As I was reading the NY Times this morning (in print, no less!), I came across the business section’s front page article, “Swiping is the Easy Part,” a story about using your mobile device like a credit card. And the ensuing struggle between banks, retailers, credit cards and mobile phone carriers who all want a piece of the pie. Some banks are getting around the whole issue by giving customers chips that they can install into their mobile device; thereby, diverting mobile operators. Oddly enough, just yesterday I Stumbl’d across Jack Dorsey’s app, Square. Mind you, I’d read about Square when it first came out but I put it aside as interesting but not yet applicable to me or my business. For those unfamiliar with Square, it is a small device that hooks into your mobile phone and allows you to accept credit cards from you mobile device (it’s only built for iPhones, iPads and Androids). For me, the common thread between these two items is vocalized by Jan Chipchase (perfect name, right?), the executive creative director at the design firm who studies mobile payments. “Is it possible to make a system that’s too easy to use, where you reduce so much friction from the transaction process that people aren’t necessarily aware of what they’re spending on something?” Even Jack and his gang of …, well, techies caution users on the reality of their product.

“Let’s spin a little story here: you are an excellent person, therefore you downloaded Square. Your reader arrives, and you immediately want to show it off. You run into the kitchen, where your visiting Aunt Myrtle is busy doing her crossword puzzle.” “You mesmerize her by swiping her credit card through the reader on your phone, jokingly charge her $10,000, and quickly cancel the transaction before it is authorized. Whoops! You just put a hold of $10,000 on her bank account!” “Aunt Myrtle isn’t quite so docile anymore. Thankfully, you didn’t actually charge that money, but nevertheless that hold remains. Now you have an angry aunt, no extra money, and you could have avoided this whole situation (and made a buck) with a simple test swipe of a single dollar.”

That’s kinda why I don’t like Kindles, Nooks, iTunes and the like.
I am afraid of my own financial temerity (if that even makes sense).
With barely a swipe, point and click, I would buy a $500 books in a week-end, $100 worth of tunes and $10,000 worth of clothes. And that’s low-balling it!
I know, I know. We always say that you can’t legislate people from being stupid. And this is the same kind of thing.
But really: Is it all just too magically delicious?
Really.

I’m about to go on a rant about local newspapers that publish on the Internet, but don’t give the “out-of-towner” reader any idea of where the newspaper is located. I’m going to pick on The Daily Journal, but they are by no means the first local newspaper that I’ve had to scour to find out where exactly they are located. So, here’s a little back story.

I got a news feed alert on a story entitled “Freeholders concerned about closing library.” So far, so good… I’m interested in any story that discusses how communities are looking at closing libraries to shore up shrinking budgets. When I arrive to the story, I see the name of the town, but not the state in which the town is located.

Alright… “Bridgeton” doesn’t really sound familiar to me, so I start looking through the story to see if there’s something in there that names the state. Nothing.
Next up… look at the banner for the website to see if it mentions a state. 

No state mentioned either in the banner, or in any of the other links at the top of the page. And with a generic name like “The Daily Journal.com – A Gannett Company” this paper could be anywhere.
So, nothing in the by-line… nothing in the banner… nothing in the top links.
How about looking at the ads? Maybe there will be an ad for a local company that will mention the state??

Hallelujah!! It’s Georgia!!!
No!! It’s not Georgia. Seems that the ads are set up to look at my IP address and identify that I’m coming in from a Georgia IP address. Two problems with this:

  1. I’m not in Georgia… my firm is… I’m in sunny Houston, Texas!!
  2. The fact that the newspaper has ads that adjust for “out-of-towners” lets me know that they understand that people from outside the community are going to drop in, but that they don’t really care to make it clear where they’ve landed.
So now I’m getting a little ticked-off…
I look at the “Help” and “Terms of Service” pages… no luck.
Holy crap!! How freakin’ hard does this have to be??
New Jersey!!
Finally… finally… finally, I see an image near the bottom of the original page that tells me I’ve landed in New Jersey (by this time I’m saying “New Jersey” like the Fred Armisen impersonation of New York Governor, David Patterson.)
From start to finish, it probably took me three or four minutes to track down where this newspaper is covering. Granted, not a lot of time, but completely unnecessary. 
This was my drawn out way of asking that local newspapers that publish out the Internet to realize that you’re now a global operation. Please make it easier on those of us that aren’t locals by making it obvious where you’re located. It will result in at least one less frustrated librarian in the world.

