If the plan was to get you to undelete an email from your “junk” folder, the marketing staff at Thomson Reuters’ ProLaw found the perfect one–two email combination to get you to do just that. Here’s what some of us received in our email boxes this morning:

First email subject line:

For a Limited Time, Get an iPod shuffle by Viewing a ProLaw Demo

Second email subject line:

Apologies from ProLaw, a Thomson Reuters Business

Seeing the second email not only made me want to go back and read the original email, it also got me emailing my friends to see if they had seen this ‘goof’ from ProLaw. Some had, some hadn’t, but guess what we’re all talking about this morning??

Now, obviously, this was just one of those SNAFU’s that happen in marketing campaigns from time to time, and it wasn’t ProLaw’s intent to send out the first email to such a wide audience only to have to send out an apology email retracting the offer. However, the fact that it wasn’t intentional doesn’t keep us from poking fun at the mistake, or pointing out that there were some unintended consequences resulting from this error that caused many of us to actually go back and read the first email.

So, for anyone that is marketing a product, and you know people are probably ignoring your emails, perhaps ‘accidentally‘ offering a free iPod in one email and then retracting the offer in a second might be a way to get some eyes back on your product. I’m not saying that it is a ‘good’ way to do it… but it does seem to be effective!!

Side note 1: Everyone I talked to about this was a little disappointed that ProLaw was apparently offering us the old iPod shuffle instead of the snazzy new version. As one geek told me “that is so three months ago!”

Side note 2: Now that I’ve re-read the emails (posted below), I’m wondering if this was more than just marketing using the wrong email list… it seems they have upgraded the SNAFU to a privacy issue rather than just a “we used the wrong mailing list” issue. hmmm…

Second email:

THE SOFTWARE FOR EVERYONE IN YOUR OFFICE
Earlier today, we mistakenly sent you an email that was not intended for you. We sincerely apologize for this error and any confusion or concern that we may have caused you. We take your privacy seriously, and we are putting in new methods to prevent this error from happening in the future.

Thank you for your understanding.

The ProLaw Team, a Thomson Reuters Business
Thomson Reuters. thomsonreuters.com

Original email:

THE SOFTWARE FOR EVERYONE IN YOUR OFFICE
Every firm looks to work more productively. And it can with ProLaw®, the only integrated software solution built from the ground up in a single database to automate the practice and manage the business of law. ProLaw puts all key functions in one place for everyone in the office. If you see a demo by 12/1/10, we’ll send you a FREE iPod shuffle®.
What makes ProLaw unique? Integration with Microsoft® Outlook®, Excel®, Word and Westlaw®, so you can coordinate cases and contacts, documents, email and calendar, docketing, records, accounting, time and billing, collections, and reporting.
View a demo and get a FREE iPod SHuffleOne of our specialists will call you soon to discuss how ProLaw can benefit your firm. Have the specialist schedule an online demo for you, and if you see it by 12/1/10, then we’ll send you a FREE iPod shuffle.
Discover how ProLaw’s “Front Office. Back Office. One Office.®” solution can boost productivity across your firm – and improve your bottom line.
While supplies last. Limit one per firm. Actual prize may differ from product shown. Prizes will ship 4-6 weeks after live online demo. Offer expires 12/1/10. In accordance with regulations, government employees are not eligible for this special offer.

Thomson Reuters. thomsonreuters.com
Ambrogi: Bloomberg Law is
a “luxury yacht only partially constructed”

There was a flurry of “breaking news” around the legal blogosphere yesterday surrounding the announcement by Bloomberg Law that former LexisNexis CEO, Lou Andreozzi has joined as its CEO, and former LexisNexis COO, Larry D. Thompson was also added as Bloomberg Law’s chief operating officer. You have to hand it to the marketing team that Bloomberg hired on this as they were smart enough to put this information in the hands of prominent legal bloggers like Bob Ambrogi, Monica Bay, and Joe Hodnicki, along with quite a few others – including an email sent to some of us here at 3 Geeks – and the news got disseminated quickly around all the social networks with great interest. [NOTE: For legal vendors launching a new product, or making a major announcement, you might want to steal a page from this play book.] Reading most of the initial blog posts, the news was seen as a positive step for Bloomberg Law.

