I had some fun over at the SLA Future Ready 365 blog this weekend when my post “Re-embracing the “Shush”–Can the Library be a Quiet Place in the Age of Social?” went up on Sunday. There is a lot of talk about how the library should be a place for social gathering, sharing ideas, and being a place similar to a Barnes & Noble or a Starbucks. I thought I’d take the other extreme and suggest that instead of pretending to be a business (something we are not), why not re-embrace what we traditionally think of when we think of libraries – a quite place to go to study, research and get things done.

The idea came from the following three things that I’ve recently read, watched and prepared:

  1. Ark Group’s February 2011 conference on Best Practices & Management Strategies for Law Firm Library & Information Service Centers – At this meeting, I will be co-presenting with WilmerHale’s Library Director, Matthew J. Todd, on the issue of reconsidering the physical space of a law firm library from a “Social Engineering” perspective. In other words, using the physical library as conduit for actually talking and sharing ideas with your peers in real face-to-face interactions.
  2. Jason Fried’s TEDx Talk on Why work doesn’t happen at work – The e-Discovery manager in my office sent this video to me a couple weeks ago and found it interesting the amount of time, money and effort that law firms spend on work space, only to find out that real work may be going on elsewhere.
  3. The University of Arizona’s law library got some interesting press in the student paper saying that the law library refuses undergraduates. It seems that one of the best kept secrets at the University of Arizona is that if you want a place where you can study and actually get something done without interruption, the law library is the place to go. 
If you think that the library is a place to get work accomplished, then instead of running away from the stereotypical ideas of what a library is, perhaps we should re-embrace those ideas rather than attempt to be some type of quasi-bookstore, coffee shop, or social gathering place, and return to being a place where you go to obtain information and work in a quiet atmosphere. 
Go over and check out the SLA Future Ready 365 blog, where you’ll find my post, and daily updates from other librarians that work in specialized fields. Perhaps you’ll even be motivated to contribute your own post.

As part of a series on law firm profitability, I explored reducing the number of hours it takes to deliver a legal service. In Part 2 of this section, I explore the concept of reducing the cost of the time involved in delivering the same service. Per a prior post in the series, I suggest three different ways this might be accomplished, “a) paying people less, b) giving people less resources to do their jobs, or c) pushing work to lower cost labor sources (a.k.a. leverage).”
Part 2 – Paying Less Per Hour
Or … Paying People Less
The first option for this topic could also be called hiring people who cost less. This approach suggests a different staffing model; hiring lower paid lawyers, not necessarily on the partnership track. Call them staff lawyers, counsel or whatever makes sense; these lawyers will be technician, work-horses. They can have high expertise, but no expectation to bill 2000 hours a year or bring in work. Another option is out-sourced lawyers, either local contract types or even off-shore lawyers. The overall concept is having a broader range of lawyers, with an equally broad range of hourly costs to meet various needs.
Next up – theoretically, law firms could pay associates less, or at least wait until they demonstrate value before over-paying them. As noted on a prior post, 1 and 2 year associates are not generally profitable, since their cost is greater than the revenue they generate. An overall problem with associates and other non-partner lawyers is that their billing rates tend to be more a function of their comp and not their value. In any event, in the short to mid-term, it appears highly unlikely firms will change their approach for compensating associates.
Give People Less Resources to Do Their Jobs
Over the last two years, too many firms have taken this approach too far. People without the right and best tools take longer to get their jobs done. So even though this idea may sound appealing to law firm partners, the results are counter-productive.
Push Work to Lower Cost Sources (a.k.a. leverage)
This concept has the most potential for lowering the cost per hour of legal work, since it can utilize existing resources and have an immediate, measurable impact on the cost. The big problem is that this behavior runs counter to what compensation systems reward. Current compensation systems reward the hoarding of hours, such that work tends to be pushed to its highest cost source, which means paralegals are typically the first ones to know when the workload has gone down at a firm. This may have been profitable behavior in a cost-plus world, however, in a margin world it … lowers the margin.
Putting a finer point to this point, below is an analysis of hourly costs at various levels of leverage. I am using a leverage of ‘2 to 1’ as a basis, since that is a relatively typical matter leverage. ‘2 to 1’ leverage is defined as 2 non-partner hours to every 1 partner hour worked on a matter. I’m also using $100 as the baseline cost per hour to simplify the math. These metrics are taken from industry standards. Of course the numbers will vary with different firms and practices. This is just intended to give an average example of the impact of leverage.
This graph is a nice demonstration of the power of leverage on profitability. By moving just 8% of the work from partners to non-partners (going from ‘2 to 1’ to ‘3 to 1’), partner income will rise 8% ($14 on the graph). If you make a bigger shift of 24% (going from ‘2 to 1’ to ‘10 to 1’), profits go up 26% ($43). These profit margins were calculated using a rule of three approach.
Being able to increase profits by 8% with virtually no investment is unheard of in most business environments. This makes a strong case for law firms to improve their leverage on all types of matters.
On one level this might appear to be turning back the clock to the days of the “pyramid of leverage.” However, that is not what I am suggesting. The pyramid was an unsustainable scheme meant to drive up partner incomes by continually adding to the base of the pyramid. Instead, this approach is about having workers do the work and getting partners to act like owners. I’m guessing that the partners at Big Four Accounting firms don’t actually do audit work. Whereas senior partners at BigLaw still conduct run-of-the-mill depositions. This behavior needs to change.
Bottom-line
Better leverage, non-partner track attorneys, LPM, process improvement: there are a number of well-defined paths firms can take for reducing the cost of delivering legal services in order to remain price competitive and maintain profit margins. Some of them are very cheap, if not free. The big hurdle is getting firms to make these investments of time and money. In a industry based on precedence thinking, embracing this change is no small challenge.
My 2 cents: Any firm that wants to head down this path should shift its internal economic dialogue away from billable hours to profitability. That one thing will initiate the conversations about reducing the cost of services, embracing process innovation, and ultimately, improving the value of client services.

