For the upcoming COLPM Futures Conference, I was tasked with defining value in value billing for law firms. This is a great problem to tackle. I think the market has given us a lengthy list of value billing propositions clients want, but absent getting full-rates (which is a myth by the way), not many talk about value in value billing from a law firm’s perspective.
I have previously discussed the ongoing shift towards a profit-margin business model for firms. This shift is a key factor in defining billing value for a firm. At its most basic level, what firms need is a reasonable fee for a defined piece of work. (My own opinion is that rates are becoming much less relevant within this context.) The problem is that clients, in addition to wanting lower prices (rates or fees) are asking for pricing without giving much, if any, scope – and are staying very involved in the details and staffing aspects of work.
And now for my Typical Car Analogy: That’s like saying you will pay $30k for a car, then over time, bit-by-bit, your ‘feature’ requests spec out an S Class Mercedes. If the law firm knew up front, even from a general idea that you wanted a luxury sedan, they could have given a competitive price and known whether or not they could make money on the deal.
I know this sounds simple. And that it isn’t. Yet.
Law firms and clients are in the process of learning how to set prices at the fee level and develop some level of scope for each engagement. Part of the goal of the value session at the COLPM conference is to begin developing standard terms of art and other building blocks to facilitate and accelerate this process.
And now for The Value Billing Value Propositions for law firms:
#1 – Relationship Building. Since the legal market is driven by relationship, developing broader and deeper relationships with clients has the highest value. Value billing presents that opportunity.
#2 – Expand the work – as appropriate. Yes – firms would like to grow the business. As opportunities come available, law firms will find value in expanding their presence with clients, leveraging value billing in the process.
#3 – Ability to earn a reasonable margin on the work. Yes – firms want to remain financially healthy. In a profit-margin business model this comes about via reasonable prices on known scopes of work. Value billing presents this opportunity as well.
So the question then becomes, what needs to be in place for these value propositions to materialize? Which leads us to my Value Billing Wish-list for a law firm:
1) Client knows what its fee goal is (beyond cost containment)
a. e.g. predictability, certainty, risk/reward alignment, …
2) Absent #1, client is willing to sit down with law firm to explore and determine what #1 should be.
a. BTW – Vague or broad RFPs run counter to this.
3) Client will give at a minimum, some level of scope
a. Or even out-of-scope assumptions
4) Absent #3, client is willing to sit down with law firm to explore and determine what #3 should be.
5) Client understands their outcome goal for a given matter or group of matters
a. e.g. What is the risk factor driving a higher or lower fee?
6) Absent #5, client is willing to sit down with law firm to explore and determine what #5 is.
7) If client has an idea of what they want to spend for a given piece of work (a.k.a. its value to them), they share it with the firm(s).
a. This will open a dialog to the level of effort that may be needed and where that effort should be made.
8) Client engages with a firm as a partner, working together to manage costs and insure value
a. For instance, consider committing larger volumes of work to a firm. The cash flow and knowledge gained over time by the firm will enable savings for the client and profitability for the firm.
9) Once a fee arrangement is in place, client lets the law firm manage the work
a. Especially under fixed fees, firms will be motivated to use the right level of expertise for each task (even when it’s a first year lawyer).
10) Finally, and most importantly, client is willing to engage in a sincere, trusting relationship with the firm. Without trust, none of the above matter.
The theme of trust obviously emerges from this wish-list. And that is the bottom-line. In my humble opinion – value billing works when there is trust. The wish-list provides opportunities and ways to build that trust.
To move in that direction, clients should recognize this need for trust and take an active role in working with firms to drive a new value model: one that achieves the goal of controlling costs while maintaining quality. And one that insures financially healthy partners, committed to clients’ success.
Trust me … trust is the answer.
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Tom Baldwin and I will be “debating” the issue of Knowledge Management and its strategic reach… or is it “overreach” at the ARK KM Conference this week. As I’ve been going back through my previous discussions and presentations, one thing kept coming back into my head that made me wonder whether KM and Library are flip-sides of the same coin when it comes to balancing the mission of the department against the projects we take on and support on behalf of the law firm.

