Big firm Library Director, Jean O’Grady, launched her new blog “Dewey B Strategic” yesterday, and immediately went after the inefficient processes of legal publishing vendors and says that it is time to shift those costs back to the publishers. Anyone that has ever talked with O’Grady knows that she’s not afraid to step up and point out when something doesn’t smell right. This time around she’s set her sights on some of the basic problems that law firm librarians have dealt with for years, and says that it is time to start billing these time and money wasting processes back to those vendors.

Here’s a list of a few items that O’Grady thinks need to be cleaned-up, modernized, or eliminated:

  • Loose-leaf filing
  • Billing and shipping errors
  • Bill process and coding
  • Forced bundling of print and digital content
According to O’Grady:

Publishers verbally profess their support for the value of law librarians while simultaneously enmeshing our organizations in a host of unsustainable business methods. I find special irony in noting that one major publisher has acquired an LPO business and is selling process improvement to lawyers while its print publishing operation is guilty generating some of the back office inefficiencies afflicting law firm libraries.

I think I heard a chorus of “Amens” from the law librarian pews.

I look forward to seeing more good stuff from Jean and the Dewey B Strategic blog.

[Note: This is part three of a three-part guest-series on Practice Support Lawyers (PSL) and the emergence of PSLs in the United States from our guest-blogger, Ian Nelson.]

PSLs in the US – A Way Forward
So how should US firms adapt and refine the PSL model?  The UK experience has shown that large numbers of PSLs are not the answer.  A team that is too small but expected to create everything inhouse does not have the bandwidth to make a meaningful impact.

The PSL role should be less about creating standard, or generic, resources, and more about focusing on firm-specific materials and expertise.  The ideal situation is for firms to outsource the standard materials, for PSLs to focus on firm-specific materials and expertise and for technology to provide the most efficient way to search for and categorize the content.

Of course, many firms have stories of trying to create standard resources.  However, most partner feedback I’ve heard is that these projects fall apart when deals heat up and it is difficult to get senior lawyers to dedicate the necessary time.  Without a sufficient number of professionals dedicated to this on a daily basis, the reality is that it won’t get done.

The ideal PSLs are senior attorneys who are known and respected by their practice group that act as knowledge brokers and thought leaders.  The attorneys have someone to whom they can download their deal knowledge and the PSLs are able to recognize what’s worth recycling back around to the group. The PSLs can also identify the best memos their group is preparing and turn these into enduring products for the group.  Ultimately, the PSLs sit at the heart of the group they support.

Summary
The PSL role is growing in importance in the US as the old way of doing things is gone forever.  To maximize the success and efficiency of the PSL, US firms should take a close look at the UK model and how it developed to apply those lessons from the word go.

We’ve all probably sat through those “60 Apps in 60 Minutes” programs at a conference and watched as a bevy of applications flew past us on the screen. Those are cool, but what how many of those do we actually use when we get back to our office? So, we’ve asked you to share with us any apps you use for work and why it helps you do your job, and you didn’t disappoint!

We have suggestions for Blackberry (which is probably still the “standard” mobile tech for lawyers these days, iPhone, iPad, and Androids. So, get your mobile devices ready for some new apps to try out and let us know if we missed a good one or two.

Next week’s Elephant Post question is at the bottom of this post, so make sure you take a look and share your perspective with us.

Lawyer Perspective
Dropbox for Blackberry plus Docs to Go

I use this so that I can sync documents that I may need to look at on the road.  Documents to go gives a more readable format to many of these documents.  While the BB screen is still small, as a solo, I can’t be totally out of touch when out of the office so the combination of Dropbox and Documents to Go is great.

Lawyer Perspective
Twitter’s App

Twitter lets me keep up with science websites.  Since I can no longer devote the time scouring journals, this is a great way to stay somewhat informed and access the articles I am specifically interested.

