Last week I was able to meet with Dan Ranta. Dan is the KM guy for ConocoPhillips. I had seen him give a presentation on KM in the energy industry and followed up with a personal contact. As a result I spent some time at his shop, picking his brain, seeing his stuff and learning a ton about KM.

The bottom line here is that KM in the energy industry (and many others) is light-years ahead of legal KM. Dan has been into KM for over a decade and driving ConocoPhillips KM for going on five years. Where legal KM is in its infancy at best, Dan’s KM project is well beyond mature.

Some thoughts about where Dan is and how legal KM can benefit from his experience.

1) KM is KM. An interesting observation is that oil companies can be viewed as professional services firms (engineers to be specific). Their KM needs are the same as legal’s. They have professionals who store tacit knowledge in their heads and need to share and catalog this knowledge.

2) The billable hour sucks (again). Dan’s team has cataloged $1.5 billion in savings this year (and it’s only October). Their KM team takes stories submitted and confirms the cost savings of specific knowledge sharing. If an engineer in Alaska discovers a method for cutting production costs by modifying a design, the sharing of this knowledge across the network replicates that savings across the organization. Law firms will struggle with this concept, as ‘savings’ means less time to complete legal work, which means lower billables and revenue. A key piece of Dan’s system is compensation rewards for those who save the company money. Law firms will actually benefit from more efficient work processes, but since the efficiencies benefit clients and are not rewarded via compensation, law firms will struggle to drive this type of knowledge sharing and change.

3) Culture always wins. Dan had a great slide showing the Pacman of culture devouring the Dot of strategy. A point well made. Pushing a great KM tool in a lawyer’s face won’t change the way the lawyer works. For Legal KM to succeed, it must find a way to work within the culture of firms, which also means the billable hour.

4) Dan pointed me to a great resource. Although ILTA puts on a great show, next year I’ll be attending the APQC conference instead. This show is about our clients’ KM. And it’s KM a number of steps ahead of where legal is. To borrow a phrase from the recent Iron Man movie, “Sometimes you’ve got to run before you walk.”

Kudos to Dan for sharing his programs and ideas.

There have been some good posts lately on how lawyers can leverage the use of Twitter in their practice of law. Here are a few that I’ve seen lately, and some of the highpoints of each:

Is Social Media Incompatible with Billable Hours? – Bentley Tolk

  • Given the realities of the billable hour system, where do social networking and new media fit in for lawyers? It can be difficult to carry on a stream of conversation through Twitter or Friendfeed when a lawyer is billing time. Is it even ethical for an attorney who is “on the clock” to check Twitter every 15 minutes?

Bentley Tolk hits some good questions about the dynamics of the law firm, and the way the billable hour method of business can cause some initial discouragement of using Twitter (because it obviously cuts into the lawyer’s time that should be billed in 6 minute increments!!) However, once you look at both the structure of Twitter, and the smart use of it that doesn’t cut into the billable time, a good lawyer can use Twitter as an additional resources to keep up with the information he or she gathers from their Twitter conversations.Brian Herrington was interviewed on his use of Twitter and the practice of law by Mississippi’s The Clairion-Ledger newspaper:

  • He also uses Twitter to keep up with colleagues. “A lot of us blog now, so if people are writing about topics I litigate, it’s a quick exchange of useful information.”

In other words, Brian is using Twitter as a “micro-blog” source, or in a way, more as a short email service that keeps him up-to-date with what his friends in the legal industry are talking (or rather Twittering) about. Then there are some that seem to miss the boat on what Twitter actually can do to help a lawyer in the practice of law. CalLaw’s blog, LegalPad, put out a recent article entitled Twitter: As Silly for Lawyers as for Anyone Else? It was cute, and a little funny, but Brian McDonough should probably stick to subjects that he is more familiar with. Granted, Twitter can be difficult to “get your head around”… but, it is a resource that can help with keeping attorneys informed on recent trends, good articles, and current awareness issues dealing with legal issues. Probably just as good, or maybe better than CalLaw’s weekly news reports.

  • While I can’t imagine that, say, Quinn Emanuel is going to be landing any nine-figure, bet-the-company litigation because someone in their extended twit family “tweeted” out something like, “ne1 kno a gud atty 4 IP lit pls thx?” I do suppose that attorneys on the boutique and solo scale might find better uses for any convenient and inexpensive opportunity to network.

