There were many eyebrows raised in 2008 when John Palfrey was appointed the new Vice Dean of Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School. Many questioned whether a man without a Library Degree (he does have a JD and a Masters in Philosophy) could run one of, if not the most, prestigious Law Libraries in the world. After a three and a half years stint in the job, Palfrey is now leaving HLS to go to become the Head of School at Andover in July of 2012. The question that this outsider would like to ask those that worked with Palfrey, and those that attended HLS during the Palfrey period is – Was this a success? Do you think the HLS Law Library actually benefited from putting someone that comes in from a non-traditional approach?

How well did the experiment of asking for all HLS law library staffs’ resignation so that they could be reassigned to fit the goals of not looking at the library’s mission as building the best collection of books in law, but rather as “How do we make information as useful as possible to our community now and over a long period of time?” What types of changes has HLS law library taken on that was an extension of this new mission statement?

I’ve argued in the past that having a non-librarian in charge of a law library is a unique way of running it, but not necessarily a bad thing (or for that matter, not necessarily a good thing, either.) From those of my fellow law librarians that know Palfrey (as I have only met him in passing) they have many good things to say about him. Many have also mentioned that it is good to shake up tradition from time to time in order to see if it really stands the test of time, or if it is simply an old way of thinking and whose time has passed.

HLS isn’t the only law library to be lead by someone without an advanced degree in librarianship, but it is the most well known. I think that there should be a serious look at how the Palfrey era compared to how other academic law libraries fared in the same period. Was there some strategic thinking that happened during this period that made HLS law library better? Should other academic law libraries copy this model? Could the idea of having someone from outside the profession be extended to other areas? If we could suspend the ABA and State Bar requirements, would it be better for the Law School President to be a non-lawyer – perhaps a former Senator/Governor/President/CEO? Someone with business or political experience could shake up the establishment and make it a better overall experience for its community? As someone in a law firm, could the same be said for us? How about a large law firm being run by someone that was a successful CEO or Financial Market Guru?

Obviously, I have more questions than answers here. I’m actually quite curious as to how those at HLS think this period of having someone of John Palfrey’s talent in charge of their prestigious law library went. Is is something that HLS will repeat? Or, was Palfrey kind of a one-off type of guy that was just the right person at the right time, and may not be repeatable?

I do wish John Palfrey the best of luck in his new job of handling all those High Schoolers!! As a parent of a Freshman, I just can’t imagine the stress of handling 1,100 gifted and talented students and the parents that pay up to $42K a year in tuition. It would be interesting to see if Palfrey’s first order when he arrives in July of 2012, is to ask for every Andover employee’s resignation in order to realign the goals of this very traditional institution to better serve the needs of its community? That would be interesting to follow.

I heard this fun news item, “Turkey,
Cranberries And Composers At The Table” on NPR this morning and thought I’d do it with a twist.

Which historical, legal celebrities would you want to invite to your Thanksgiving dinner? And to make it more fun, we will open it up to fictional figures, as well.

Here’s my short list:

  1. Atticus Finch – a southern gentlemen with the most reflective, eloquent style
  2. Horace Rumpole – a down-trodden British barrister with a wit as acerbic as the wine that he drank
  3. Abraham Lincoln – he’s my presidential crush
  4. Barbara Jordan – in the U.S. House of Representatives, she had the best voice!
How about you? Tell me who you’d like to share your turkey with and why.

