A snappy review of Amazon’s Fire 7 by @Lihsa

Come on baby, light my Fire: reading, listening and playing on my Amazon tablet
Amazon Fire 7 screenshot
of the cozy mystery,
The Case of the Fallen Hero

Admittedly, I am late to the game on buying an Amazon Fire. I’ve been cheating, downloading the free Kindle app onto all of my devices, even reading on my browser rather than buying yet another device. I couldn’t justify owning a laptop, a phone, a tablet and a reading device.

Amazon Prime Day

But then Amazon had its eponymous 2017 Prime Day last July (oddly, it fell on an even day).

For, not only am I a film buff, I am also an avid reader—you kind of have to be if you are going to play on social media because, well, that’s all it is: reading. Plus, I have to read a book once a day because it is the only way I can fall asleep.

Which leads me to why I ended up buying a Fire on Amazon Prime Day for the very low price of $30. My tablet was too big and my phone was too small for reading in bed. In true Goldilocks form, the Kindle Fire was just right.

Amazon Fire apps and features

And I’ve been super-happy with it. It fits easily into my hand. I like to give one final peek at my email and social media accounts, play one (yes, only one!) word game, then lull myself to sleep by reading some horrible cozy mystery—the book can’t be too good or it will keep me up at night. Thank goodness for free @BookBub downloads or I would be robbing the proverbial Peter to pay Jeff Bezos.

Fire and Alexa

The Fire also syncs up with Amazon’s Alexa and I love talking to her in the morning, telling her “good morning” to await her always chipper response. But I really love the news app, Alexa Flash Briefing. I’ve customized it to listen to apps and/or podcasts. My line-up is The Skimm, the Houston Chronicle—both the general and local sections,  Jimmy Kimmel Live Monologue, KPRC-2 Houston News, NPR, a Bible verse and the best part: The Daily from the New York Times.

The Daily from New York Times runs for 15 minutes, five days a week. Hosted by Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb), he interviews reporters and often reveals the back story on the biggest story of the day. Giving an insightful analysis of the top story du jour, you are treated to reporter insights you might not get from TV, the paper or radio.

Fire and light

So all of this sounds fantastic. But my library friend, Saskia (@sioslo), and I were discussing the pros and cons of using Fire as a Kindle reader and she had one final question: how easy is it to read outside? Does the glare get in the way?

So I ran a very scientific test to determine the Kindle’s legibility in daylight. I stood next to my office window and looked at my Fire. It was an easy read, both in the white background and the black background (the black background is my preferred mode since I read mostly at night). There is a glare but then I recommend wearing a big floppy hat to shade it, which you should be wearing anyways to protect yourself from UV rays.

So there you have it. My review and usage report on my Amazon Fire.

I just finished renewing a vendor contract over the past couple of weeks and the experience left a bitter taste in my mouth. Sudden changes in how the product is structured caused our existing “all-in” contract to suddenly become an “almost all-in” contract. It wasn’t so much that I was surprised at how it went as it was disappointment that this game is still played by vendors. Before I go into what happened, let me pull out a pop-culture reference to set the stage.

In Season 5 of the television show, Modern Family, part of the family goes to Las Vegas, and the father (Jay) pulls some strings to get the “Excelsior” package from the hotel. This is supposed to be the ultimate level of luxury and very exclusive. However, Jay later learns that there is actually another level created by the hotel called the “Excelsior Plus” package, and although he’d been told he was getting the best package, the hotel actually created something even more exclusive, and Jay learns that there are benefits that he cannot use.

Well… that about sums up my renewal. Three years ago, we rolled the dice and bought the “Excelsior” version of a very expensive product. There were modules that would come later that would be included in our subscription. No longer would we get to an important piece of information only to find out that it was outside of our contract. It was like being on the top floor of a luxury hotel and knowing that we were probably spending more than we really needed to, but we had the comfort that at least if we needed something, it would be available. Oh, the confidence that comes with luxury.

Then came time to renew.

Yes, we knew that there would be a jump in price, but we could negotiate that and come to an agreement that both sides could at least stomach. At least we would still have the “Excelsior” package and the feeling of comfort that comes with knowing that you wouldn’t get a call from a Partner in the firm asking why she was not allowed to get into this exclusive part of the product. Granted, she may never even know that part is available… but who wants to take that gamble?

Then I read the offer.