Brian seems to place Twitter as a Text-Messaging service for 16 year olds. I’m afraid that he’s missed the point. Luckily, there were lots of good responses to Brian’s posting, and hopefully, he has been better informed on the methods behind using Twitter in a legal practice specific way (not as a resource to text your BFF.)I’m not saying that Twitter is the do-all to end-all, but, when done right, it can produce a good resource to keep you informed on some of the latest trending and issues in the legal field. For a good overview of using Twitter, see Heather Milligan’s posting on the Legal Water Cooler.

Taking a rough and conservative estimate of 3 free CLE programs per week by large firms, then multiplying that by the 100 largest firms in the country, you get (3 x 52 x 100 =) 15,600 hours of free CLE per year. Next we’ll estimate that on average 35 lawyers attend each of these. This may seem high to some, but I know of telephone web seminars that easily draw 200 attendees. So now we have (35 x 15,600 =) 546,000 hours of CLE being given away each year by these large firms.

546,000 might seem like a lot, because it is. But consider that the rest of the AmLaw 250 and beyond and even legal market vendors give away CLE everyday, then 546,000 is not such a big number. But let’s work from it.

For a Bar association CLE program with $30 as the typical baseline of a per hour CLE price, this number would equate to ($30 x 546,000 =) $16,380,000 in annual CLE revenue. I’m guessing I just got the attention of any CLE Directors reading this. I know when I was the CLE Director for the Utah State Bar, this number would have lead to a cold sweat.

On Friday, I had the pleasure of sharing a beer and conversation with the Executive Director of the South Carolina Bar. Bob Wells is a gentleman and an enjoyable human in general. On this topic, he is (as usual) ahead of the game. His Bar is pushing for a larger facility to house CLE programs. He rightfully is questioning this path. He knows in the not-too-distant future his members will be getting CLE for free online. And why wouldn’t they? In addition to the obvious cost savings, Bob knows online CLE gives his lawyers the opportunity to take the subject matter they want, when they want it.

After the second beer, we concluded that CLE content will likely follow the Google model. Give it away and make money on ads and partnerships.

In the end, it’s really a question of who will figure this out first. Large law firms are already there, with them being the content provider and the advertiser. CLE providers would be smart to start looking down this path now instead of waiting for others to get in front of them.

The value of Online Social Networks, such as LinkedIn are becoming more of a mainstay in the large law firm arena. Usually the taboos that follow these types of “outside the control of the firm” technologies prevent the use by lawyers or staff of the firm. However, I am seeing a shift in the attitude of some of the firms, and an embrace, although a weak embrace, of some of the functionality that these types of services can bring to the firm.Law Firm Alumni Groups
I broke out my “researcher” cap and started delving through the LinkedIn Groups page to see how many of the top 100 law firms had some type of Alumni or Employee LinkedIn Group. I found that 35 firms out of the top 100 had a LinkedIn Group page. Most of them were Alumni groups, but there were a few that had current employee groups along with the Alumni, or specific groups just for employees. And, a few were apparently rouge employees that created a group at some point, but never did anything with the group after it was created.
Here is a list of the 35 firms, ranked highest to lowest by the number of members, and the type of LinkedIn Group:

Firm Name Members Type
Skadden, Arps, Slate,
Meagher & Flom 		839 Alumni
Heller Ehrman 323 Alumni
White & Case 281 Alumni
Baker & McKenzie 278 Employee & Alumni
Orrick, Herrington
& Sutcliffe 		183 Employee & Alumni
Troutman Sanders 159 Alumni
Fish & Richardson 88 Alumni
Womble Carlyle
Sandridge & Rice 		61 Current Employees
Dewey Ballantine
(Dewey & LeBoeuf) 		53 Alumni
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius 52 Alumni
Cooley Godward Kronish 51 Alumni
Venable 51 Alumni
Cadwalader, Wickersham
& Taft 		45 Alumni
Pillsbury Winthrop
Shaw Pittman 		45 Alumni
Cleary Gottlieb
Steen & Hamilton 		40 Alumni
Goodwin Procter 40 Employee & Alumni
Duane Morris 31 Alumni
Holland & Knight 21 IP Attorneys
Stroock & Stroock
& Lavan 		17 Employee & Alumni
Mayer Brown 15 Derivatives Lawyers
Bryan Cave 10 Alumni
Jones Day 10 Washington Alumni Group
Hunton & Williams 9 Alumni
Sonnenschein Nath
& Rosenthal 		9 Alumni
Drinker Biddle & Reath 8 Alumni
McDermott Will & Emery 5 Current Employees
Sullivan & Cromwell 4 Employee & Alumni
Davis Polk & Wardwell 3 Alumni
Baker Botts 2 Current Employees
Baker & Hostetler 1 Current Employees
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher 1 Alumni
Kirkland & Ellis 1 Current Employees
Kirkpatrick & Lockhart
Preston Gates Ellis
(K&L Gates) 		1 Current Employees
Seyfarth Shaw 1 Alumni
Steptoe & Johnson 1 Current and Former Paralegals

