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.

Hats off to Thomson Reuters for testing out the ‘crowd’ to help them build mobile apps for their Thomson Reuters API through their “StreetApps Challenge“.  There are six “prizes” for apps builders ranging from $15K in cash to an iPad for external contestants, to “Thomson Reuters Points” and “Shown on Thomson Reuters Jumbotron in NYC” for internal TR employees.  There is a long list of official rules, but here’s the two rules that I like the best to show what TR can get in return for its $25K investment:

  • All submissions must use the Thomson Reuters API, may employ other, external data sources, and must operate on a qualified mobile device for the Blackberry, Android, iPhone, and iPad platforms.
  • Thomson Reuters and its subsidiaries will retain all Intellectual Property rights to any applications chosen to receive prizes, and may use those applications as they wish in the future.
So, for $25K they could end up with six working mobile app for four platforms, and retain all IP rights on these apps (including any money they make off of them.) Brilliant!!  This particular competition is for TR’s financial products, but if this is successful maybe they’ll start expanding to their legal products as well. One of my friends commented to me that if it is really, really successful, they can start laying off more people.
It makes me wonder if Toby and I can pony up $25 (that’s twenty-five dollars, not thousand), if we could get one of our readers to develop a mobile app for the 3 Geeks blog.  Of course, that depends upon whether Toby has $25 in his wallet right now (’cause I’m a little short.)

If you say the word “Outsourcing” to a law librarian you’ll notice a few physical reactions that take place. Watch how the hair tends to stand up on the back of our necks; how we tend to raise one eyebrow a little higher than the other; and particularly notice how both hands are clinched into tight fists while we wait to see where you’re going with this “outsourcing” idea. In other words, it tends to get an immediate negative response from most law librarians. Many of us remember the Baker & McKenzie and Pillsbury outsourcing of the 1990’s and those experiences have left many law librarians very defensive when it comes to outsourcing. However, does outsourcing of library and information services have to be a bad thing for law librarians? Perhaps not.

This morning I saw a press release from Integreon announcing that the 140+ attorney UK law firm of “Foot Anstey Engages Integreon for Library and Information Services.” After unclinching my fists, I read through the press release and began to view this as something that may potentially have more of a positive effect on the law librarian field than negative.

Foot Anstey is what we’d call a mid-sized firm with a regional practice in the UK. Firms of these size have a difficult time justifying having librarians and legal research support staff because of the overall costs. So, as a result, these firms tend to hire one person in hopes that he or she will be able to ‘do it all’. In reality, however, it tends to lead to a situation where the librarian is asked to do too much (research, filing, ordering, budgeting, etc.) and in the end, no one is happy. Now, there are exceptions to this story, and I’m sure there are super-librarians out there that can take on the role of solo librarian and fill the needs of everyone in the firm, but that’s got to be an exception and not the rule. For every super-librarian out there there is the poor secretary or file clerk or paralegal that is asked to take care of the library although he or she has no idea how to run one properly.

Therefore, for firms that fit in this category, would it be better to try to manage a library and information services department in-house, or would that money be better spent outsourced to a service like Integreon offers? If Integreon is using experienced law librarians (those with Masters in Library Science or JDs or both),  and they are giving firms like Foot Anstey an opportunity to access quality law librarian staff through the use of outsourcing, then perhaps this could be an opportunity for the law librarian community. It will be interesting to see how this outsourced library and information services project works out, and if we are seeing the beginning of a new trend in mid-sized law firms.

I finally gave in and ordered an iPad 3G this week. Although I do not have it in my hands right now (delivery scheduled for –cross my fingers– ‘late April’), I’ve already have some big plans for it and am looking forward to testing how much I can make use of it.

When I was listening to the podcast of the Law Librarian Conversations from last Friday (4/16), I heard someone (Jason Eiseman or Tom Boone) say that he enjoys his iPad, but what he really wants is something like The Daily Prophet newspaper you’ve seen in the Harry Potter films. Apparently, the iPad has some great features with newspaper-like information, but really lacks the integration of text, video and user-integrated actions that will probably be a reality some day soon. Add to this the idea of having something on a paper-like platform and you’d put a geek like me into a tech-induced coma!!