Go ahead and block off July 23rd, and schedule your plane, train or automobile trip over to Philadelphia for a day long meeting focused on the issues that confront private law firm libraries, librarians and administrators. Anyone that went to the first PLL-SIS (Private Law Library – Special Interest Section) Summit in Denver last year can tell you that this is where the magic happens, and where not only the law firm librarians need to show up, but they also need to bring along those non-librarians (library partners, IT and KM directors, CIO’s, COO’s, etc.) and share in the wealth of conversations that go on during the sessions.

To sweeten the pot a little bit, the lunch time “entertainment” happens to be a couple of co-bloggers here on 3 Geeks. Toby Brown, Scott Preston, and I will talk about some of the PLL-SIS webinars we’ve presented (still time to sign up for Scott’s webinar), as well as anything else that happens to pop into our geeky little minds at the time. Other speakers include Esther Dyson, Jim Jones, David Curle and Sabrina Pacifici. If that’s not enough for you, show up on Friday night (7/22) for a reception hosted by BNA (that’s probably where my best work will occur!!)

Here’s the press release along with all the links you’ll need to register. Hope to see you there! Don’t forget to invite someone else to go with you!!

PLL-SIS Summit II:  Change as Action, Change as Opportunity
Registration is now open for the Private Law Libraries Change as Action Summit held in conjunction with the 2011 AALL Annual Meeting on July 23, 2011, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.  Join us for a jam-packed day, filled with thought-provoking speakers and vibrant discussions on PLL-focused programming!
We are tremendously excited to announce that Esther Dyson, legendary technology visionary, will be our Keynote Speaker, sponsored by Wolters Kluwer Law & Business. We’ll also be hearing from Jim Jones of Hildebrandt, David Curle of Outsell, Inc., Sabrina Pacifici of BeSpacific, the Three Geeks, and many more dynamic and intriguing speakers.
In addition, break-out sessions, based on the current PLL Law Firm Management webinar series, will allow attendees to engage in open dialogue on their favorite webinar topics, from law firm financials to knowledge management and client marketing.
In the afternoon, we will offer concurrent programs in three areas: administration, research/reference and technology/technical services on practical topics such as metrics, project management, legal publishing trends, and social media.  
The $145 registration fee includes all programs plus a Friday night BNA Welcome Party, a breakfast sponsored by Priory Solutions, lunch sponsored by LexisNexis and an afternoon break sponsored by Law360.  Registration is required by June 17th.  Sign up now to take part in this exciting event!


Ron Friedmann of Strategic Legal Technology blog and I consider in this joint post the impact of “Law Factories” on the future of large law firms.
Introduction – by Ron Friedmann and Toby Brown 

Law firms face an uncertain future, with competitive markets, intense price pressures and a drive to change. So they are beginning to ask fundamental questions about the nature of their business. These include what shape should a firm be and how will a firm approach this new market? Will firms be “Law Factories” that provide services to numerous segments of the market? Or will they be niche players that protect their brands in high-end markets and maybe even spin off sub-brands for servicing mid-level and low-end markets?

Ron and I started discussing this question in follow-up to an ILTA session last August where Ron was a co-panelist. The panel suggested that in the future, law firms would need to choose one of two strategies: bet the farm or law factory. This oversimplifies but helps air important issues. The panel struggled to answer whether the two models can co-exist in one firm. If you think the question is academic, consider the recent news about Howrey’s demise. Managing partner Bob Ruyak attributed the fall of the firm, in part, to more efficient e-discovery vendors and document review. Even if apocryphal, this illustrates the impact law factories can have on law firms.

So we decided to take up this question and compare the two approaches in a back-to-back blog post. Both views are shared on both of our blogs. We hope this “debate” spurs dialog in the market over many aspects of how firms are structured and sell themselves to their clients. We welcome comments, input and even offer up guest posting opportunities for those who want to take on this subject with us.