There have been many times where I’ve talked about what I’ve perceived as a “desire” by many law librarians to go back to a standard definition of what a law library does, and spin off any activities that are outside that narrow definition. New ideas that have sprouted out of the library – Knowledge Management, Competitive Intelligence, etc. – tend to evolve to a point in the library, then are pushed out into other departments, or even into their own individual departments. The library is then brought back into line with the mission of collection and research of external resources that support the needs of the firm.

Now, let’s think about what Knowledge Management has been doing over the past three or so years. There have been many great ideas, products, procedures, and processes that the KM groups have implemented. Unlike the law library, however, there really isn’t a “standard” in the Knowledge Management domain that discusses the boundaries of what KM’s core duties are. In fact, give me 30 different law firm KM departments, and we can probably come up with 30 different mission statements. Yes, many will come up with the old generic statement of “providing the right information, at the right time, to the right people” definition. Unfortunately, if you really boil that language down, it is so generic, that the Library could use it… IT could use it… Biz Dev could use it… heck, an attorney could use it in describing what he or she does for a client… so on and so forth. So this got me wondering – could a basic problem with such a diverse KM world be that it doesn’t know what to keep and what to spin off? In other words, the Library tends to have its projects moved to more appropriate departments, while KM is stuck supporting all of its projects and has to take on more and more.

I poked fun last year after attending the ARK Conference on KM when I wrote a post called “You Can Call it Knowledge Management if that Makes You Feel Better About Yourself.” In that post, I asked what happened to KM? When did it become a resource for placing an interface over financial applications, and creating dashboards for third-party products? Knowledge Management suddenly became the resource for law firms to use to make “cool and useful interfaces” and had ditched the more traditional process of creating the traditional “Collective Knowledge” through either automation and participation. A year on, it seems to me that KM has a bigger problem in that it now is expected to actually produce the “cool and useful interfaces” and at the same time, figure out a way to maintain collective knowledge through automation and participation. To make matters worse, the automation and participation part of their mission has to be accomplished in a way that doesn’t affect the way lawyers perform their day to day work flows.

So, how does KM decide on what projects it needs to take on and develop? How does KM decide what projects need to be killed off? What can KM do to spin off projects that need to be maintained, but no longer needs the specific skills of the KM team? If those questions can’t be answered, then KM will find itself over-extended and buried under its own weight of project upon project, interface upon interface, and process upon process.

One of my KM friends talked about walking this fine line between obvious projects of KM and necessary projects for KM. I’m afraid that I’m paraphrasing this a bit, but basically there are two reasons to have KM projects:

  1. There is a need within the firm that keeps Partners up at night and KM can solve this issue.
  2. There is a need within the firm that KM can solve, even though the issue may not be one that Partners are asking to be fixed. (AKA – Sticking Your Neck Out Projects)
If the project/process/procedures don’t fit one of these two reasons, then KM shouldn’t be supporting them. 
Of course, it is easy for me to sit at a keyboard and type out that last sentence. It is another thing altogether to step up and either kill an existing project, or position the project so that another department can take it on, or announce that there are projects that should be outsourced to third-parties outside of the firm. If none of those options can be made, then you have to start talking about increasing personnel to support them (and we all know how those conversations go.)
These aren’t easy issues to solve… but solve them you must. To borrow from Toby’s post on Friday – It’s either that, or pick an easier profession.