Despite the cleverly crafted claim that former Bloomberg Law CEO Constantin Cotzias “played a critical role in shaping Bloomberg Law’s development and the introduction of the platform to over 90 percent of the top 100 U.S. law firms”, most law firms haven’t exactly been blazing a path to replace Lexis or Westlaw with Bloomberg Law. Perhaps I’m being a little nit-picky here, but getting firms to take on a ‘free trial’ of the product isn’t exactly the same as getting them to actually sign on to the product once the trial is over. In fact, the last time I watched a presentation of the Bloomberg Law product, I walked away with the impression that it was being pitched as a competitor to PACER more than a competitor to either of the Wexis products.

While I’m still in “nit-picky” mode, let me also point out that there seems to be a belief that it was a big coup for Bloomberg Law to get two big-wigs away from LexisNexis, but if you look closely, Andreozzi left LexisNexis in 2005, and Thompson in 2006. So, although they were big-wigs at LexisNexis, this wasn’t exactly a lateral move straight to Bloomberg Law. Despite the half-decade apart from Lexis, however, landing  the tag-team of Andreozzi and Thompson is a good “first-step” in getting Bloomberg Law on track.

With the Lexis Advance for Solos release coming in at $175 a month, I’m wondering how Bloomberg Law and its $450 a month pricing for a very similar product plans to compete in this smaller market? If WestlawNext is also pressing into the smaller market at under $450 a month, then I can’t see a scenario where Bloomberg Law has a chance in the small law market. Lexis Advance is supposedly launching mid and large law firm market products in 2011, and WestlawNext is pressing hard to move existing clients over to the new product (for a modest-premium, of course), so Bloomberg Law is going to have a fight on its hands in the mid to large firm markets as well.

It looks like Andreozzi and Thompson have a challenge laid out before them of bringing in a new product into the legal market at the same time that that duopoly are also launching new products. From what I’ve heard from others in the market in the past 24-hours, these two love a challenge. If that’s true, then they are going to feel a lot of ‘love’ in their new positions at Bloomberg Law.

I had a great time last Friday presenting with Barbara Fullerton from Morningstar, and Scott Riggins from Houston-based Social Mobility at the SLA Texas annual meeting held at the University of Houston. We had a great time going over some new – and some not so new – apps and mobile devices called “Pardon The ‘App’ Interruption.”

The audience got a chance to participate by holding up cards with “Like”, “Fail” or “Meh!” to show what they thought of the product we were discussing. It made for an enjoyable interaction with the audience (and caused us to run over our alloted time… no big surprise there!) I have to give some love to Google Docs for allowing the three of us to work on a presentation from three different locations (and for somehow keeping all of the formatting from becoming garbled as I went in and out of PowerPoint to G-Docs and vice-versa.)

Here’s the Google Docs version… enjoy!!


I’ve been watching a disturbing trend. More and more people are laconically letting the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter and FourSquare taking over their lives.

I admit. I am as much a victim, perhaps even more of a victim, than you are.

My excuse is that it’s my job.

But what about the rest of the world?

Have we become so used to the entertainment value of being connected to the internet that we have forsaken our right to privacy? Are we so driven by “ease-of-use” that we are willing to let the likes of eBay, Continental and Amazon into the privacy of our homes? Will we, as a nation, place so much value in our desire to be connected to one another that we are willing to forfeit what many perceive to be an inherent right?
But first a history lesson.

The right to privacy is not in the U.S. Constitution. Nor is it in the Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence.

Yep, its true.

The right of privacy didn’t make its way into our collective conscience until Justice Brandeis issued his ground-breaking dissent in the 1928 case of Olmstead v. United States. This criminal case swirled around the admissibility of a wiretapping. In a somewhat prophetic analogy, he compares the act of wiretapping to the act of tampering with someone’s mail and says, “the evil incident to invasion of the privacy of the telephone is far greater than that involved in tampering with the mails.”

You’re thinking to yourself, “well, I’ve got mail. Tons of mail. An inbox full of e-mail.”

Brandeis goes on to talk about the peril of not subjecting our government to the same rules of conduct that we expect of our citizens.

I suggest we take Brandeis’ point one step further: we should hold our corporations to these same rules of conduct.

We could be taking these companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google to task for spreading our likes and dislikes to the four corners of the winds and ads are chasing us from online store pillars to online posts.

But the real problem is those darned EULAs.

In our rush to gain access to our Gmail and one-click ordering on Amazon, we have clicked through those end-user agreements without even reading them. GASP—yes, I, a lawyer, don’t even read the fine print.

Daily, we are forfeiting our right to privacy. Incrementally, injudiciously and surreptitiously, we are handing the biggest companies in the world our personal information.

And we don’t even care.