For Reference: Ron’s post; Toby’s Post

SUITING UP FOR THE LAW FACTORY by Toby Brown


The Banking Analogy “Commodity” is a dirty word at most law firms. It implies a ‘less-than’ level of expertise and is not the sort of brand any thoughtful lawyer would want for their firm.

But should they?

The opposite of ‘commodity’ in this context is “Bet the Farm” work – high-end, high-value niche services; the kind clients gladly pay full hourly rates for. In even the recent past, a lot of firms have been able to get away with pricing all of their services at bet the farm rates, since they held the market power and could designate a greater portion of their services as high-end, high rate work. But that’s not the case anymore, as evidence in the market by expanding buyers’ market power, and the rise of discounts and AFAs. I have argued elsewhere that lawyers, via their monopoly position, were able to artificially hold off the commoditization of their services. The bottom-line: most firms services are no longer in the high-end niche portion of the market. Pretending to be there, doesn’t make it so.

So where does that leave law firms? I see they have two options. First – stay very focused on the high-end, high margin niche segment of the market and then develop lower brands as noted in Ron’s post. Or firms admit they can’t play exclusively in that space and embrace the commodity concept a.k.a. as a Law Factory play. I believe the latter approach makes sense for most law firms, merely based on the fact that there is room for only a very few firms in that high-end segment. But … will embracing commodity services tarnish a firm’s brand, excluding it from high-end opportunities?

Banks present a feasible model for law firms to consider. They serve a very broad piece of the market, yet maintain a high-value brand. They sell basic banking services to the mass market and sell specialized services to high net-worth individuals and companies.

A Law Firm Scenario: The Three Tiers of the Patent Litigation Market. From a Case Study I am preparing, I will paint a picture of a new patent litigation market. I suggest this is a relatively accurate picture, but know some variations and modifications of the exact numbers should be in order. In any event, this concept demonstrates the Law Factory approach from an economic / market perspective.

Tier 1 – High stakes matters. This is the classic “Bet the Farm’ work. I would put it at 15-20% of the market, and declining.
Tier 2 – Mid-level stakes. These matters will have valid legal claims involving enough money they require a reasonable legal response, but not at the level of Tier 1. This segment of the market has seen increasing price sensitivity. Two to three years ago the work may have commanded fees near Tier 1 level. Put this segment at 50-60% of the market and growing.
Tier 3 – Nuisance matters. This tier covers questionably valid legal claims and thus low financial exposure. This segment has high price sensitivity and clients benefit from quick, low cost resolutions. Put this segment at 20-25% of the market, relatively stable but with occasional spikes.

Given this market dynamic and utilizing the banking industry concept above, how might a law firm approach this market?

What this segmentation tells us is that the mass of market spending is occurring in Tier 2. And since prices are dropping that this work is begging for some innovations to moderate the costs. So although Tier 1 may have had good margins, it’s a shrinking market with a large pool of competitors. Unless your firm is willing to invest significant dollars in securing this market segment, which will cut into those margins, you will be wasting your time. This doesn’t mean you will ignore this segment, but only that you approach it smartly. Tier 2, in contrast, presents much greater opportunity for market growth and reasonable, sustainable margins. To do well in this segment, a firm will need to “commoditize” some of its work.

In contrast, Tier 3, may well fall off the radar of larger firms. To be profitable here requires serious changes in the personnel and compensation structure of a firm.

The hard questions for law firms are – Can they actually make these changes and then maintain their brand across market segments?

I would suggest a relatively simple and easy to accomplish approach would be to target Tier 2 work and watch for Tier 1 opportunities within your client base. A given client can have work in all three tiers. So, by holding the client relationship strong via Tier 2 service, you create the opportunity for getting Tier 1 work from them without having to overspend on market protection. The internal challenges will come with making practice management adjustments in order to be profitable in Tier 2. I suspect a number of firms have slipped into this approach by accident. However without making changes, their margins in Tier 2 are disappearing and they will struggle to maintain quality service. Absent a proactive approach here, Tier 2 work will move away from a firm to more innovative firms, leading to a dissolution of a firm’s Tier 1 opportunities.