Having been in the legal business for 25+ years, I have long marveled at the machinations of lawyers over their billing rates. I recall being a bit shocked back in the 80’s when I first saw lawyers having fits when “The Firm” raised their rates – yet again.
Why was I shocked? Only the week before these same lawyers had been bragging about how awesome they were in court and about the high-value results they delivered to clients. So which is it? As a lawyer are you highly valuable (justifying a higher rate) or are you low value? At the time I remember thinking, “Pick one option and go with it.”
Fast-forward to the present – and just like all things in the legal market – we are still having the same conversations. In talking with a colleague from another firm, the rate-increase topic came up. He was lamenting his upcoming, potential rate increase. He noted how poorly he predicted clients will react to ANY rate increase, especially in this market.
So I asked him my old question. He didn’t like it.
After he calmed down I shared some thoughts with him.
Rate increases are a relationship building opportunity, but only if you treat them that way.
A better question for my colleague: “How many clients just pay your rate without asking what it is?” I’m guessing not many. What this means is you should already be having these conversations with your clients. Rate increases are an opportunity to get in front of clients and engage in conversations about pricing options for the coming year. Isn’t this what clients are asking you to do?
Rates are a tool, but should not be treated as a hammer.
Why treat your published rate like it’s chiseled in stone? Rates are merely the starting point for rate and fee conversations. Come to grips with the notion that price increases are a fact of life in business. However, the days of sending letters to clients announcing your annual rate increase are over. What’s important now is how increases are communicated to clients. (In-person is the right answer – btw.)
Rates matter, but fees matter more.
Have conversations with clients about pricing, versus rates. At the end of the year, or end of a case, what really matters to a client is the fee. How much did the case or deal cost them? Your rate could be $10 per hour, but if you took 100’s of hours to complete a task, the fee is going to be high. A challenge here is that clients tend to compare pricing on a rate level, instead of a fee level. Use the price conversation to help the client shift their thinking towards fees. In the long-run this will greatly benefit them and solidify your relationship with them.
It’s Not Easy
I know … having pricing conversations can be challenging, especially in the current environment. The new question I should start asking lawyers: “Did you pick law because you thought it would be easy?” I’ve yet to meet a lawyer not up for a challenge. They just need to add pricing conversations to their list of worthy challenges.
It’s either that, or pick an easier profession …
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Telecommuting still seems to be a taboo term around many offices. Most of the people I’ve talked to this week about the question of telecommuting seem to think that the whole issue revolves around the fact that many of our bosses still believe that if they can’t see you, then you’re probably not working. Of course, then we all point our that there are times where we actually don’t “see” our supervisors for days or weeks (or until our annual review is needing our signature.)

Now, there are some that simply cannot telecommute in their jobs because they have to be face to face with the customer, or there are physical duties in their job that can’t be faxed, telephoned, or fixed over an broadband Internet connection. That being said, there are still a number of jobs that can be accomplished remotely, and having to drive into an office building downtown is really a waste of resources when you actually think about it.

Enjoy the discussion, and if there is something that you find wasn’t covered, then comment on your thoughts of telecommuting.

Next week’s Elephant Post is listed below, and we turn to the issue of innovative technologies within law firms (no, that’s not an oxymoron.) When you’re finished looking over this week’s answers, jump on down and let us know  about any innovative tech that you have implemented or seen in the legal industry.

BigFirm Librarian
Reference Librarian

Policy! Staff is not supposed to work from anywhere but the office. I could actually do much of my job remotely by using the official remote desktop application. Since much of the heavily used collection is available electronically, we receive the majority of our requests through email, and we can forward our phones to our cell phones, there isn’t a good compelling reason not to allow us to work remotely when circumstances do prevent us from being in the office.

Virginia
Librarian

As a public law librarian it would be hard to telecommute. I can check and answer my work email from home. One day they might set up a webcam and Skype and I could answer reference questions from home. I guess I couldn’t were my pjs though.

Judy Jetson
Librarian

There are two large challenges to telecommuting — the traditional idea of “face-time”, especially when imposed by a boss/supervisor and the need to be “fair” to co-workers that would not be able to get work done from home. In other words, those that want to telecommute are frequently prevented from doing so not because they cannot get work done from home (after all, if the faculty are not in the building all the time, why should we be?) but because of the need to check up on everyone. Boo.

Brenna Louzin
Manager of Legal and Business Development Research Services

Even though the majority of our reference requests and research projects come in via email or by phone, we still have a physical reference desk. This desk sits by a very busy hallway and just off the elevator lobby. So, I guess one problem with telecommuting is that we would “not be seen”. Does that mean because we would be out of sight we would be totally out of mind?

Karen Lasnick
Librarian

I have a long commute through a fair amount of traffic and would like to telecommute at least two days a week.  I am allowed to work from home under special circumstances now and again and it works great – most people don’t even realize I’m not in the office.  The only hurdle, as far as I can tell, are the powers that be.  I’ve been told that the attorneys have a greater comfort level when I am actually present in the office.

Laurie
Lawyer

Attitudes.  Attitude covers two aspects of this in a law office.  The first is the face-to-face attitude.  In other words, if I don’t see you at your desk you are not working.  This is a hard one to overcome because many managers tend to rely on this as an indicator of work, especially in a field where the person assigned will simply hand over a document after a certain period of time.  If we could just get past this, then telecommuting would likely take off.  And the attitude about technology in law offices.  Some law firms are well into the modern era, but many are not.  This has to do with a large number of techno-phobe attorneys.  I am afraid there is little to anything that can be done about this.  Much as the desktops for document creation people waited out the typewriter folks, we of social media and cloud computing will have to wait out the desktop folks.

