Okay… stop laughing at the title.  There is a perception of law librarians as being too quite and sitting behind a reference desk waiting on someone to come us and ask a question that they can answer.  But, if you go to an SLA or AALL meeting, you’ll see a different side of law librarianship.  Librarians discussing the hot topics of the day ranging from vendor relationships to workplace rights and even social issues.  I’ve enjoyed sitting at round table discussions where law librarians have heated conversations about how they need to address the issues of staffing reductions, budget cuts, all while having to handle increased demands for the services they provide to their firms, courts, faculty or public users.  However, one firm director I know mentioned to me that law librarians tend to be preaching to the choir, but not doing much preaching to anyone else.  Her suggestion was that those in management positions in law libraries need to expand their professional circles and join at least one other, non-librarian, association in order to have an audience that they need to be preaching to.

One of the organizations that she suggested was the Association of Legal Administrators, but there are numerous organizations out there that would help expand your professional circles.  One determining factor may be to look at the professional organizations that your administrative leadership belongs to.  I happen to like ILTA because I know it is an organization that many of my fellow managers and directors belong to.  Attending these meetings, even if it is just on the local level, exposes me to other leaders in my organization, as well as peers in other firms that I would never see at a law library meeting.  There are probably dozens of other non-librarian associations that are out there that would help you expand your professional circle (feel free to add some suggestions in the comments if you have any favorites to share.)  One suggestion is to ask around at your organization to see if your organization has a blanket membership to professional organization (like mine does for ILTA… remember I’m cheap, so a free membership is something I’ll take advantage of every time!!)

These associations are in addition to your current librarian associations.  For those of you that don’t belong to any associations, or don’t contribute to the conversation of your current association… shame on you.  Remember, if you’re not involved in the conversation of the direction your profession is heading, then you can’t complain when others make those decisions for you.

I thought I’d do a follow up to last week’s post where I crowned Casemaker as the “King of State Case Law Coverage.”  There are two reasons behind the follow-up.  First, Nina Platt brought up an assumption that many people might have about state case law coverage and the idea that the vendor selected by the state’s bar association should have the most coverage.  Although you would think that would be the case, it actually turns out not to be so.  The second reason for the follow-up is that I just like playing with the maps feature in IBM’s Many Eyes program.

The first map is a listing of the main low-cost legal research providers and which one covers the most case law for each state.  The second map is a replay of the map we did a couple weeks ago on who is the official vendor for the bar association.  Since Casemaker and Fastcase are really the only big players in providing their resource through the state bar associations, a third map was created that did a head-to-head comparison of coverage between the two.

It seems that the folks at WestlawNext have created a simple two-page resource that helps us all understand the pricing of their new product.  You got to love a clearly written two-page document like this that list out twenty-four scenarios along with three footnotes listing caveats to some of the scenarios.  Don’t forget to multiply those per minute charges by 60 and let everyone at your firm know that accessing a brief will cost you  $3,300.00 an hour. So, tell them to be fast!

There are now at least two major law firms that have now launched their own iPhone Apps. Canadian law firm Torys LLP and Morrison Foerster (MoFo2Go) both have new iPhone apps that I think are great public relations tools and will get a lot of attention as early adopters of a new technology.  Apart from the great PR, however, I’m not sure if approaching the market through an iPhone app is really the best way for firms to get to their clients smart phones.  I, for one, own an Android phone… Toby and Lisa each have a BlackBerry… so; there are 3 Geeks already that are shut out from using the app.  I guess we could all cut our contracts with Verizon or Sprint and jump over to AT&T to get an iPhone, but I really don’t think any of us are going to.  Toby will also have to add a caveat to his saying of “my Blackberry can do anything your iPhone can… only slower” and now add “except access your firm’s iPhone app.”

I’ve mentioned before that iPhone Apps (and Android Apps… and Palm Apps) contribute to what is being called the “Splinternet“.  That is the fracturing of what used to be a somewhat organized way of putting information out on the web without having to write a different code for every application that accesses the information.  Firms that create iPhone (or any other smart phone ‘app’) are basically telling their clients that the firm prefers a specific technology.  What kind of message does this sent to your clients who don’t have this technology??


Q: Why not just build a mobile web page that works for all smart phones?

