big world
Waiting for me at the Julia Ideson Library

Bridge
Leave school and noise behind
Homework at home and unwind
Like magic we’ll travel float and see
Oh I wonder who I’m gonna be

Go with me today away
Like magic we’ll float away

Chorus
It’s a big world It’s a big world
Full of books I’d like to read
It’s a big world It’s a big, big world
Waiting for me at the Julia Ideson Library

Chorus
It’s a big world It’s a big world
Full of books I’d like to read
It’s a big world It’s a big, big world
Waiting for me at the Julia Ideson Library

Image [cc] dharder9475

I have a love/hate relationship with email. It is the first thing I open up in the morning when the alarm clock goes off, and it is one of the last things I check before going to bed. I use it religiously… but I really would rather not be so reliant upon it. Unfortunately, since about 1995, it has become the primary communications tool for business. Your co-worker that works six feet away from you would rather email you a question than lean back in his chair and ask. It has become a de facto database of information. It has become a timeline of events. It has become a system used by many of us to keep everything we can “just in case” someone questions why you did something and you can go find that email they sent you 18 months ago to prove to them that you weren’t just acting on an impulse. Put plainly… it has become a monster.

Do we really need to use email all the time? Is it the best medium for communications? Is there something better? All of these questions have been asked for years, yet it still dominates business communication. However, there are some ideas that are happening in businesses that may finally challenge the idea that email is too ingrained into our business methods to go away. The crack in email’s armor may be those companies that ban its use between employees. There was big news last year when British information technology company, Atos, banned internal email, but is that something that others (including law firms) could emulate?

I did talk with a legal recruiting company while at AALL in Boston that has done just that. I won’t cover all the facts (mostly because I’d love for someone at the company to guest post and explain why they are doing it), but here were some of the reasons that they told me.

First of all, they realized that email is simply inefficient. Once you get more than two people on a chain, it can get messy in a hurry. They were also realizing that when people left the company, even if they still had their email files on their server, most of their business knowledge and experience history was tied up in those email files, and in reality, there was no good way to isolate that. In order to counter these factors, they went with a Yammer solution for all internal communications.

Yammer solved a few issues for them. First of all, it was a nice clean interface, and by setting up “groups” based on how they worked, it allowed for members of the group to jump into the middle of a conversation and look back at what was discussed and quickly be up to speed. It also allowed for files to be housed in their central document repository, rather than creating multiple copies that go out to everyone. In addition to all that, once someone leaves the company, their public conversations are still there to be found long after they have left.

The thing that impressed me the most while talking to this group, was the fact that other members of the company jumped in to the conversation to express how much they love this type of communication (this included the younger employees as well as the more ‘experienced’ employees.) They got excited while talking about this, and they would chime in with stories of how certain members were skeptical of banning internal email, but once they jumped into the process and saw the benefits, they were quickly converted to true believers.

Email, like the telephone, will probably be around for generations to come. It is so easy, and it is so built in to most current business processes, that it won’t go away anytime soon. That doesn’t mean that other things won’t come in as alternatives. Whether it is Yammer, Instant Messaging, or something like a Facebook Groups Page, or Google Plus, there are options out there that can be real alternatives to email. I for one, look forward to testing out those alternatives and finding something else to wake up to in the morning!

It seems that the upgrade to the new Texas.gov eFiling Portal didn’t exactly go as planned this weekend. After being shut down for the upgrade from 6PM on July 27th through 8AM July 30th, the upgrade caused a number of hick-ups to filings when it came online yesterday. The problems with the new system were so great, that it caused Texas.gov to shut down the upgrade and roll back to the previous system. Here’s an email alert from CaseFileXpress that went out this morning to its users:

To our Texas Filers:
This is important information regarding filing into Texas courts.
Based on the outage yesterday, Texas.gov has determined that a roll-back of the eFiling upgrade is necessary for eFiling business continuity. As requested by the State of Texas, CaseFileXpress has restored our prior system and confirmed system functionality and connectivity to the state’s eFiling portal.
Approximately 200 filings were submitted yesterday and are in various stages of the eFiling process. Please do not resubmit your filings unless we notify you otherwise. Texas.gov is working with the courts to ensure all filings submitted are being processed appropriately.
If you emailed an Appellate Court filing to us yesterday, please submit the filing through the eFiling system so it may be properly docketed. …
We apologize for any inconvenience you experienced yesterday, and we appreciate your patience throughout this transition. We will notify you when we receive a revised schedule with the new deployment date.…

 I think this gets filed under the category of “technology is great… when it works.”

Ben Gilad, noted competitive intelligence theorist once wrote something to the effect of “bird watching is a fun hobby, but you shouldn’t do it in the middle of a busy highway.” Greg’s last post about needing investigative reporters on staff is to me a bit like bird watching on a highway. I see the point, even the theoretical beauty, but it also potentially dangerous.  In this case, not to the bird watcher but to me and those in the industry like me – the competitive intelligence practitioner. 

As CI practitioners it our jobs to be the guardrails at the top the cliff, to identify the early warning systems for both the firm (business of law) and clients (the practice of law).  It is our mandate to embed ourselves in practices, to keep the pulse of the firm, monitor the outside world and bring it into the firm to make decision making better, easier, smarter.  It is our jobs to make sure that client interaction happens with the most current and relevant information on hand. 

The scariest, though not entirely surprising part of the post for me, was the notion that firms use a myriad of business development and competitive intelligence resources and tactics to attempt to provide proactive service.  What is scary about that you might ask? The perception that this is not happening, and that there are tools and tactics not people, training programs and processes behind the service.  CI, is still seen, even by prolific law office management as being a set of tools and tactics, rather than a highly skilled group of people.  This is where we have failed our firms.  It is a bit like suggesting that the library as a place is providing information rather than the librarians and other information professionals who work there. How many times have you heard in firms “oh, the library (meaning the people but referencing the place) can get that for you”.

The jury is still out on whether CI is in fact a profession or a series of competencies, but one thing is clear, there are firms doing CI just as described in the post. It is not merely about access to databases, data manipulation and current awareness.  There are law firm CI practitioners (be they librarians, BD people or otherwise) who are embedded in practices, providing quarterly analysis, monthly reports and the like.  Just as there are law firm librarians who are great at asking questions – using their reference interview skills to verify fact and figures just as a journalist would do.

I will concede however, that despite our best efforts there is something missing. And it may well be the concept of training, certification or even recognition of a CI as an actual discipline rather than a series of tactics and tools.  This might be where journalism as a known and classic trained discipline can supercede.    There are many consulting firms out there (I won’t name names, but send me a note if you want some referrals) who will work with Librarians, Business Development folks, and CI people to set up current awareness portals staffed by real analysts (some even former journalists) on the other end – people – who can provide the extra layer of analysis the Investigative Journalist post envisions.  Many of these same consultancies will work with firms to provide primary research to back up secondary findings, but the thing that is missing is a road map.  The plan if you will, for how to take CI farther in firms, moving it away from market research, data crunching and analysis frameworks towards being the strong, recognized and necessary guardrail it is designed to be.

So while I welcome out of work investigative journalists to join the ranks of law firm support staff along with the librarians, business development people and others being downsized across industries and professions, in true CI fashion, I must as act as the guardrail here and suggest that until firms know where they are going, its best not to get caught watching the birds. [Zena Applebaum]