The Law Society Gazette reports that 30% of UK solicitor firms have already talked to potential investors about investing in their firms come October. Some additional stats from the article:
“65% said they were ‘comfortable securing external investment from a non-legal investor”
“Some 65% of solicitors said they would consider doing work with a non-legal brand such as a supermarket …”
I have had my eye on the Legal Services Act (LSA) for some time now. Allowing law firms to take on capital investments is a very powerful idea. It’s challenging for any business to prosper, let alone survive in a competitive market without access to capital. Law firms have been bound by ethical rules that haven’t allow outside, non-lawyer investment in their firms. This limits their capital raising ability to whatever the lawyers could shoulder personally. With the LSA, law firms can make large scale investments in their businesses, upping the ante in order to remain competitive. This article predicts that firms will respond proactively to a more open capital market. Personally, I think this is a very positive step and a smart strategy by the UK to dominate the legal industry on a global scale.
Since US firms are not able to access this level of capital, they will be at a distinct disadvantage in the global market. Their UK counter-part firms can now start investing in strategic technology and more professional marketing and sales organizations in a much more aggressive way.
The outcome of all this is yet-to-be-seen. My 2 cents: the market for legal services IS becoming a fully competitive market. Market players with access to capital will absolutely have an advantage in the market. US firms who compete internationally would be wise to keep a close eye on this new approach as it evolves.

In the final part of Robert Shaffer’s keynote address to the AALL Vendor Colloquium (see Part One and Part Two), the discussion shifts to how the legal information field is reacting to the trends within the industry, and to the new actions from the consumers of legal information.

  • Can we adopt the Apple to Zappos model?
  • The ROI of a library is still significant, even in the age of dis-intermediation of legal information.
  • Are law reviews and legal scholarly publishing still relevant?
  • How does legal publishing react to the trends of customers self-selecting materials?
  • Can legal publishing finally leverage their non-legal materials and create a broader product?
  • How do we deal with the social media space?

I want to personally thank Roberta Shaffer for presenting the keynote speech. I hope that I have done some justice to the job she did. As with the other two videos, please remember that this is from my notes and memory and should not be considered as a quote directly from Roberta Shaffer.

While I was at Ark Group conference on Law Firm Libraries in New York last week, I got to wondering what other types of non-traditional conferences were out there that I might enjoy attending. Therefore, I though it would make for a great Elephant Post question. There are a number of conferences out there that are not traditionally attended by librarians, but which I think would be a great experience for law librarians and enable them to expand their professional and social circles. So things like Legal Marketing Association meetings (local and national), LegalTech, TechShow, ILTA, and Association of Legal Administrators are a few of the usual non-traditional conference that we should probably go to every once in awhile.
The contributors seemed to really zoom in on South By Southwest (SXSW) and TED conferences. However, there are a couple out-of-the-norm suggestions that sound pretty interesting as well. Thanks for the contribution. As usual, we will do this all over again this time next week with a fresh question (conveniently located at the bottom of this post.) Feel free to share your thoughts with us.

LexThink
Toby Brown
Matt Homann is Mr. Non-Traditional Legal Conference.  I attended his first LexThink non-conference a number of years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Oh yeah – I learned a lot too.
Instead of Theater or Classroom style, Matt uses an open room with spaces designed to attract people and encourage dialog.  I hope to catch another LexThink non-conference again soon.
Last year, just prior to TECHSHOW, Matt ran a Pecha Kucha style set of presentations.  These 6 minute, fast paced presentations force presenters to stay on topic, stay on time and get to the point.  Again – enjoyable and educational.
So – I guess my answer is: anything Matt puts together.

Bay Area Theatre Sports (aka “BATS”) Improv
Ayelette Robinson
If you’ve never taken an improvisational theatre class, you owe it to yourself to take one. Improv is to the mind what yoga & pilates are to the body: it limbers up your mental processes, and makes you stronger and more flexible in your thinking. The foundational elements of good improv strikingly parallel the foundational elements of good professional presentation and networking — complementing your colleagues’ ideas by responding “yes and” instead of “no but”; making your colleagues look good; not getting stuck in your own ideas; being open to change; and the list goes on.
If you happen to be in the Bay area, you must check out the BATS classes and shows at http://improv.org. If you live elsewhere, there are great classes and workshops throughout the country, so I encourage you to find one near you. And by the way, if you consider yourself shy by nature and aren’t typically the social butterfly at the party, my recommendation for an improv workshop is twice as strong.

