So, will connecting Bing to your Facebook account make your search result better? The folks at Bing seem to think so. Here’s a 2:35 video that explains what Bing is trying to do:

Thoughts??

  • Are you comfortable connecting your Facebook account to Bing?
  • Are your Facebook connections really smart enough to improve the Collective IQ? (I’ve got some friends from high school that may actually dumb down my results.)
  • What about this “Universal ‘Like’ Button”? 
  • Perhaps the best thing I like about this is that if I’m going to a city, having Bing point out which of my Facebook friends lives in that city may make it easier for me to remember who to avoid while I’m there!!

An admitted failing of the legal industry is a lack of effort on understanding the client’s pain. Previously we have noted on 3 Geeks the need to listen to clients to construct the best AFA. Now that lawyers and firms are becoming aware of the need to understand more about clients beyond “they’ve been served,” lawyers are looking in new places for ideas and resources to get client feedback.
Enter the third party survey provider. These service providers contact clients directly and ask a series of pre-defined questions about how satisfied they are with a law firm’s services and can even inquire as to how that compares against other firms. What can emerge is a relatively complete picture of where a firm stands with its clients.
Before you rush off to hire one of these services, you should considered where you already stand in knowing your clients’ business and pain, a.k.a. what keeps them up a night. Jeff Carr, well-known AFA guru, makes the point in his presentations about the need for a life-cycle of engagement with law firms, ending in a review of each matter. A main point he makes is the need for clients to give feedback to their law firm partners. Historically, clients have not given feedback, but instead would stop sending work to firms that may not always hit the mark on service. Jeff realized this conflict-avoidance approach was not constructive and lead to higher costs every time he had to educate a new firm on his business.
In such a conflict-avoidance atmosphere, a third party provider can too easily be used as yet another avoidance tool. Instead of having a direct conversation with a client about their satisfaction, a firm is side-stepping an importantly opportunity and handing it off to someone else who doesn’t even know the client.
Third party satisfaction surveys can provide a very valuable service. However, lawyers should make sure they have already engaged in service quality conversations with their clients before they introduce an unknown player to the mix. Going straight to a third party, is like tagging third base before you have touched first and second, thinking you are on your way to a home run.
Bottom-line: Take the first steps, first. You should be embracing your own relationship building efforts as the first and most basic step, especially in a relationship driven business like law.
I got a chance to have a telephone conversation with SLA President, Cindy Romaine, this week to discuss her brainchild of the Future Ready 365 blog. Romaine’s idea was that the association would run a blog for one year with the theme of “Future Ready” and would compile 365 blog posts from members and though leaders on different perspectives of what you need to do today in order to be Future Ready for the challenges that are coming over the horizon. Romaine’s enthusiasm for the project is quite contagious and has received a lot of attention from both within SLA and beyond. However, Romaine’s first comment shows that something like this cannot be taken without serious consideration of the amount of time and effort it takes to make it successful.
“It’s a lot of work!! I’ve got a fantastic team that takes it further, faster, and they have great ideas. But, it’s still a freakin’ lot of work!!” Romaine mentioned that there are days that the person who does a lot of the work is up until midnight getting everything prepared for the next day. Fortunately, it sounds like she has put together a team that is passionate about the project and committed to making it a success. Romaine commented that there are a number of things that are being learned as the project goes on. “One is the fantastic content. Two was the actions that took place behind the scenes and how we tried to connect and how effective different techniques were.”
I asked her what her goals are for such an ambitious project. She mentioned a number of goals, such as “you like to think that you’re getting traction, and you like to think you’re making a difference, and that people are exposed to ideas that they wouldn’t be otherwise, and you like to think you’re doing something for the association.”
So, how is she accomplishing any of those goals? “Everything that I hear, is positive,” Romaine told me. Not that they haven’t received criticism from time to time on specific topics, but she said that most responses about the Future Ready 365 blog has been positive and the reaction from the association, and those not even in the association has been overwhelmingly positive.
