According to the New York Times, Loyola Law School in Los Angeles is “tacking on 0.333 to every grade recorded in the last few years” with the goal of making “its students look more attractive in a competitive job market.” Apparently, the new grade inflation for law students is becoming all the rage across the country, and if your school isn’t doing it, the students get upset. I’ve seen a number of tweets and blog posts talking about this “phenomenon” over the past few days, and every time I see one flash by, my only thoughts are “Big-Whoopty-Freakin’-Deal!!” Last time I checked, if you raise everyone’s grades, everyone’s class ranking stays the same.

Hint to law students… if you have a B+ average and you’re in the bottom 1/3rd of your class ranking… employers know there is grade inflation. All that grade inflation doesn’t really help you, or make you look that impressive to potential employers. Everyone knows it is going on, that’s why we look at class rankings and the reputation of the school your attending. So, complain to the Dean of your school all you want to raise everyones grades from a B- to a B or a C+ to a B-, it won’t help.

Now instead of faking your way from a B+ to an A-… be proud of your grades. We here at 3 Geeks think that recruiters should hire the “C” students. Like Toby said back in February:

Harry S. Truman said “The ‘C’ students run the world.” The gist of that statement in our context is that C students are the ones with the relationship skills. For them school wasn’t about getting the best grade. Beyond learning, it was about enjoying the people you met. These C students are the ones that make business happen It’s their relationship skills that get and keep clients and make the business a success.

So quit focusing on the red herring of inflating your grades and start working on improving your overall class ranking. If you can’t improve that, then work on those skills and relationships that will make you better prepared for the transition from the academic world into the real world of the business of being a lawyer.

I sat in yesterday on an event hosted by LexisNexis on the webinar/virtual panel entitled “The Discipline and Benefits of Project Management.” The two panelist were Bruce MacEwan, Founder, Adam Smith Esq., and Tom Birsic, Partner and Litigation Practice Leader, K&L Gates, and both had a lot to say about the current state of Legal Project Management (LPM) for in-house and outside counsel. It was interesting to hear both MacEwan and Birsic discuss how LPM is basically still in its infancy and that currently there is a ‘fuzzy’ distinction between what lawyers consider case management, and what lawyers need to change in order to accomplish Legal Project Management. Subtle though it might seem on paper, MacEwan went on to say that the law firms that figure out that distinction and are the first to act and explain the value of LPM will be at a serious competitive advantage over their peer firms.

I’ll list some of my notes that I took while listening in below, but wanted to reprint the overview of the discussion first, as I think it lays out a good overview of LPM and what the panelists were focused on discussing.  Note: It was actually a video panel – vpanel – but the video was quite disappointing because it tended to freeze and make the panelists look like they were in the middle of a painful medical procedure. Apologies to Kevin, Tom and Bruce for posting this snapshot of the vpanel… but the video was pretty bad…

Overview of Panel:

Project management is nothing more than rationally supervising the process of 



  1. deploying resources 

  2. which have associated costs 

  3. against tasks 

  4. to accomplish specified objectives. 

Viewed this way, disputed matters and transactions are simply types of projects, albeit sophisticated ones. Learn more about how project management can help make alternative billing models more predictable, transparent, and effective, including:

  • Why your firm needs to focus on continually improving project management skills

  • Developing ways to more readily provide budget updates to clients

  • Ensuring that lawyers are skilled at clarifying and communicating expectations and guiding the engagement process


  • Implementing processes to review performance at the end of an assignment, or sooner, if need (“Lessons Learned”)

  • Applying the appropriate staffing model that provides the needed skills at an acceptable value.