LinkedIn Profiles For Each Law FirmWell, these results got me thinking about the number of LinkedIn profiles that are also linked to these specific law firms. I decided to take a look at the LinkedIn Company data for each of these 35 firms, and jotted down some stats for each. For this portion I looked at the following information:1. Number of profiles linked to the firm (LinkedIn max is 500+)
2. Percentage of these profiles that had an “Attorney” title (associate, partner, counsel, etc.)
3. Median Age of the LinkedIn profile members
4. Percentage Male
5. Percentage FemaleHere is the results:

Firm Name Number of LinkedIn Members “Attorney” Titles (%) Median Age Male (%) Female (%)
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom 500+ 60 30 55 45
Heller Ehrman 500+ 42 34 57 43
White & Case 500+ 60 29 54 46
Baker & McKenzie 500+ 57 29 52 58
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe 500+ 55 31 56 44
Troutman Sanders 454 67 33 59 41
Fish & Richardson 500+ 49 32 60 40
Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice 323 56 36 59 41
Dewey Ballantine (Dewey & LeBoeuf) 359 61 30 56 44
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius 500+ 60 32 57 43
Cooley Godward Kronish 500+ 56 33 58 42
Venable 357 71 34 59 41
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft 283 66 31 65 35
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman 500+ 62 34 55 45
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton 470 58 28 59 41
Goodwin Procter 500+ 62 31 50 50
Duane Morris 500+ 60 37 60 40
Holland & Knight 500+ 69 35 57 43
Stroock & Stroock & Lavan 224 64 33 53 47
Mayer Brown 500+ 64 32 58 42
Bryan Cave 500+ 65 33 58 42
Jones Day 500+ 62 32 54 46
Hunton & Williams 500+ 50 33 53 47
Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal 500+ 57 34 57 43
Drinker Biddle & Reath 468 62 33 53 47
McDermott Will & Emery 500+ 57 33 60 40
Sullivan & Cromwell 500+ 53 29 55 45
Davis Polk & Wardwell 457 56 28 52 48
Baker Botts 500+ 59 31 60 40
Baker & Hostetler 323 61 34 57 43
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher 500+ 62 30 54 46
Kirkland & Ellis 500+ 56 30 58 42
Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis (K&L Gates) 500+ 61 34 57 43
Seyfarth Shaw 500+ 60 35 50 50
Steptoe & Johnson 373 52 33 57 43

From these results I was able to calulate the following:

% 500+ Members 68%
Avg. % Atty Titles 59%
Median Age 32
Avg. % Male 56%
Avg. % Female 44%
Avg. “Group” Members 78

No Surprises…. Well, Maybe OneOf course, there are a lot of things that pop out of these results that are interesting, but not all that unexpected. Things like the average age being in the early 30’s isn’t surprising, or that a majority of those profiled are male (just look around your firm.) The one thing that did surprise me, was the large percentage of those profiled that had “Attorney” titles. I would have thought that there would be more “administrative” profiles (IT, Library, KM, Marketing, Competitive Intelligence, etc.) So, it would seem from this initial overview, that there are a lot of attorneys that are actually creating LinkedIn accounts. Granted, this doesn’t say whether or not they actually used the LinkedIn account after they created it, but nonetheless, it does show that there is an interest in using this sort of Online Social Network.