Are people paying attention to FR365? According to Romaine, they sure are. “We have great traffic. More than a million hits through the first three months of the year. Just in March, we had over 37,000 unique visits. Those are good numbers.” Although no benchmarks were set for the project, it is clear that the amount of traffic exceeds the number of SLA Members, so it seems the message is getting out beyond the confines of the Association members. In looking over the stats, Romaine says she immediately thinks, “Really?? Who are these people?? Can we send them a membership note??”
In attracting people to write for the blog, Romaine take a couple approaches. “We try to send the email blasts to reach out, but what really works is the one-on-one requests. When I go and talk to chapters, I requests posts from them or I go shake hands and talk to people.” The process is constant, and the push for getting people to post is an ongoing process and she stressed that “there has to be buzz about that!” So, the “tweets” go out everyday, and there are updates on listservs letting people know about new content that is important to their profession. She stressed that you have to drive interest in these types of project just like you would with any marketing process.
Whether it is long-time members of the organization, freshly minted Deans of University libraries, or the CEO’s of library/info pro recruiting services, Romaine tries to diversify the types of writers that post on FR365 by “trying to get a mix of all our members and then maybe a few people that are opinion leaders.” There are a number of “Themes” that get pushed out, usually a theme for the week, and this has helped motivate everyone behind the scenes to find the right people for those themes. This week’s theme on employment has focused on getting CEO’s from library recruiting services to discuss what students need to do to prepare for an environment where they seem to be thrown to the wolves. Last week FR365’s theme was on the Future Ready Toolkit. “We were thinking that we could do a whole week on Competitive Intelligence,” Romaine told me. “I’d like to talk about legal and do a whole week with that. Or, maybe it’s something that’s going on in New York, or one thing I was thinking of was ‘Past Presidents’ because these people have a certain perspective.” Romaine said that the “themes” approach works very well because the writers understand that their contribution fits within a certain group which she labeled a “scalable niche.”
Of course, it’s not all about the writers… it’s really about the audience and how they are reacting to the content. There are a number of people that comment consistently, and those comments seem to be driving additional conversations beyond what’s in the initial post. It also helps SLA candidates with getting a feel for how the association is reacting to certain issues. One area that Romaine said she would actually like to see more interaction is that of the vendors. She thinks that the vendors should really step up and answer the question of “How are you making your clients Future Ready?” The elephant in the room on this discussion is that vendors need to be honest and let librarians know that if they are not doing that, they will step over you and deal with those in your organization that will. So far, no vendor seems to be ready to tackle that issue.
I asked if the FR365 would end on post number 365 or if the project will continue after Romaine steps down as SLA President. “That’s what I’m thinking. The real wonderful part will be putting some visualization together to see how the words connect to each other.” Romaine envisions that all of the information that is collected from these posts can be leveraged in a Web 3.0 way in which the words can connect to each other and help identify the trends that appear. “That way we can kind of see the ‘Hot Spots’ in the conversation.” We discussed how she could do this, and Romaine thought that something like IBM’s ManyEyes product would be a great way to visualize how the conversations are connected. Just for fun, I tested this out on the 3 Geeks’ post for 2011 and found it to be a very interesting approach to seeing what words seem to be constantly connecting to each other in our posts. (See below)
I think that Cindy Romaine has really shown that member organizations can take on new approaches to how they serve their members. She mentioned that she has seen situations where holding on to the “old model” can bring down an operation (be it a small library department or a giant organization.) Her favorite quote at the moment is from Jeff De Cagna, who she quotes as saying that member associations “will need to embrace a genuinely different point of view on the nature of value creation in a more digital, more social, and more interconnected world.” It looks like Cindy Romaine has taken this suggestion to heart with her Future Ready 365 project. I’m sure she’s still looking for contributors, so feel free to submit your posts to futureready365@sla.org.