As an aside, let’s assume for a moment a firm adjusts internally to serve all three segments of this market. Should they then go after smaller businesses or other “low end” clients? This is not a brand risk. JP Morgan Chase servicing low-end markets will not hurt its brand, but may in fact enhance it as it demonstrates depth and strength.

Although you do reach a point when banks will not service a segment. But it’s not a brand issue that stops them. Instead it’s the “cost of customer acquisition and maintenance” that stops them. When no other organizational structures are available and it becomes impossible to make money on a customer segment, the banks leave the segment. Currently this is shown in the growth of “payday loan” check cashing services, an alternative provider serving this segment.

This shows that concerns about brand reputation issues can be addressed when law firms chose to embrace commodity type services.

So the elephant left in the room is: Can law firms restructure in this way? I would argue that structures for servicing Tier 1 and 2 markets are definitely possible. However, I question how many law firms will have the institutional will to implement them. Suggesting that certain partners’ comp should be adjusted to reflect their real contribution to the bottom line will be a difficult conversation. This means the less radical the adjustment, the more likely it is feasible. I would argue that shifting to a Tier 2 provider fits this approach. Process innovation combined with Legal Project Management (LPM) should suffice for this.

In contrast, firms that chose the “Bet the Farm” approach will need to dramatically increase their investment in expertise, marketing and client relationships. This approach seems much more challenging for a firm, since their willingness and ability to make large investments in their firm is quite limited.


Toby’s Conclusions 

The Law Factory is not only possible, it may be the only viable option for a large number of firms. Absent this type of approach, firms will see a shrinking market and declining margins. In a market that is driving the commoditization of services, failure to embrace that change will result in many failed firms.


LAW FACTORY LESSONS FROM HILTON HOTELS by Ron Friedmann



The Business Analogy: Hilton Hotels As a frequent traveler who typically stays at Hilton brand hotels, it strikes me that hotels offer a useful analogy for thinking about law factory versus bet-the-farm firms.
Hilton offers multiple sub-brands to appeal to different buying segments. Conrad and Waldorf Astoria cater to the luxury crowd. At the other end of the spectrum, Hampton Inn appeals to the budget-minded. Multiple brands in the middle offer different feature-price trade-offs: Hilton Hotels, Hilton Garden Inn, Embassy Suites, Homewood Suites, and Doubletree.

Each brand operates in a discrete location; indeed location is an attribute that separates brands. Individual Hilton brands also tend to have similar architecture and design. Because location, architecture, and amenities differ significantly, brands have different cost structures. A Hampton Inn in a distant suburb without room service, doorman, or concierge costs less to operate than a downtown Hilton Hotel offering these plus other amenities.

All Hilton brands presumably benefit from centralized, shared services such as branding, marketing, purchasing, and the all-important loyalty program, which Hilton has just started promoting heavily. Though not precisely a shared service, I assume Hilton shares hospitality know-how across sub-brands. (Do they have a formal KM system!?!)

From the consumer perspective, I suspect most frequent travelers understand the difference among Hilton brands and choose the sub-brand based on trip-specific travel needs and budget.


Lessons from Hilton The Practice Area Analogy 

What can law firms learn from Hilton? One analogy is to consider practice areas (e.g., M&A and T&E) as sub-brands. Consider two practices seldom seen at top law firms: immigration or labor / employment. If bet-the-farm firms such as Cravath, Davis Polk, or Slaughter & May were Hilton or Marriott, they might also have these and other “law factory” practices. Like Hilton, they could house the lower-end practices in separate offices with cheaper real estate.

Simply paying less rent, however, does not make a non-premium practice profitable. The entire support structure for lower margin practices must change: less lawyer support (e.g., fewer secretaries), more fixed or alternative fees, and higher leverage.

Hilton and its competitors clearly know how to operate properties at different price-value points. It is not at all obvious that law firms do. I can’t think of many (any?) that run practices with dramatically different volumes, margins, and support requirements.

Why are there no obvious examples? Perhaps clients would not buy multiple services from “law firm chains”. That seems a weak hypothesis to me. The better explanation is that law firms lack the management talent and capital. Regulatory constraints may also play a role.

Absent these constraints, we might see the emergence of law firm holding companies that can take advantage of shared services and be the equivalent of Hilton. Watch the UK, where outside ownership will be allowed soon, and Australia, where it is already allowed.