Maria
law librarian

It’s not possible for me – we are open to the public and are a solo library and so I must be here.

Sarah Mauldin
Librarian

I would love to telecommute, and basically did for two weeks from my vacation in England.  However, I work in a firm with a two person library staff and someone has to be here to see the deer in the headlights expressions and offer help that attorneys and staff might not think to ask for.  Also, I know I’d have a hard time keeping focused if I worked from home, so it’s not really an option for me, even if it was a possibility.

Jane
Librarian

The biggest hurdle is that they want to see me sitting at my desk 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year.  The second biggest hurdle is that I have a Mac at home, and not at work, and no one has figured out how to cross platforms so that I can have full access to my work desktop from home.  Perhaps someone here can recommend something.  Please!

BetterNotSay
IT Systems Analyst

For the last 14 years, starting when dial-up and forwarding our office phone to our home or cell phone was the best option, I have been able to telework 3 days a week, alternating days with other members of our team.  With broadband and VoIP now, there is no way anyone can tell whether I’m down the hall or a long commute away.  My work is at least 75% solo back-end development and implementation, and 95% on the computer or phone.  Because we so appreciated having this option, we accepted inferior and even degrading work conditions at the office without complaint, came in on our teleworking days without question whenever face time was more appropriate, regularly worked the hours we would have been commuting doing productive work, resolved to stay when other employment opportunities arose (retention for teleworkers 100% for over a decade), and tried our best not to cause any drama that would put this option at risk.

Because we were at home, we hardly ever used any sick days – we didn’t have to worry about being contagious and you don’t necessarily have to feel good if you don’t need to deal with going into the office.   We were able to schedule most of our meetings and “team time” during our in-office days.  4 of us shared an office space built for 2, saving the firm real costs. In the entire time, there was never a complaint from attorneys or teams about us not being available or responsive or getting our jobs done.  Recently, we went through some firm management changes and the new management is not comfortable with the concept, so last month it was taken away without a thought of what life choices we may have made based on our teleworking (moving further away, taking classes or choosing doctors, etc. close to home instead of near the office, etc.).

Now, having to dedicate 3 hours a day to the commute, it is pretty much impossible to put in much or consistent extra work, morale is awful, we are going to need to call in sick more often (partly because we will get sick more often due to exposure we didn’t have before), and we are all much more open to changing employers.  We share an office so we are constantly battling each others noises, visitors, ad hoc meetings, phone conferences & webinars, etc.  Not a productive situation.  Teleworking is not for everyone for sure; the home situation and personality of the employee has to be conducive to focusing on work when it is expected.  Exempt status or some kind of sign-in/lock-out process for non-exempt is probably necessary for labor law. We were all exempt.  In my situation, I was mostly glad to have the 2 days in-office to feel/stay connected with others, but I was so much more productive on my projects on the days working from home.

Law Firm Librarian
Librarian

I have thought sometimes it would be nice to work at home on set days just so that I could finish certain back-end tasks (budget, invoices, catalog) in specific time frames! On the other hand, I also might find it difficult to focus on such tasks outside of an office environment – it would take discipline. Meanwhile, this is a one person library and I find it necessary to make sure I can help people when they walk in or call me with questions about any of our print material. We will probably always have print and electronic resources; however, I think if we were to move to completely online resources – I would still need to be a presence here for those who prefer seeing staff around the office. Our firm did try telecommuting for one person in another department a few years ago; however, she abused the privilege too often by handling non-firm work on the specific days and times she had indicated would be “firm time” (she had a growing photography business on the side). This firm will most likely not allow staff telecommuting again for a looong time due to that experience.

DharmaGirl
Project Manager

I work for a global law firm and support our clients, both internal and external, around the world.  I very, very rarely meet face to face with anyone, working as I do in the typical globally distributed environment.  My home office is well equipped, my Internet connection is fast and stable, and I can meet needs at any hour.    All that positive stuff aside, the biggest, and only, hurdle to telecommuting is manager unwillingness to allow it.  So I spend up to two and a half hours commuting (while I could be working), sitting in an uncomfortable office with a mind numbingly slow Internet connection on a network that has the usual stability issues.  It’s not efficient, but it satisfies an outdated and unfair HR requirement.  It’s also really expensive for me, since I live in a city where transit, tolls and parking are astronomically high.  Why not allow it?  The results are measurable and the benefits are, too.