Jeff Richardson (iPhone J.D.) thinks that MoFo’s app is a marketing tool that has been “done right.”  I actually agree with Jeff on the fact that MoFo2Go, and even Torys iPhone apps are actually good resources for iPhone users, but at the expense of excluding everyone else.  Doug Cornelius also reviewed the MoFo2Go app and brings up the same point I’m trying to make.  Why in the world would you develop something like this and exclude a large portion of the marketplace?  Contributing to the Splinternet is going to be a massive headache sometime down the road.  But, I assume that the ‘flash’ of an iPhone app for some firms may be too hard to resist.  I think that having a great mobile web site that works on all phones is a much better way to go.

Granted, it may mean that the MoFo Maze game may have to go away, but really… do your clients need a game to play?  Do your clients really need to buy an iPhone in order to feel connect to your firm?  Developing apps for specific smart phones will get you some press, but what are you going to do when you go into a meeting with your clients and tell them to download your new iPhone App and they all whip out their Blackberrys and ask when are you going to release the app for their phone?  Welcome to the world of the Splinternet… your contribution has been noted.

I always enjoy reading project management articles that are written for specific industries, and then seeing if they also apply for managing projects outside of those industries.  This morning I came across one such posting on one of my favorite blogs, Heavy Mental.  Although the post describes the ten keys of project management for an enterprise 2.0 project as presented at the Paris forum, many of these rules could be used verbatim in KM projects or IT projects or even Library projects.

1) Manage risks from the early stages of the project
2) Seek Executive supports
3) Know your business needs and address them
4) Knowledge sharing in complex and fast paced changing environment for distributed workforce is a common motive
5) ROI may be complicated to evaluate but some benefits are unassailable
6) Usability is key for quick adoption
7) Cross functional participation is critical
8) IT support is critical but IT Governance is crippling
9) Don’t use the S word
10) Top-Grassroot-Down is the new Bottom-up


Rules 1-7 are pretty straight forward project management rules that can be used in almost any project you’re managing.  Rules 8-10 are pretty specific to the Enterprise 2.0 project topic, but with a little modification could be used in almost any PM topic.  I do love how IT is specifically called out for being a necessary evil in this project, but let’s face it; almost everything we do needs some type of IT support these days, but doesn’t need to be run by IT.  This topic was covered in a post on the Cloud Ave blog called “The Art of the Enterprise: Marketing Shrugged.”  In that post, there is a hypothetical (at least I assume that it was a hypothetical) where one department did its best to boycott IT altogether because they did not want the project to go into the black hole of IT Governance.  

Rule 9 specifically uses the “Don’t use the S (social media) word” for this Enterprise 2.0 topic, but there are many taboo words when it comes to project management in specific areas.  I heard some KM managers say that they specifically no longer say “This is a Knowledge Management Project” to their attorneys or administrators.  We all know there are certain words or phrases that raise the hackles on the back of some necks around our firms, so the best thing to do is to come up with another way of presenting the project without using the taboo words that cause such negative reactions.

Rule 10 is worded a little strangely, but basically says that Top-Down and Grassroots-Up are both essential to managing successful projects.  Buy-in is needed on all levels and no longer can you force a project upon the end-users (no matter how great the project), nor can you make an unusable project work (no matter how enthusiastic the end-users are about the idea.)  

Regardless of your project, these are ten good rules that can be adopted to fit your needs.

I took a look at the state case law coverage from four of the low-cost legal research providers (Fastcase, Loislaw, Casemaker and Google Scholar) to see who has the most coverage.  When I started this project, I assumed that Loislaw would be the hands down winner.  After all, they have the huge backing of Wolters Kluwer for a few years now, and you’d hope that they’d want to compete with Westlaw, LexisNexis and now Bloomberglaw.  However, I quickly learned that I was wrong in my assumption.  Turns out that the low-cost legal research provider that has the most state case law coverage, based on years of coverage, is Casemaker.

Here’s how I broke down the research:

  • Looked at coverage for all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia
  • Established the year that the each state published its first official state court decision (highest court)
  • Reviewed the scope of coverage for each research provider
  • Graphed who had the best pre-1950, pre-1920 and pre-1899 coverage
  • Graphed who had the most states where there was complete coverage of all decisions
  • Finally graphed the overall percentage of state case law decisions for all 50 states and the District of Columbia
In all categories but one, Casemaker had more coverage than Fastcase, Loislaw or Google Scholar.  Loislaw had five more states with pre-1950 coverage than Casemaker, but the further back you go the better Casemaker starts to look.  Casemaker had over twice as many pre-1920 states than Loislaw (28 vs. 13); Casemaker had four times as many states with pre-1899 coverage than Loislaw (28 vs. 7); and Casemaker had over twice as many states with complete case law coverage (11 vs. 5).  Fastcase and Google Scholar ran a distant third and fourth place with Fastcase only having 10 states with pre-1950 coverage, and Google Scholar having zero.  The overall percentage of case law coverage for all states and the District of Columbia also went to Casemaker (68%).  
In a market where content is king, this study suggests that of the low-cost providers, Casemaker is the king.  