Citi posted its Third Quarter Report recently, noting the growth in collections and the slowing of demand. Let’s tackle the headline issues first, then peel back deeper in to more interesting trends noted in the report.
Collections up with demand down means firms are emptying the money pipe faster, while less money is coming in to it. The likely outcome of these two trends is obvious: less money for firms in future quarters – which of course means less money to pay partners.
Deeper in the report we see some other trends to note.
#1 – “Rate increases held steady.” This means any rate increase firms made for 2011 are being paid by clients. Say what? This appears to run counter to all we hear about clients pushing back on law firms about their rates. It makes me wonder what else must be going on here.
#2 – “We continue to see firms controlling equity partner head count.” My 2 cents: expect to see even more of that. A consistent trend reported by many surveys is that firms are generally over-partnered. During the downturn associate head count was reduced, but not so much on the partner side. I have previously posted on the precarious role of the service partner. This trend may be the beginnings of reductions in service partner head count.
#2A – “The rising cost of leverage.” As a corollary to #2, when the associate head count drops, the cost of the remaining head count, on a per-head basis, logically goes up.
#3 – “The widening dispersion in the performance of firms is another key trend.” This trend may be the most important one. As too many firms chase the shrinking bet-the-farm tier of the market, this trend suggest we are now seeing big winners and big losers emerge. This trend could be the fore-telling the next, and larger wave of Howreys.
Law Firm Economics 101 tells us that a percentage drop in revenue equates to triple that amount in reduced profits. With law firm expenses going up (see #2A) and revenue dropping, the likelihood of significant drops in partner income become very real. One report on the “widening dispersion” had some firms at a 10% drop in revenue. Absent significant drops in expenses for such a firm, this will mean a 30% cut in partner pay. If the dispersion and rising cost of leverage trends hold, the New Year could bring some interesting activity.
The Citi article sums this possibility up well: “And if we’re right about the continued slowdown in the fourth quarter, it will mean a rocky start to 2012.”
My advice for lawyers going in to 2012 is to follow the advice of the classic roller coaster operators, “Hang on and keep your hands and arms inside the car at all times.”
Image [cc] University of Denver

We wrote last week about a suggestion made at the AALL Futures Summit on improving ways for newbies (and introverts) to better socialize while at conferences. Some thought that the current methods were adequate and that the introverts and new members should suck it up and adjust to the way we do it. Others thought that a change was in order and whether it was Speed Networking, or some type of small group social activity, the old way of networking through the reception environment just doesn’t cut it in this day and age. I do have to say that I’ve been known to open up the conversation with a variation of the Animal House line of “Hi, I’m Greg Lambert, House President, damn glad to meet you.” (see Anonymous below) However, not everyone is as cool at social gatherings as I am… that is cool, right?? So, we asked for your perspective and experience on how you overcome the obstacles of meeting new people at conferences. My favorite is probably the Karaoke Night social… but, not everyone has the ability to hit those Maria Carey high notes like I can, so there may be other suggestions below that work for you.

As we are winding down the Elephant Post Series, we are going to start looking back on some of our old posts (good and bad) and bringing back some of the issues we think were not answered fully, or that we’d like to just bring back because they were so good. However, next week’s question is based on a recent blog post that suggested that law firms aren’t primarily sellers of legal services, but rather they are marketing machines that just happen to sell legal services. We want to know if you think you could sell that idea (or insert your department in that statement) to the partnership at a law firm. Is it a brilliant idea, or one that sounds invented by a marketing team? We look forward to seeing what you have to say.

Thanks to everyone that contributed. I enjoyed reading them… I think you will too.

Vicki
Library Director

While I love my core group of peers, I try to identify people in the crowd from my less core group of peers (for lack of a better phrase).  They are usually talking with people that I don’t know yet so I just sort of walk over and say hi.  More often than not, a round of introductions usually takes place.  Another thing I do is seek out someone who isn’t talking with anyone.  I do this because I am long with experience and feel it is part of my mentoring duties and I love learning from our newly minted colleagues who have wonderful ideas.

Sarah Glassmeyer
Director of Content Development, CALI

Honestly, if I had my way, I would just hide in my hotel room the entire time at conferences and never talk to anyone ever, only emerging to attend programs.   BUT, if I *must* be social…  For me, I’ve found that Internet/Social media has made it a lot easier to get to know people before a conference.  Pre-gaming, if you will.  Even if it’s not someone I’ve interacted with, maybe I’m FB friends with them or see them on twitter or even see them post on law-lib and I have some idea of what they’re about and that makes it easier to talk to them.  And, conversely, my own strong web presence has made me familiar enough to some people that they just come up and start talking to me, which is sort of nice because I’m also pretty lazy and meeting new people does take some effort.   I’m pretty happy with my core-group of people, although everyone’s pretty busy and it’s hard to get to see each other.  However, despite my introversion, I’m always happy to meet new people.  Caucuses/SIS meetings have been the most effective way for me to find people that I share interests with.  It would never occur to me to start talking to someone sitting next to me in a program and I usually end up just staring at anyone who tries that tactic with me.   If you want to actively attract people, a few years ago Jason Eiseman and I made badge ribbons to hand out to people as an ice breaker, and that was surprisingly effective.  Although as the first year we did it they said “Cool Kids” and that was perhaps misinterpreted by some as being snobby.   So be careful you don’t have anything that makes you sound like a stuck-up jerk, because apparently some first impressions stick.