My Notes:
Project Managers – Should it be current lawyers or should firms bring in actual project managers?
I was surprised right off the bat when Birsic mentioned that he thinks that firms that try to convert one of its existing lawyers into a Project Manager is not as effective as bringing in a “real” Project Manager. This made me wonder if this is one of those situations where this is a ‘factually correct statement’, but one that if you attempted to implement would fail due to firm culture? Kind of like the fact that cars with mid-engine, front-wheel drive chassis are the most efficient… but no one mass produces this type of model because no one buys them? 
Key to LPM is to have a process for rigorous “early case assessment”
Partners that establish procedures for creating early case assessment documents are working in the right direction for implementing LPM processes. The early case assessment document should be initiated within the first 45 days of the matter, and should be viewed as a ‘living document’ that will change over the life of the matter. This reminded me of Jeff Carr’s talk at the Texas Bar Association meeting where he said that he wouldn’t even talk with outside counsel unless they presented him with an early case assessment document that explained how the firm was going to handle this matter, and what the lawyers anticipated were going to be the overall goals and objectives for this matter over time.
Electronic Billing is one of the greatest tools of case management
MacEwan mentioned that the implementation of electronic billing is one of the best tools ever for managing cases. I’ve also heard this statement before when the issue of LPM is discussed. Why is electronic billing so important?? Most likely for two reasons. 1) It creates another logical process that shows the tasks, and the costs that those task create. 2) It is a de facto communication between the client and firm. Clients get a chance to see costs as they are created, and perhaps the ability to question those costs.
Are there trade offs between the quality of work and cost controls when it comes to LPM?
This is a question that is asked a lot when firms think about LPM. If costs are cut, doesn’t that essentially mean that quality will suffer? Birsic said that quality is not compromised when LPM strategies are used because your improving the efficiency, not reducing the quality of work performed. He did throw out the caveat of reducing quality at the Request for Proposal (RFP) stage by the client. If the client is pressing for price over quality of firm, then there might be a trade off at that point. However, Birsic specifically mentioned that LPM does not increase the overall costs for the client. If it does, then the client has either hired the wrong firm, or the wrong in-house counsel.
LPM is not stressed during the RFP stage — unless the RFP is asking for Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs)   
Birsic mentioned that he doesn’t really use LPM as a selling point for most RFPs. That changes if there is a request for AFAs, however, because the firm and client need to understand the overall process and costs of matters when deciding the fee structure on AFAs. Firms that have structured LPM processes in place are better equipped to handle AFA negotiations successfully, and to structure the metrics needed to evaluate how well the firm does in handling AFAs (did we lose money, break even, make money, make too much??) Birsic also noted that in-house counsel are very bad at these types of metrics in trying to determine how well firms have handled AFAs for them. 
LPM is here to stay… learn it, practice it, live it, or get left behind
Both MacEwan and Birsic didn’t hesitate to say that LPM is not a ‘favor of the month’ idea. LPM is here to stay and those in-house and outside counsel that understand and require/perform LPM practices will have a significant competitive advantage over those that pretend that the status quo is “good enough”. Just as with any other skill, the more you practice your LPM procedures, the better you will get at it.
Legal matters are expensive… LPM will help somewhat, but not make it cheap
MacEwan mentioned that sometimes outside counsel need to be realistic with clients when it comes to the cost of litigation or other legal issues. He mentioned that clients complain that outside counsel don’t understand the pressures that they are under to cut legal costs from the corporate hierarchy. Sometimes outside counsel need to frank with their clients and remind them that legal issues are expensive.
Case Management is not Legal Practice Management… but the differences are ‘fuzzy’
Birsic discussed the belief that most attorneys believe that they are conducting ‘case management’ on all of their matters, and that most attorneys believe that they are excellent case managers, thus do not need to do any LPM processes. MacEwan chimed in that the difference between case management and LPM is fuzzy, but that the firms that distinguish the difference, implement the processes, and act first will have a serious advantage in the marketplace.

In the recent Law Technology News Vendor Satisfaction Survey, it seems that the users of the low-cost legal research service Fastcase give it an 87.5% “Excellent Price for Value” approval rate. Compare that with the users of Westlaw (12.7% “Excellent Price for Value”) and Lexis (14.3% “Excellent Price for Value”). Granted, there were a lot more participants in the Westlaw (n=181) and Lexis (n=147) than were in the Fastcase survey (n=8), but let’s face it… most attorneys feel that they can’t use anything other than Wexis to do research. However, there is rumblings even in large law firms to take advantage of resources like Fastcase, Loislaw, Casemaker and Google Scholar in order to reduce the overall costs to the firm and the clients. Fastcase has worked very hard to break the attorney’s belief that Westlaw and Lexis are the only resources that they have at their disposal to conduct quality legal research.

Many of the librarians I’ve talked to lately say that there they are being asked more and more to train associates to use and understand the benefits of resources like Fastcase and even (or rather, especially) Google Scholar. I’m thinking this isn’t just a fad… it is a trend. We’ve mentioned before that you are stupid if you aren’t using these resources in some capacity at your firm, especially if you get these free through your state bar association!! As a law librarian you really need to get on top of these products and understand how to use them, and how to train others to use them. This is one of those situations where your skills are needed by your firm in order to help push costs down.

Congrats to Fastcase for scoring an “Excellent” rating in 7 out of 10 categories.  Here’s hoping that next year’s survey shows them catching up to the Wexis vendors in number of responses!