Based on comments received and related blog posts I thought I would clarify my Convergence post. References to “convergence” can touch on two separate issues:

  1. Limiting the number of ‘panel’ firms will you entertain bids from?
  2. Limiting the number of firms you want to manage?

When it comes to #2, I agree that a smaller group of providers is easier and more cost effective to manage. This is especially the case when using the billable hour. In-house counsel who spend their time pouring over time entries making sure they are getting ‘value’ do better with a smaller universe of timekeepers. They get familiar and comfortable with the style and method of the timekeepers involved. So they become more efficient and effective at managing the outside counsel involved. (Of course this begs the question: Why spend your time reviewing time entries?)

When it comes to #1, and this is where my original post comes from, I think in-house counsel should not be converging in a buyers’ market. The RFPs I have seen lately are not about adding competent providers to the list – they are about narrowing the list of firms. These RFPs state something to the effect of, “We are reaching out to the firms we know and trust to respond to this RFP. In this process will we cut the number of panel firms down to …”

First off they are spending significant resources going through the RFP process. Second, the result is fewer firms “they know and trust” bidding for their work.

Huh???

I would suggest in-house counsel let ALL the acceptable firms bid for your work. In a buyers’ market, price and value will narrow the number of winners down for you (meeting #2 above) and this will all be done … for free.

If you were to listen to folks on Twitter on Tuesday, it looks as if AmLaw 100 firms are all going belly up any day now. GC’s are bolting for smaller firms that will listen to their individual needs. BigLaw firms are the last of the buggy whip makers and will no longer be needed in an environment that demands a lighter, faster and even virtual law firm. Obviously those 5000+ layoffs and 5% decrease in corporate spend on legal costs will be the death knell for BigLaw. Apparently, BigLaw’s problem is that it is not run like a company and that the Partnership model creates 150 individual bosses that all think they are majority owners in the firm. The coup de grâce is the fact that BigLaw has no community, no culture, no life, no sense of humor… basically BigLaw is a machine that is slow, deaf, expensive and does nothing by suck the souls right out of anyone that has ever gotten within 50 feet of one of its art laden reception areas.

It is a good thing that I have access to my firm’s Records Department so I can start stockpiling boxes to put all my personal belongings into when the firm folds like all of those other BigLaw firms have folded since the recession hit in September of 2008. Oh, wait… have any BigLaw firms collapsed since Heller Erhman or Thelen Reid — both of which were headed south before the economic collapse. As for not behaving like a business, let’s take a look at that. Sure, BigLaw laid off thousands of attorneys and thousands of staff members, but so did most corporations once the economy tanked. The same people that were complaining that BigLaw was bloated and paid their first year associates too much, were some of the same people that started complaining that it was unfair for BigLaw to cut attorneys and staff, reduce associate salaries, and break out of lock-step promotions. If anything, I’d have to say that the current economy woes have caused BigLaw to act more like a business than it ever has. Like it or not, all that trimming of attorneys and staff, and cutting of expenses has resulted in increases in most BigLaw’s profits per partner. In corporate speak, they call that watching the bottom line. Yes, it sucks when that bottom line means you are laid off, or your budget is cut, but that is business… and right now, almost every business has to do some sucky things to make sure it survives this recession.

As for BigLaw firms having ‘culture’ or ‘personality’, most of us that work at these firms understand that we got culture and personality up to our eyeballs. Like a large city, the personalities tend to be segmented by location or groups within the whole, and culminate into a larger personality. New York has a personality; Los Angeles has a personality; Debevoise and Plimpton has a personality; Latham & Watkins has a personality… for God’s sakes, look at Morrison Foerster’s website again, coupled with the fact that they proudly call themselves “MoFo” and tell me that they do not have a personality!! Firms have personality, and even a sense of humor (MoFo’s is pretty apparent.) One recent example is that I mentioned that Bracewell & Giuliani had a “Master of Everything” position listed on its directory. Apparently, that little bit of information has made the rounds among the senior partners at B&G in the form of a string of email jokes with partners asking who this person is, and why he or she is not working for directly for them!