As I was sitting down for my Saturday morning coffee and news roundup, I came across a story from the Muskogee Phoenix that told the tale of trailer parks, sewer lines, town ordinances, and law libraries. What more could you want in a news story? Reporter Keith Purtell’s report titled “Mobile disagreement: Okay resident says city officials are treating her unfairly,” covers the dispute between the town officials of Okay, Oklahoma and mobile home park owner, Melisa Robinson.

Many of us talk about the difficulty of the public finding Federal or State statutes in order to know and understand the laws that govern them… well, as difficult as those laws are to find, it seems that the local laws may even be harder to find. Just take a look at this part of the story:

During the course of the dispute, Robinson said she discovered Okay has not published their ordinances or placed a copy in the Wagoner County law library, which she says is required by state law. Robinson said she checked at the county courthouse three times.
Okay Vice Mayor Deborah Morrow said that law may not apply to Okay.
“It’s also a matter of public record in the general sense. We’re not a city, we’re a town, and there are some differences in rules, and that would just have to do more with the laws in such regards,” Morrow said, noting the town does what it has to do to obey laws. 

I’m sure that most of the citizens of Okay, Oklahoma also do what they have to do to obey the laws, too. However, if there’s no record of what those laws are, how can they be enforced?

Just where are the ordinances of Okay, Oklahoma? According to Janet Fielding, secretary/bailiff for Wagoner County District Judge Darrell Shepherd (and I’m assuming the de facto law library clerk), she has a copy of the 1985 Okay ordinances in her office. As for the set that is supposed to be in the law library? Probably stolen.

If you ever saw that impressive video of how Google Wave worked when it was released, you might remember that it “looked” amazing. Everything about Wave after that release, however, left a little to be desired… so much so, that it was finally abandoned (actually split into pieces) and labeled a (marketing) failure.

