Image [cc] The Marmot

It is so easy to get yourself into a rut. We find comfort in establishing a routine, and then, after a while, we forget to ask ourselves if the routine is still effective. Those email alerts, those saved search results, news feeds, email lists, internal reports, company monitors, and many other things that we’ve become accustomed to seeing (usually entering by way of the email inbox), all add up to a routine that has become irrelevant, but one that is easier to continue than to either modify or stop completely. Routines that become irrelevant but cannot be changed are wasting your time, your co-worker’s time, your firm’s resources and money.

About eight years ago, I worked at a Library Consortium that required all of its employees to take a minimum of five consecutive business days off each year. There were a number of reasons for that, but one of the primary reasons was to determine if we were relying too heavily on one person to complete certain tasks. One result of this requirement was that someone else had to come in and pick up your routine for that week. That meant that you had to create a manual of the tasks you were performing and get someone up to speed before you went on vacation to handle those tasks. That, in and of itself, made you evaluate the routine tasks you were performing and helped determine if it still had the same effect it had when you started the task. Many times at the end of the forced vacation the person that took on your routine would follow up with you and ask, “why are you doing this task this way??” The results of reevaluating your routine tasks, having someone do those tasks for a short period, and then having a conversation at the end, allowed you to make an informed decision on if you needed to change that task, stop doing the task, or reaffirm that the task had value.

Think about the number of tasks you perform, or your staff performs each month. How long has it been since you’ve sat down and outlined what the tasks are, how they are performed, who performs them, who gets the results, and what the overall effect is of performing the task? If you don’t have some type of mechanism that forces you and your staff to evaluate these tasks, you could have processes that people are performing that haven’t been effective for years… yet no one thinks about it because it has just become a comfortable part of their overall routine. In reality, they’ve found themselves in a rut, but just haven’t figured it out yet.

For the law firm library, the easiest rut to find yourself in is the “monitoring” rut. It is also one of the easiest to evaluate if it is still effective. Take a percentage of those canned searches you perform through your news aggregator, docket searches, or company searches and talk with the people that are the recipients of these results. Ask a very direct question: “Do you actually read these reports?” or “Do you have a filter in your email that automatically sends these reports to a folder? Is it the ‘Deleted Items’ folder?” or “When was the last time that you actually were able to use information in these reports that ended up with a positive effect on your practice?” Most of the time you may end up continue along on your happy way with this routine. However, I bet that there are a number of these processes that you do that are completely ignored by the person that asked for them in the first place, it is that they have simply forgot to tell you that they no longer need them.

Routines are easy to get into and hard to get out of. If you never stop and ask yourself “Now, why am I still doing this?” You’ll end up doing it for far longer than is really needed.

1L’s are getting younger and younger.
Actually, these are my daughters
on their way to the first day
of school today!

I had a very pleasant conversation with a fresh-faced first year law student this morning as we waited for a bus that finally showed up 20 minutes late. Being 18 years removed from my 1L experience, it was interesting to listen to the excitement in her voice as she talked about the very familiar topics of orientation, picking up books at the bookstore, how nice the law librarians were at the school, how nervous she was getting called on to brief a case the first day of class, trying to interpret old English cases on contracts, and having 3Ls scaring the bejesus out of you. It suddenly hit me about five minutes into our conversation, that we could have been having this very same conversation when I was a 1L in 1994. 

Now, granted, this is a sample of one student, but she can’t be too much outside of the norm of most students these days. First of all, the backpack she was carrying was about the same size she was. It’s 2012… sure, we don’t have those flying cars like Back to the Future promised us, but why in the world are law students still lugging around 30 lbs of books to class? The publishers of casebooks should be ashamed of themselves that they have not worked out the details with law schools to do away with physical casebooks. 
I know that there is a technique to training law students to “think like lawyers,” but you’d think that by now the professors would be somewhat tired of teaching the Socratic Method. Sure, it’s what they know… but it’s like a rock band playing the same set of songs, year after year. You know they just have to be bored out of their minds. Could any law professor that teaches first year contracts law really get excited after they’ve taught 10-20 years of the same method?? I guess they are law professors… maybe they do.