Visualization of 3 Geeks' 2011 Posts (so far...) Many Eyes

It seems that the whole world has change, especially since around September of 2008. Whenever you listen to someone talk about the legal industry, it seems that the phrase of choice is “The New Normal.” However, has legal education gotten this memo? That’s the topic of this week’s Elephant Post Question, and we have some excellent contributions. The consistent theme seems to be that everything has advanced around the edges of legal education, but the core aspects haven’t changes very much at all.

Thanks to everyone that contributed this week. Once you digest all of these perspectives, scroll on down and take a look at next week’s Elephant Post, where we take a break from all the crystal ball gazing and have a little fun.

Toby Brown
AFA/KM

Short answer: They use e-mail now.

Long answer: In the 80’s I worked at a law school.  In the 90’s and 2000’s I worked for a state bar and had regular contact with the law schools.  Now I work at a firm that hires the products of law schools.  With that perspective in mind – I really can’t see any noticeable changes in what law schools do or what they produce.

I suppose one exception might be the use of online legal research tools – given to students for free.  However, it appears they are not taught how to do this in a cost-effective manner.  I’m just guessing at another example – assuming they use PowerPoint or some equivalent in Moot Court.

I haven’t heard of extensive use of online classes, as I have seen in many undergraduate programs.  Maybe I’m wrong there.

So bottom line: They are doing it almost the same way they were 20 years.  Except now I hear tuition is much higher.

Ted McClure
Academic Law Librarian

The 100-fold increase in the velocity of information. The volume of information has increased even more, but it is the speed at which we are confronted with information that has been truly boggling.

Thirty years ago in law school I used Westlaw over a 256 baud modem. Students learned how to use Decennial Digests, annotated statutes, the Index to Legal Periodicals, and USSCAN. Newsletters, loose-leaf services, and slip opinions were the fastest modes of transmission. Shepard’s existed in print only. Academic discussions took place in law reviews and lasted years. Students took notes (or in the back row played hangman) on loose-leaf paper in binders.

Twenty years ago, law schools had computers mostly for word processing. Students were learning terms and connectors for online searching but were still learning the print resources because so few practicing lawyers had online access. Newsletters, loose-leaf services, and slip opinions were still the fastest modes of transmission. Academic discussions still took place in law reviews and lasted years. Students still took notes (or in the back row played hangman) on loose-leaf paper in binders.

Ten years ago law schools had internet access, and card catalogs were being replaced by online versions. Web sites existed, and you might keep an eye on a few. Most practitioners were still doing legal research with print resources, so you still had to learn how to use them. But the internet was already starting to change the velocity of information: Email distribution lists were starting to replace newsletters, and you could check Westlaw or Lexis for the latest court opinions if you knew what you were looking for. Shepard’s and KeyCite were online (too expensive for practitioners, however). The first academic blawgs were bubbling up, but you needed to know were to find them. Most academic discussions still took place in law reviews. Students still took notes (or in the back row played hangman) on loose-leaf paper in binders.

Now I monitor around 200 RSS feeds for my faculty members and edit an academic blawg. I have court opinions within minutes after they are announced, opinions about the opinions within minutes after that, and can forward them to the appropriate faculty members within minutes after that. Blawg editors out there are watching most everything important and feeding it to everyone interested. I have Westlaw (and KeyCite), Lexis (and Shepard’s), FastCase, HeinOnline, SSRN, federated search, and other online sources at my desk, or I can undock my computer and use it elsewhere. Academic discussions online take hours, sometimes minutes. Students take notes (or in the back row play Farmville or complain on Facebook) on laptops and netbooks. I can monitor what my students think is important on Facebook. I can respond immediately and publicly to questions like “What’s the new normal at law schools?”

It’s a lot more fun! <shameless self-promotion> See “How to drink from a firehose without drowning“,  </shameless self-promotion>

Sarah Glassmeyer
Academic Law Librarian (and Legal Research Professor)

Twenty years ago I was a freshman in high school. Ten years ago I was a 2L.  I’ve been on the non-student side of legal education for 5 years now.  In my limited perspective, it doesn’t feel like law schools have changed much.  Still teaching doctrinal classes from the caselaw method, still ignoring and underfundign LRW programs and not really encouraging practical skills courses.  The legal acadame stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that it’s really just a glorified VoTech program.

Students, on the other hand…

Twenty years ago I remember having my parents drive  me into Cincinnati so that I could go to the public library and use their CD Rom collection of periodicals because I was obsessed with the Canadian comedy troupe “The Kids in the Hall” and that was the only way to learn more about them. Consequently, the library was a special place with unique knowledge and the visit to it was “an event.”  The idea that I could sit at home and get must of the same information on “The Internet” would have blown my mind.  So, students perceptions of physical spaces such as libraries have changed.

Ten years ago, I still took all my class notes by hand. Maybe 2 or 3 people per 75 person class had a laptop.  If they did have a laptop, they certainly weren’t on the Internet with them (playing solitare, sure…but no email, IM, or looking up the answer to the profs question).  For better or worse (and I’m not entirely sure which side of the scale it tips to), the addition of technology have changed the classroom environment.