CCO Perspective
Email

Scoop of chocolate, Scoop of vanilla. Email is still the most important mobile app.
The bulk of business communication runs through email. If you can’t get email on your mobile device, you’re not leaving the office. It’s why blackberries are still so prevalent. They have a great email app.

Online Marketing Perspective
AT&T Code Scanner

Well, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t use all the usual suspects but I thought I would mention my latest favoritest: AT&T Code Scanner.
Used to read QR and datamatrix codes and 1D bar codes found in print publications, it links me straight to the related web site.
Totally cool, I have to credit Mr. Robert Downey, Jr. and Esquire magazine for turning me on to this coolest of the cool features. See my post “Are You Ready to Augment Your Reality?”

Doctoral Candidate in Legal Informatics Perspective
Omnifocus

The Omnifocus app allows me to keep track of my tasks and sort them according to teaching, researching, writing reports, supervising thesis, blogging, etc. By using different views or perspectives, I can present the task according to my whereabouts and deadlines, so I am not constantly overwhelmed by the amount of to-do’s.
In addition, I can sync all tasks between my iPhone, iPad, iMac and MacBook which allows me to access them anytime and anywhere.

KM Attorney Perspective
Mindo

Mindo is an iPad version of common mind-mapping tools.  A consultant on one of my projects started mind-mapping a conversation we were having one day and I was shocked at how useful it was to see our thoughts being displayed as inter-connected nodes on a screen and moreso how often I refered back to the map in the coming days. Since then we have instituted mind-mapping as part of standard project planning process.
Mindo is great because it mimics most of what the desktop applications do, but of course, is mobile. Ideas and concepts can be color-coded, shaped or linked across the map.  Whole sections can be relocated and bring their related concepts along with them. As ideas come to me on my commute, waiting for a flight, or late at night I can jot them down and then map out how certain things are related to each other, where dependencies lie or missing pieces need to be filled in. Mindo can then output your map as an image, a pdf or in the common mindmap file forms used by the much more expensive desktop solutions. It is Dropbox and email friendly from within the App. All this for $7.

Information Pro Perspective
Chromemarks Lite
David Whelan

Chromemarks is an Android app that synchronizes my Google Bookmarks to my phone.  Since I use Chrome on multiple computers, I can keep my bookmarks sync’d up between browsers on Google Bookmarks.  Chromemarks extends that so when I’m away from my PCs, I can still quickly get to bookmarked information.

Knowledge Management Perspective
TripCase

TripCase is a great (and free!) travel app – it keeps your travel itinerary in one place; automatically tracks your flights and sends you alerts; updates your gate and baggage carousel information automatically; when you input a hotel it automatically pulls in the contact information, check in & check out times, and other key info; provides weather, maps, and directions; allows you to enter information for flights, hotels, car rentals, activities, meetings, restaurants, and more; and allows you to send copies of your full itinerary to others. I’ve noticed a few limitations (can’t remember what those are right now), but I find the UI very simple and appealing, and most importantly — I’ve found it to be more up-to-date and accurate with flight delays and gate information than the airlines’ websites or even announcements at the airport!

IT Perspective
iThoughtsHD

The coolest app I use for work is called iThoughtsHD which is basically MindMap for iPad.   iThoughtsHD is a very powerful tool for getting ideas out of your head and onto “”virtual paper””.  MindMapping is great way to  brainstorm and we use all the time to flush out ideas.  The iPad version is simple to use and very effective.  You even have the ability to share your maps via DropBox, email, wifi, mobileme, etc.

Lawyer Perspective
Twitter for Blackberry

I use Twitter for Blackberry to keep up with my tweets while on the go.  It has helped me network for our firm, get media coverage and exposure for our cases and legal issues we are experts on, and has helped me start to promote my own business Stacey E. Burke, PC (site to come).

Next Week’s Elephant Post

What Legal News Resources do you read to keep up with industry news that affects your profession?