The one thing that did stand out in the conversation was her answer when I asked if 1Ls were nervous about entering law school during a time when everyone in the world is saying “DON’T GO TO LAW SCHOOL.” What surprised me was the fact that she didn’t even blink when she talked about how genuinely excited she was to go to law school and how optimistic she was on her chances of entering the profession of practicing law… all this despite the fact that no one in her family was a lawyer. Now, maybe she was blissfully ignorant of the market, or she just felt that she was going to beat the odds. Here’s hoping to the latter!

We’re all cruising through the ILTA Conference session titles now in the final stages of making our maps through the Gaylord’s throng of session rooms. One session title that jumped out was John Alber’s Thursday afternoon session: “Five Reasons Why Terms Like “Practice Support,” “Knowledge Management” and “Financial Services” Miss the Point.” That session looked like it might be a good candidate for the last afternoon of the conference—maybe not the same-old same-old. So I decided to ask Alber to elaborate on the session and give us some more insight into his choice of topic.

Alber is the Strategic Technology Partner at Bryan Cave and he leads three groups there that are at the center of Bryan Cave’s push for innovation. Bryan Cave has been widely recognized for its innovation, including being named at last year’s conference as the Innovative Firm of the Year. The three groups he leads are the Client Technology Group, the Practice Economics Group and the Accelerated Review Team. The name Knowledge Management is conspicuously absent from those groups, even though Alber admits that what they do is straight-ahead KM.

The session is not really about naming, Alber says. The session title was intended to be a bit provocative. “A sharp stick in the eye” is how he describes it. Alber says that the real thrust of the session is to examine the intention that underlies traditional KM and other technology-linked disciplines. He describes a traditional KM function as an “introverted” entity—something that is internally focused rather than tied to the core of the underlying business. As a consequence, he says, KM, Practice Support, LPM and other similarly introverted functions have barely any impact on profitability.

That doesn’t have to be. He points outside the legal sector at other very robust technology functions that are at the heart of their businesses  Some, in fact, have not only produced more revenue than their underlying businesses, but have outlived them and become the businesses. He will explore the characteristics of those highly connected and relevant functions with the aim of bringing some lessons back into the legal sector.

I highly recommend you check out his session.

Next Thursday afternoon at 3:30 PM in the Maryland A conference room of the Gaylord National Resort in Washington D.C., Sean Brady and I will be giving our presentation: APP 13 – The Future of Data Delivery Or: How I Learned to Stop Browsing and Love the App.  

 Ours is the last session on the last day of ILTA.  For those of you who have ever been to ILTA you know that by Thursday afternoon, most people have learned, networked, and partied (not necessarily in that order) all they possibly can for one week.  Many will have already checked out and be headed toward the airport by the time Sean and I take the stage.  Even those staying at the hotel Thursday night will have mostly “checked out” mentally for the week.   In fact, it is entirely possible that Sean and I will be having a private conversation on The Future of Data Delivery in the Maryland A conference room of the Gaylord National Resort in Washington D.C. at 3:30 PM next Thursday afternoon.  In order to limit the likelihood of that happening, we are asking for your help.

Our presentation is a follow-up to the presentation we gave last year called: The Future of the Browser: Moving Beyond IE, which ILTA members can listen to here.  In that presentation, I argued that the future of the browser was moot because the browser was dead, to be replaced by the App.  And Sean argued that the browser was the end-all and be-all of human endeavor, never to be surpassed by…

     I didn’t say that!!

Hey, Sean, I’m writing this blog post!

     Yeah, but…

 Look, you can give your version of events at our session.

     But no one’s going to be at our session.

 That’s not my problem.  Go write your own blog post.

Sorry folks, he’s a little touchy because as it turns out, I was pretty much right about the App thing last year.

     Oh Really!?  OK genius, what App are you writing this blog post in?

Uh… Chrome.

    A browser.  Ha!  I rest my case!