SEARCH: (LinkedIn OR Twitter) (lawyer OR attorney OR “law firm”)

Perhaps the greatest thing I learned in Library School is the understanding of Boolean Searching.  When put in the right context, understanding the proper use of “AND”, “OR”, “BUT NOT” and the proper placement of parenthesise “()” can make your searching a lot better.  Even in the age of Googling, Boolean is still a skill that is needed.  

I’ve been testing some of my searching skills while reviewing the TweetDeck software that I evaluated last week.  I noticed that good old Boolean searches work better in the TweetDeck than they do when you search in Twitter’s search interface.  At the same time, I was seeing A LOT of decent information that people were sharing via Twitter.  Blogs they just read, conferences they were attending, articles, new websites, new software, etc.  And, if the right type of Boolean search is set up, TweetDeck will chime in and let me know when someone has mentioned the topics I’m interested in.  All without clogging up my email.
So, I can get updates like Kevin O’Keefe telling me how many people have viewed his LinkedIn Profile in the last 4 days:
Or, I can see my recent posting on my search using twitter search:
This updates about every minute.  I’m liking what I’ve seen so far.  Although it isn’t perfect, it is a nice search tool to have.  One big problem that I haven’t been able to find a “fix” for, is the fact that if you re-do your search, any previous postings that have been returned to you before, will no longer show up in your search.  So, during the tweaking process, you’ll feel a little frustrated that some of the good twitter postings no longer appear in your results.  I’ll post a note on this blog if I find a way around that issue.
Of course, this got me thinking of different ways to use Boolean searching, and then having automated ways of searching Internet resources.  Then I tried to mash some different RSS feeds into my Google Reader to see how that works.  Creating a RSS feed using the Google Blog Search, and another RSS feed using the Twitter Search, I created a Widget for my iGoogle account and had the results feed to me there.  
Plugging in the RSS feeds, I created my own gadget that displays the results of both Twitter and Google Blog Search.  And, the flexibility of the gadget allows me to modify it as I see fit.

“The Florida Supreme Court has erected a safety fence outside its building and is beginning repairs to its basement, where water seepage has destroyed some 12,000 books during the last two years.”

Two years?? Really??

This is one of those stories that just beg for the question of “what did they think they were doing??” Putting valuable items in a basement, and then acting surprised by the laws of physics (you know, the one that states that water runs downhill! — something else runs downhill… but, this is a family-friendly blog.)

I’ve worked on projects to replace library collections in the past, and it is amazing how often that good people, with good intentions, can assume that bad things just won’t happen to them. They put some of their most unreplacable treasures in places that are exposed to natural disasters, and assume that it will be safe there until we have the time and money to give it the care that it needs.

Here’s a suggestion: Only put furnature from IKEA in the basement! At least that can be replaced at a pretty reasonable cost. If you put something of value in the basement, then expect that something bad will happen to it. And, when it does finally happen to you, please remember that you are not the victims of the situation, but rather a contributor to the situation!

I’ve been hearing some rumblings about the Adobe AIR product, and its ability to make web products work in a desktop environment.