Matter Tasks as an Analogy Another analogy is to view unbundled (disaggregated) tasks within a single practice as akin to sub-brands. For example, in M&A, the core merger agreement is like the Conrad or Waldorf but many lesser agreements are more like Hampton Inns.

The market seems to be moving in just this direction today. The proliferation of service providers – for example, boutique law firms, high-volume staffing companies, high-end staffing companies (e.g., Axiom), and legal process outsourcers (LPO) – suggest the market is already disaggregating tasks.

A key question is one law firm can unbundle sub-tasks. We do have some examples. In the UK, Berwin Leighton Paisner has its Managed Legal Services and Lawyers on Demand and Herbert Smith its Northern Ireland document review center. In the US, WilmerHale and Orrick have low cost centers (Dayton, OH and Wheeling, WV respectively) where staff attorneys support law practice.

In my recent Integreon blog post US Legal Market Trends Favor Law Firms Working with LPO I suggested, based in part on a recent Citi / Hildebrandt report, that large law firms can benefit by partnering with LPOs to support high-volume legal work. Of course, working for an LPO I might be biased. That said, large law firms have little experience running high volume legal support operations with industrial discipline. Of course firms can “industrialize” – the examples cited are instructive – but as a practical matter, mindset, management, and capital constraints make it difficult.


Ron’s Conclusions 

My current conclusion is that law firms will struggle to manage both bet-the-farm and law factory. Law firms today develop deep but rather narrow capability. Beyond management, capital, and regulations constraints, I would add lack of courage and imagination. A more neutral way of phrasing this is by reference to The Innovator’s Dilemma (Clayton M. Christensen), which explains why successful organizations rarely change their business model and why upstarts often eventually eat their lunch. We may yet see a bet-the-farm law firm operate an industrial-strength law factory but I suspect it will not be at an AmLaw 100 firm.

Don’t tell me you didn’t see this one coming a mile away. When the Cruise Missiles started landing in Libya, it was almost a given that one of the most popular URL Shorteners would take a direct hit. For those of you that didn’t already know this, the “.ly” is the Libyan domain name, and the “bit.ly” URL shortener (which has no connection with the Libyan government, other than paying for the domain name), is scrambling to avoid any more strikes from the US Government.

Starting today, if you use the “bit.ly” shortener to shorten a “USA.GOV” link, you’ll notice that it no longer shortens it to “bit.ly/shorturl”. Instead, you get the “1.usa.gov/shorturl”.

So, I guess it’s “yay!” for patriotism” but “boo!” for short URLs. Right off the bat, anyone can see that the URL shortener is now three characters longer!! Couldn’t they have at least set it up as “us.gov/shorturl”?? I mean, really??

Now that the boys and girls of “Bit.ly” have opened the gates to changing USA.GOV links away from the taint of the Libyan domain name, I’m sure the state governments will be lining up to do their patriotic duty and ask that any links to their state websites also be changed to something different (and probably longer, as well.)

See the Talking Points Memo article for additional details on the 1.USA.gov launch.

Tell me if you’ve heard this (true) story before… A Partner calls up the Marketing team and says that he is going to be attending a conference this weekend and wants to get some background information on a small group of General Counsels (GC’s) that will be attending. Immediately, Marketing calls the library and asks to have a basic competitive intelligence report drafted up on those ten GC’s — using one of those magical database that we must have.

In the not-so-distant past, we would have gone to the basics of looking up the person’s profile on “magical databases/print resources” like  Martindale-Hubbell or Chambers, and then researched their company websites for profiles, and then conducted a news/information search (sometimes referred to as “I Googled Them”.) However, one of the best resources that we have at our disposal today is the information that the GC’s put out themselves on LinkedIn.

The LinkedIn research works really well if the person you’re looking for is “within your network” (no further than 3 connections away.) If the person is more than 3 connections away, then you usually don’t get to see the full profile, or take advantage of some of the searching features that are available for those within your network. So, the key is to work your connections in such a way that expands your network to include as many GC’s as possible. The best way to do this? Get your firm’s Partners connect with you on LinkedIn. Make it clear to each and every partner that doing so is in their best interest and makes it easier for you to track down information on the potential clients.