FASTCASE SCORES:

LEXIS SCORES:



WESTLAW SCORES:


Nick Milton is one of my favorite bloggers on the issue of Knowledge Management because he is able to succinctly lay out KM  procedures and processes in a way that even those who have been in KM for years can learn. I’ve complained about KM becoming a group that merely supports “products” and “software” more than preserving the firm’s memory, expertise and knowledge. Luckily, Nick lays out some of the specifics that those who guard the memory of the organization must remember is their responsibility:

Nick states that in KM terms, some of the specific responsibilities of the process owner are as follows:

• Coordinating, and agreeing with management, corporate standards for their specific process
• Liaising with the leader or coordinator of any community of practice which covers the process
• Announcing and rolling out new lessons, and updated process documentation
• Monitoring the development of knowledge within their specific area of expertise
• Monitoring the organizational performance in the application of the process
• Ensuring that new lessons are collected and shared from significant pieces of work
• Developing and publicising process guidance documents relating to their specific process

• Monitoring use of any relevant documentation, and acting on feedback to improve this
• Ensuring that guidance documentation is made available to all users

• Updating guidance documents, Best Practices and standards for the process as required
• Promoting peer assists and personal connections between the projects to share tacit knowledge of the process

(NOTE: I rearranged the list a little… and modified a couple of the ‘verbs’ to make for an anagram of “clammed me up!’)

The key take away that I find with this list is that KM is not only about making sure that the software involved in the process works… but that there is a triangle relationship in the process between the process owner (KM), the process service (software), and the user of the process (end-user). Nick nails it when he stresses that the owner of the process plays a key role in triangle relationship. “With no process owner, the processes fall out of date, and no longer become a reliable memory store. You end up with a sort of Corporate Alzheimers, where big holes develop in [the] long term memory of the company. We can’t afford that to happen.”

Jason Wilson over at rethinc.k is discussing the evolving world of computer interactions and the reduction of the need for a mouse-driven device and the inevitable use of touch technology. Even the old codger Joe Hodnicki buckled to the touch screen fad when he traded in his Blackberry for a Palm Pre (apparently because he became addicted to the “bubbles” game that came with the Pre.) Whenever I take my children to Fry’s electronics store, the first thing they run to is the HP Touchsmart PC so they can play a game of chess by using their fingers. Even I’ve been using touch screen interfaces more and more (iPad and Android phone). But let’s face it… how comfortable are you to use someone else’s touch screen device after seeing the oily fingerprints that blur the screen??

Now, imagine that the public terminals in your library are all touch screens…. (I’ll give you a minute to stop shuddering at that thought.)

I’ve bought a matte screen protector for my iPad and that has cut down on the ‘disgusting factor’ of the touch screen fingerprints. I have to tell you though, it was extremely difficult to get it to go on straight, and to have it not pick up every little piece of dust or lint that happened to be floating in the air. I actually gave up and took it off for a week because I couldn’t get it to go on without dust getting on the underside and causing nice little bubbles on the screen… no, Joe, not the game-type bubbles… that I had to take the drastic measures of washing the screen with soap in order to get the dust off, then apply it to the screen again. This time I only have a few bubbles on the screen… and I can live with that. Now, imagine having to put one of these protectors on a 23 inch widescreen monitor… (hint, if you do have to put one of these on, make sure that there are no patrons or children under the age of 18 around because you’re language will be R-rated.)

The touch screen era of computers is upon us… make sure you leave room beside the computer for a bottle of Purell hand sanitizer and some pop-up Windex computer screen cleaner!!

I’m probably not going to be popular with my LAW.GOV friends with this post because I’m going to play the role of Devil’s Advocate and make the argument that they leave PACER alone… at least for now. My primary reason for leaving it alone is the fact that it may be one of the best government run resources available… from any branch of government. Secondly, like it or not, it is a revenue generating resource for the federal court system. I know… I know… you’re saying that it is a “public resource” and US citizens shouldn’t have to pay for access to information that is built upon the data submitted to the courts, by those citizens. However, there are a lot of things related to the courts that we pay for — court fees, jury fees, court copy fees, etc — this is just one more, and one that most people I’ve talked to say is the most reasonable fee that the court charges.

Perhaps in a perfect world the taxes we pay would fully support the court systems, and the need for filing fees and an .08¢ per page charge for PACER wouldn’t be necessary. But the last time I checked, the courts were still underfunded and there’s been no push from Congress to increase budgets or salaries. According to Steve Schultze’s working paper, PACER fees are covering court expenses that are not related to direct costs of maintaining PACER.