David Selden
Law Librarian

I see the main hurdle to overcome for telecommuting is the sense of community created by in-person interactions.  It is hard to replace the value of communicating in person.  Having said this, some of my staff and volunteers & myself have been able to enjoy both the environmental and personal benefits of occasional telecommuting.

Scott Preston
Technology Alchemist

The biggest hurdle to telecommuting is a lack of understanding about the benefits to not only the organization, but to the environment and employee satisfaction.    Telecommuting is limited only by an organizations ability to understand the benefits.  Much like social media, the benefits of telecommuting are lost on many Human Resource professionals.  Stuck in a time when “building a network” meant meeting with people face to face, it is difficult for many in management to understand the benefits of telecommuting and how the workforce has changed.

PGAVIN
NET Engineer

It would be a great idea now that we have remote access and several help desk that could easily go to the data center if a need to put “hands-on” is needed.  It would help so I wouldn’t have to drop child off at daycare then run to work (1 hr), then return home (1 hr) and pick child up.  2 hours out of my day, and I’m less than 10mi away from my work, and less than 3 miles away from day care.  Traffic is horrendous!

Next Elephant Post:

Can You Name a Truly Innovative Technology the Legal Profession Has or Is Adopting?

One of the most common phrases I hear when the discussion turns to law firm technology is “whatever everyone else was doing five years ago, law firms are just now implementing.” That may be true for some things (can you say, records retention policies??), but there are some intriguing technologies out there that some firm are using to handle information ranging from ediscovery projects to financial interfaces to project management… and pretty much anything in between.

Think of the technologies that you have brought into your firm, or technologies that you’ve seen marketed to law firms that you think are truly innovative and make (or could make) a difference in the way we practice law or maintain the administrative side of the legal industry.

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One might think that the mighty Thomson Reuters (TRI) empire, with its $23 Billion market cap would be a safe place to park your money in a faltering economy. However, David Sterman, analyst for Street Authority, has placed TRI on a list of “12 Companies that Could Go Bankrupt Very Soon.” In searching for companies with large loan obligations, Sterman says he “added Canadian media firm Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TRI) to the mix [because] (its weak balance sheet is just above that threshold.)”

Sterman points out that another dip in the economy could cause lenders to pull back on their lending to TRI, and that would put a strain on TRI’s weak balance sheet:

Right now, Thomson Reuters carries a hefty, but manageable, $7.5 billion in debt. This shouldn’t be a problem, as noted by EBIT coverage of about 8 (which means Thomson Reuters’ quarterly cash flow is eight times higher than its interest payments). But what if the economy stumbles and demand for the company’s professional-grade subscription services starts to slump? EBIT coverage would quickly shrink, forcing the company to meet with lenders to make sure Thomson Reuters doesn’t run out of cash. This scenario is quite unlikely in the next quarter or two, but bears close scrutiny in a worsening economic environment.

The rumblings of potential problems in the mega-media firm became apparent back in July when CEO Tom Glocer was told by the Thomson family that TRI needed a further restructuring plan than the one Glocer implemented this Summer.

Why is Thomson Reuters being listed as a company in trouble? It’s a reason that many of you will rejoice in hearing — Competition.

Initially, the competition was coming from the financial side of the TRI universe. Smaller companies like Morningstar, and FactSet, as well as established companies like Bloomberg are keeping TRI’s major financial platform, Eikon, from hitting expectations. Smaller companies are just not seeing the value behind the high-priced platform offered by TRI.

Now, think about TRI’s well established legal division (as well as mega-profitable.) If the Bloomberg/BNA merger proves to be actual competition and starts cutting market share… then Sterman’s scenario suddenly looks very possible. The boom-times of the consolidation within the publishing industry may be suddenly looking very much like a “bubble” for TRI if the competition (which also gobbled up smaller fish in the publishing market – see Jean O’Grady’s merger post) can start moving TRI customers over to its products.