Anyway, as I was saying… we need your help.  Our presentation this year is a follow-up to last year’s talk.  We’re going to discuss the current trends in data delivery, the continued shift to mobile, the dominance of the app, the consumerization of everything, and what we as legal technologists can and should do about it.  I am sure we will present points of view on this topic that you will not hear anywhere else at ILTA this year.

I can be sure of that because in addition to our own points of view, we would like to present YOUR points of view.  We have a quick little Google form we would like you to fill out…

     In a browser!

Yes, in a browser!  Are you done?!

    Sorry.

Ahem… We would like you to give us a little information about your thoughts on the subject.  We want to know how your firm is handling these issues and your general thoughts on The Future of Data Delivery.  We’re looking for everything from the mundane (the DMS will be social), to the ridiculous (after the singularity we will all communicate via techno-telepathy).

For those of you attending ILTA, stop us in the hall and let us know your thoughts, or we will be handing out our business cards all week with the web form URL on the back. http://goo.gl/FTC58

      Why didn’t you just make the web form into an App?

 Because I didn’t think of it in time, smarty.

    So Apps take time, and web forms IN BROWSERS don’t.

Please folks, fill out the form and if you’re at ILTA, stick around Thursday afternoon and attend APP13 at 3:30 PM in Maryland A, to see what we and your peers have to say about The Future of Data Delivery.

    It’s the browser.

 Ughhh.

Image [cc] miamism

Recently Greenberg made a Capital Call to its partners. Of course, the market reacted with an expected “Is this the next Dewey?”

My thinking – that is unlikely. Looking beyond the Dewey angle, I think there is a much bigger issue looming here. The issue: The extreme limitations on the ability of law firms to raise capital.

Firms can really only raise capital in two ways: capital calls to the partnership and debt.

Stepping back, you might question why this is an issue. Firms have been doing fine for the past 50 years living under this restrictive environment. Well obviously, things have changed. Firms must start behaving like a business. Absent that they will be going out of business. And healthy businesses view capital and debt as necessary tools.

When a business needs capital it has a litany of options – with everything from angel funding, venture capital, private equity funds, private equity offerings up to IPOs. Each method of raising capital is suited for different situations. Business restricted to only raising capital from existing owners would have a difficult time competing in any market.

Which brings us back to law firms. The Bar is still operating in a world where they think money does not influence a law firm’s decision making. Or at best, they think money’s influence can be kept in-check by requiring that it come from licensed lawyers, given their ethical standards. IMHO – the prohibition against non-lawyer ownership survives in a dreamland where the legitimate needs of a business to raise capital, needs that ultimately serve a client’s best interest, are patently bad since the money comes from ‘tainted sources.’ The Bars’ fear that the influence of money will lead to client-harming decisions is leading to an environment ripe for client-harming decisions.

Law firms trying to stay competitive so they can serve their clients are forced in to odd decisions, like the Greenberg Capital Call. This is not to say that Greenberg is in dire straits, but only that they have one option for raising capital and they just exercised it. If they need additional capital for client-facing KM tools or the like, they will have to make another Call (not likely), opt for more debt (not very likely)  or go without (most likely).

The bottom-line here is that law firms are extremely limited in the ways they can invest in their business to better serve their clients. And this limitation is held under the guise of protecting clients.

Again –the apparent safe path is the one leading to bad outcomes.

Image [cc] edans

Once again, Futurist Andy Hines has widened my horizons and exposed me to ideas and professions that I never knew existed. Today’s expanded horizon covers the profession of “Coolhunters.”

Now according to Wikipedia:

Coolhunting is a term coined in the early 1990s referring to a new breed of marketing professionals, called coolhunters. It is their job to make observations and predictions in changes of new or existing cultural trends. The word derives from the aesthetic of “cool”.

Since this has been around for nearly twenty years, I guess I only have myself to blame for not know about it before now.

One of the things that stood out in Andy’s post today was the defining of his own profession as a Futurist, and how that plays off of other professions:

I think we could agree on what a professional futurist is or does, and then note our relationships to say, strategic planners or technology assessors, perhaps competitive intelligence professionals and even coolhunters.