My “Excelsior” package was  now a second-level subscription. No longer would “Excelsior” mean “all-in” it now meant “almost all-in.” New modules were being launched those would be outside the “Excelsior” package, and would now be a part of the new “Excelsior Plus” package. My gold user id and password card suddenly looked a little worn on the edges and I realized that it was just gold plated. We thought we were top clients, valued for taking the chance to go “all in” when the product was still an up and comer. Instead, we realized we were played by a group of executives who sat in a room and cleverly came up with an idea to screw over the top customers and create a new way of squeezing more out of us.

Then I realized that I am not a top-tier client. I am not an early adopter who will be rewarded for believing in a product when others wouldn’t. I am just a customer, and the vendor sees us as numbers in a renewal spreadsheet. Like I said earlier, I’m not surprised, I’m just disappointed.

We made the decision to stay at “Excelsior” and risk that call from a Partner one day asking why she couldn’t get into that exclusive part of the products. Time will tell if we long for the luxury of an all inclusive product and the comfort that comes with the “Excelsior Plus” package. For now, gold-plated will have to do.

One more thing.

Back to the Modern Family reference. It turned out that “Excelsior Plus” was actually not the top-tiered package. That was actually the “Excelsior Ultra” package. So, when I go to renew the next time around, I’m sure there will be an “Ultra” level renewal offer available, and that feeling of disappointment will return.

Bullshit begets bullshit.

There was an overwhelming response to my last post on law firm marketing bullshit. So here I am writing an entire series. That’s how it works.

If you reward bullshit, you get more bullshit

Which also happens to be my rejoinder to my sole (known) critic. While most commentary was positive, a friend chided me for ultimately making clients responsible for the surfeit of bullshit.

Bullshit is bad and, ipso facto, law firms should not traffic in bullshit whether or not bullshit is effective was my friend’s line of reasoning. Fair enough. But that’s hope, not a plan. I will respond to my friend at length (argument by attrition) in another bullshit post about how the legal market is not a morality play.

Right now, however, I’ve got to give the people what they want. And what the people want, apparently, are bullshit anecdotes.

*******
I regularly mainline large quantities of pure legal marketing bullshit akin to:

The term “proficient” is ambiguous. Ambiguity is an invitation to bullshit. And lawyers are masters at uncovering ambiguity in everything.

Take, for example, the seemingly simple question of whether a law firm practices a kind of law in a specific location, say: Does the firm practice pet law in Austin? 

Half my readership will consider that a straightforward Yes/No question. The other half will recognize it as a bundle of ambiguity. Because it is ‘ambiguous’, the percentage of firms that would respond Yes to that question is astounding. It makes no difference that their lawyers (a) are not located in Austin and (b) didn’t know pet law is actually a thing (yeah, it is).

Their rationale: We’re truly talented lawyers who have handled a wide variety of cases. Pet law can’t be that hard/different. Austin has an airport. We have relationships that can get us in pro hac vice and serve as local counsel if litigation is involved. We could absolutely do a fabulous job on a pet law matter in Austin. Really, we’re so excellent that it would be a disservice to the client to let them go with another firm.

 Importantly, that reasoning is not entirely faulty. I have witnessed many lawyers step into unfamiliar areas of law or new locations and perform more than competently.

Indeed, there are additional layers of ambiguity because clients regularly prefer to pay incumbents to stretch/travel rather than incur the time and attention costs of on-boarding and ramping up a new firm. This issue is particularly tricky in convergence initiatives where the objective is to consolidate the number of firms, which frequently involves trade-offs where fewer firms are covering larger territories or broader remits. At the outset of the convergence, the client itself might not even have a set view on its approach—i.e., general, specialty, local, state, region, national, and/or global panel(s)—so the expectations are genuinely ambiguous.

Then again, come on! This is my point about bullshit gone too far. It is one thing to stretch a little; another to do what my great friend Dera Nevin refers to as “door law.”

In some future post, I’ll discuss how to frame better question and elicit more concrete answers than the Y/N formulation of the pet-law-in-Austin query—how many X matters in Y location within Z period. Numbers reduce ambiguity. I’ve seen many law firms (including BigLaw) withdraw from consideration when asked to quantify their purported experience.

Yet I understand the allure of this strain of bullshit more than I care to admit. Because you know who holds the Bullshit Championship Belt? Not law firms. Not clients. Vendors/Consultants [I’m both] dominate the Bullshit Division.