We’ve seen pieces of the technology for years… animated .gifs, flash and quicktime integrated video (like those “I’m an Apple / I’m a PC” ads that walk around the website you’re surfing), and the new HTML5 videos that are now hitting the Internet. However, we’ve still not seen anything close to The Daily Prophet.

Last fall, there was a couple of ‘video ads’ that appeared in print magazines like Entertainment Weekly. These were novel approaches to integrating multimedia into existing print materials, but probably too expensive and too clunky to go very far in that format. There is some talk about finally seeing “e-paper” video screens that would allow you to have a paper-like platform (although, let’s be honest, it will probably feel more like a stiff piece of plastic more than a piece of paper). This particular e-paper version uses the e-ink like the Amazon Kindle, which means it would be black and white rather than color. I’m actually okay with that. After all, The Daily Prophet is in black and white (although, I’ve never seen a Sunday version to see if they run the comics in color…)

I hope that someday we’ll get something close to The Daily Prophet (only more interactive and maybe in color). Until then, I’ll have to settle for what the iPad can do. I’m sure I can make do with that for now.

Following on the heels of my prior TECHSHOW post on clients being smart … another phrase I heard repeated often at the conference was that we are experiencing rapid change. Really?
Finally I heard a variation of this that rang true to me. I overheard someone say, “The Change has already happened.”
After giving this some thought, I have to whole-heartedly agree. The change has happened. There may well be further changes, but the market shift change everyone seems to be yakking about has already occurred. We’re in a buyer’s market. There’s tremendous pressure on hourly rates and on the number of hours lawyers bill – regardless of how many AFAs are in use. Clients have changed their legal spend habits. So what we’re really experiencing now is a Darwin effect. After change comes adaptation.
Two Thoughts:
1 – If you’re waiting to see what the new normal will look like. We’re there.
2 – You should focus your efforts on adapting. Following a survival theme, this means doing things differently, not the same way only smarter (again – see my “Clients are Smarter?” post).

The news that Thomson Reuters announced that they are shutting down the Banks Baldwin Company seems to have flown under the radar. Last week, Thomson Reuters’ spokesman Scott Augustin announced that it will shut down the 207 year old Banks Baldwin Company and shift the work of the 132 laid off employees to New York, Minnesota, the Phillipines and India. There were three sentences in Augustin’s statement that I want you to read and think about:

  • “After it closes, the work will be shifted to New York, Minnesota, the Phillipines and India”
  • “It’s important to note that this action is in no way is a reflection on the performance of the Cleveland office staff or the quality of their work”
  • “the [Thomson Reuters/Westlaw] merger had no bearing on the [Banks Baldwin] office’s closing”
Thomson Reuters already started the layoffs last Friday and plans six more rounds of layoffs this year and will shut the Banks Baldwin office down for good by the end of 2010.
It seems that Banks Baldwin was a victim of its own forward thinking ideas. According to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History:

Banks-Baldwin has long been an innovator in legal information product development. The company established computer databases for its publications in the early 1970s; established the first monthly session law service in 1971; published the only Approved Edition of the Ohio Administrative Code in 1977; provided access to Ohio unreported appellate cases beginning in 1981; launched new product lines for handbooks, journals, and newsletters throughout the 1980s; licensed its publications for online search and retrieval in 1985; and pioneered the development of CD-ROM products for the legal market beginning in 1988.

So, it wasn’t like Banks Baldwin was just a stodgy old print shop operation. However, like many within the US manufacturing industry, the ‘work’ those employees perform is a lot cheaper to do in India and the Phillipines, although the quality may not be as good. It makes you wonder whether there is a future for not just law books, but also whether there is a need for legal research and editing within the United States or if it can just all be outsourced to the cheapest resource?
I hope that another publisher (maybe a new upstart from the ashes of Banks Baldwin) can use the talent that is being left behind in Ohio.