I didn’t realize that my Competitive Intelligence friends were in such ‘cool’ company, but it makes sense when you back up and think about it. Futurists, strategic planners, assessors of technology, coolhunters, and competitive intelligence professionals all seem to have a duty to spot trends, look for weak signals, and advice on how those potential shifts could affect those we are advising. It is very interesting to think about that from the 30,000 feet, and how the different areas that each profession covers. One of the commenters to the article even went as far as to graph out a quadrant displaying Long/Short Term and Public/Corporate areas of the Futurist profession and assigned a Coolhunter subgroup in the short-term boxes. I wonder where the CI professionals fall in that quadrant?

I’m not sure that I could get approval for my law firm to hire someone with the title of “Coolhunter”, but that doesn’t mean that CI professionals couldn’t benefit from understanding more about what they do. To get some ideas on how Andy Hines, as a Futurist, compares his profession to Coolhunting, check out his interview with iCoolhunt.

Image [cc] nokapixel

I welcomed a new neighbor this week who is moving in across the drive from me. I struck up a “Welcome to the Neighborhood” conversation and learned he is a relatively new lawyer working in a small defense firm. Of course the subject turned to the current market for legal services and lawyers in general.

He said something that finally registered with me. Associates in small firms have it hard. Basically, they feel lucky to have any kind of job. They are very likely making much less than associates in BigLaw positions. But here’s the real icing on the cake: They Bill A Lot More Hours.

As he told me his monthly hour requirement of 200 billable hours, it really hit home. Recent surveys show associate hours at BigLaw firms are down. He even noted a friend at a BigLaw firm whose annual billable hours were only 1500. Wow.

Add to this – his chance of becoming a partner are even lower than the poor chances of associates at a BigLaw firm.

Two thoughts:

  1. The constant bashing of associate life at BigLaw may be misdirected.
  2. A business model built on over-working people is a bad one whether it’s for a small or large enterprise.

My new neighbor is taking it all in stride. Of course his career goal is … going in-house. He said something about the hours being better there.

Go figure.

Image [cc] Ben Fredericson

Quoting fictional movie character, Peter Parker, aka Spiderman (although in some revised form it is likely attributable to a real person), “with great power comes great responsibility”, one must always remember to recognize that as bloggers the words we pen carry great power, and the need to be very responsible is of paramount importance! Indeed, it is necessary to be certain to pen words based on facts and excellent research not on emotion and poorly formulated snap judgments. For in not doing so, misinformation is disseminated and potential harm and hurt may land upon individuals caught in the crossfire of an issue.

That said having circled back and more thoroughly researched the issue of the new AALL model for choosing the annual meeting programs and its potential impact on annual meeting programming in general, SIS sponsored programs and the wonderful PLL Summit that was created several years ago and is now going into hopefully its fourth year, albeit, possibly in a slightly different form, I pen my rethought musings on this very important issue facing AALL members.

To that end, I researched three questions which were of interest to me and also seemed to be of great concern to my fellow AALL members regarding the changes coming to the annual meeting and by default the fate of the PLL Summit.

Question 1:  Is it the intention of AALL to bring the currently independent type model of the PLL Summit into the fold of the larger AALL Annual meeting? 

Answer:  The short answer is not exactly and it remains to be seen exactly what form the PLL Summit will actually take in 2013 and thereafter. As AALL President Jean Wenger wrote in her email of August 17, 2012 posted to the Members Open Forum: 

“Last year, and again this year, PLL asked AALL leadership to consider integrating the summit into the Annual Meeting. Members have expressed concern about the additional cost of the summit, including the registration fee and hotel costs they incur to attend. …. The model of requesting a meeting and then putting on a full day conference (summit) cannot be sustained across the association. ….. However, there are options available, and include targeted pre-conference workshops (half day to 2 days) proposed through AMPC, developing valued content for conference programming, and proposing an intensive learning opportunity during the deep dive sessions.”

My musings: I have hope that PLL will propose the Summit program via AMPC perhaps as a targeted 1 day workshop, it will be accepted and albeit in some type of new iteration we will have our beloved PLL Summit in 2013! I completely understand the issue of the cost to attend both a summit and the full annual meeting, but wonder how a pre-conference will be less costly. Maybe the deep dive sessions would be a better option for replacing the summit although the camaraderie of an all-day program would be lost. 