Now, I could be wrong here, but I think I just watched something that looks very “Wave-like” in the presentation. At TechCrunch yesterday, there was a video of what a few animators did with Google Docs’ Presentation app. I’m a big-time user of Google Docs, and love using the presentation app for collaborative work and actual presentations. So when I saw this video of what could be done to animate the presentation, I was seriously impressed. Unfortunately, when I found the actual presentation, and tried to run it the way it (at least looked like it) was done in the video… I was reminded of the false-hopes that the hype surrounding Google Wave gave us. The short 1 1/2 minute video presentation took over 20 minutes to actually run (and that was after I waited for all of the slides to download… and I tested it multiple times, only to get the same slow results.)

I have a joke I like to tell about the difference between “theory” and “reality” that kind of matches this situation… when you see me at a conference, buy me a beer, and I’ll tell you the joke.

To be fair, I did see in the comments that in order to get the presentation to run the way that it shows in the video, you can click on the “next” button in Google Docs at a rate of 7 times per second and replicate what was done in the video. I got through about 10 seconds of that before my hand gave out.

Take a look for yourself and see what 1:30 of what was presented, versus 1:30 of what I could replicate. You’ll see that it doesn’t exactly match the hype.

Here is what I was able to view in that same amount of time. 

Doesn’t quite match up to the hype.

As Megan Wiseman tells us, we all  make personal goals where we want to lose weight, workout more and be better people – but what kind of New Year’s Resolutions can we make for our professions? That is the subject of this week’s Elephant Post Question. Enjoy the contributions, and let us know if you have any New Year’s Resolutions that you’ve made!

Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of this post to see next week’s Elephant Post question… one with “Heroic” stature.

Law Librarian Perspective
Megan Wiseman
Popular New Year’s Resolutions…

I admit that I researched popular resolutions before coming up with my answer.  As a law librarian I had to, of course, vet the source.  Here’s Usa.gov’s list.

So I say we go with the trendy answers this year:

Get a Better Education:  One of the core values of librarianship promoted by the ALA is “”education and lifelong learning”” – we should embrace that.

Get fit:  Weed those collections!

Lose weight:  Technology is changing so fast that perhaps it is time to lose some of the weight and embrace the e-trend in publishing.  (Still waiting for Santa to being me an iPad though, hint hint)  🙂

Take a trip:  Member of a professional organization?  Plan on attending a local meeting even if you’re not able to make it to a national conference.

Volunteer to help others:  When I was fresh out of school and looking for a job, I volunteered at a public library.  One of my best moves yet.  Or, if you’re set for life professionally, perhaps consider bringing in a practicum student – be a mentor.

Manage stress: You’re on your own for this one… but if you’re reading the 3 Geeks Blog, you’re well on your way to recovery…

Happy New Year, all!!

Knowledge Management Perspective
Sean Luman
Year of the cloud??  maybe

Am I a late adopter if I haven’t yet used the cloud to: …create a document? …share pictures? …post a blog??  2011 would have to be the year I leverage Google Apps and/or other web collaboration tools to a greater extent.

Now that I’ve succumbed to peer pressure and bought an iPad, it’d be nice to take that next big step and become completely untethered from any specific physical location to be electronically productive.

Law Librarian Perspective
Sarah Glassmeyer
Welcome To My Early Mid-Life Crisis

Here’s the thing, Gentle Reader…I have no plans or goals for 2011.

I’m now entering my fifth year of professional employment as a librarian. I don’t want to say that the bloom has come off the rose, because I still love my job and my profession. It’s just that after five years of searching and working hard and struggling, I finally landed in a job and location that I love (Valpo, Indiana), have figured out what I’m passionate about professionally (OA and free law and emerging tech) and I’ve pretty much hit all of the professional goals that I wanted to hit (I present and write, served on national committees, have no interest in running for office…)

So now what? Just keep on keeping on? I actually found myself considering having a baby, but fortunately I remembered that I don’t like children before I started looking for a turkey baster.   I guess the one benefit to this profession is that the landscape is ever changing and so something new will come along and I’ll have something to work towards.  Until then, my resolution is to enjoy my day to day.