In the past five years, social networks have arisen and people who aren’t nerds are much more locked into their computers and other technologies.  I’m sitting in my office right now watching a student with an iPod in his ears, texting on his phone, a laptop open (a Mac, no less!) with three IM windows up (plus Facebook) and…oh, yeah, an Emmanuel’s outline.  Is it actually possible to learn with all those distractions?  I’m going to say no, you need to unplug at least some of those things to adequately learn the law.  However, I don’t know that anyone has ever encouraged (read: forced) today’s law students to ever do that.  I really worry that we are churning out a generation of lawyers who have been failed by the educational system their entire lives…they’ve been taught to pass standardized tests, have limited critical thinking skills, aren’t willing to (or perhaps capable of) reading through dense pieces of text for understanding and don’t even have the tools to gain these skills.

Ed
Legal Publishing

What has changed at law schools is that the volume of graduates has increased beyond what the job market can handle. As a result, the market is flooded with graduates who are unable to pay back student loans. Most lawyers I know express similar views and all repeatedly tell friends and family members who are considering going to law school that they should not.

Danny Johnson
Law Student – 1L

Very expensive tuition is the new norm at law schools!

Elmer Masters
CALI developer

20 years ago I was just finishing my first year of law school. Since then I’ve been a faculty research assistant, a reference librarian, an electronic resources librarian, law school web developer, director of law school IT, and, for the past 8 years, chief tech guy for the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI). In that time I’ve witnessed (and participated) in a huge shift in the infrastructure that supports legal education. At the same time, I haven’t seen the same rate of change in the way that law is taught.

New and remodeled classrooms in law schools feature smart podiums, projection and sound systems and white boards. Wireless is ubiquitous, student laptop ownership near universal, and everyone in a law school has a computer. Many law schools encourage faculty use of course management systems. Exams are taken on computers, typically student owned laptops. Students ran over 1 million CALI Lessons online last year.

While more and more faculty are using tools like blogs and wikis to enhance their teaching, in many places consistant use of PowerPoint slides in the classroom is considered a cutting edge technique. Simply the teaching of law has not kept pace with the advances in technology available to it. Teaching law is very conservative profession. The slow uptake of technology to enhance teaching is evidence of that and it is one thing that needs to change most about law schools.

So, the new normal at law schools? Lots of great technology available but not used, same old teaching methods being used.
[Image (CC) emdot]
Next Elephant Post:

What is the best lawyer television show and/or movie of all time??

I’m going out on a limb and pick a Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off, Angel. The whole idea of a law firm where the Senior Partners are Demons from Hell… literally. I mean, really… how can you go wrong with a story line like that??

So, dust off your pop-culture references and think about what your favorite law firm, lawyer, judge, paralegal, law librarian… just kidding, they don’t make movies about law librarians for some reason… and share it with us.

&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Loading…&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;

I was reading over the latest post from Ben Young and he discusses the difference between “managing” vs. “creating” and how that causes either the frustration or excitement that comes with how you approach what we do. Ben states that we are generally dissatisfied when we find ourselves simply managing, maintaining, or reporting what we do instead of creating, curating, and connecting all of these things in order to actual make a difference.

As I was reading the (very short) post, the idea of how we approach Knowledge Management (KM) kept entering my head. When you think of those KM projects that are out there (completed, or in process), what are they actually doing? Are they simply siloing information in a way to retrieve bits and pieces? Or, are they creating interfaces that allows the customer (whether it is Attorneys, Marketing, Business Development, or Client Relations) to really create the information they want?

I would think that looking at how the customer uses existing resources should be telling as to whether they are simply maintaining data for retrieval, or if you are connecting the dots of the wealth of information and creating new ways to retrieve and interpret that information so that the end result is greater than the sum of its individual pieces of data. When you have something that does that, then you are actually making a difference. Granted, creating resources that generate ideas is not an easy task, but that’s part of the process that makes what you do exciting.

Whether you are BigLaw, MidLaw, or SmallLaw, the change that LexisNexis just made may have some significant effects on how you conduct legal research and plan your subscriptions for legal research services. LexisNexis is no longer offering “LexisNexis by Credit Card.” In order to access those legal research tools, you’ll need to sign up for a (long-term?) subscription to Lexis.