As a vendor, it is tempting to respond to every inquiry about an absent product feature with: What a brilliant question! That feature is on our roadmap and should be in the next release coming in the near future. Sometimes it’s true. But, often, it is either bullshit or a bad habit that results in a bullshit product (feature creep). Still, it is so hard to tell a potential client that the ‘missing’ feature on which their purchase appears to turn (also, frequently, pure bullshit) is ill suited to your offering. In the moment, bullshit seems like the path of least resistance.

As a consultant, I constantly suppress my natural reaction—“Yes! Absolutely! No problem! 100%!”—to a client asking me if I can do something, anything, for them. I can do many things. But, just between us, I am not omnipotent. I hate to disappoint. I feel the pain of admitting I might not know everything about everything. There is a piece of me that wholly believes the partial truth that hard work and fluid intelligence can overcome deficits in acumen and experience. And I have mouths to feed. Bullshit is a natural, self-serving ego-defense mechanism.

At this point, I have enough self-regard and self-doubt to say No more often than I say Yes. But I will forever struggle to identify the less-than-bright line between a healthy stretch and perilous overreach.

Which is why I respect law firms so much when they demonstrate discipline and restraint.

Because they occupy such rarefied air, firms like Wachtell and Cravath don’t get nearly as many plaudits as they should for staying in their (admittedly lucrative) lanes. Would-be competitors crave the benefits of brand differentiation and are quick to adopt the trappings of elite status (see associate salaries) but, again and again, won’t make the hard choices.

At the same time, many firms won’t admit, even to themselves, what they are. Brand-differentiated firms that command top rates for price-insensitive work are in an enviable position. Enviable, not universally replicable. There is some room at the top. Some firms operate there. But only so many. The pyramid is inverted.

There is money to be made, other ways and elsewhere. There are a variety of viable business models. But it is not feasible to successfully pursue them all simultaneously. It is self-delusional bullshit to believe you can be all things to all clients.

The smack I was just talking about firms that drop out of the running for work when asked to quantify their relevant experience. I give a corresponding amount of credit to firms that abstain when the work available does not fit their brand direction or business model.

I encourage my clients to be as transparent as possible with firms as to what tranches of work the firm is being considered for, as well as the attendant historical matter composition/volume. Every now and then, firms will come back and politely decline. Good on them. It is hard to say no. It is especially hard when you’re already in a revenue-producing relationship.

The most heated exchanges I’ve had in recent months have been with some respected peers over the contentious end to the relationship between Quinn Emanuel and Uber. Some see it as the height of law firm hubris and complacency. Faced with fixed fees, Quinn (supposedly) didn’t have the flexibility to adapt its service delivery model to make the work (sufficiently) profitable. Others see it as a public example of clients’ unreasonable expectations. Clients (supposedly) demand top-tier service at bottom-tier prices. A Four Seasons experience for Motel 6 rates.

I have the benefit of no knowledge of the Uber/Quinn situation beyond what’s been reported and therefore feel uncompelled to take sides. Why does it have to be someone’s fault? Why can’t it just be a bad fit? What’s wrong with ending a relationship when it doesn’t turn out as expected? There are no kids. They didn’t buy a condo or get a dog. Both were seeing other people.

While I am the proponent of structured dialogue between law departments and their firms, I don’t believe all differences can, or even should, be reconciled. Finding the right long-term fit would be so much easier if we stop bullshitting ourselves and each other.

Speaking of bullshit (which, temporarily, is my shtick). I promised anecdotes, plural. That was bullshit. I got in one before achieving a word count that will cause Commandant McClead to scream at me for verbosity, again. I’ll include more anecdotes in the next bullshit post.

The full bullshit arc:

______________________________________
D. Casey Flaherty is a legal operations consultant and the founder of Procertas. He serves on the advisory board of Nextlaw Labs. He is the author of Unless You Ask: A Guide for Law Departments to Get More from External Relationships, written and published in partnership with the ACC Legal Operations Section, and the Service Delivery Review Primer, written for the Buying Legal Council. Find more of his writing here. Connect with Casey on Twitter and LinkedIn. Or email casey@procertas.com

Tim Peterson (@petersontee) of MarketingLand.com did a great job of analyzing a moving target in sizing up “How Facebook’s, Instagram’s and Snapchat’s audience size estimates compare.”

Now, I realize that many believe that Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat have little or no value to law firms. I beg to differ. Think of social media as being just another method to deliver marketing and promotion, public relations and brand management—just like TV, radio or publications.

