The Official Google Blog mentioned that they are bringing one of their features out of the shadows in order to help searchers find sites that are related to those in the search result. According to the post, Google has actually:

offered a “Similar” feature on results for a while now as a way to discover new, useful sites, but it hasn’t been too visible. Since we’ve been continuously improving this feature and we think it’s really useful, we’re now going to start showing these alternative sites more prominently. Starting this week, for queries where similar sites are likely to be helpful, we’ll display a list of “Pages similar” at the bottom of the results page.

So when you do a search now, some of your results will now have a “Similar” link next to the handy “Cached” link.

The current search is then re-ran and sites with similar content are supposed to appear.  I tested it out briefly this morning and liked what I saw.
For those of us “advanced” searchers, we can manipulate what Google’s doing here to help in other ways.  Say for example that you want to find sites that are “Similar” to 3 Geeks…  simply type in this search:

related:geeklawblog.com

The resulting search will show you other blogs that have similar content to us. This type of searching can be helpful for Competitive Intelligence Analysts that find unique websites and want to see others that are like it… or are looking for competitors of a certain company.  For example, if I type in “related:dlapiper.com“, I get a listing of other BigLaw firms.  If I type in “related:westlaw.com“, I get a list of legal research websites… and so on, and so on.
This is a pretty useful option that Google is giving a second chance. If you’re wanting to find your website’s relations, then the “related:” option from Google is something you’ll want to test out.

Very interesting press release from WilmerHale yesterday announcing that this September they are opening a 187 employee “Business Service Center” in Dayton, Ohio. WilmerHale is moving existing employees from their current offices (along with some new hires) to handle the administrative support functions for the following areas:

  • Finance
  • Human Resources
  • Information Technology
  • Operations
  • Document Review and Management
  • Practice Management
The idea behind the centralization is to “provide improved efficiencies for administrative teams and the firm, and reduce significant operational expenses.” 
I did notice that other departments — Library, Knowledge Management, Marketing, Business Development to name a few– missed the cut to be included in this consolidation of administrative functions. At least they missed it this time around. It makes me think whether these departments could actually work under a centralized method that is outside any of the actual offices that house lawyers??  Quite frankly, I can see a strong argument for both sides. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of these WilmerHale departments eventually winding up in Dayton.
I do have one suggestion for WilmerHale to rethink the name they’ve given to this centralization project…  don’t be surprised if those that you’re asking to relocate, or those attorneys that have to deal with the logistics of a remote staff end up calling the “Business Service Center”, the “BS Center”.  
[Update 4/28]
According to the Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun, WilmerHale was offered a $1.46 million job creation tax credit, and there will be $1.25 in City and County “economic development grants” to support this move.
That answers the “how can they afford to move so many people” question…
The new WilmerHale Business Services Center facility is actually in Kettering and previously housed Deloitte Consulting.

After seeing and hearing too many fee discussions about discounts – a new thought clicked in my head. Clients are negotiating on discounts, not rates. The actual rates might matter with a wide a variation, but in most circumstances when clients push on law firms, it’s not on the absolute rates, but instead it’s about how big is the discount.
Upon reflection, there is a logic of sorts to this method. In-house counsel get pressure from management to cut legal fees. The simplest, most direct and seemingly logical message to bring back to management: We increased the discount by X% (which might be interpreted as – our legal fees will go down by X% this year).
The problem is – you can’t and shouldn’t make that leap of faith about savings . Even if the client/in-house lawyer keeps a close tab on hours billed (not the highest value task IMHO), then the absolute rate is what should matter – not the discount.
My suggestion to clients: If you want to maximize the return on your efforts with hourly billing, instead of talking discounts, focus your negotiations on rates.

Over lunch Greg and I were watching a new waiter be trained in how to best serve diner clients. The Mentor was giving constant feedback to the Trainee. At one point the Trainee had just walked past a table when the Mentor asked if the customers at the table needed more water. The trainee responded: “They haven’t ask for more water.”
The Mentor did his best to contain himself and very succinctly stated, “If the customer has to be the one to ask, you just lost them.” He explained that customers do not want to beg for service, they just expect it and are willing to reward it. Without this service, which the Mentor described as “reading their minds,” the customer will not be coming back.
Lesson: If your clients have to ask you for AFAs, you have already lost them. Or at a minimum you may be well down the road to losing them.