I talked to one subscriber last night who told me that her subscription that she uses for credit card access runs out at the end of the month, and “then I have to get a ‘subscription from sales’ or go to www.lexisweb.com.” The LexisWeb site is a minimalist version of legal information, and doesn’t contain the value-add products that a real LexisNexis site has. “The timing is suspect with its correlation with plunging market share; I think it’s a move to prevent firms from cancelling their subscription and just buying what they need.”

Many law firms have used the Credit Card option for LexisNexis in order to only buy “what they need” and will now have to re-evaluate that strategy. Other products, such as Fastcase, rely upon the credit card option for their users to access cite-checking resources such as Shepards. As of last night, the link to Shepards from Fastcase was still working, but I’m not sure if that will continue. If so, then it looks like all of those users will either have to sign up for Lexis, or will have to use KeyCite as their citation tool.

[UPDATE 8:50 CT] I emailed Ed Walters of Fastcase about this and he said that the change in LexisNexis by Credit Card, “Doesn’t matter much to our users: some have Lexis in their firms and can use Shepards under their firm subscription.  Those who don’t have Lexis passwords can just use KeyCite by credit card on Fastcase.” Ed says that the move may actually be a “Bigger deal for West.  For half a million Fastcase subscribers, KeyCite may have just become the #1 citator in America.”

Have you used LexisNexis by Credit Card? If so, how will this affect how you conduct legal research or your subscription strategies? Is this a good move by Lexis, or do you think it will end up biting them in the long run?

Here’s the announcement that Lexis had on the ending of the Credit Card site:

LexisNexis no longer offers the website LexisNexis® by Credit Card. This decision is part of our effort to create and support products that better meet those needs identified through collaboration with our customers, including tools that help our customers across markets to more efficiently find, assess and manage research findings.
LexisNexis continues to offer 10 years of free unenhanced federal and state case law via lexisONE, www.lexisone.com, our free open legal web service, via Lexis® Web at www.lexisweb.com and a wide variety of legal and business online communities at www.lexisnexis.com/communities which provide access to free up-to-date content and resources such as blogs, content, and news.
For continued access to convenient and affordable LexisNexis research content, please contact a representative at 888-285-3947 to learn more about LexisNexis subscription options.

I missed commenting about this when it was announced last week. Looks like former AALL Government Relations representative, Mary Alice Baish, is hard at work at her new post and is working to pilot the release of Federal Court decisions via FDsys.gov. This should prove to be a much better format than the PACER system that served as a poor interface for Federal Court decisions in the past.

I look forward to testing this out and have high hopes that placing the decisions on the FDsys platform is the start of moving more primary federal law into a resource that anyone can access. Here’s the press release from last week:

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) and the Federal Judiciary are launching a oneyear pilot program providing free public access to court opinions through GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDsys). The joint project was approved by the Judicial Conference of the United States and GPO’s Congressional oversight committee, the Joint Committee on Printing. When fully implemented, the pilot will include up to 42 courts. The Judiciary continually has sought ways to enhance public access to court opinions. Free access to opinions in all Federal courts is currently available via the Judiciary’s Public Access to Court Electronic Records service (PACER). Building on that success, staff from the Administrative Office of the United States Courts met with GPO management to explore making opinions available through FDsys, which can provide the public with a robust search engine that can search common threads across opinions and courts.  The public will be able to access court opinions in the next several months through GPO’s Federal Digital System:  www.fdsys.gov
“GPO’s partnership with the Federal Judiciary on this pilot program is another example of how the agency is becoming the digital information platform for the entire Federal Government,” said Superintendent of Documents Mary Alice Baish.  “We are excited to add these important court opinions to our digital repository, providing the public with quick and easy access to the workings of the Federal Judiciary.”
The twelve participating pilot courts are the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second and Eighth Circuits; the U.S. District Courts for the Districts of Minnesota, Rhode Island, Maryland, Idaho and Kansas, the Northern District of New York, and the Northern District of Alabama; and the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts for the District of Maine, the Southern District of Florida, and the Southern District of New York.
With 2,200 employees, GPO is the Federal Government’s primary resource for producing, procuring, cataloging, indexing, authenticating, disseminating, and preserving the official information products of the U.S. Government in digital and tangible forms.  GPO is responsible for the production and distribution of information products and services for all three branches of the Federal Government, including U.S. passports for the Department of State as well as the official publications of Congress, the White House, and other Federal agencies. In addition to publication sales, GPO provides for permanent public access to Federal Government information at no charge through GPO’s Federal Digital System (www.fdsys.gov) and through partnerships with approximately 1,220 libraries nationwide participating in the Federal Depository Library Program. For more information, please visit www.gpo.gov.  Follow GPO on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/USGPO
Twitter http://twitter.com/USGPO and on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/gpoprinter.