Think of it this way: in the evening, when people are relaxing and multiscreening at home, they are skimming through Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. While checking out @beyonce, @therock or @lin_manuel_, inspiring, artful or humorous law firm content injected into these networks can bring positive attention, higher engagement and broader brand awareness.

Peterson’s charts show that Facebook and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, dominate in the seven largest countries by media spend.

Are Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat relevant to law firm marketing?
Chart created by Tim Peterson of MarketingLand.com: *Facebook and Instagram audience estimates are based on average usage over the past 30 days and span web and app users. Snapchat audience estimates are based on usage over the past 28 days and only count users exposed to Snap Ads within Stories, Shows and Discover.

In the US alone, that is an estimated 200M Facebook users, 100M Instagram users and over 75M Snapchat users. And if they are anything like me, they are skipping between all of these channels throughout the evening.

By the numbers, Instagram stories—different from Instagram posts—are reaching far more people than Snapchat (this is interesting because many deemed Instagram stories to be a rip-off of Snapchat’s format). Furthermore, Instragram is more popular than Snapchat in all countries except France.

And possibly the most interesting chart to law firm marketers is Peterson’s stats on those aged 35+. In their mid-career, these people were the first generation to have used Facebook all of their adult life—it is now a habit for them. Facebook was founded in 2004. This means that 35-year olds are the first generation to have used Facebook all of their adult life—it is a part of their everyday life. That means that the majority of folks below the age of 35 are more than likely have a Facebook account, and probably have an Instagram account. These numbers likely include your in-house counsel.

Looking at the chart, these mid-career adults, are using Facebook more than Instagram or Snapchat in every major country. According to the data, based upon recent usage, nearly 150 million adults are looking at content on either their Facebook or Instagram accounts.

Perhaps it is time to reassess you opinion of Facebook and Instagram.

Are Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat relevant to law firm marketing?
Chart created by Tim Peterson of MarketingLand.com: *Facebook and Instagram audience estimates are based on average usage over the past 30 days and span web and app users. Snapchat audience estimates are based on usage over the past 28 days and only count users exposed to Snap Ads within Stories, Shows and Discover.

I’ve been a member of Facebook since, I don’t know, maybe 2009? I have always been cautious about Facebook. It was never my favorite social media tool. But, as they say, keep your friends close but your enemies closer.

I’m fairly adept at Facebook but I was slow to get on board and very selective about friendships, turning off political posts and avoiding sharing anything too personal. I tend to post a lot of cat, book, movie and, well, my slightly touchy church stuff. Yes, I go to church. Sometimes. (Fr. Adam, I’ll see you in Confession).

But I have to say, when Hurricane Harvey it, I was glued to Facebook.

Some background: it is just me and my cats. When the flooding started, I was an island. I couldn’t get out and no one could get in. Although I was high and dry–literally–my nerves were like very tiny, un-rubbery rubber bands. For 5 days, I was alone. Cabin fever was turned into cabin flu.

Another thing you need to know is I don’t do cable. I do have a TV but it is only used to stream Roku. So no live coverage. And from what I heard, that may have been a blessing–what little I saw afterwards was non-stop coverage that was PTSD-inducing.

So the only way I could find out was going on was to follow the Mayor, the Harris County Flood Control District, the Harris County Homeland Security, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office on Facebook and Jeff Lindner on Twitter.

Sidebar: If you don’t know who Jeff Lindner is, follow him. The guy is now a demi-god here in Houston and is, to my knowledge, the first hero-meteorologist. This guy was so good, the public started a GoFundMe page to buy him a vacation after Harvey was over. And as the true Houstonian that he is, he donated all of it. He was calm, knowledgeable and seemed to never sleep. His hurricane and flood reporting probably saved thousands of lives.

Anyway, back to Facebook. Just by following these accounts, I watched every single press conference given by all of this government agencies on Facebook. Comparing notes with my family, who were glued to the TV, I was better informed and had more accurate knowledge, thanks to Facebook Live Streaming. I also had a front row seat to how our local government was functioning. Thanks to Harvey, I am on a first-name basis with all of my government officials–well I know them. They don’t know me. Here’s a great article on how to start using Facebook Live, if you aren’t familiar with it.

Mayor Sylvester Turner is a maestro at media. Whoever his PR team is, they did a stellar job. The entire team, from the Mayor on down, was on point. Upbeat with a can-do attitude, these folks set the tone and it came across loud and clear.