For investors, Sterman suggests that it is time to “consider selling them now, because all of them [TRI included] could tumble in a hurry.” As for those of us who are customers of TRI, it might be time to look at how stable a product they really are, and start looking at what potential alternatives are available to the TRI stable of products.

Download Fulbright’s Annual Litigation Trends Report

Well, guys, this is the 8th year that I have launched the online portion of Fulbright’sLitigation Trends Campaign.
Although it may appear to be just a simple download of a PDF, you really have no idea how much work goes into this.
And as any magician (i.e., IT + Marketing) will always tell you, what appears to be simple illusion usually takes years of trial and error, practice and digital dexterity to master.
What started off as a print and online campaign with a simple entry form has morphed into a pure online campaign with what I believe to be a unique online development: the ability to simultaneously download and register for an event without having to doubly enter your information.
Our IT guys are great at not only being responsive to our crazy marketing requests but also trying to stay two steps ahead of us.
Now we have all heard our share of IT v. Marketing wars but I have to say that after working with these guys for 8 years I have a profound respect for all that they have to deal with.

So check out what Fulbright’s IT team did—you can’t beat them for talent, creativity and plain old-fashioned work ethic.

Consider the degree of trust you should have in your auto mechanic. You will probably never know the quality of work before, during and even after you receive it. You have to trust your mechanic’s diagnosis and then trust the quality of service you receive in the repair. It is difficult-to-impossible to truly know anything about its quality. All you can know is that the car wasn’t working properly before and now it is. What was wrong, what was actually repaired and the quality of the repair could remain a mystery to you forever. This is a called a Credence Service.
Recently I was fortunate to hear a presentation from Blane Erwin of Bridgeway Software on the concept of law as a credence service. Blane brought some original thinking to the challenge of valuing legal services. He laid bare the deep level of trust clients have when hiring lawyers. He described how clients must trust their lawyer’s diagnosis of the problem, and that the solution provided was truly needed and effective. In an environment so dependent on trust, how can clients ascertain the real value and therefore fair price of a service?
But here’s the rub – legal services have long been a credence service. So why the crisis now?
The Trust Breakdown
Many in the legal industry feel the trust between lawyers and clients has been damaged, if not broken. You see it in the articles on value billing and those on the various crises in the profession. To sum it up – many clients feel they have been paying too much for legal services and are now flexing their buying muscle to drive down prices. On its face, this situation defines a broken trust.
What I really like about the ‘credence’ concept is that it clearly defines why that trust must exist. And it suggests ways to repair the damage. Blane offered up one potential solution in his presentation. With some luck and time, he may describe that here as a guest post. (Hint, hint – Blane)
I suggest just having a clear picture of the nature of the trust problem will help lawyers improve the way they price and deliver services to their clients. Consider your experiences with your own auto mechanic. What made those experiences positive or negative?
Think about that next time you engage with one of you clients.