SXSW Interactive
Lisa Salazar
Aww, come on! Do you have to ask??
This is where it ALL happens.
Plus, maybe I could sneak over and watch a few movies and bands.

SXSW
Peter Buck
demonstrates how media of all types can engage a community

SXSW
Jan Rivers
SXSW. No question. I’m a media junkie and I would love to spend a week or two surrounded by people who work in film and interactive technologies. It would be energizing to get away from the traditional, left-brained law firm/ librarian world and immerse myself in one filled with artists and other creative types. Not only does SXSW have top notch speakers, but they also have interesting sessions. Social media analytics? Sure! Artistic Collaborations Via Skype? I’m there! Augmented Reality? Tell me more! I’ve always been interested in what’s coming down the road technology-wise and how that impacts the world in which I work. This would be a good conference in which to see what’s going on “out there.”
Plus- and a big plus at that- the music will be out of this world. I know I could learn a lot about collaboration, team interactions, improvisation, etc. at The Saxon Pub or another venue. Seeing Carolyn Wonderland at Antone’s would be the perfect way to unwind after a day full of conference sessions.

TED
Scott Preston
TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading and is a conference I would really enjoy attending.  The TED conference is an amazing opportunity to hear from and interact with many of the thought leaders of our time.  Topics range from technology to environmental, from process improvement to rethinking traditional ideas and include areas of concentration on design, science, business and global issues.  This conference is by invitation only and thus far I have not been invited (fingers are still crossed).  The good news is, many of the talks are available online.  It isn’t the same as being in the room with these people, but it is still very inspiring.

TED2011
Julia Montgomery
Sure it’s going on RIGHT. NOW. So going isn’t exactly likely. And, yes, I can get most of the sessions online. But, come on — you know you want to go, too. The theme this year is The Rediscovery of Wonder, for Pete’s sake! Wonder! Who doesn’t want some of that?! The prospect of stumbling into some wonder is what gets me out of bed most mornings, so a whole conference committed to it? Oh yeah.
I think if there’s any silver lining to be had in the recent years of economic turbulence and the challenges faced by legal, it might be that it’s shaking us up. Many of us have been in legal technology for years. We’ve been coming  in day after day doing the same things.Sure, every once along comes a “knowledge management” or a “cloud,” to shake things up, but, in many ways, legal has been Old Faithful. And we knew what to expect and we knew what to do.
But those days are behind us.
And right now, it’s an amazing time to be a legal technologist.
Or a really scary time.
It’s all up to you.
Right now, you can reinvent yourself as our industry reinvents itself. No idea is off the table. For the first time in a long time, new perspectives, unconventional approaches and [shudder] “out of the box” thinking are not only welcome, but they’re a necessity. Everything you thought you knew about legal technology is changing. Fast.
So what better time to open up your brain and let a whole slate of creative thinkers dump their experiences in. The ideas don’t have to be obviously applicable to techbnology — that’s what you’re for. Dig deep. Think hard. Swirl all that exciting juice together with what your expereince in legal technology has taught you, and just imagine what amazing innovation might come spilling out
So, yeah, I want to go to TED. I want to have my mind blown. To be inspired. To be awed. To be excited. I want to help change the face of our industry. And if I let that TED-y brilliance wash over me and help me see things in ways I never have before, I can’t help but wonder what kind of magic could happen.
Rediscovery of Wonder, indeed.
Next Week’s Elephant Post Question:

Do You Plan on Buying the New iPad2 Or Another Tablet Device This Year? What Do You Plan On Doing With It?

Of course we’ve all been hammered over the past 24 hours about the release of the iPad2 and it’s dual cameras, light-weight and new features. Along with all the hype of other tablets that have been released, or are soon to be released, it seems that everyone is expected to finally jump into the whole tablet fray. If you have an iPad (version 1) are you going to dump it (or finally just give it to your kids or spouse) and jump on the newer model? Anyone going with XOOM or Galaxy Tab or Playbook?? How about those of you who think the whole tablet rage is not worth all the talk?