A memo (see snippet below) was sent out to all associates at one national firm last week mandating any associate that “utilizes or intends to utilize Westlaw” to attend a training session to learn the firm’s “Best Practices”. I’m actually glad to see that a firm has stepped up and created a “Best Practices” manual for using resources like Westlaw, and is using the professional staff in the library to do the training (rather than having the Westlaw rep come in and do it for them.)

Training is “supposed” to be an ongoing event for the firm, especially on a product like Westlaw that can be one of the biggest expenses for the firm. But, let’s be honest… how many associates attend the weekly or monthly training sessions held in the library? Probably very few. What firms are left with then are self-taught associates that probably do not understand the difference between an in-contract search versus an out-of-contract search… or how cost recovery even works. I’m sure many of us have heard someone ask “it’s all in our Westlaw contract, right? Therefore it doesn’t cost the firm for me to use it, right?” And then watch their eyes glaze over when you explain what each search costs the firm, and how the firm eats the costs of their searches that are not billable to a client.
Training is one of the areas that has been hardest hit in the library, especially after the Great Recession put the squeeze on firms. When you basically turn associates loose on expensive resources like Westlaw or Lexis without giving them the proper training, then you’re asking for trouble. But like most things in a law firm, the problem has to explode before anyone will take it seriously. Creating “Best Practices” document (it should be written down, you know!!), is a great start. However, this problem of poorly trained associates didn’t happen overnight, and it won’t be solved over a one-hour lunch program either.
I’m hoping that the associates walk away from this lunch training with a better understanding of how the firm’s contract with Westlaw works, how the client is billed (or not billed) for the work, what additional costs can be incurred through poor researching techniques, and the email and phone numbers of the folks in the library to contact the next time they have questions on how to use Westlaw properly.

Just to prove that Thomson Reuters isn’t alone in its quest to gobble up the legal publishing market, I thought that I’d put together a list of Reed Elsevier mergers (LexisNexis’ Parent Corp.)  Again, the mergers are uploaded to a Google Docs spreadsheet for anyone to download and add play with in your own spreadsheets.  Of course, I wouldn’t have thought to pull this together if it weren’t for Sarah Glassmeyer’s inspiration.  Kudos also to David Curle for his revenue perspective of legal publishing mergers.

If you’ve ever wondered if there is a program out there that can automate some of the processes you need to do through a web browser, then iMacros from iOpus is the plug-in you need. Believe it or not, I used to program web browser macros using the Visual Basic for Applications program in Microsoft Word. It was time consuming and a pain to program, but a few hours of setting up a macro saved me days of time when I had to do data entry of thousands of records that had to be type in by hand, one at a time, through a web browser. Fortunately, I don’t have to remember Visual Basic commands like “Dim htm As IHTMLDocument2” or “TextBox1.Text = WebBrowser1.LocationURL”.  Now I can use the iMacros plug-in to set up the macro for me.

So you may be thinking of why you might need to have a macro plug-in for your web browser. Let me give you a couple of examples.

  1. Those darn forms that have 15 text box fields (14 of which are generic, but still need to be filled in) and only one of them that is unique. Think of a UPS form, a new matter opening form, an InterLibrary Loan form, or a research request form that you have to fill out multiple times. Instead of typing in your name, address, blah, blah, blah… you can record a macro using iMacros (right in your browser), and then have it automate all those repetitive steps for you.  
  2. Those darn websites that you need to run a search in everyday because they don’t have an ‘alert’ feature that would do it for you. This works especially well for those databases that you access through your public library. Instead of having to re-run the same search manually, set up the iMacros to go to the sight, log you in, go to the right database, run the search and then either copy or email you the results.

The iMacros plug-in is available for IE, FireFox, and now for Chrome (my favorite!!). There is also a stand alone version that does much more complex web macros, like update from Excel or Access tables (free 30-day eval, then $49.00 – $499.00 depending upon version). There is even enterprise versions that start at $699.00 and goes up to $4999.00.

iMacros are fun to play with and create, but really can save you a lot of time on certain projects if you set them up right. Go take a look at some of the demos to see some of the features that iMacros offers.

Hats off to Sarah Glassmeyer for graphing out the shrinking legal publisher market in a way that really shows how much consolidation has been going on over the past 30+ years (see the full graph).  Glassmeyer lists out the three big publishers (Thomson Reuters, Reed Elsevier, and Wolters Kluwer) and show how much of the market that these big players have gobbled up.