I have the wonderful job of researching dozens (maybe hundreds?) of different legal rags everyday. There are definitely some good legal news resources out there, and we thought we’d let you share a few of your favorites with us. For example, I enjoy the Osmosys Legal Industry Monitor for generic legal news (plus it is FREE!!) So, let us know what it is that you read when you sit down at your desk each morning. We try to make this easy by embedding the form to fill out, but of course, you can email me your answer, or DM it to me in a 140 characters of less. (really, just fill out the form below and make it easy on  me!!) If you need to see the form in another browser window, or see what others have answer, then you can click the links below, but really, just  fill out the stinkin’ form!!

Yesterday, I was skimming through my RSS reader and came across the post from Thomson Reuters’ Legal Current blog entitled “The Game” stuns attendees at legal marketing awards program. The more I read and watched, the more my mind was blown. The folks at Legal Current do a great job of describing, in detail, what the Dutch Law Firm of Houthoff Buruma, along with Ranj Serious Games, are doing in “The Game”, but basically, it is a way to test the mental agility of the players when confronted with a complex international legal issue. Houthoff Buruma even brings in some of its client’s in-house counsel to compete against its associates in a friendly battle of wits.

“The Game” was awarded the Excellence in Legal Marketing Award by Thomson-Reuters and Hubbard One in co-operation with the Hildebrand Institute, but is seen as recruiting and training tool as much as it is seen as a marketing tool. Gretchen De Sutter, at Legal Current, gives some pretty high praise to Houthoff Buruma when she says, “Firms in the US are in general ahead of European law firms when it comes to marketing approach. It’s nice to hear the enthusiastic jury report of how they visualize that “The Game” should even be applied to Law Schools.”

Here’s the video that describes “The Game,” it is well worth a watch to see how the concept of interactive training can enhance the ability to train and test attorneys (although you don’t have to be an attorney to play it), and the possibilities that are out there to test potential recruits on how quickly they can think on their feet.

[Note: This is part two of a three-part guest-series on Practice Support Lawyers (PSL) and the emergence of PSLs in the United States from our guest-blogger, Ian Nelson.]

PSLs in the UK – A Brief History
The PSL role first appeared in the largest UK firms in the early 1990s. These firms gradually built large teams of PSLs to support their various practice areas. Their role was generally to develop standard documents for their particular group, keep the practicing attorneys up to date with key developments and produce practice guides on core areas of the law. The PSL gradually became a feature of smaller firms that came to see the business logic of a team of non-fee-earning attorneys whose job was to make the frontline attorneys as efficient as possible.

The tighter economy in 2008 led firms to look closely at all their support departments, including their PSLs. PSLs were laid off in the same way firms reduced their frontline lawyers and other staff. Some firms were more creative and decided to repurpose their PSLs so they were doing more marketing and business development work.

Therefore, most firms started to, and still do, outsource the creation and maintenance of much of the content (or “know-how”) creation and maintenance to third parties.  (Full disclosure: The company I work for, Practical Law Company, is a leading provider of this know-how in London and the UK.)  This freed up the PSLs to focus on firm and client specific work and the attorneys ended up having more and better resources than before this work was outsourced.  It made little sense for every firm in town to dedicate expensive employee time to creating essentially the same exact resources.

Technology certainly plays an important role in the UK as well.  Most firms have search platforms (like Recommind) that pull up completed deal documents, the PSL work product and the outsourced, or third party created, know-how.
What works about this system is that technology is used to provide the most efficient, comprehensive search.  All of the firm’s precedents are easily found, the PSLs are freed up for high-value projects and the attorneys still have the necessary materials and how-to resources – all of which are always up to date.

This is also a highly cost-effective system.  Instead of employing 50 PSLs, a firm can maintain a smaller, more efficient team that won’t be bogged down with materials that, while necessary for day-to-day practice, do not add to the firm’s competitive advantage.  A PSL team, coupled with a reliable provider of the supporting know-how, has been proven to provide the greatest cost efficiencies and results.