And the funny thing was, it trickled down. I saw it play out on Facebook. If you have never watched a live feed on Facebook, this is a curious forum. You can do a couple of things on a live stream. First, you can watch the video. You can also live comment on the video. Finally, people can “react” with emojis on a video. Below is a screen shot from a Lincoln Center jazz show I’m watching now.

Jazz at Lincoln Center, live at 7:00 pm Central on November 13, 2017

This is what was interesting: during Harvey press conferences, haters and trolls were regularly schooled by other commentators and, ultimately, silenced. It was fascinating to see swarms of hearts and thumbs-ups overwhelming those few angry faces. Commentators were just not having any of that, at all. I saw #HoustonStrong come alive and move into action.

The other great thing about Facebook during Harvey was that there was actually a safety check-in site. Facebook has had this capability for a while, using it first in the Nepal  earthquake in April 2015. You can not only mark yourself as safe, but if you hadn’t heard from someone, you could ping them and ask them to respond that they were safe. You could also offer or find help.

Facebook’s Hurricane Harvey Safety Check Site

And Facebook Messenger was indispensable. The first person to check on me was actually in the Arctic Circle. My Facebook friend was staying with her sister at a Canadian science lab and messaged me the Friday before to see if I was OK. I was in touch with hundreds of people over the course of Harvey, speaking to family, friends, long-lost friends and new acquaintances who just wanted to make sure I was OK. The group chat allowed me to stay in touch with my immediate family all through out–every morning we had roll call to make sure we were all safe. I had a video chat with my cousin in Los Angeles to let him know I was alright.

I won’t even talk about all of the groups and pages that were born during this period, dispensing advice, information, supplies and directions to the entire population of Houston. Many of these groups are still active, giving volunteer aid and support to Rockport, Baytown, Beaumont, Port Arthur and all of the other tiny towns surrounding Houston.

During that week-long period, Facebook became a lifeline for me and millions of people.

And just like any other tool, it cuts both ways.

First, the obligatory nod to On Bullshit. For the academically inclined, there is subversive fun in being able to deploy “bullshit” as a term of art. The custom is “bullshit” does not constitute profanity if you dutifully cite Harry Frankfurt. To summarize Frankfurt:

The liar aims to deceive. The bullshitter aims to persuade. The liar intentionally distorts the truth. Truth is incidental to the bullshitter, who may occasionally stumble on the truth by accident.

Because my consulting includes convergence initiatives and preferred provider programs, I am top-tier consumer of law firm marketing bullshit. I am a bullshit connoisseur. I am not here simply to complain and lambast. I am also here to defend (sort of).

This meditation on law firm marketing bullshit was prompted by a fantastic new project from Michigan State Law. Dan Linna and crew have done a service for the ecosystem with their Legal Services Innovation Index (great coverage here from Bill Henderson). Dan is too humble with caveats about minimum viable product, Phase 1, Version 1.0…..This is an unalloyed good.

But the caveats are understandable. Immediately following the announcement, a favorite follow among the Twitterati had a good-natured exchange with Dan about the “Law Firms Focusing Marketing Efforts On ‘Innovation’ Offerings Index.” The Law Firm Index is predicated on keyword searches of law firm websites. Harkening back to the salad days of SEO, it is easy to envisage the Index initiating a game of perpetual bullshit buzzword bingo. I already had a law firm friend comment that the Index would inform his firm’s website refresh.

Yet—and I know I’m rocking some worlds here—just because it is on the internet, doesn’t mean it is true. Statements on a law firm website are not necessarily representative of the law firm’s regular operations. Law firms are fecund sources of bullshit.

The volume and velocity of bullshit are especially high when large law firms position themselves as innovative. Two examples:

  • Any notoriety I may have started with my unorthodox practice of conducting site visits at law firms, especially my findings that legal professionals are terrible at using core technology. But these service delivery reviews are much broader than basic tech—process, staffing, knowledge management, project management, automation, analytics, etc.

    When I conduct site visits, I am often armed with RFI responses. I always read the firm website. I also use the Google. I therefore walk into the firm with a sense of how the firm tries to present itself to the world, especially regarding process, technology, and innovation.