Also, don’t forget to connect with your Marketing team. If they rely upon you for competitive intelligence research and analysis, then they too would benefit by connecting with you on LinkedIn and sharing their network with you. Hopefully, your Marketing team is already connected with all the firm’s Partners (if not, then suggest that they start doing so!) Adding a few more connections expands your CI capabilities exponentially, and that can make you the hero when it comes to getting relevant information back to the Partner so he can better prepare to talk with the GC and bring in some more business to the firm.

Back to the story I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Out of the ten GC’s, nine of them had LinkedIn profiles. Out of those nine, eight of them were in my network. The end result was that I was able to pull relevant information on these GC’s and get it into the hands of a partner in just a few minutes. Now I have to go out and start tracking down those other Partners at the firm so that I don’t miss out on that ninth GC the next time around.

Andy Selsberg’s op-ed in The New York Times this weekend got me thinking about the difficulty of professional writing in the age of Twitter. As someone that was taught the standards of a five-paragraph essay, or a 500-word report paper, the modern style of professional writing simply doesn’t fit this mold any longer. Many will blame Twitter for the reduction in the length of communications, but as I think about it, this has been an evolving process for a number of years… most likely starting with the boom in e-mail communications starting in the mid-1990’s.

I think back over the years to the memos I’ve written for bosses, judges, professors, deans, associates, and partners and I’ve recognized that my writing style has gone from lengthy paragraphs (five-paragraph essay), to bullet-point sentence fragments, to what it is today; a short, concise sentence or two that explains the situation and either leaves an open-ended question to be answered, or points to another document that gives a further explanation. Sounds almost exactly like what I do with my Twitter messages.

Let’s face it, writing isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do for many of us. Most of us have been able to establish a formula for writing (again, usually based upon a variation of the five-paragraph essay), and can “fake” our way through it by following that formula. Unfortunately, many of the people that are reading what we have to write don’t have the time or the interest to read your introduction, explanation of ideas, and conclusion, so they tend to skim through and pick out the highlights of what you’ve written. So, like it or not, your writing is already getting scaled back by the reader, and hopefully they haven’t missed the real highlights that were shrouded in those 15-20 sentences.

Selsberg nails the modern writing style when he hints that we’re not talking about dumbing down the way we write, but rather shortening the way we write by “learning how to write concisely, to express one key detail succinctly and eloquently.” He makes his students write these short, concise, succinct and eloquent assignments explaining YouTube videos, writing a review on Amazon, or an eBay ad on the clothes they are currently wearing. In the professional world, we have similar items that we write on explaining a newspaper story, a recent court decision, or synopsis of a competitive intelligence report. Just like with the classroom assignments, the short message is meant to give the reader enough information to either lead them on to something else, or to move them away from the topic because there is no need to go any further.

I just noticed that my explanation of modern short writing style has resulted in a basic five-paragraph (520-word) essay. It is still the main formula I use for blog writing, but I’ll shorten it up when I link to it on Twitter, or when I send out an email to my friends and colleagues pointing them to the post. Of course, now I’m wondering how much of this you’ve skimmed over just now trying to pick out the highlights?

When lawyers talk about Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs) they usually want to know: 1) Which one works?, and 2) What is the number? When I get this “silver bullet” question, I always reply with the same answer. There is no silver bullet AFA – the real secret of AFAs is talking to the client. This conversation needs to be a give-and-take dialog, where firm lawyers actually do most of the listening.
As you might guess, lawyers don’t like to hear this answer. They want something simple and straight forward. Peeling back the layers, the main reason they want a simple answer is because they don’t like to talk to clients about fees. This type of conversation is outside their comfort zone, in part, since it makes them feel they are in an adversarial position with the client. The reality is that these conversations put them in full alignment with the client’s best interest. Failing to talk about fees is a recipe for conflict and problems with your client.
This is where the non-lawyer, fee expert can have their highest value. Including them in the conversation with the client can erase the fears of talking about fees. First off, a non-lawyer is in a position to freely discuss fees and fee concerns with the client. Not being the client’s advocate allows a more open and straight-forward discussion about fees. Questions focused on fee concerns and fee pressures the client has are easy to surface. Just as importantly, a non-lawyer brings a second set of ears to the discussion. It’s been my experience that in these conversations I hear different aspects of client answers to fee questions, and many times catch nuances of their concerns that lawyers miss or don’t see the importance of.
The lessons here are two-fold. First, there is high value in having these fee conversations with clients. Since many of these clients are lawyers by training and experience, they have not been engaging in these dialogs. As such, they greatly appreciate the concern and conversation. Second, bringing someone to the table without an interest in the legal issues and with an ability to discuss this subject, makes these open conversations possible.
Any firm or lawyer wanting to prosper in this emerging, competitive environment would do well to include non-lawyers in fee conversations with their clients. Even separate from alternative fee situations, this proactive approach will impress the clients and give your firm new insights into clients’ buying decisions.