Yet another 2011 ILTA Conference chance meeting lead to an interesting Q&A with Jim McGann VP of Information Discovery at Index Engines. In my prior role at Fulbright, I worked with the e-discovery practice group on developing ideas for building client relationships. As part of this we offered a “Litigation Readiness Audit” to help clients assess their preparedness for e-discovery requests. Not many bit on this offering. The best guess for why – was that clients didn’t have budgets for preparing for getting sued – but only for when they actually were sued. So the Q&A with Jim was a nice opportunity to see if things have changed. Read for yourself to get the full update.
Q&A with Jim McGann: Are Corporations Ready for Litigation Readiness?
Toby Brown: To what extent do you think the corporate world is finally ready for litigation readiness, after so much lip service about it over the past several years?
Jim McGann: Legal issues might force the corporate world to become litigation ready even if they aren’t now. The courts are not just asking anymore – they are insisting that data be retrieved for litigation. The technology now exists to make this easier and cheaper than it has been in the past, and today’s corporations must be informed and ready to use it.
Toby: If you do see a shift occurring toward greater litigation readiness, what have been the key drivers/reasons that are behind this?
Jim: Yes, I have seen a shift occurring towards greater litigation readiness. The key drivers are that courts aren’t accepting the burden excuse anymore that this data can’t be found or it’s too costly to retrieve. They are insisting that corporations adhere to these data requests or be heavily penalized. Recent cautionary tale court cases are prompting corporations take a second look at where their data is, and how to be proactive so they have the data needed and aren’t keeping data that could be a big liability in the future.
Toby: What are the benefits of taking a proactive approach to litigation readiness and/or information governance?
Jim: There is a lot of stored data lying around unnecessarily that could pose significant legal liabilities for companies. Knowing what you have, where it is and avoiding the “save everything” policy have all become critical to corporations. Knowing all this before there is an issue and having data retention policies in place can eliminate painful litigation issues in the future.
Toby: What are some steps that corporations can take now to make themselves litigation ready, and which department(s) should be in charge of overseeing the process?
Jim: Both IT and the legal department must be involved in this process; they must work hand in hand. Legal must create the policies, they know what data needs to be saved and for how long. They need to set the policy for IT to comply with, and of course, IT needs to actually comply with the policy.
Policies must not only apply to current data on corporate networks, but legacy data as well. Typically legacy data represents significantly more volume than the current data and it is frequently neglected because it is out of sight, out of mind. Legacy data is hidden away on backup tapes used by IT for disaster recovery purposes. Companies have thousands of these tapes that can become discoverable and represent a liability for the organization. When developing a solid information governance strategy, everything has to be looked at.
Toby: What will happen to companies that miss the boat and don’t take these steps?
Jim: Companies that don’t take a proactive approach to litigation readiness will always be putting out fires, having to go through Terabytes of data to find a few critical pieces needed for litigation, usually with not enough time to find them. There are no excuses for the courts anymore, they want the data and they want it right away. This is not easy to do if you haven’t taken the steps and started managing your data.
Toby: How are law firms getting involved in this process and what is their responsibility to their clients from a litigation readiness standpoint?
Jim: Law firms are thinking more proactively and are advising their clients on litigation readiness. After many reactive “fire drills,” law firms see the pain and exposure caused by improper management of corporate records. As a result, they are advising their clients to become litigation ready and implement proper information governance strategies.
Toby: Jim – thank you for participating and for your contribution to the 3 Geeks!

Culture is a very important aspect of how well an organization functions.  Most experts agree, culture is more important than pay when discussing employee satisfaction, and yet, many organizations place no value on corporate culture.  They believe, because you cannot easily measure culture, it does not connect with the company’s bottom line.

Here are the top three motivators for employee satisfaction.

  1. Job security – without positive communication, employees start to feel threatened and unappreciated.  These feelings give employees the impression that they are not valued.
  2. Communication with management – without positive communication from management, business goals and company vision are not shared.   Without this shared experience, the organization will not stand a chance of meeting business goals.
  3. Respect and the ability to contribute value to the business – the feeling of being heard by management is very important to employee satisfaction.  

All of these fall under what I consider to be culture.  An effective culture is positive, values employee contributions, clearly communicates goals, listens and values ideas.  What is most amazing is that this positive culture costs the company very little, monetarily speaking, but has a huge impact on the success of a business.

“A positive culture is not something to be taken lightly.  It can take years to cultivate a positive, customer oriented, collaborative culture and yet that culture can be destroyed in very little time.”

Does culture just happen?  With rare exception, no.  Culture is planned and is part of the overall strategy for an organization.  If culture is not part of your business strategy, how can you expect to have alignment of corporate values?  It is the one-two punch of business alignment and employee dedication that creates a winning team.

In these times when employees are being asked to do more with less, we need to keep in mind the importance of culture within an organization.  If you think about the cost of turnover – how much institutional knowledge leaves with each employee and the impact that bad culture has on employee productivity – you will understand how important a positive culture is and how it contributes to the bottom line.

Image [cc] Cindy Funk

Last week we all held hands around the virtual campfire and sang a round of Kumbayas about what traits we think make for better lawyers, librarians, IT, KM, marketers, and so on. This week, we drop hands and start pointing out the traits that don’t necessarily make for great workers in our individual professions. (I bet many of you now wish you would have contributed now, don’t you??)

One of the traits that you hear about librarians is that we “love books.” Although that might be true, you really don’t have to love books to be a librarian. In fact, put down on your application that the reason you want to work in the library is because “you love to read books” and you will find your application is quickly placed in the “reject” stack. This may be a narrow view of “love,” but that’s okay, after all, we are just giving our opinions here, and the more narrow or broad the interpretation, the more that someone reading this is going to disagree with you. In my opinion, that’s when the fun begins!