BigLaw has even jumped into the once verboten area of social media by creating Twitter accounts for the firm as a whole, and with individuals and practice groups also jumping in. According to Kevin O’Keefe, the BigLaw blogging universe expanded to nearly half the AmLaw 200 firms blogging, which is an increase of 149% in the past 30 months. Law firms have Facebook fan pages, and are using LinkedIn as a business resource. Granted, they have a long way to go, and some are still pessimistic about how social media tools can actually increase business opportunities, but hey… I bet there are a lot of small to medium sized firms that think the same thing.

I love it just as much as the next person when Above the Law picks on BigLaw firms where partners say dumb things like “if you’re not in the office, you’re not really working.” (I personally like it when ATL links to 3 Geeks and our readership jumps through the roof, too!!) BigLaw is an easy target, and can make itself an even easier target because of the fact that there are just so many partners (“owners”) that the chance of one of them saying something dumb today is astronomically high! At a BigLaw leadership conference, it would be hard to swing a cat without hitting some partner that has said or written something that would make great fodder on Above the Law. It does not mean they are stupid… it mainly means they are human.

BigLaw has its issues… trust me, it has issues. I would have to say that after years (maybe decades) of becoming bloated and slow many firms are finally doing something about it. I have even complained that that BigLaw firms are not doing enough to adjust to a “buyer’s market” and a change in the way they do business. However, I do not think that anyone can honestly say that BigLaw plans to go right back to business as usual once the economy turns around. Those days are gone, and everyone (yes, even BigLaw partners) knows that. It might take some a bit more time to adjust for the new legal economy, but I am betting that most will make the change. There is going to be enough discussion on Alternative Fees and other billing models to keep Toby in blog posts for years. There will still be some BigLaw firms that continue to lay off associates, trim the partnership ranks, reduce incoming first-year associates, and kill practice groups that do not make money… that is just business in a down economy. There will probably be mergers of big firms once the economy picks up again, and we may even see a failure or two of some BigLaw firms if the economy doesn’t turn around in the next 9-12 months. However, I think that there will still be BigLaw firms, and there will be demand for what BigLaw firms do. Therefore, if you think that BigLaw is nothing but buggy whip makers, then I think you are really not seeing the big picture of where BigLaw is heading.


In an attempt to out do the “X for Dummies” approach, Greg and I are going to use the “Whadya Stupid or Somethin?” brand and see what we can make of it.

This week I saw one too many RFPs stating something along the lines of, “in order to better control our costs, we are going to trim the number of outside firms we use.” Like my ranting post on the term “Loss Leader,” this was the proverbial last straw.

And like my Loss Leader post, I’d like to go back to Econ 101 thinking. In a market that has made a dramatic and lasting shift towards a buyers’ market, that also happens to be aligned with the biggest recession of the past 100 years, what’s the best buyers’ strategy?

  1. Take advantage of these market forces and get sellers bidding against each other along the lines of the good ole supply and demand graph? or
  2. Stifle that competitive force, cut out most of the sellers in the market and realize greater leverage with fewer providers.

The correct answer is 1. By definition, in a buyers’ market you already have that same leverage with every provider. Why would you want to eliminate competent competitors from bidding on your business, putting downward pressure on prices (a.k.a. your costs)?

My best guess: GCs (and their consultants) checked the ‘convergence cycle’ calendar and it said it was time to converge. I think they must have missed the “Spring Forward” announcements over the weekend.

I finally found something on WestlawNext pricing from a Thomson Reuters document called “WestlawNext: Pricing Guide for Commercial Plans“.  The pricing seems a wee-bit steep on my initial view, especially if you take the per minute charge and multiply them by 60 to get the hourly charges (like I did in the chart below.)  How about $3,300.00 and hour to view appellate court briefs?  Or, $3,400.00 to get a 50 state survey??
NOTE:  According to the document, this pricing was fixed back on  February 8, 2010 (that would be the launch date.)  The pricing is subject to change on a 30-day notice. This is generic pricing, and your individual contracts may not be the same as listed in this document.