Very interesting article written by Phoebe Connelly at the Atlantic on “SXSW 2011: The Year of the Librarian” where she discusses the librarian micro-track at SXSWi where the discussion didn’t focus on tech for the sake of tech, but “rather, it was about processing data with a purpose; data for a greater good.”

Whether it was the work conducted in search of open government standards, rural librarians and lack of Internet access in American homes, or the effects of data visualization on how to manage the vast amounts of raw data that is hammering our society right now, it is librarians that are out in front of these issues to discuss what the can be done with these topics. As she quotes Justin Grimes, “Librarians are the boots on the ground. We don’t care what the tech is, we care about what the user actually needs. That’s our mandate.”

So, thank you Phoebe for helping spread the message that librarians are out there working between tech and the needs of the users and helping both sides find each other in a way that makes a difference.

First off, let me say that I am not a social media fiend. There are some social media tools who’s value I see and there are others that I just don’t get. Out of fear of being labeled a luddite or a relic in my generation, I am trying to get to know social media, to embrace constant connectivity and the perceived need to always tell someone what I am doing and getting over the assumption that no one cares. Then, I discovered Quora.

Until last week, Quora was, far as I knew was a high end purveyor of beauty products in Calgary. Quorra, with two rs has a beautiful store in the building in which we have our offices. Quora with one r, is quickly becoming a key tool for me in doing competitive intelligence inside those offices. Let me explain. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Quora, it is defined on its site as “a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it.” It’s a giant online Q&A site about everything you could ever imagine. People ask questions and other people respond with their answers, or opinions. The Q&A audience, can then rank answers, comment on answers and collaborate to make each Q&A page the best it can be. And of course, you can link your own questions or answers to your Twitter pages and other social media tools. Quora is like the love child of Wikipedia and Ask Jeeves. Some savvy social media people might be wondering how that is different from the Q&A on LinkedIn. The primary differentiator as far as my two week experience with Quora is concerned is that in Quora, any question and any answer is open to anyone. And while that may lead to some ill informed responses, such as one would find on a traditional message board, it also opens the collaboration for those who may be knowledgeable about a topic to respond to something they otherwise wouldn’t have replied to. For example, a friend who I am following on Quora, answered a question about the city in which we live. He is a Director Insights for a local market research firm and he has lived in several world class North American cities so his response has value. But as I read the string of other answers, it occurred to me that there were several other things about our city that were being missed by those responding. I don’t at all consider myself an expert on the city, I would never join a LinkedIn Group for urban theorists nor do I follow the tweets of Richard Florida, but I did chime in with an answer and felt I had contributed in a meaningful way. Okay that’s lovely for me, but how can we use this tool a competitive intelligence capacity?
The following week, one of my lawyers asked me what we knew about a certain topic – aside from responding with our traditional sources, I checked out Quora. I simply put the topic keywords in the search box and got back a sampling of chatter . I was able to read through all kinds of questions and answers relating to the topic at hand, and while some of the Q&A was more helpful and on point that others, it certainly provided a snapshot of the current issues related to the topic and what the “water cooler” type conversations centered around a particular question or issue were.

I have fallen for Quora. It’s a great way to find out what’s going on, who’s asking what questions and then to pin point issues or answerers (people) worth following in your industry, city, profession, etc. or in a client’s without having to join groups or pay membership fees or otherwise commit to anything. As for Quorra, I will still visit the lovely store whenever I am next in our Calgary offices.