      But I don’t ask about innovation at first. Instead, I have associates and paralegals walk me through how they actually perform the work for which they are billing my client. Only at the end of the exercise, if they haven’t touched on it (and they rarely touch on it), will I ask them how the firm’s widely publicized, award-winning initiatives around X affects their work for our mutual client and why it was not evident in the workflow they just demonstrated.
      As with so much else in my life, I elicit blank stares. Sometimes, they’ve read the same articles I have. But that’s about it. To the extent X is more than just talk, it exists elsewhere in the bowels of their large enterprise. There is no felt impact. And there is no expectation of future impact. As far as the labor is concerned, the firm hyping X is performance art, and I am a sucker for even asking about it.
    • In a similar vein, a GC I know was reading about all manner of innovative initiatives from the law firms he employs (AI Robot Magic!!!!!!). So he called them. He asked the firms to present to him on these initiatives with a specific emphasis on how the initiatives enhanced the work the firms did for him. The firms demurred. They admitted it was mostly PR and there were not yet any concrete benefits worth discussing. They seem surprised he asked. But the firms were less shocked than his fellow GCs, who could not imagine what would possess him to waste his time on such an exercise.

    As I’ve said many times, it is not that innovation does not happen in law. Innovation is everywhere. Our problem is sustainably scaling innovation.

    Large ‘innovative’ law firms are not pure PR constructs. But most insiders I talk to suggest it would be generous to put the ratio at 15% innovation to 85% PR. The PR machine often collects genuine innovative efforts occurring in disparate corners of the firm and spins them into a seemingly coherent narrative that suggests systemic adoption. PR then perpetuates the narrative for years after the subject innovations have failed to spread beyond the early adopters. If you hire the actual team that won the awards, you have a fair expectation of getting what is advertised. If you hire some other team in a large firm, awards have minimal informational value.

    In the abstract, I don’t mind a little bullshit. There is potential for a virtuous cycle where clients seek firms based on purported innovation and thereby incentivize scaling innovation. But that only happens if clients demand to experience (and measure) the fruits of innovation—i.e., unless you ask. Selecting a firm merely because they have a reputation for innovation only reinforces the viability of a high sizzle-to-steak ratio.

    In the particular, I often find bullshit useful. When I am reviewing RFI responses, I know I am consuming a fair amount of bullshit. But it is informative bullshit and, ultimately, bullshit I can work with.

    There is substantial variation in the quality of the bullshit. Many firms clearly have no idea what they are bullshitting about. They unintentionally present as parodies on par with O’Magawd Mikoreer Izova. Other firms say all the right things. Their bullshit is on point.

    Saying all the right things is never enough. But it’s a start. It’s an indicator that someone at the firm gets it. It’s a signal that if a client is committed to weaving continuous improvement into the fabric of a deep supplier relationship, they would, at the very least, be able to enter into a constructive dialogue with the firm.

    And, while weak, the words are also a form of commitment. Even if it is mostly bullshit, a firm that tells a client they ❤ AFAs or project managers has more pressure to deliver if that client asks for AFAs or project managers. Although RFI responses are written in the present tense, I often read them as markers as to what the firm might do with sustained client engagement.

    The quality of bullshit is one filter among many. It doesn’t help identify the right firms so much as assist with eliminating the wrong firms. It is a step in strategic selection. Though not decisive. Bullshit should never be the final word.

    I can imagine a near future where law departments narrow firms based on expertise (the threshold consideration) and then use Legal Services Innovation Index 3.0 to inform (i) which remaining firms to talk to and (ii) what to talk to those firms about. While I would welcome additional forms of measurement, this would still be an improvement on the status quo. But only if it leads to engagement on innovation and service delivery. Not if the words on the webpage are treated as dispositive.

    Which, as always, brings us back to the reality that law is a buyers market. Any problems that arise are for the buyers to fix. And we have a puffery problem that needs fixing.

    The tide is turning. Slowly. Law departments are keenly aware of law firm inconsistency. Many law departments are therefore increasing focus on process- and technology-enabled legal service delivery. Some are making great strides. But most still struggle to articulate what they want. Innovation, value, efficiency, cost-effectiveness….by themselves, these are vague demands. Ambiguity is an invitation to bullshit. We need to get concrete. Measure. Ask. Inspect. Discuss. Act. Repeat. Or something like that. Whatever it takes to flip the ratio. 85% real innovation to 15% PR should be our aspirational goal.

    Again, I expect a little bullshit here and there. I am a regular purveyor, though still too circumspect to ascend to true bullshit artistry. Without the ballast of bullshit, my writing would be an endless parade of caveats, conditionals, and qualifications (and my posts are already too long). Modest overconfidence can enhance readability. Modest overstatement can raise the bar. But the legal market exceeds the bounds of reason. Our bullshit is a barrier to innovation.