So the PSL role in the UK has survived the last economic downturn but their numbers are smaller and they are one part of a firm’s overall knowledge management strategy.

The third and final installment of this series will suggest an approach in the US to make the smartest, most efficient use of PSLs.

[Note: We’d like to welcome our guest-blogger, Ian Nelson, from Practical Law Company and a former Corporate Attorney with an AmLaw 100 firm in New York.  This is part one of a three-part guest-series on Practice Support Lawyers (PSL) and the emergence of PSLs in the United States.]
The Emerging Role of the PSL in the US
An interesting and recent development in the US legal industry is the emergence of the professional support lawyer, or PSL (some firms are referring to this as a “practice support lawyer”, “practice resource attorney” or “knowledge management lawyer”).  PSLs have been an important part of UK firms for at least 20 years and are now, thankfully, entering the US scene.  Toby dedicated a post to this topic in November 2010 and a recent online search showed at least three open PSL positions at major firms. 
In this 3-part series, I will provide some background on the role of the PSL, a look at the PSL model in the UK and a suggested approach for the US based on lessons learned from the UK.  
A Brief Explanation of the PSL
For anyone not familiar with this function, PSLs play a crucial role in supporting attorneys and firms by creating and maintaining a wide range of practical resources such as practice guides, standard documents and forms, checklists, updates on legal developments, and other materials attorneys turn to on a daily basis.  PSLs also support specific practices with business development initiatives, research and pitch materials.  This is much different than storing and retrieving old work product and completed deal documents.
PSLs ensure that the frontline attorneys are working as efficiently as possible, that there is consistency in work product and that people are not reinventing the wheel on each deal.  With a central collection of up-to-date materials, attorneys will have less need for performing random Google searches or all too familiar “Does anyone have a recent form that does X, Y, Z” email.  Firms also use materials prepared by PSLs to create practical training and professional development programs and junior lawyers have a place to turn to when given unfamiliar assignments (which is most of the time!). 
When I was a corporate associate with Kramer Levin in NY, I spent six months practicing at a UK firm, Berwin Leighton Paisner.  When I was introduced to their corporate department’s PSL team and saw what they produced for the attorneys, I was dumbstruck and realized that the US was missing a huge opportunity to work in a much smarter, more efficient way.  My passion for innovation in the delivery of legal services was born during this time in London, which is why I ended up leaving practice to help start the US office of Practical Law Company.
PSLs in the US – Why Now?
I believe that US firms are now seriously looking at this role for a few reasons.  Chief among them: 
  • Client demands for increased efficiency that resulted from the recent economic downturn;
  • Clients are simply fed up with paying for the time of junior associates that they feel aren’t adding value to their matters;
  • Firms are trying to quickly implement better training programs and develop more resources but don’t have the time; and 
  • Alternative fee arrangements are taking permanent hold in many firms and client relationships, so the need to get deals done faster and smarter directly impacts the bottom line.
Now that the US is starting to employ this model, the real opportunity firms have is to get this right from the outset and apply lessons learned from the UK. 
As Toby’s earlier post points out, the UK has largely taken a human-centric view of this work and the US approach to KM and content has been technology-centric.  I strongly agree with Toby that the answer lies in the middle.  It is unnecessary for US firms to make the degree of human investment in PSLs that UK firms make, but if the correct approach is taken from the start, I believe that US firms can maximize the investments they are making in their PSLs, both for themselves and for their clients. 
In Part 2 of this series, we will take a look at the PSL model in the UK, including a brief analysis of key lessons learned. 