Law Librarian/Knowledge Management Perspective
Greg Lambert
Focus On Those Willing To Make Generate & Share Ideas

This is the year that I give up on those unwilling to see that we are living in the 21st Century, and that 20th (or even 19th) Century ideas should no longer be blindly followed. I will focus my energy on those in my profession that are able to generate ideas, and are willing to share them with others. There is a hunger for information, knowledge, intelligence, and analysis that Library/KM/CI/BizDev/Information Professionals can satisfy, and if you do not believe that to be true, then I have no time for you this year. If you’re one of those who are willing to generate and share ideas on how to feed that hunger, then I want to be your ally in 2011.

AFA Perspective
Toby Brown
Focus on the Client

My real clients are the lawyers in my firm.  This year I want to increase my focus on serving them.  It’s too easy to view the firm’s clients as a proper focus, when in reality, the client I serve sits down the hall from me.

So – I resolve to spend more of my time and resources in 2011 helping my clients understand AFAs and how they can positively impact their practices and the firm’s future.  This will mean more time in front of them and on the phone with them.  It will mean more and better internal communications about AFAs and building out more complete AFA resources for them to use.

If I want them to succeed, I’ll really need to practice what I preach.

Here’s to a killer 2011!

Legal Marketing Perspective
Sophia Lisa Salazar
Publish or Perish

Publish more.

I write a lot. I mean, I write everyday. But most of it is squirreled away and never shared: essays, short stories, how-to’s, op-eds, poetry.

I am going to try different vehicles outside of blogs and put my big toe in the pool of hard print.

So this year I have decided it is time: either publish or perish!

Knowledge Management Perspective
Ayelette Robinson
Make a Difference… Thoughtfully

KM is just beginning to get noticed by legal practitioners, and we need to keep that momentum going. But we need to do it carefully and thoughtfully. Making changes in systems and processes is meaningless if it’s not for the better, and self-destructive if it’s for the worse. We have the advantage of our reputation almost being a blank slate — attorneys don’t know what we do, so they don’t have much of an impression of us yet.

Designing a good reputation is so much easier than overturning a negative one, so let’s get it right. Let’s think about how they really practice and how they really want to practice, and not about the coolness of the tool; let’s think about how they want to develop their skills, and what they want to have time for in their day, and not about the number of features we can fit in. So let’s make a difference: let’s build new systems, upgrade existing ones, and work with legal practitioners to make their lives easier. But let’s just remember to do it… thoughtfully.

Information Technologist Perspective
Scott Preston
Embracing Social Media

I resolve to connect with more people, make new friends and learn more about leadership.  I resolve to get to know my clients better, spend more time talking about technology and attending more conferences.  I resolve to further open lines of communication within my IT organization as well as outside the Firm.  I resolve to find new ways to reduce the amount of e-mail traffic I create and consume.

I resolve to do all of this by further adopting social media.  Not just adopting it for my own benefit, but figuring out how to leverage this powerful set of tools to the benefit of my Firm.

Next Week’s Elephant Post:

Who Is Your Professional Hero? Tell Us Why.

We’ve all got our heroes…Mom, Dad, a teacher in High School are traditional ones, but how about in your profession? Who are the heroes in your profession that have changed how you look at your profession? Perhaps it isn’t even a person, but maybe some event or act from a group of people that makes you proud to call your self a professional. Share with us your perspective by going to the easy-to-fill-out Google Docs form.

It’s easy, fast and fun… you know you’ve always wanted to contribute to an Elephant Post… so just go and do it!!

Are you thinking about launching a law firm web site or redesigning your current one?Let me impart one tiny bit of wisdom that I have learned over the last 15 years in this business–wait, it’s been that long?! Oh, my. I am old …Anywhoo, back to my sage self: whether you are the designer, the project manager, the approving attorney or the outside consultant, please remember one very important thing.You are designing your law firm site for site visitors.Yes, this may seem like a no-brainer and should go without saying.But I cannot over-emphasize this point. Because there always comes a time when you are designing a site when you begin designing to please those who are approving the site rather than those who are visiting the site.Please remember, the law firm is not the client. The client is the client. Too many times I have seen law firm sites built to satisfy lawyers’ needs, ambitions and desires rather than considering what the site visitor needs.Think of it this way: what if you went on a hardware web site like Lowes or Home Depot and you were looking for latex paint. So you drill down to the paint category and there are all the paints listed in alphabetical order. Not by type, not by brand, not by size. Just in a huge list of paint numbers all jumbled together.You wouldn’t stay on that site for more than 5 seconds before you went on to the next hardware web site.Site visitors feel the same way when they go to a law firm web site and see befuddling lists, endless columns and streams of bullet points. I know it may sometimes seem easier to just please the approver but who really suffers in the end? That’s right: your business and your web traffic.So do the right thing and design it right. It is, in fact, what they are paying you to do.