Have we become so comfortable in this Oprah-confessing world that we have no problem baring all before God and man?

Have we decided that there is no shame in ripping off the fig leaves from Adam and Eve?

Are we comfortable letting everyone know what we think, feel and believe?

And is this such a bad thing?

I don’t know.

Maybe the right of privacy only exists in my imagination.

But then isn’t that really the crux of it? That privacy is a concept that we created in our own minds—that nothing is truly private once a thought is created, vocalized or expressed?

For I see that if we do let go of our right to privacy, the next right to be abandoned would be the right of creation.

Yes, the rights of intellectual property.

So with that, dear reader, is where I will leave you. I have no answers. Only my muddling mulling.

And, so at least for today, I would tell Virginia, “yes, there is a right to privacy.”

Photo by woodleywonderworks

I reviewed Fulbright’s Litigation Trends Survey Report for Alternative Fee Arrangement (AFA) findings and came up with the following analysis.
It’s clear from the Report that clients have a significant focus on reducing legal costs. It is also apparent that the focus on reducing costs will not be decreasing any time soon and is expanding in various markets. The result is a growing adoption of AFAs in the market.
AFA Highlights from the Report:
I – Who is using AFAs?
51% of those surveyed are using AFAs
Larger/Public companies are almost twice as likely to be using AFAs as small companies
(61% vs 37%)
II – Primary Reason for using AFAs:
78% said “Lower Costs”
18% said “Predictable/Fixed Costs”
Smaller companies are more cost sensitive – with 84% stating “Lower Costs”
The US Energy industry shows 83% choosing “Lower Costs” as the reason
III – Estimate of the percentage of your billings done via AFAs:
78% say that more than 10% of their billings are under AFAs
18% said that “50% or More” of billings are under AFAs
However, there are numerous regional and industry adoption variations.
IV – What types of AFAs are currently in use?
Fixed fee is #1 at 55%
In the US fixed fee use is a bit higher at 58%
In the UK – 74% report using contingency/conditional fees
Smaller companies appear to favor blended rates – 50%
The Energy sector prefers using fixed fees – 66%
V – Are the use of AFAs going up?
Only 1% expect a decrease in AFA use
37% expect their use to go up
45% of larger companies expect the use of AFAs to go up
Interestingly, the answers to the general, opened ended questions on the survey also touched on the AFA subject. These are were broader questions about the state of the industry. Two of the quotes from these answers sum up the sentiment.
“An intense drive to lower legal costs.”

“I think alternative fees will become the norm, not the exception.”
These survey results bring strong evidence that things have changed and will not be changing back. The strong consensus on cost savings and the expanding use of AFAs reflects this.
Given what I do for a living (AFAs) these findings do not surprise me. Based on what I am seeing now in the various AFA deals I handle, I expect this trend to continue into next year’s survey results.

Well, Facebook?? Do You??

If there is one thing that social media has helped amplify, it’s the fact that stupid people do stupid things, and love to tell everyone about it. Case in point – Scott Harris of Staten Island, NY.

Seems that this 31 year-old man decided that shooting a .38 caliber pistol out the second floor window of his father’s house at 4:30 AM – after a few shots of liquor – would be a great idea.  (Yes, ladies, he’s 31 and lives with his dad and apparently is available…) One of his neighbors heard the shot and dialed 911 and alerted the police that they heard a shot (the news report doesn’t verify this, but I’m assuming the shot was prefaced by Harris’ repeated yelling of “YOU TALKIN’ TO ME??“)

In the good old days (read: pre-Facebook), the police would have canvased the neighborhood, looked for shell casings, interviewed some neighbors, and may or may not have found out that Harris was their drunken shooter. However, social media (combined with a severe case of the dumba**) has made investigations easier. Harris took the time to update his Facebook status about the “good idea” he had about shooting toward the swampland out his Dad’s window (just how is this guy still on the market??) The police found the Facebook update, tracked down Harris and he confessed to being the drunken–facebook–status–updating–shooter.

Long story short… Guns, Liquor and Facebook don’t seem to mix very well — especially if you’re an idiot.

Consultants say that your job should be outsourced because of __________. Are they wrong?

The downturn in the economy has amplified the calls from management of “justifying your worth” to the firm. Many of us fear the “efficiency experts” (think “The Bobs” in the movie Office Space) coming in and suggesting that the work we do could be consolidated, downsized, outsourced, flat out eliminated. So we thought that for this week’s Elephant Post, we’d see what you’d say about justifying your worth.