The boys over at WebResourcesDepot (WRD) put out a snapshot of 27 Adobe AIR products — a posting that became so popular that it caused their site to go down. (If only the GeekLawBlog would be so lucky!!)
So, I thought I’d go over a few of these, and see if they hold any promise.
  1. TweetDeck This one has been blogged about pretty extensively, and seems to be a good mash-up of the different things you can do with Twitter. I get to see: a)all the tweets of those that I’m following b) any Replies c) all Direct Messages d)Global and Local Searching e) Create Sub-Groups from those that I follow f)TwitScoop for all the Buzz Tweets g) 12seconds.tv updates (which I have no idea what that is, and it doesn’t seem to interesting enough to research This one is definitely worth a look.
  2. Google Analytics Reporting Suite My fellow GeekLawBlogger, Lisa, gave me the story on using Google Analytics to monitor web traffic and the importance of tracking certain bits of information for Search Engine Optimization and other important (read “geeky”) stuff. Since I have a couple of NINGs for thelibrary community, I’ve been using Google Analytics to monitor traffic. I was content with the interface that Google has for its analytics, but once I pulled that same information up using this Suite, I really began to understand all of the in’s and out’s of what Analytics had to offer me. I like the layout of this suite, and it really puts the information out there in a way that I can better understand the trending of my site visits. If you use Google Analytics, you’ll want to look at this sweet, suite.
  3. uvLayer If I were 15, I’d probably think this was one of the coolest apps ever. Products need to be careful about saying it is something similar to the UI wall in Minority Report… I’ve seen Minority Report… Having access to the UI Wall in Minority Report is my dream… You, my friend, are no UI Wall in Minority Report! (But, my hero Johnny Chung Lee is going to create one for us!!) Enough ranting about the UI Wall…. The uvLayer product is actually cool, but only if you are into online video and chatting about online video. You can connect to your Facebook or AIM or some other IM products and share these videos in a cool way. But, again, I’m not 15, and I don’t really need this product. So, if your 15, check it out… otherwise, it is just not something I’d suggest.
  4. ConceptShare Okay, this one is kind of cheating by putting it in the Adobe Air category because it is mostly a web-based product, and they have a Desktop Companion that uses Adobe Air. However, I’m impressed with the overall concept (pardon the pun) of this product. ConceptShare allows you to collaborate with others on projects – ranging from web site design to video commercials, or pretty much any project you need to collaborate. ConceptShare is very interactive, it allows multiple users to work on projects simultaneously, and is very, very visual. Think of it as a mix of Web Page Development, SharePoint, Extranets, and interactive conferencing and chat software. It is a professional-grade product, and not exactly the easiest thing to use straight out of the [virtual] box. But, if you are a marketer, or someone that needs to collaborate on visual products (marketing projects, engineering projects, web page development, etc.) then this might be the product you’ve been looking for. Very, very slick. Oh, and it isn’t free, either. Guess I should have started off with that statement. But, it does have a 30-day trial that will let you kick the tires and see if it fits your needs. If you are a heavy collaborator on graphical design projects, then you might find this product is exactly what you need.
  5. WebSnapshot This one I like a lot because of its simplicity. Type in an address to a website, and it will give you an image of that website. There are a number of times that I wanted to add a snap shot of the website in my research results, and this product makes it quick and easy. There aren’t a lot of bells and whistles, and that can be a good thing. One enhancement I would like to see, is the ability to load mulitple websites at one time. This one is I definitely will take advantage of in the future.
If you would like a review of any other Adobe Air products, just let me know. If you want to see what else is out there, you can go to the Adobe Air Marketplace. Note: Per comment suggestions, there is also a website called Refreshing Apps that also has review of these products and more, and you can comment and score the apps.

TIP: Whatever You Do, Don’t Offer Online Collaboration

There is a lot of good information out there about using technology to collaborate directly with clients.

The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technology: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell Don’t read it. It might give you ideas about offering up to clients the ability to see, review and edit their documents with you online. Since peoples’ expectations are for more real-time services, make sure you use older, slower delivery options. Another dangerous tool to avoid: online surveys like Survey Monkey or Zoomerang. Clients will like these since they give them a convenient opportunity to tell you what they like and don’t like about your services. Talk about NOT annoying. And to top it off, clients may tell you something you don’t want to hear, causing the backfire effect of annoying you.

Conclusions

Using technology can be challenging. Using technology to annoy clients is an art form. Just remember: Whichever technologies you choose, follow our ‘best practices’ and you will be sure to get your clients’ undivided attention.

TIP:  Under No Circumstances Personalize Anything for the Client One of the best ways to annoy your client is to remind them that they are just one of the cogs of your great legal empire.  Taking the time to personalize a communication and making the client feel that they are important to you, is just wasting your time in your efforts to annoy them.  If you see something that one of your colleagues has written to his clients, and it may be relevant to your client, what ever you do, DO NOT FORWARD IT on to your client with a simple note saying that you saw this and thought it was relevant to your client’s business.  Nothing is more annoying than talking with your client weeks later and saying – “Oh, yeah…  We put something about that out a few weeks ago, but I didn’t think to send it to you.” Perhaps you’re tempted to create an Extranet for your clients to make it easier for them to share documents back and forth with you — or, to keep them abreast of the status of a matter without having to call you to ask about it. One of the highest levels of annoyance comes when a client has to call you for an update on an open matter, and then you later bill them for their inconvenience.  Putting together an Extranet would only make the client feel that they were involved in the matter, and that you were taking the time to make sure they had access to relevant information on their case.  What’s so annoying about that?