This is part two of Roberta Shaffer’s keynote address to the AALL Vendor Colloquium (see Part One). In this part, the discussion focuses on:

  • The paradigm shifts in the legal industry on issues of precedence and authority versus availability and consensus. 
  • The idea that there are more “Pro Se Professionals” out there now that don’t want anyone getting between them and “the information” that is available. 
  • The irrelevance of legal education being taught by “edit” and “isolation” and within silos.
  • Why has Morris Cohen’s 1969 statement from “Research Habits for Lawyers” not been answered yet?
  • What exactly is authority today?
  • Two good reasons why legal still clings to print; along with one not-so-good reason.
As with the other video, please remember that these are from my notes and my memory and nothing in this should be considered a direct quote from Roberta Shaffer. 
In the next video, the discussion will move to the changing roles of the players within our space.

The Law Librarian of Congress, Roberta Shaffer, gave an amazing keynote address that helped kick off the AALL Vendor Colloquium in Chicago on Monday. I know that there were a number of members that would have like to have that keynote speech live streamed, but I’m going to try to do the next best thing and use XtraNormal to create my interpretation of what Shaffer shared with us. As Roberta started out her discussion by saying that her views were simply those of a personal nature and not representative of any part of the government, I’m going to take that up another notch and say that everything in these videos (yes, there’ll be more than one) are solely from my notes and memory and should not be seen as direct quotes from Roberta. So, if there is something that you think sounds absolutely crazy… then you can probably attribute that to my bad note taking or memory. If there is something that you think that is mentioned that is absolutely amazing and life changing, then that is completely because of what Roberta Shaffer said.

I’m not sure how many parts there will be, as I’m still filtering all my notes, the first part of the keynote talked about how we view the rule of law in our society from a societal perspective, from a historical perspective, from a present and future perspective, from a cultural perspective, and from a perspective of language, interpretation and comprehension. I just hope that my notes do justice to how well Robert Shaffer did in kicking off the colloquium and setting the stage for bringing vendors, librarians and stakeholders together to identify difference and defining the common connections we all share. You can find a good recap of the presentation from the AALL Spectrum Blog, here, here and even the handout, here.

Finally, Roberta said that anyone from the Library of Congress is obligated to mention Thomas Jefferson whenever possible. Therefore, I found the closest avatar I could find that looked like Thomas Jefferson (although, it is really Issac Newton) rather than one that looked or sounded like Roberta.

Yesterday I heard a presentation from a well-known legal consulting group about the state of the legal market for 2011. This is part of an annual road-show they take to different cities to talk about the legal market in general and any distinctions in the local market. Although there were no big surprises in the presentation, they confirmed and exposed some nuances in the market. A point clearly made is that although the market is no longer going down, it’s not really going up much. In English this means the market has flattened out.
A follow-on point is that the only way to grow, and in many cases maintain your position in a flat market is to steal work from your competitors.
Later on a third point was made by showing a wheel of differentiators law firms possess. There were seven ways shown that a firm can differentiate itself in order to get, keep or steal business. These are pretty much what you would expect: expertise, geography, relationships, technology …. Number seven on the wheel is Price. A quick assessment of the firms in attendance at the presentation (and in the market) lead me to believe the only real existing differentiator is #7 – Price.
Spinning the wheel and connecting these three dots leads us to the following conclusion: Expect heavy price competition in the legal market for the coming year(s).
Oh yeah – they also suggested a different business structure if firms want to survive in this type of market.