We have perspectives from the Information Resources Center, the IT Help Desk, and Information Technology on the justifications they mention when the consultants come calling.

Once again, don’t forget to take a peek at next week’s Elephant Post question (it asks about your boss!!) at the bottom of this post, and send me your thoughts to share with everyone.

Information Resource Perspective

It’s Not About “Cheap Service” – It’s About Great Service That Watches the Bottom Line
Carol Bannen

The Information Resource Center staff here is made up of information specialists that not only get requests from anywhere in the firm for information but we are also proactively participating in practice group meetings to offer help and information relevant to the projects they are working on and didn’t even think to ask about.

I am not sure that outsourced library/research services would be able to offer the same proactive service that we are able to do by attending these meetings and interacting with the attorneys face to face.  In the Great Recession we have not only maintained our staffing levels but also greatly increased our billable hours.  I believe this is a direct result of our IRC Liaison program and the marketing of our services.  We offer services that go directly to the firm’s bottom line.  I don’t see any outsourcing company doing that.

HelpDesk Perspective


It’s all about value
Gene Hamilton
So, I’m the HelpDesk person that refuses to be outsourced. Not me. It’s not entirely about *money*, it’s about *value*.
In short, if I can deliver what my customers want for a comparable (or even slightly higher) dollar cost than my competitors, I’ll remain. What do my customers want in their support guy?

  1. The right answer. Provide the answer they need. Take the time to understand the business and the process so that you understand the need, not just the expressed desire du jour that comes over the phone or email.
  2. The right answer, at the right time. The first time is always the right time. If not the first time, a mutually agreed upon interval that hopefully demonstrates my knowledge of what the right answer should look like (see prior point).
  3. The right answer, at the right time, delivered by the right person. What good is it being in-house if I don’t leverage my knowledge about the personalities and conditions from an insider perspective? Being the right person means a genuine interest in others that they can recognize and appreciate.
  4. Do the decision makers know what a swell person I am? This isn’t just a schmooze maneuver. I need to make sure that important people know that I’m contributing to the bottom line by keeping things moving. I can’t expect anyone else to be clairvoyant about my contribution any more than I can be about the resolution to their problems.
Though simple, these are what I use as touchstones: Am I known to be a great person, delivering the helpful information in a timeframe that’s actionable? If those points are done well, then I’m a confident employee. If someone else does these better than I do at a similar cost to my employer, I’d better be taking lessons very quickly.
IT Perspective
Consultants say that IT jobs should be outsourced because of cost, efficiency, expertise and/or customer service.  Are they wrong?
Mac Oparakum
There is no categorical right or wrong answer to this statement. In the Information Technology (IT) community, outsourcing has a home and it doesn’t plan on moving anytime soon. Can the outsourcing express roll through the district and evict residents? Yes. I contend, however, outsourcing need not be the obnoxious neighborhood pest. It can be the friendly neighbor that mutually benefits the subdivision.
My organization redirects the Helpdesk hotline to an outsourcing service during the night shift. This fulfills a gap in one of our customer service objectives by providing human operators to answer Helpdesk calls. Before this change, our low call volumes scarcely merited the need for a night shift operator and calls to the Helpdesk would roll to voice mail.  Outsourcing provided the means of fulfilling one of our customer service objectives at a reasonable cost.
At my organization’s smaller satellite offices, we are unable to justify an IT position. Establishing a relationship with local outsourcing services extends our coverage to these offices in an efficient manner.  The time and material arrangement provides positive ROI and offsets the cost when the situation calls for staff to travel to the satellite offices.
These outsourced services examples are arguably long-term fundamental IT responsibilities. Does this mean I can someday be outsourced? Yes. However, I think the more an IT position provides value to core business needs, the less likely that position will be outsourced. I favor this adage, “If you are not an asset, you are a liability.” 
My organization is highly dependent on IT for email, document management and financial services. Will these core business needs be outsourced? Probably not. In contrast, we have less expertise and more elasticity with audio and web conferencing technologies. These services are outsourced. 
I think the recession brightens the spotlight on business values. The call for moral and ethical standards is clear in Ben Horowitz’s blog . While the blog focused on Hewlett-Packard’s dismissal of former CEO, Mark Hurd, the message of “… people working together to deliver value …” is true for all ranks of an organization. Outsourcing, after all, is still about human resources. The more a person increases his or her value, the more valuable the person, position and department become to the organization.
How’s your value proposition?
Next Week’s Elephant Post:

We’ve usually focused on the “negative” when it comes to the Elephant Posts, but next week we want to give you a chance to “talk-up” your boss or perhaps some peer that has been influential in your career. 