Thanks to everyone that contributed to this week’s Elephant Post. We’ll do it all over again next week, so scroll down to the bottom of this post and take a look at next week’s question on “Telecommuting… Great Idea, Or Greatest Idea??”

Steven B. Levy
Author of Legal Project Management
Author, consultant, speaker
Prudence/Discretion: being careful about one’s choices; not taking undue risks 

All projects — indeed, all useful work in the business world — involves risk. While there are a few professions in which the absolute minimization of risk is essential, such as aircraft design,  most businesses and projects, and the legal world itself, revolve around finding a good balance between risk and reward. To take no risk is to gain no reward.

Catherine Deane
Law Librarian
Kindness: doing favors and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care of them

While much of Librarianship entails taking care of people, a recent blog post reminded me that actually experiencing empathy can lead to burn out.    Librarians are professionals, it is our job to take care of people and we need to do it whether or not we feel kind. It is not a favor or a good deed when I teach someone to use a resource or track down information, it is my job. Remembering this will keep you humble when people are raving about you, it will also remind you that you are selling your expertise for whatever your salary works out to per hour.   This also means that when it is time for me to knock off at the end of the day and get to the business of taking care of myself, I am not going to stay at the library and continue working out of kindness, I am going to be kind to myself and go do my laundry or hit the gym. Sometimes, the kindest think you can do is to take care of yourself and be a bit selfish so that in the long run, you can continue to do your job well.

Meredith Casteel
Research Librarian
Modesty: letting one’s victories speak for themselves; not seeking the spotlights 

If we remain too modest, we will no longer be employed.  Sing your (and your team’s) praises loud and proud when you have the opportunity!

Meredith Casteel 
Research Librarian
Curiosity: taking an interest in experience for its own sake; finding things fascinating 

Oops, I answered the first time without reading the full question.  Too much curiosity can be a problem because it leads to too many balls in the air, too many pots on the stove, too many projects for hours in the day.

Chuck Rothman 
Cyberologist
Prudence/Discretion: being careful about one’s choices; not taking undue risks

I think all 24 traits are important, but when I rank them, prudence is at the bottom. Risk-taking is part of evolution. If the first arboreal hadn’t climbed down from the tree, we would be here now pondering these questions. Whether a risk is undue or not depends to a large part on whether the risk paid off (i.e. a lot of times, you just can’t tell if a risk is undue or not until it’s too late). As such, of all the traits, prudence is the one that might hold someone back. Of course, lack of prudence needs to be tempered by one of the other traits, wisdom.

Laura Suttell
Find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ 
Librarian
Self-control: regulating what one feels and does; being self-disciplined

I chose self-control because the other traits are more important to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Toby Brown
AFA
Appreciation of beauty: noticing and appreciating all kinds of beauty and excellence

This was hard – since a broad range of traits has so much value these days. So I picked beauty.  But then maybe its time for the capable ones to take over – and let the attractive people take a break for a while.

Where’s Thorstein Veblen when you need him?

Next Elephant Post

What is the Biggest Hurdle to Telecommuting in Your Workplace?

It’s the year 2011… weren’t we supposed to achieve Telecommuting, and Flying Cars by now? (I’d settle for Personal Jet Packs if the Flying Cars idea is too 2051.) While I hear of anecdotal stories of how some people are allowed to telecommute to work, it just doesn’t seem to have caught on like many of us thought it would 10 years ago. In fact, I remember back in 1998 when I worked at the University of Oklahoma (as a mainframe monkey) and we connected a 28K modem to the mainframe and I could “remote in” and conduct an entire backup of the library catalog from the comfort of my living room, using my own phone and a 486 laptop. In the 14 years hence, everything has sped up and moved forward, with the exception of  telecommuting.

Perhaps you are one of the few that have the ability to telecommute. Perhaps you are an anti-telecommuter. Share with us your ideas or experiences of what telecommuting means to you, and how it could be a better (or even a worse) way of conducting business. Is telecommuting viable in 2011 in the legal industry? Are you allowed to telecommute (more than the occasional “I’m sick, but working from home” days)? Do you think you would be more productive if you did? Less productive?? Would you want your employees to telecommute, or do you like seeing their smiling faces each day? Let us know where you stand.

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