You got to love a court opinion that starts out by reminding the attorneys of their responsibilities in filing petitions on appeal.  In B.J. v. State of Utah (PDF) the three-panel judges from the Utah Court of Appeals spends about 1/3rd of the opinion explaining to the attorneys that spitting out a series of citations without any facts to place those citations in context is failure to meet the requirement set by the appellate court.  Here’s the quote from the court:

As a preliminary matter, the court takes this opportunity to remind all counsel appearing in child welfare proceedings of their responsibilities to file petitions on appeal, and responses to those petitions, that comply with the requirements of rules 55(d) and 56(b) of the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure. While the court is mindful of the restrictions placed upon litigants due to the expedited appellate process in child welfare proceedings, petitions on appeal and responses to those petitions must be designed to zealously advocate the positions of the parties and to assist the court in resolving the matter. In so doing, the parties should provide the court with an adequate statement of facts that will allow the court to understand the nature and history of the case. Further, the parties should attempt to apply legal authority to the particular facts of the case. See In re B.A.P., 2006 UT 68, ¶ 12, 148 P.3d 934 (discussing the obligation to include an argument section in a petition on appeal). Legal citations unaccompanied by an application to the particular facts and issues involved in the case are rarely helpful. Ultimately, counsel should consider petitions on appeal and responses thereto to be more like briefs than docketing statements. [emphasis added]

 Hat’s off to Judges Davis, Thorne and Roth for handing out a little wisdom as well as a decision.

[note:  Thanks to Mari Ferguson Cheney for pointing this out via Twitter.]

If you ever want to see a law librarian blow his or her top, then do to them what Thomson Reuters (West Pub and Warren, Gorham & Lamont (WG&L))  is doing right now. It seems that someone at TR Legal decided that it would be a great idea to start sending out new print publication titles (specifically the new “KeyRules” titles for the state court rules series.)  For any law libraries that currently subscribe to the West’s State Court Rules series, you will be automatically sent the new volume of that series and it is up to you to either keep it and pay for it, or send it back (postage pre-paid by TR Legal).

This is an old trick of hoping that law librarians are either too busy to notice that they’ve just received unsolicited material, or that they simply give in and decide that it is too much of a hassle to open up all the boxes, reattach the return labels and have the items shipped back to West.  Just do a quick Google search on “law-lib unsolicited West” and you’ll see complaints going back to 1995 (probably earlier) complaining about this very practice. In a letter attached to WG&L’s new title Transfer Pricing Strategies, TR Legal makes it sound like they are doing me a favor by sending this $135.00 book (plus shipping and handling) to me without my being asked.  And, they make it sound like it is no big deal that they’ve burdened me (and hundreds of others) because we could just simply slap a return label and ship it back.  Here’s a copy of the letter I got from WG&L telling me how lucky I am to get this unsolicited title.

I understand that print sales have fallen off a cliff over at TR Legal, but stunts like this will only serve to make customers angry. Hopefully, AALL’s CRIV (Committee on Relations with Information Vendors) is looking into the practice and asking TR Legal to stop it.  I noticed that something like this has happened in the past where West claims that because they sent out an email alerting everyone that they were going to ship these, that makes it “okay” and not regarded as “unsolicited”.  Even if that ‘technically’ make is okay, it still smells of trickery and desperation to me.

I talked with my West publication reps about this and they are taking care of it.  So, I appreciate what Ann and Terri are doing to make this right.  I also don’t personally blame either of them for this happening, but did ask that they pass the “chewing out” that I gave them up the ladder to those that made this stupid decision.

Some recent posts on the hot and getting hotter topic of Legal Project Management (LPM) somehow reactivated some dormant college brain cells. After ‘enjoying’ 10 years of Economics I did my best to suppress those memories, but yet they still seem to pop up at the oddest times.
The concepts that came to mind were market requirements and differentiators. A market requirement is an asset or skill required to be a participant in a given market. If you’re a ditch digger, a shovel and the ability to dig would be market requirements. A differentiator might be an extra sharp shovel for digging in hard rock. In a market – a requirement gets you in; a differentiator gets you hired.
LPM, as such a new concept is an obvious differentiator – for the future. But my thought is that there is actually an immediate differentiator to consider when buying legal services. In my experience, some lawyers have innate project management skills, or they may have picked them up in a prior professional life. In any event, these lawyers know how to manage a legal matter to a budget and thus have a significant market differentiator right now.
If you’re a client, now is the time to look for these differentiated lawyers. You probably already know some, but may not have thought of them in this way:
Requirement: Excellent legal skills
Differentiator: Good project manager
As a client – recognizing and rewarding this differentiating factor may do more to reach your goal of saving on legal fees than discounts and AFAs will – especially in the short-run.