Question 2:  How will the “blind review” process that is to be used by AMPC for choosing programs for the annual meeting in Seattle work? 

Answer: From Jean Wenger’s email:

“The AMPC considers a variety of factors in the selection and slotting of programs. For the Seattle meeting, the AMPC will use a blind review process focusing solely on content. Sponsorship will not be a factor. Your colleagues on the AMPC will be tracking proposals by competency and will seek a balance of high-quality proposals on the most important issues identified by members. The important first step is to develop high-quality proposals.”

My musings: In my view, it is safe to assume that a “blind review” process of selecting programs for the annual meeting may potentially mean that any given SIS has absolutely no guarantee of any of their programs being accepted by the AMPC and it is possible that if a particular SIS submits 8 programs to the “blind review” for consideration all 8 may be accepted and none of the programs proposed by other SIS’s will be chosen. This may create a greater imbalance than in the old model of choosing programs but that of course remains to be seen. On the other hand, it could potentially result in a more balanced selection of programs that have great appeal across many SIS’s. Per the AMPC your best bet is “to develop high-quality proposals”. To that I would add highly relevant!

Question 3:  Is it true that all SISs will also be limited to sponsoring only one independent education program? 

Answer: As suspected by many SIS’s this is definitely true as evidenced by Jean Wenger’s statement in the same email referenced in the answer to question one above and copied verbatim here: 

“Each SIS will have the opportunity to present one independently produced program of their choice.”

My musings: It is what it is! Each SIS will at least have the chance to present one independent program of its choosing if it wishes to do so. But this leads me to another question – will it have to meet AMPC’s approval? Maybe someone else knows the answer to that one, as I have already covered my three questions! Please enlighten us if you do.

Finally, I am glad that these conversations are occurring and expect that if not for the creation of the PLL Summit we might have continued to limp along discontented with the status quo of the annual meeting program offerings. However, it seems that the summit and other things along the way were enough to upset the apple cart and are resulting in some changes. No doubt some changes will be welcomed and others not so much, but nonetheless change is on the horizon!  In my view change is good and helps us grow!

Image [cc] nengard

On Monday, ReadWriteWeb contributor, Richard MacManus, wrote an article called Why Topic Pages Are The Next Big Thing. The article starts out with something that might look very familiar to a librarian… especially one experienced in cataloging structure.

Chronological and real-time consumption of content just doesn’t work anymore. It’s time for topic pages to add a layer of organization on top.

MacManus argues that the way products like Facebook, Twitter and even blogs are consumed in a Last In, First Out method doesn’t match the overall needs of those consuming these products. “The time for topic pages has come,” writes MacManus. Most librarians would probably agree, and say that the time for topic pages has come, again.

The examples that MacManus uses for showing the trend is once again moving toward topical rather than chronological organization are Medium and Pinterest. Both of these products are ‘visual’ aggregators of information, and I’m afraid that the underlying message of why topical organization is important might be lost because of these examples. Topical organization based on visual cues are very cool to the eye, but this type of organization isn’t limited to this type of stimulus. While I was reading this article, I began thinking of KM projects that could benefit from the type of topical structure that projects like Medium and Pinterest are attempting to do. Come to think of it… maybe KM could adopt some of the visualization found in these ideas, but that’s a topic for another post.

The other key ingredient that is mentioned in the article will also make catalogers smile. MacManus specifically points out the flaws in the current topical organization of products like Twitter, Flickr and Delicious is that these are “freeform” topic generating products. Products like Medium are attempting to control the topics, much in a way that AACR2 attempts to structure information resources into specific cataloging rules. In other words, the topics are generated from an organized list rather than just making up new tags every time someone uploads a new piece of information. It seems that the narrowing of subject headings is where MacManus thinks we should be going.