By 2009, the list of programs supported by PACER fees was further expanded, and expenditures on the non‐PACER items increased. “In fiscal year 2009, the Judiciary plans to use $106.8 million in EPA collections and prior‐year carryforward to fund public access initiatives including the following:

  • Public Access Services and Applications $17.7 million;
  • Telecommunications $8.7 million;
  • EPA Equipment $1.3 million;
  • CM/ECF Development, Operations and Maintenance $33.4 million;
  • Courtroom Technology Allotments for Maintenance/Technology Refreshment $25.8 million;
  • Electronic Bankruptcy Noticing $9.7 million;
  • CM/ECF Allotments to Courts $7.5 million;
  • CM/ECF state feasibility study $1.4 million;
  • Violent Crime Control Act Notification $1.0 million; and
  • Jury Management System Public Web Page $0.2 million.
    (hat-tip to Joe Hodnicki at LLB)

Schultze has a good idea for providing bulk access to court data for free, but argues that there is no statutory reason for the fees that are generated from PACER be used in non-PACER projects, such as upgrading technology in the courthouses and courtrooms of federal courts. Perhaps these charges should have never have been tied to PACER fees… but that ship has sailed. If the PACER fees go away, do you think that anyone in Congress has the backbone to bring a bill up to fund these services? My guess is “no”. So, what do you do with these expenses? Cut them? Drop them? Up the other fees associated with filing cases in federal courts? Create a new fee that charges attorneys that practice in federal courts to make up the difference? It is an issue that is tied to the free PACER argument, and it needs to be explained right along side of the benefits of open access to Federal Dockets.

Now if you’re thinking that I’m anti-free PACER, you’d be wrong. I was part of the Oklahoma Court project that created the Oklahoma Court Information System (OCIS) that created free access to a number of Court Docket systems throughout Oklahoma (although, my piece was maintaining the OSCN database). But even the idea of creating a free access system ran into some of the same issues that have to be addressed with PACER. Legacy systems, related fee structures, and other issues created a number of stumbling blocks (logistical and political).

We all like “Free”, but we also like a stable, adequately funded court system as well. I don’t mind if PACER becomes a free resource as long as there is a stable means of replacing the revenue that will be lost to the courts. Perhaps the courts should have never become addicted to the revenue generated by PACER… and  perhaps they should have never have started funding non-PACER activities with that revenue… but that’s where we are with PACER, and those issues have to be addressed and answered before we can make PACER a free resource.


While I was at the movies waiting for Toy Story 3 to start (yes, it was awesome), I saw an ad for a children’s eReader, the iXL, which will be released by Fisher Price this July.

It was so cool I just have to tell you about it.

It was in full color, read out loud to you, let you highlight words so that they can be defined and generally just acted like an augmented reality book that I had dreamed up a few months ago on this very blog.

I love it when that happens.

The sweetest part of all? Its only $80. Too bad its just for kids books.

Just found this neat little Twitter tool: http://www.blastfollow.com/

If you have hosted or attended an event that you enjoyed and want to instantly follow the participants, just enter the hash tag (#) created for the event and hit Get Users.

Once that list has appeared, you will be able to automatically add these people to your Twitter “Following” account by entering your user ID and password.

This a great way to keep in touch with folks after an event and continue to market to them.

There seems to be universal acceptance that the business model of law firms is broken or needs to be broken (depending on your point of view). But not much has been said about the service model. True – Legal Project Management (LPM) is touted as an effective tool for bringing efficiency and effectiveness to law firms, but from what I have seen LPM is focused on the current model for providing services.
Two conversations following my post on Re-thinking Expenses lead to me a new line of thinking. My comment about “re-tooling and modifying the production process” for automakers was the genesis for this. Many conversations about law firms in the past have included the observation that a lawyer from 1980 could be dropped into today’s firm and function fairly well. They would need to learn email and on-line legal research, but the other basic functions are the same.
Imagine an auto worker in the same scenario. Now you see my point.
Law firms also need to re-think the service model. LPM will help law firms be more efficient, doing things the same basic way. LPM can squeeze out a better margin from the existing service model, but it will not be disruptive and change the approach.
As I see it LPM is critical and necessary in the short-run. But the long-run will need to see some disruptive technologies and new service models. Doing things the same way, only better, will work for a while. But the real game-changers will come when new service models emerge.

It seems that Thomson Reuters isn’t just sending legal jobs overseas, there’s a new website called “Reuters EXPOSED” that is discussing TR’s move of journalist jobs overseas, and the folks at the New York Newspaper guild aren’t happy about it. In addition, they point that TR’s CEO, Tom Glocer, is trying to cut existing pay by 10% while he made a cool $36 million in 2008.

Here’s a couple of the Union members dressed up as Glocer and divisional CEO Devin Wenig, wearing rat suits and explaining how TR took tax breaks from New York to “spruce up several of its office locations.”