As the market moves away from hourly rates to fee-based billing, law firms are facing a significant market challenge. One of the foundations of a functioning market is “free information.” Economists mean “free” in the sense that information about pricing is freely available to everyone in a market. That way the market can continually set prices at that magic point where supply meets demand.
In the hourly rate arena, this free information exists. The market has been setting billing rates by level of experience and type of practice for some time now.
However, when it comes to fee-based pricing this open market does not yet exist. There is not enough market activity to generate this type of information, especially in a “free’ way.
This is especially a challenge for the law firm / suppliers in the market. Although a firm will pitch a type of work to a number of clients at some fee-based pricing level, the knowledge gained is minimal due to the variations in the clients’ situations and needs. Clients, on the other hand, get to see apples-to-apples price comparisons for every piece of work they bid out.
Law firms are blind to this critical market information.
What to do? Like most challenges, this one presents an opportunity; a very valuable opportunity for lawyers to talk to clients about fees. In this situation, you will not be asking a client what the winning bid was, but instead getting a sense from them about what the market is telling them about pricing. Not only will this effort tell you what that client’s expectations are about pricing, but over time, this activity will inform you about what fee-based prices the market will bear.
So … it’s either talk to clients about fees and prices or remain blind to key market price information. You get to pick.

Are you starting to think that your e-newsletter is looking a little tired? Interested in adding some social media features?
Here’s a quick guide on what to consider when undertaking a redesign:
  1. Look at your current newsletter and identify what’s lacking. If you are working with a committee, ask each person to come to the brainstorming session with a current newsletter marked up with their suggestions. At this stage, all ideas are welcome and all will be considered.
  2. At the first meeting, review all suggestions then talk about big-picture goals:
  1. over-all look and feel
  2. new functionality
  3. high-level goals (broader content, broader reach)
  • At the end of the first meeting, task each member to bring back at least 1 example of a newsletter that they admire. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a legal e-newsletter. Want some inspiration? Go to the PRSA Silver Anvil Awards site or LMA Awards site.
  • At the second meeting, finalize design, content.

    • It may take a few more meetings, depending upon how detailed you want to get. But remember, when breaking up your goals, make sure that they are SMART goals: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-framed.And make sure to measure the success of your redesign. Take a benchmark of your current newsletter so you can see how well your new design works and whether you may need to tweek it. Track results too, to demonstrate a real ROI. The great thing about e-mailed newsletters is that they are web-based and fluid so they can be easily updated from issue to issue.

    Good morning from Chicago! As many of you may know, there is a meeting going on up here at the McDonald’s resort (The Lodge) where 40 or so vendors, law librarians, and stakeholders are meeting to discuss some of the issues that are currently affecting the relationship of the overall industry. You probably know it better as the AALL Vendor Colloquium. The meeting should be interesting, and I assume there will be some hard questions asked both from the customers’ point of view, and probably some coming back at us from the vendors’ point of view as well. I, of course, will be coming from the large law firm point of view.

    I don’t think you’ll be seeing a lot of #AALLVC tweets today, as many of us were asked to wait and sit through the entire discussion before we start pushing information out. I looked at this the same way that I looked at when I got to look at WestlawNext last year when I went up to Eagan, MN. Many of you may not agree with me on this, but that’s what I agreed to, and I will make sure that I keep lots of notes on what is said and will blog about it on Wednesday, along with my own personal commentary.

    Mark Estes will be pushing out recaps (live blogging) at the AALL Spectrum Blog later today and on through tomorrow. I’ll be talking with as many vendors, librarians and stakeholders as I can to get a feel for where I think we are heading as an industry of legal information professionals and legal information providers over the next few years. Like I said earlier… it should be interesting. Stay tuned for more…

    We three Geeks, with the help of Librarian Extraordinaire Jan Rivers, conducted a brain analysis on ourselves.
    How, you may wonder, do three seemingly normal, non-medically trained legalists do self-brain analysis?
    With a little help from technology, of course!
    Jan pointed us to a little online test at the Art Institute of Vancouver that runs a Right Brain versus Left Brain Creativity Test.
    You would think that we three Geeks would be logical, linear and, well, geeky? Ah, contraire, my dear readers!
    And the results are:
    @gnawledge: 45% Left-Brained and 55% Right-Brained
    @glambert: 41% Left-Brained and 59% Right-Brained
    @lihsa: 46% Left-Brained and 54% Right-Brained
    Perhaps that explains Toby’s stellar stage presence, Greg’s rocker ambitions and my penchant for poetry? Perhaps the better name for us would be the 3 Gleeks?
    Or to put it another way, what do you get when you hook up three square geeks?
    Why Geeks Cubed, of course–Geeks to the Third Power rule this house!