I was not the only person to make the link between what MacManus is advocating in his article, and the traditions found in library subject headings. Luc Gauvreau commented that this is nothing new at all:

And organizing informations by topics is really not new, libraries do that for centuries. And culture around the World always find a way to categorize, classifie and order their infos: it’s the only way to understand something, give meanings to the world. Dewey and Library of Congress classification, traditionnal bibliotheconomy are old, almost obsolete, but their [objective] is the good one. A date, chronology in itself is nothing, it must be related with topics and space (places) to mean something.

Of course, the same old problem that we run into here is that subject classification isn’t an easy process, and cannot be automated in a way that doesn’t end up causing more problems than it solves. If it were easy, or there was a way to automate the process, then we would have a way to apply Library of Congress classifications to the Internet and voilà, problem solved, and Internet organized! Perhaps there is some happy, forgive the pun, Medium, here that the new Topic Pages products will find. I’m sure if they need help in getting there, the creators of these products can contact their local library cataloging departments for guidance.

Image [cc] seeveearr

[Ed. Note: I’ve asked my old friend, Colleen Cable, to write from time to time from a law library consultant’s point of view. Colleen and I were county law librarians in Oklahoma more than a decade ago, and we’ve both gone on since then to take on different evolving roles within our profession. I’d like to thank Colleen for sharing her experiences as a law librarian and consultant, and how she believes her new role will play out in the future of the law firm library and beyond. -GL]

Coming together is a beginning.  Keeping together is progress.  Working together is success.  ~Henry Ford

Consulting is not new. Consulting in law firms is not new. Consulting that can radically affect the law library is new.  As law firms have evolved and adopted more corporate cultures, consultants have played a larger more prominent role.  Once confined primarily to IT, consultants now advise law firms on management, organizational structure, billing, costs, practice groups, marketing, business development, the list is endless, and now includes libraries.
This year the focus on libraries has become even more apparent. Recent evidence of this includes:
  • Chase Cost Management merging with Library Associates (LAC)
  • Donna Terjesen starting her own consulting firm Visionary Information Solutions (VIS) and adding Mark Schwartz and Gitelle Seer
  • Nina Platt joining LAC
  • Me joining Profit Recovery Partners (PRP)
What is driving this change? I have a few theories that I’d like to share:
  1. In many firms, the library is now ‘under’ the CIO. CIOs are very familiar with using outside consultants for IT projects, so it is no stretch for them to utilize library consultants. CIOs recognize that hiring a consultant is not a sign of weakness; sometimes you need someone with a specialized core competency that will help the organization reach its goal.
  2. The library is one of the largest costs to the firm. Since 2008, the library has been under scrutiny to explain costs and the ROI for the department. Oftentimes that communication is not understood by firm management, and a consultant is brought in to bridge the gap.
  3.  The firm is closely examining all administrative departments for cost savings. After many years of sometimes extravagant spending on ‘back office’ functions, firms are looking for a consultant to review all spending, which includes the library.
  4. The visibility (or lack thereof) and perceived value of the library. Quoting from Connie Crosby’s excellent post on the blog On Firmer Ground :
I suspect when you stop talking about “what can the library do better” and take the library itself out of the picture in your inquiries, you may discover something quite shocking: the work you have made a priority has little to do with the information seen as important to the organization’s overall business. Unless you have been out talking to your clients regularly and asking these questions already, you may have been missing something. (Highlighting is mine)
Regardless of the reason, consulting is now firmly (no pun intended) part of the law firm and it isn’t going away. What should librarian do? For a few tips, I’d like to quote from an excellent Spectrum article on this subject by Cindy Adams and Sarah Stephens:
  •  Get mad and get over it
  •  Don’t take the change personally. Remember the change is not directed at you and is probably the result of a business decision made by your institution’s management
  • Make a plan and become a change agent!

One of my dear friends, who shall remain nameless, has told me many times about how he brought in a library consultant when he was a Director at a large firm. He recognized the need for assistance and approached his boss about hiring the consultant. He told me that his boss was surprised, but also looked at him with a new appreciation. He was obviously ahead of the times, but the same thing could very well happen today, and maybe it should. In today’s reality, consultants appear to be just one more of the available resources at the disposal of the modern law librarian.