While I was going through law school, I worked a side job for the university as a mainframe programmer/analyst. It was a fun job, and I worked with some extremely intelligent people. One of my co-workers used to have a saying that he used all the time whenever we’d decide that we needed to “create a program” to make some task easier for our customers:

Making it is easy… making it easy on the other hand, is really hard to do.

This saying has stuck in my head for nearly twenty years now, and it is just as true today as it was when he first said it. We can easily make things to use in our day-to-day work, but if the things we make aren’t easy to use… then you might as well not make it in the first place.

The basis for an idea like this is that you are supposed to be “customer-focused”, and that anything you develop, whether that is a program, an interface, or work-flow process, you have to develop it from the customers’ perspective. In my world today, that means I have to evaluate what I develop from the eyes of the lawyers that will have to use it. Unfortunately, I have to add one more caveat to this saying:

… and those that will benefit the most from what you make, won’t make it easy for you.

Just think of the example of how attorneys really get frustrated when it takes them a long time to get specific work accomplished for a client. However, when you come in and explain to them that you can develop resources, work-flows, and templates for them that will make it easier on them the next time they have to do this type of work, one of the most common reactions is that they are too busy to waste time on those types of (“I can’t bill my time to the client?”) projects.

That’s quite a paradox to battle in your quest to “make it easy.” It’s the battle that most Knowledge Management and Legal Project Management leaders face everyday. I guess we can all take solace in another phrase we all might use from time to time:

If it were easy… then I really wouldn’t be needed to lead this project. 

After all, it’s the challenges that make what we do exciting.

Planetary

Hopefully that title just made you start humming the Beastie Boys song. If it did, see me in Philly at the Summit and I’ll buy you a beer.

I’ve always been a fan of visualizing information in unique ways. I stumbled upon an app this week that does just that sort of thing with the way I “listen” and “view” the music that’s on my iPad. Planetary takes a pretty simple idea and brings it to life via the iPad. The idea is to transform your music into a Galaxy, your artists into Solar Systems, their albums into Planets, and their songs into Moons. Visually it is very cool to watch and play. The thing that I like most is that when you play a song, the amount of time it takes to play the song is the amount of time it takes for that Moon (Song) to orbit the Planet (Album).

Here’s a blurb from Planetary’s iTunes page:

Planetary is just the sort of science fiction experience you expect when using an object from the future like iPad. You’ll want to show your friends this beautiful app. We’ve made it even easier to share Planetary at home; it looks incredible when you hook your iPad 2 up to a big HDTV or projector using the HDMI accessory.

 Or, to quote one of my kids the first time I opened this up and showed it to them:

That’s Epic!!

Here’s some screenshots that I took from my iPad (I’m still with my version 1, so I haven’t had a chance to hook it up to my HDTV to watch yet.) It’s definitely a fun app to use, and best of all… it’s free!!

Go check out Planetary and let me know if you find it as fun as I do. (Now, if I can get my law firm to adapt this “Galaxy” approach to some of the data we present for business development purposes…)

Select the Artist by Letter
See the Galaxy of Artists…
See the Solar System of Albums of that Artist…
Zoom in on the Planet (Album)

Watch the Moon (Song) Orbit as it plays…

The Dewey B. Strategic blog has a great post on The Myth and the Madness of Cost Effective Lexis and Westlaw Research Training.” I highly recommend you take a look at it.
As I was reading the post and thinking about the challenges of better managing costs relative to legal research, it occurred to me what a client might think about this dialogue. Here’s what I came up with in response to the three issues.
1. Cost effective research training is a hopeless exercise.
Client: I don’t care.
2. Cost effective legal research training is counter-productive.
Client: Figure it out.
3. Subscribing to the myth of cost effective research training keeps the focus off the true culprits and keeps us from demanding a real solutions.
Client: Refer to #1.
Clients are dealing with cost savings efforts. Now it’s time for law firms to do the same. As my former boss and mentor used to say, “We’re all smart people. We can figure this out.”