Anonymous
Librarian

If you are familiar with the movie “Animal House,” then you’ll understand my philosophy towards socializing at conferences.  I take the Eric “Otter” Stratton approach of, “Hi, Eric Stratton, Rush chairman, damn glad to meet you.”  Obviously is not what I say verbatim, rather it’s the channeling of that character that gives me the confidence to function in these social-professional situations.  I’m not like this in my “normal” non-conference life.  This practice has resulted in people I meet becoming friends and/or professional acquaintances.  What’s the point of going to a conference with so many colleagues, if you aren’t going to get to know any of them? (Toga! Toga! Toga!)

Ken Hirsh
Academic Law Library Director and Geek

Of course, to begin with I invite everyone to join me at Karaoke night during the AALL conference, one of several I regularly attend.  But beyond that, I am a firm believer in the lyrics of the traditional song, “Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.”  I enjoy both hanging out with familiar friends and meeting new ones, especially younger members of our professions.  I find I always learn something useful from members of both groups, and it is a boost to self-esteem to have them listen intently to something I want to say.

Joyce Brafford
The New Person in my Department

The fist thing I do is figure out where the people I want to know will be (particular CLE, meeting, etc) then I find a reason why I need to be there, too. Once there, I try to find a person I know to make an introduction for me. From there, I start making introductions to people around us. I ask about background and professional interest. I then use that info when introducing others. I look like I am in the know, while expanding my network. Afterwords, I follow up on Twitter, LinkedIn, G+, or where ever they are located. If appropriate, I mention then in my social networking feed.

Toby Brown
AFA

I utilize a modified random sniper technique. Giving it this name makes it sound sophisticated. What it really means is I watch for interesting people at seminars and conferences . And once I find one, I make a point of connecting with them. I have good friends who use more of a shot-gun approach – talking with many people, building out a volume of relationships. Although this can be effective, I prefer getting to know people a bit better. Especially those that make me think.  It’s actually how I meet Geek #1. So it must work.

Next Elephant Post

You’re Not a Law Firm; You’re A _______ That Sells Legal Services. True or False?

When Gerry Oginski wrote a post entitled “You’re Not a Law Firm; You’re a Marketing Firm That Happens to Sell Legal Services,” he hit a nerve with a number of people. Now, you can go read that post (go ahead, we’ll wait for you to come back), but quite frankly, I’m sure that you’ve already decided that either this quote hits the nail on the head, or the hammer must have hit Oginski’s head right before he wrote it. So, let’s think about this for a minute and determine just how influential we think we are on the administrative side of the law firm. If we had to go tell the partners of our law firm, could you sell this idea that although we are a law firm that sells legal services, if we were just a bit better in _____ it would make us a better firm — sell it as in “if you were better with marketing/research/fee negotiation/IT/KM/etc…, you’d make more money at the end of the year.”

Let us know if the partnership actually thought of itself as a __________ that sells legal services, could that actually make for a better and more profitable firm? Let us know if you think that could be the case.

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When it comes to search techniques, you’ll never find a more anal group than librarians. So when search tools start mucking around with the search short-cuts, we tend to shake our heads and mumble something like “it worked just fine the way it was… why do you keep changing it??” In fact, there are many law librarians out there that still think that “Dot Commands” in Lexis is truly the only way to conduct legal research queries. Now it is Google that has changed one of the basic search commands that we’ve used for years and replaced it with what amounts to a two-step process to replace a single one.

A couple of weeks ago, Google removed the “+” search command that allowed you to search for a specific spelling of a word or words (without Google correcting your spelling or stemming the word.) According to Google’s research, two-thirds of the commands that used the “+” designator were using it incorrectly, so they replaced the “+” with the either using a double-quote or by clicking on the new advance tool called “Verbatim.” (I’m actually thinking that someone in Google’s marketing department mentioned that they needed to get rid of the “+” command because someone might confuse it with their social media site name of “Google+”… but that’s probably just me being paranoid.)

I’m not one who argues against change, in fact I usually am one of the first to embrace these new features, but I have to say that I’m a little disappointed that Google dropped the one-step “+” command and replaced it with a two-step “double-quote” command (you have to close that quote!) and the three-step “Verbatim” resource (you have to run the search, then click “Show Search Tools” on the left-hand side of the results, and then click on “Verbatim” to get the results.)