Legal Project Management (LPM) is a very hot topic. Everyone (including me) is writing and talking about its potential role in helping transform the legal industry. Aside from the various debates on its value and role, out of curiosity (and need) I started asking around for sample job descriptions. This request has gone out to law firms, consultants, vendors and even good ole fashion project managers.
The result: No one has a working LPM job description to share. I have found standard project manager ones (no surprise there), I have seen “analyst” type position descriptions, but no true LPM job descriptions.
My read on this: A) they don’t exist, or B) people are unwilling to share them. If it’s “A” then that is telling about the state of LPM’s evolution – that it is still all talk and no action. If it’s “B” that would speak to people thinking this type of knowledge gives then a competitive edge.
I’m guessing it’s more likely “A” but am happy to be proved wrong.
So – if you have an LPM job description, feel free to pass it along. Or, if you have one and prefer not to share it, I would appreciate hearing about that too.

A wise man once said, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”. Today I’m introducing my own corollary to that maxim. “Sometimes it’s worth the risk of proving you’re a fool in the hope that you might learn something from the backlash.” About a month ago I accepted a Knowledge Management position at my firm. My first task? Define Knowledge Management. In the last few weeks I have read several books, many Websites, and a handful of White Papers. I have spent a great deal of time lurking on KM blogs, forums, and LinkedIn groups, and I’ve asked everyone I know how they would define KM. All the while I’ve been only too aware of the above aphorism and largely kept quiet for fear of removing that last bit of doubt. The one thing I have definitively learned is that a coherent definition for Knowledge Management is an elusive beast. So, the time has come to risk looking foolish. A few weeks ago Ayelette Robinson addressed this issue in a post here on 3 Geeks about her KM elevator speech. That was a great post. I’ve even used her elevator speech a few times since then. (Thanks, Ayelette. The check is in the mail.) Unfortunately, while “I do for my firm what Google did for the web” is descriptive enough to get the concept across to the casual inquisitor, it doesn’t help me much when I’m trying to determine what I should be doing at any given moment. Stopping to ask myself, “What would Google do in this situation?”, just doesn’t provide many relevant answers. Probably the most concise definition I’ve gotten is from one of our resident 3 Geeks, Toby Brown. (Although, I’m going to mangle it Toby, so please correct me in the comments.) He said something like, KM is making sure that people can access the knowledge they need, when and where they need it. Good, simple definition, but again, it doesn’t help me understand what I should be doing on a daily basis. So after several weeks of research, and reading and speaking to people much smarter than I, I have a good understanding of what KM is – like Justice Stewart’s famous opinion, ”I know it when I see it” – but I still don’t have a definition against which I can weigh my actions or judge my ideas. So like any good physicist I approached the problem as a thought experiment and turned it on it’s head. (And no, I am not a physicist.) Can I imagine an organization that would NOT benefit from Knowledge Management? It’s a difficult question and I think a good argument could be made that absolutely any organization could benefit from KM of some kind. Of course, it all depends on your definition of KM, so, that doesn’t get us very far. Still, I can say with a fair amount of confidence, that a very tiny company with a handful of employees probably wouldn’t derive much value from KM initiatives. So the next question is, how large can I grow my small company before it would ABSOLUTELY benefit from KM? I spent a lot of time thinking about this one. I came to the conclusion that once the organization grew to a size that their entire staff could no longer operate in a single large room, then they would definitely benefit from KM. What does a company working out of a single room have that a larger organization doesn’t? The word had been bouncing around in my head for several days, and then my friend Steven Savage mentioned it in a recent email, and then Ayelette Robinson talked about it in her latest Elephant Post. Something clicked, my weeks-long search finally culminated in a single, simple concept…Transparency. The employees of my fictitious company operating out of a single room would have no walls blocking their view. They would personally know all of their colleagues, and their skill sets, and their responsibilities. They would know when someone entered the room, generally what they wanted, and when and why they left. They would probably know all of the products that their company sold and know who all of their company’s clients were. Or at the very least, they would know where to find that information. If something important or urgent was happening on the far side of the room, those on the near side would be well aware and able to help. Spontaneous and serendipitous connections would happen regularly. Of course, the employees might all be at each other’s throats, stuck in the same room day after day, but that’s an HR problem. 😉 From a KM perspective, a single open room would be Nirvana. Unfortunately, large modern corporations and law firms can’t even fit in a metaphorical “single room”. There are a million examples of things which need to be walled off and unavailable for common consumption. The role of KM is to figure out where those walls need to be and to shore them up, making sure that everyone who needs access to the information on the other side is aware that the information exists and has the keys they need to get to that information. And then to tear down all of the extraneous walls in the company so that everyone can share who they are, how they fit in, and what exactly is going on. That is something I can weigh all of my actions against. Does this initiative increase transparency within my organization? If so, it’s probably Knowledge Management.Of course, this might be obvious, or completely wrong, in which case, at least you can all help me prove my new corollary in the comments below.