    Bullshit has become so endemic that everyone from the associates to the GCs in my examples couldn’t understand why anyone would deign to question it. There is such a quantum of bullshit that we are breeding cynics who presume everything is bullshit. It ain’t all bullshit. There is real innovation. But the prevalence of bullshit causes the marketplace of ideas to malfunction. Real innovation ends up buried under piles of bullshit.

    Yet it’s not accurate that ‘everybody knows’ it’s all bullshit. Many have started to believe their own bullshit. We’ve cultivated the illusion of innovation where constant chatter about innovation in and of itself has convinced partners that their firms are innovative (I’d submit the same is true of law departments, but I don’t have the study to back that up). Our bullshit has gone too far when we can no longer recognize it as bullshit.

    The full bullshit arc:

    ______________________________________
    D. Casey Flaherty is a legal operations consultant and the founder of Procertas. He serves on the advisory board of Nextlaw Labs. He is the author of Unless You Ask: A Guide for Law Departments to Get More from External Relationships, written and published in partnership with the ACC Legal Operations Section, and the Service Delivery Review Primer, written for the Buying Legal Council. Find more of his writing here. Connect with Casey on Twitter and LinkedIn. Or email casey@procertas.com.


    *An excerpt from Frankfurt’s classic essay “On Bullshit” follows. The full essay is here. The subsequent book (a great read) is here.

    This is the crux of the distinction between him and the liar. Both he and the liar represent themselves falsely as endeavoring to communicate the truth. The success of each depends upon deceiving us about that. But the fact about himself that the liar hides is that he is attempting to lead us away from a correct apprehension of reality; we are not to know that he wants us to believe something he supposes to be false. The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides, on the other hand, is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor co conceal it. This does not mean that his speech is anarchically impulsive, but that the motive guiding and controlling it is unconcerned with how the things about which he speaks truly are.

    It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.

    Harvey, social media and getting real

    It’s Day 3: I’m sitting in my island of a home waiting out #Harvey.

    I’m one of the very lucky ones. I still have power, potable water and a working Netflix account.

    But I’m movied out and reduced to organizing my closet.

    On Day 1, I packed my evacuation bags: insurance, check; passport, check; undies, check.

    On Day 2, cooked all the meat in my freezer. Made spaghetti. Did my mending, which I have been putting off for years.

    On Day 3, what am I doing? What I’ve done from the beginning. Working my social media.

    It is so ingrained in my life, I don’t even think about it anymore. See a beautiful sunset? Instagram it. Going to the movies? Check in with my Facebook New Yorker Movie Club Group. Hear something funny? Text my family on Message. My cousin in New Mexico is worried about me so we Facebook Messenger a video chat.

    Now mind you, I haven’t posted on this blog for years. Politics, competitiveness and job security were factors in this decision. Greg and Toby have done a great job of steering this ship.

    Me, I’m more behind the scenes. Always have been.

    But today, with the ever looming #Harvey, much like Jimmy Stewart, I feel compelled to introduce you to my invisible side.

    I’ve lived in Houston for longer than I care to admit. Born in New Mexico but raised in Ohio, I didn’t come here until I was 14. And I hated it. With too many mini Farrah Fawcetts in my very tony high school, I and my flannel shirts definitely did not fit in.

    After spending some time in London several years ago, I’ve come to finally appreciate the urban sprawl of Houston. Yes, it’s swampy hot; yes, there are spaghetti bowls of traffic; yes, people are everywhere. But because of its very big-ness, the expansiveness makes us, well, expansive.

    Today, on Day 3, I’m reading social media and crying. Crying for a city with a big heart and open doors. Crying for a city that has seen too many tears today. Crying for people who are sitting on top of counters who are grateful for their counters.

    Don’t tell me that social media is ruining our children. Don’t tell me that social media is evil. Don’t tell me social media is a waste of time.

    I’ve seen it in action, over and over again. Sending evacuation information, cautioning about scams, connecting those who are abandoned. Every organization, big and small, is using social media to communicate with this community.

    So don’t talk to me about how technology is failing our culture and ending civilization.

    If anything, it is exposing the true heart of our country.