Remember, these are WestlawNext pricing, this is a separate billing model from your existing Westlaw.com pricing guide.  Also, remember that WestlawNext gives you results from all of the WestlawNext databases, regardless of if those are in your contract. The good news is that you get a great results list that is comprehensive.  The bad news is if one of your users clicks on one of those results and views the document that is out of contract, the ancillary charges below kick in.  Whoa to the first-year associate that clicks on a 50-State Survey and reads it online for an hour or two!!  (Read the ‘red bolded‘ section below the chart to see how these ancillary charges work.)  Remember to educate your users on the new pricing of WestlawNext (especially on the out of contract charges!!)

Ancillary Charges to View Documents on WestlawNext

 Content Category   Content Examples   Per Minute   Per Hour   Transactional   Document   Line
 Cases   state and federal cases   $13.33  $799.80  $13.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Statutes and Court Rules–State   state statutory compilations   $18.33 $1,099.80  $16.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Statutes and Court Rules–Federal   USCA®   $20.00 $1,200.00  $25.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Regulations–State   state administrative compilations   $15.00 $900.00  $16.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Regulations–Federal   Code of Federal Regulations   $20.00 $1,200.00  $25.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Administrative Decisions and Guidance–State   state attorney general opinions, state workers’ compensation decisions   $15.00 $900.00  $20.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Administrative Decisions and Guidance–Federal   decisions of the Board of Veterans’ Affairs,N.L.R.B., and E.E.O.C.   $18.33 $1,099.80  $25.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Administrative Decisions   and Guidance–RIA   RIA’s State and Local Taxes   $41.67 $2,500.20  $46.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Briefs   appellate court briefs   $55.00 $3,300.00  $85.00   $30.25   $.05 
 Secondary Sources–Journals and Law Reviews, Practice Guides, andJury Instructions   Law reviews, state jury instructions, practice guides    $33.33 $1,999.80  $30.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Secondary Sources–Premium State and Specialty Titles   Rutter Group publications, Florida Jurisprudence 2d, Business Transactions Solution   $38.33 $2,299.80  $42.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Secondary Sources–Premium National Titles   ALR®, C.J.S.®, American Jurisprudence 2d   $41.67 $2,500.20  $46.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Secondary Sources–Surveys   50-State Surveys   $       56.67  $3,400.20  $250.00   $30.25   $.05 
 Jury Verdicts and Settlements   summaries of jury verdicts and settlements   $       38.33 $2,299.80  $35.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Pleadings, Motions, and Memoranda   trial court filings   $53.33 $3,199.80  $75.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Trial Court Orders   court orders issued by state trial courts   $53.33 $3,199.80  $75.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Proposed and Pending Legislation   state session laws, text of current bills   $15.00 $900.00  $16.00   $16.50   $.05 
 Proposed and Pending Regulations   Federal Register, state administrative registers,text of pending regulations   $15.00 $900.00  $16.00   $16.50   $.05 
 News Sources–Basic   abstracts, archived publications   $11.67 $700.20  $10.00   $16.50   $.05 
 News Sources–General and Specialty Publications   newswires, regional newspapers, trade journals   $26.67 $1,600.20  $32.00   $16.50   $.05 
 News Sources–Premium   New York Times, Guardian, Euromoney   $30.00 $1,800.00  $36.00   $16.50   $.05 

Here is the summary from the document explaining the “Chargeable Events”:

Chargeable Events

Summary

On WestlawNext, there are three broad categories of chargeable events:

• searching for documents

• viewing documents

• offline delivery of documents

The monthly fee you pay for your WestlawNext subscription covers searching for documents on WestlawNext, including searching content not included in your plan. A search of all core legal content, therefore, is included in your monthly fee, even though it may retrieve results from content not included in your plan.

The monthly fee also covers viewing documents and offline delivery of documents from content that is included in your plan. It does not cover viewing documents and offline delivery of documents from content that is not included in your plan. When you view or deliver documents offline from content not included in your plan, ancillary charges apply and you will be billed at the applicable rate for that content (see the ancillary charges chart).

When you click a link on WestlawNext to access content on Westlaw (e.g., Public Records), your WestlawNext session is suspended and current Westlaw pricing rules apply.

Documents in Folders

Documents in folders may be accessed at no charge for 12 months after the initial chargeable view.

• For users who have selected transactional billing, the initial chargeable view occurs the first time a document is viewed (within or outside of the folder).

• For users who have selected hourly billing, the initial chargeable view occurs the first time a document is viewed within the folder.

It is charged at the applicable transactional display charge for the document. Hourly billing (including communications charges) is suspended while browsing folders.

Documents in folders viewed after 12 months will incur the WestlawNext transactional display charge for the document then in effect.