Sifteo has launched what it calls “The alternative game system for truly hands-on play” with its 1.5 inch computer cubes that play off of each other, connect to your computer and detect motion. It is definitely a different approach to gaming and it will be interesting to see if it takes off. When I watched the video, four thoughts popped into my head:

  1. Is this where Expedia got the idea for those cubes in their commercials?
  2. This is what a 21st Century Rubix Cube would look like (wonder if they’ll invent a holder to make a bunch of them work as a Rubix Cube?? That would be awesome!!)
  3. How long will it be before someone calls the IT Department and asks if someone will come up and install the drivers for it?
  4. I wonder if I could hack it and make it a mini-RSS feed reader??
Now, excuse me while I see if that third cube is stuck between the cushions of the couch…

I know that the Law Librarian Blog gets plenty of traffic all on its own, but I wanted to lead as many 3 Geeks’ readers over to the LLB for an excellent post from Bryan Carson called “Time to Reinstate the FTC’s Guidelines for the Law Book Publishing Industry.” Carson lays out some of the details surrounding the 2000 repeal of the FTC’s Guidelines for the Law Book Publishing Industry (.doc), and how since the repeal, publishers (not just legal publishers) have fallen back to tactics that the Guidelines were specifically set up to prevent.

Carson points out that the “revocation was taken despite the fact that every single comment received by the public cited the necessity of these guidelines and recommended that they be continued.” He goes on to list some of the abuses that were going on in 1969 (via Raymond Taylor’s 1975 article New Protection for Law Book Users) that prompted the need for the Guidelines’ creation in 1975. See if any of these look familiar:

  • Putting new titles and new binders on old materials (particularly looseleaf items);
  • Including the same book in two different series;
  • Overpricing supplements and issuing new editions rather than supplementing;
  • Issuing misleading advertisements (particularly in terms of works designated as “new,” “revised,” or “enlarged”);
  • Using unnecessarily expensive bindings and formats;
  • Putting local names on books that are not truly local;
  • Adding remotely related books to established sets to assure their automatic sale;
  • Failing to advertise prices of major items;
  • Failing to issue supplements for books that otherwise will soon be obsolete;
  • Issuing treatises in looseleaf form; and
  • Failing to put correct printing date on republished books.
Carson calls for a couple of actions steps needed to correct these types of abuses in 2011.
  1. Reinstating the FTC Guidelines for Law Book Publishers
  2. Expanding the FTC Guidelines beyond Law Book Publishers to include other specialized fields such as the medical industry and other fields that have limited choices in their selection of necessary publications
  3. Seek antitrust exemptions for all library organizations and allow them to ban together in order to give “teeth” to their existing guidelines (which, ironically because of antitrust laws, prevents them from enforcing those guidelines through boycotts or other collaborative efforts.)
It is a provocative read, and one in which I ask that those of you that buy materials from law book publishers would step out of your comfort zone and comment upon – either here, at the LLB post, on law-lib, or at a minimum, call or email a colleague to discuss the issue and think about what needs the next steps taken in addressing this issue. Inaction does not make any problems go away.