What is one thing that you have learned from your boss that has been transformational for you?

This question brought back memories of a job interview I had once (I didn’t get the job), but there was a moment when my potential boss said something to me that he doesn’t remember, but I never forgot. I’ll explain more next week in my contribution.
We encourage our readers to step out from the anonymity of reading 3 Geeks and contribute to next week’s Elephant Post. If you have a story about how your boss, or someone you worked for did something that transformed the way you thought about your profession, then send me an e-mail to discuss.


Fulbright’s released its annual Litigation Trends Report this morning. In its seventh year, the report has become a standard in BigLaw circles and has earned its share of kudos from companies around the country.

So what’s the big story this year?

Survey says: GCs are predicting that, despite the end of the recession, more litigation and more stringent regulations are coming.

The survey, conducted by the independent research firm of Greenwood Associates, polled over 400 GCs in the U.S. and U.K. during the 2nd quarter of 2010.

Want to read the full 57-page report? You can download it from Fulbright’s web site for the small price of entering your contact info.

Better go get it before copies run out! 😉

Note: in the interest of full disclosure, I work in Fulbright’s marketing department.

The Creative Commons announced the release of its Public Domain Mark 1.0 (PDM) yesterday in an effort to help identify works on the Internet that are free of known copyright restrictions. The aim of the PDM is to assist teachers, students, artists, writers, and that aunt of yours that always asks if it is alright to post a Van Gogh painting on her website, in knowing what works are free from copyright restrictions.

Creative Commons already has one big PDM contributor on board. Europena – Europe’s digital library, museum and archive – announced that it will work with Creative Commons on labeling works on its portal with the PDM symbol where that work is free of all known copyright restrictions. It seems to be the goal of Creative Commons to get more trusted participants to use this mark to help the public quickly know what works they can use without having to ask permission.

Hopefully, over time, more and more repositories of public domain works will adopt the PDM symbol in order to help the public understand that that specific work can be used, modified and distributed without the worry of someone or some organization coming after you later. Of course, my personal advice is that if you see this symbol on a piece of work that you use your own judgement to determine if the person or organization labeling the work with the PDM is trustworthy. If Europena or the National Archives places the mark on a piece of work – it’s most likely outside of copyright protection. However, if “Bob’s Blog” throws it up on a piece of work – you might want to verify that it really is in the Public Domain before relying completely on Bob’s opinion.

Here are the guidelines of the Public Domain Mark 1.0:

No Copyright

  • This work has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.

    You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. See Other Information below.
  • Other Information
    • The work may not be free of known copyright restrictions in all jurisdictions.
    • Persons may have other rights in or related to the work, such as patent or trademark rights, and others may have rights in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.
    • In some jurisdictions moral rights of the author may persist beyond the term of copyright. These rights may include the right to be identified as the author and the right to object to derogatory treatments.
    • Unless expressly stated otherwise, the person who identified the work makes no warranties about the work, and disclaims liability for all uses of the work, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.
    • When using or citing the work, you should not imply endorsement by the author or the person who identified the work.

I just sat down and watched this video from IBM’s Chief Scientist Jeff Jonas, and he gives us a lot of food for thought on why you should first master the concepts of accounting before you try to work on systems that attempt to make sense of data. The main thought on data, context and accumulation is that the future should bring us a system “where the data finds the data, and the relevance finds the consumer.” My favorite part comes around 4:30 where Jonas references the way Librarians index information and weaves the information together like a puzzle gets put together.

If your interested in what the future has to hold for moving “big data” into relevant information that leads to smart decisions, then this is a 17-minute video that is well worth your time to watch. Jonas covers the following questions:

  • How important is understanding big data for our future? (0:17)
  • Why are organizations failing to understand this big data? (2:20)
  • Do organizations need to transition to an API-based approach? (4:15)
  • What can companies learn from casinos? (4:50)
  • Will the big data problems encompass the web at large? (6:28)
  • How does the emergence of many edge points influence this equation? (8:19)
  • What needs to happen on the back end to enable these changes? (10:08)
  • What kind of infrastructure is required? (11:08)
  • How does the social web impact big data? (12:24)
  • Can Google evolve to keep up with big data? (13:13)
  • What is the role of people and crowd-sourcing in big data (14:52)
  • What are the challenges of the future? (16:41)