Rest in peace my old friend “+” and long live “double-quote” and Verbatim… at least until some future round of enhancements comes along and finds that two-thirds of people are not using you correctly and finds a four-step process to make it easier.

LinkedIn has announced the release of its CardMunch iPhone app.

While it is once step closer to implementing my LinkedIn  idea, it still has some snags.

This is what it does:

  1. You take a photo of your buddy’s business card.
  2. The business card image is then emailed and crowdsourced by their around-the-world staff. 
  3. Then the app create a profile in CardMunch with a link to person’s LinkedIn profile. 
So, effectively, you have one more database to mind until that new business contact agrees to be added to your LinkedIn contact list.
Right now I am trying to get my Christmas list ready. I am working in my Gmail, LinkedIn, Twitter and Outlook to compile all my folks. Then I still have to research my peeps to get accurate physical mailing addresses.
As a side note: why doesn’t everyone put their business address, email address and/or phone numbers into their profile?

How do you expect me to send you my hand-made, especially customized Christmas card and brag sheet?? Seriously, I like you; I want to send you Christmas cards; that’s why you are my LinkedIn connection!

I’ts enough to turn me into Ms. Scrooge.
“Come and listen to a story
’bout a man named Jed…”

When you graduate from a high school that only had 49 Seniors, it is very unlikely that anyone will have forgotten about you. I had the pleasure of attending my 25th High School Reunion this weekend with a number of my fellow graduates. The Biggersville High School Class of ’86 (just between major urban centers of Corinth and Rienzi, Mississippi) met up for some dinner, drinks, fireworks, socializing… and I even got out there with a fellow classmate and former band member and played a duet of Banjo and Ukulele (go ahead… queue up the dueling banjos scene from Deliverance… or you can actually see Marlon playing banjo while driving to work.) Of course, the first question out of everyone’s mouth was “So, what do you do now?” I quickly realized that saying “I’m a law librarian at a law firm” only caused additional questions to follow to explain what the heck that was. Eventually I just said I worked at a large law firm and let it go at that.

My former High School mates aren’t the first to give me a quizzical look when I tell them what I do. Actually, my parents still struggle to tell their friends and the customers of the little convenience store they ran, exactly what it is their boy is doing way out in Houston, Texas. My wife loves to tell the following story that she determined would have made it so much easier for my parents to explain to people what it is that I do:

When I moved from Oklahoma to Houston in 2002, I received a call from Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas seeing if I would be interested in interviewing for a position in their Real Estate Acquisitions department. When I got off the phone after explaining that I had already taken a job in Houston and was in the process of moving down there as we spoke, my wife looked at me and said – “Wow, that’s too bad you didn’t land that job. It would have made it easy when someone asked your Mom and Dad what it is you do… they could have just answered proudly by saying ‘Oh, he works at Wal-Mart.'”

So, here’s to 25 Years… Being a Law Librarian… And, for still making it hard for my folks to tell people exactly what it is I do.

As I am sure, everyone has heard that Ashton is turning over his Twitter account to his team at Katalyst.

And, as you all know, I am one of Ashton’s biggest fans. I know, get in line, right?

Anyways, I cannot tell you how disappointed I am. It felt so real, my relationship with him. LOL

So what, pray tell, does this have to do with you, dear blawg reader?

Well, the question becomes: should a lawyer post his own tweets or should s/he hire a ghost tweeter or turn it over to a Twitter team?

There are couple of scenarios here:

  1. Solo Practitioners
  2. Boutiques
  3. Institutional Firms

But, basically, I think it boils down to brand.

If you, personally, have a substantial enough practice to merit your own brand then I think you could farm it out and be sure to have some sort of review process in place. If you are affiliated with an institutional or boutique firm that has a substantial brand, then you should definitely have someone vetting tweets that looks at ethical issues, grammar and consistency.

But if its just you, go for it. Just read twice THEN hit “Submit” and, remember, it never dies.

Honestly, I’m surprised Ashton’s lasted this long. He’s a humongous brand. But he leveraged his Klout for the ultimate dollar amount and it has served him very, very well.

But now he has to be smarter than his fans and set aside his people-pleasing whims and put some parameters and protection in place.