In a flurry of emails one day, one of my peers sent me a short message that said he talked to one of his junior partners at the firm blurted out that in a meeting that “Blogging is sooo 3 years ago.” After what I imagined was a serious “eye-roll reaction,” my friend tried to explain that there are many successful blogs out there that kept their content fresh, substantiative and interesting. However, my favorite reaction came from someone else on the email chain who pointed out just how dumb the overall statement was. I found it to be funny and thought I’d share it with everyone that still reads blogs.
Saying something is so “x” years ago  is so “y” years ago so dates yourself.

Why do so many people have an issues with blogs?  What if I call it a whitepaper (oh wait, that is so 25 years ago), an article (nope, that is +100 yrs ago), a stream of consciousness (too 60s), musings (too 80s).

My take on blogs (at least good ones) is that they are:

  • Informative
  • offer a unique point of view
  • thought provoking  

Just to name a few points.

So if these concepts are of no interest to you then you are so yesterday’s news.
I’d like to step off of my soapbox now, but that term is so 50s!

Well said, my friend… well said.

In this recent ABA Journal article, the co-CEO of Pangea3 is quoted as saying, “No law firm should be doing commoditized work.” The assumed intent of this statement is to ease concerns that Thomson Reuters (TR) / Pangea3 is competing with law firms (a.k.a. customers). On its face, this statement may provide some reassurance. But after thinking about, I’m not so assured.
At first blush you might agree with the statement above and conclude that Pangea3 services are “low-level” and not work lawyers “should be doing” anyway. However, this all spins on the definition of “commodity” as it relates to legal services. Having analyzed and modeled 100’s of AFA deals, my view is that almost all legal work includes some commodity aspects to it. Large complex matters contain within them commodity-level tasks. And there are some recently complex types of work that are becoming commoditized. For instance, class-action certifications may be heading in this direction. Is that the “commoditized work” Pangea3 means?
More likely Pangea3 is pointing to work like first document review or coding in discovery. Much of this work is moving off-shore and already labeled as commodity. But looking back just 4 or 5 years ago, this work was done by associates at law firms.
What appears to be the likely evolution of this model, is to start by taking on work that is currently accepted as commoditized work and then moving on to other, traditionally complex services over time.
My prediction: With the TR brand and deep pocket, clients will be much more willing to send work directly to Pangea3. This will give Pangea3 a seat at the client relationship table. Once these relationships are secured and become trusted, a broader range of services will be offered and work will flow in that direction … away from law firms. As any work approaches a commodity definition, it will shift away from law firms.
Economics tells us all products and services tend towards commodities over time. So my prediction is not very novel. What is different in this scenario is that clients will be sending work to a corporate entity and not a law firm. A new type of competitor has entered the market and its validation via the purchase by TR will accelerate its growth into traditional law firm delivered services.
Having worked for a mandatory Bar for 18+ years, I suggest not much will be said or done about this shift, even though one might argue this is the unauthorized practice of law. Historically, when competitors encroach on the legal market, lawyers and their bar associations label the work “commodity” and walk away. One example is residential title work, west of the Mississippi.
So instead of alleviating concern, I think the Pangea3 statement actually elevates it. I know who will be defining “commodity” in this situation and it won’t be the lawyers, law firms or bar associations.