Well, gang, it is that time of year: tax season.Yeah, I know. There is one big collective groan from those now conscious after the New Year.But let me give you a little motivational story, full of inspiration and good cheer.We are living at the foot of the apex of the computer age.We are, for all intents and purposes, looking at a time in history which mimics the great Industrial Age with leaders like Carnegie, Rockefeller and others.Now, our gazillionaires, Zuckerberg, Gates, Buffet and Crowley, are mimicking their forbearers.Zuckerberg stepped up to the Giving Pledge, an organization created by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates, promising to pass on the majority of his wealth to charity, joining George Lucas, Steve Case and others.A few days after hearing this news, I heard another story on one of my favorite radio programs: Engines of Ingenuity. Andy Boyd remarked on the “unbridled technological advancement” occurring during the mid 19th century.He asked, “Could society continue on its present course, or were fundamental changes needed?”Nineteenth century social critic Thomas Carlyle penned is response in his work, Past and Present.Yes, they could. By “denouncing their “vulturous hunger for fine wines … and gilt carriages,” they would rise to eliminate the “squalor,… hunger, rage and sooty desperation” of the working classes.I heard that one of the Foursquare co-founders also donated a substantial amount of his wealth (I can’t find the story now; so it is just fodder. But nice fodder).Seeing these young kids do this kind of thing gives me hope. Oh, yeah, I’m sure someone’s going to tell me their conspiracy theory or try slime all over my good feelings. Please. For now, keep it to yourselves. Let me enjoy myself for a moment. There are good people interested in making a better future. It inspired me to do the same in my own geeky way.So give. Give generously. Pick your favorite online charity, give money to Wikipedia or RefDesk or whatever. Heck, I don’t care who you give your money to. Just make sure that this planet keeps on spinning.After all, it could be tax deductible.

AALL is accepting nominations for new products that are valuable to library services. “New Product” is being defined as having been in the market for less than two years, or has been substantially changed during that time. So, if there’s a great product that you’ve brought into your library, you should seriously think about submitting that product for the award. Just off the top of my head, I could think of a few products out there that are worthy of submitting… the Fastcase iPad app (the iPhone app won last year)… WestlawNext… QR Code generators…or perhaps something that not many of us have heard of, but you find useful… like one of my favorite products, InfoNgen… or, perhaps you’ve seen something we’ve reviewed here at 3 Geeks??

Got any other suggestions?? Put ’em in the comments below, and then go fill out the application and submit it by January 31st!!

AALL New Product Award

Have you discovered any great new library products this past year?  If so, let us know! It is time to nominate these products for AALL’s New Product Award.

The New Product Award honors a new and innovative commercial legal information product that enhances or improves existing law library services and/or procedures. New products may include, but are not limited to, printed material, computer hardware and/or software, or other products or devices that aid or improve access to legal information, the legal research process, or procedures for technical processing of library materials. Any product that has been re-introduced in a new format or with substantial changes is also eligible. A new product is one that has been in the library-related marketplace for two years or less.

All AALL members are encouraged to think about the exciting new information products being used in their libraries and to send us their nominations for this award. Interested vendors may also self-nominate their new products.  Recipients of the New Product Award need not hold membership in AALL.  Nominations can be sent by mail to the address below or via email.

To Submit a Nomination for the 2011 Award
Nomination forms can be found on the CRIV website under the New Product Award tab or at http://www.aallnet.org/committee/criv/news/newproductform.pdf. The deadline for receipt of submissions is January 31, 2011.

Librarian Nominations
If you are a librarian nominating a product, please give as much information about the product as possible. The New Product Awards Subcommittee will contact the publisher of the product for any further information required.

Vendor/Publisher Nominations
If you are a vendor or publisher nominating a hardcopy product, please submit the form along with a sample product, if available. If you are nominating a Web-based or online product, please submit the form with all necessary contact information, including URL(s) and temporary login and password information.

For hardcopy products, brochures, and/or any other materials, we recommend that you send four copies for the New Product Award Subcommittee and the AALL Awards Committee.

Please send completed forms and documents to:

Michelle Cosby
Faculty Services Librarian
North Carolina Central University School of Law
640 Nelson Street
Durham, NC 27707
919.530.5241 (Office)
919.530.7926 (Fax)
mcosby@nccu.edu

The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2011.  

Applications are available through this link

http://www.aallnet.org/committee/criv/news/newproductform.pdf