The list is primarily showing the actual print publishers like Banks-Baldwin (which was shut down by Thomson Reuters last week.)  I thought I’d have a little fun and add in some of the other legal products that have also been gobbled up. It was a heck of a project, so I just did the Thomson Reuters mergers and put it out on a Google Docs page so that anyone can copy and paste it into their own spreadsheets if they want.  [note: you’ll need to do some re-formatting when you put it into your own spreadsheet.]

I’m sure that I missed many of the mergers that have taken place, but it gives you a visual on how much the market is shrinking under a few umbrellas. On the other hand, there are still a lot of upstarts out there that are entering the market all the time, so maybe that will help balance things out in the end.
I hope that someone (or a crowd of people… hint, hint) will take the time to make a Reed Elsevier and Wolters Kluwer spreadsheet and share it with the rest of us. 

Let’s assume for a moment that Legal Project Management (LPM) exists and we have an LPMer ready to go. Now let’s assume we have just acquired an Alternative Fee Arrangement (AFA) matter on a fixed fee. So … we’re ready to go?
Hold on there scooter. Not so fast.
Although the LPMer is the right tool, we haven’t given them enough information about the work yet to turn them loose on it. Even with a defined scope (which is typically quite vague in the legal world), the LPMer needs a bit more information before deciding how to allocate resources on the matter.
What needs to be decided is the matter legal strategy within the context of the budget. By this I mean the lawyer and client need to sit down and talk about ‘how’ these limited resources should be allocated. For instance, in an employment case should more money be spent early in the case to discourage the plaintiff and push for a quick settlement? Or should the case be drawn out leaving resources for the end of the matter when the plaintiff is desperate for a settlement check? Each option will fit a different client and circumstance. The LPMer will not know how to allocate and focus limited resources without this knowledge in hand.
This need for strategy information further highlights the growing need for lawyers to talk to clients about fees – early and often. Recognizing that lawyers generally do not like to talk about fees, in this situation they may have a higher comfort level. This puts a fee discussion in the context of legal strategy – something they LOVE to talk about.
Perhaps firms and clients should start talking about this case and fee strategy as a precursor and primer for LPM. It could serve as a middle step, where people are more comfortable. And it will provide knowledge critical to the success of our first LPMers.

[Guest Blogger Mark Gediman]

My phone is ringing off the hook these days with folks who want to do me a favor and negotiate with my vendors for me.  First, yes, I did say “my” vendors even though I know that they are here to service the needs of the firm.  I am a firm believer (no pun intended for a  change)  in looking at our vendor relations as a partnership.  It requires cooperation, negotiation and a measure of trust.  Adversarial relationships don’t work.  For example, I have a very good realtionship with an online service vendor.  I have done white papers and testimonials for products of theirs  I like and, in return, they listen to (and occasionally implement) my suggestions to improve their service and/or product.  When we have a problem with one of their products, they quickly respond with several technicians to resolve the issue.  They also provide weekly office hours in our main office.  Now, a mid-level firm not headquartered in a major metropolis cannot usually expect to receive this level of service.  But yet we do.  This approach has given us a contract we’re happy with as well as a vendor we know we can count on to go above and beyond.

Second, most of these consultants don’t know me or my firm. All firms are not the same.  The culture, habits and processes of the attorneys in my firm are unique and a “one size fits all” approach won’t work for us.  The fact that they listen to my feedback puts me in a unique position to influence the developoment of the product to meet our particular needs.

Third, I’m starting to hear from vendors that they will not deal directly with these firms.  So it seems to me likely that just using them as advisors would stand a good chance of wiping out any savings you may realize from their services.  When you couple this with the Non-Disclosure Agreements most of us are forced to sign with our vendors, it makes this situation problematic.

This is not meant to condemn these folks or deny them an opportunity to earn a living as they choose.  Some of these consultants, having worked for a particular vendor in the past, can provide unique insight into that vendor’s sales practices and processes.  Much like the former IRS agents who open tax consultancies.   Some Librarians don’t like to negotiate and this is an alternative for them to avoid the “unpleasantness” of the negotiating process.  My view is that these consultants may have some value as advisors.  However,  they can interfere with the partnership between the firm and the vendor.