Poor guy. I’m sure he’s crying all the way to bank …

Greg and Jordan make good points in their comments to my post on the shrinking bet-the-farm (BTF) segment of legal services. These beg the question: what exactly is bet-the-farm work in the legal market today? Traditionally this would have been work where the law firm names the rates and puts in whatever amount of hours it takes – per Greg’s comment.
To explore this idea, I share another insight gained from the COLPM Futures Conference. Back in April of this year I presented a Case Study on the evolution of pricing in the patent disputes market. I threatened to do a post on this several times, but hey – I’m lazy. The short version of that Case Study is that A) When prices shift from rates to fees, they drop. And B) At the same time the classic three-tier pricing model appears. Tier One is BTF top-of-the-market pricing with no or little price sensitivity. Tier Two is the middle of the market, where value and price matter. Tier Three is the ‘nuisance’ layer of the market, where price is the driving factor.
The related insight gained at COLPM along this line was that of more explicitly using risk to classify work. High risk = BTF. The loss of patent protection for a core product patent to a competitor is high risk. In the middle are moderate risk items, such as patents that provide some differentiation to the client, but are bundled in with other technologies. The risk at this level is more in volume of matters than one-off issues. Therefore, value and pricing become a volume-based exercise. This is my Law Factory segment. The market cares about this layer quite a bit, but is not going to pay premium pricing to address it. So we see risk in various forms helping define our market segments. And realistically, there is not much work with BTF levels of risk.
It is my view that most clients do not explicitly include aspects like risk when they weigh value. A theme I always use in discussing fees between clients and lawyers is: Communication. Conversations between lawyers and clients are the opportunities to make these issues explicit. The problem is that not many actively engage in these conversations. Clients are willing to express frustration, but are not aware the real answer lies in collaboration
Which brings us back to our question: What is BTF work today?
Here’s the problem: The definition is murky at best these days. The market is focused on defining work that can be moved away from BTF to Tier Two. This leaves BTF in a no-man’s land. My assessment of all this is that BTF is shrinking at best and may even be on hiatus. With clients not actively and explicitly defining this, we can only fall-back to the traditional name-your-rate and bill-your-time definition. And I challenge firms to create a list of clients in this classic segment. Hint: You may only need one hand for this task.
I go back to one of my overarching themes for fees and pricing – and that’s The Conversation. Clients and lawyers need to have open, honest conversations about fees and pricing. Absent these conversations, law firms will be paid at Tier Two pricing for BTF work and clients will pay BTF prices for Law Factory types of work.
Oh what interesting times we live in.
Image [cc] National Zoo

I wanted to start out this post by announcing that we are putting the Elephant Posts to sleep at the end of the year, and that we will spend the last five posts (in December) as a remembrance to the mighty Elephant that entertained and informed us for the 15 months. Mostly because it has become too hard for me to think of interesting questions to ask such a broad audience, and the fact that it is just a lot of work to pull all of this together week after week. The Elephant has been a lot of fun, but hopefully, just like Seinfeld, we’ll leave with most of you wishing we’d have run just a few more episodes.

Now, on to this week’s question of the new items that you are bringing into your budget for 2012.

We actually only got a couple of answers, but I think that they were quality answers, and that it might spur the rest of you to see what we were actually going for when we asked the question. So… if these answers cause you to got “ohhhh… that’s what they meant…” then please feel free to add what you’re adding to your budget in 2012 in the comments.

When you’ve finished that, scroll on down to next week’s question (2nd from the last final EP Q) and let us know what you do when you’re at conferences to include people into your social circles, or how you interact with those that you don’t know well, and build new relationships.

anonymous
Librarian
Hoovers Reporting Feature

We do not have another resource that can quickly gather company data based on various selection criteria, including by geographic location (down to the granular “town” level), $$$$ profits, number of employees, etc…

Marian the Law Librarian
Librarian
Bloomberglaw and Fastcase

I’m looking forward to the docket power in the few Bloomberglaw seats I’ve requested.  I’m also asking for Fastcase for the whole firm so that all of my offices get the same access that bar members in the home office’s state receive, as well as providing access for staff.

Next Week’s Elephant Post:

How Do You “Socialize” At Conferences?

Conferences can be a lot like High School social events where the “popular” kids only hang out with other popular kids, and the “geeks” hang out with other geeks. How do you approach a group of people, or an individual at a conference and socialize with them? Do you continue to build relationships, or are you happy with your core group of peers that you hang with each year?

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