    I recently listened to the Sincerely, X podcast series co-presented by TED and Audible. The series shares true stories that the tellers feel are “too sensitive, painful or potentially damaging to share publicly” and so they share them anonymously. To be honest, I am not sure how I feel about the anonymous aspect of the series. But my focus today is the content of Episode 5: Equality Executive. In it, a corporate leadership consultant gives advice on how to create gender parity in the senior ranks of an organization. Her main thesis is that companies should treat achieving gender parity in their senior ranks the same way they would treat any good business decision, because that’s what gender parity in the C-suite is — a good business decision. For example, does a law firm just talk about getting more A-level clients, or does it put time, money, and human resources towards achieving that result because it wants to be more profitable? Usually the latter. And so, since gender parity is a good business decision, organizations need to treat it like one, giving it the mental, human, and financial attention it deserves.

    Here are some excerpts from the talk:

    • “Thousands of leaders… realize that creating gender equality at every level within the organization isn’t just a nice thing to do, but an absolute business imperative.”
    • “Study after study shows that no matter how you torture the data, having women in the C-suite creates higher profitability, period.”
    • “A recent study revealed that there are more CEOs in the S&P 1500 named John than there are women CEOs.” (Ok, I just had to include this one. Apparently, if you want your child to be the CEO of a company, you should name him or her John.)
    Do I believe that gender — and I’ll extend this to racial, religious, sexual orientation, etc. — diversity in senior corporate ranks is important? Yes. Do I believe that such diversity in senior ranks is a good business decision? Yes. But I sure as heck don’t believe that the reason you should build a diverse workforce is because it’s a good business decision. I also don’t believe you should build a diverse workforce because it’s a nice thing to do, as the quotation above suggests. You should build a diverse workforce because it is the morally right thing to do.
    Framing diversity as ‘a good business decision’ is, to quote James Cameron, “just male Hollywood [replace with organization name of choice] doing the same old thing.” It’s grading the value of diversity against a scale that traditional white male leaders created. By no means am I saying that business decisions should not take into account what’s good for the business. But I am saying that decisions about whether human beings should be included at the table should be made because they are human beings, not because including them is a good business decision. Taken to the extreme, should we as a society have asked if ending slavery was a good business decision? Or should we have ended slavery because it is immoral to own human beings? 
    Putting the efforts to create diversity in corporate senior ranks in the context of profitability is not only misguided, it opens the door for a company to discriminate by saying that in its case, diversity will not lead to profitability. I appreciate the good intention of this corporate leadership consultant, but her advice sends the wrong message to corporate.

    I am usually one who believes if you need to tell someone you are valuable, you probably aren’t. However, I want to pile on with Heather Morse and others for legal media writers to stop using the term “non-lawyer” when describing legal professionals who work on the operations side of law firms. It’s just plain lazy writing, and you can do better.

    Heather’s post, Husch Blackwell’s incoming CEO is a professional, not a “non-lawyer,” lays out the argument that there are lawyers in law firms, and there are professionals who are in the business of running a law firm. The old way of running these law firms usually meant that one or more of the law firm partners also ran operations. However, as firms grew, that method was challenged by a more traditional business structure of having those trained in management and business operations running the administrative structure of the firm, and letting the Partners set the strategic goals of the firm, and get back to the practice of law.

    I get it. It’s an easy phrase that simplifies the wall between a licensed attorney who is practicing law, and an administrative professional who is handling the day-to-day operations of the firm. However, as Heather Morse puts it, it “does a disservice to all of the firms that are being run as businesses.” I’ll stress again, it’s also pretty lazy. Just read the title of the article that is invoking Heather and other legal industry professionals to call for a removal of this phrase. Please, read it out loud to yourself:

    Husch Blackwell’s Next Leader is a Newly Employed Non-Lawyer

    Now take a drink of coffee to wash that taste out of your mouth.

    I’ve checked “non-lawyer” usage with other publications, like Bloomberg Law Big Law Business, and noticed that the term is typically only used when it is describing ownership by someone who is not a licensed attorney, or when advice or counsel is coming from someone who is an expert in the field, but not a licensed attorney. It can be done.

    My request for all the legal industry writers out there is for you to take the phrase “non-lawyer” and throw it away. Be a little more creative when you announce a new CEO of a law firm who happens to be a business professional with vast experience. Focus on what he or she brings to the firm, rather than if the person can or cannot practice law.

    I wrote a primer for the Buying Legal Council on making service delivery reviews a core tenant of an external provider program. I think you should read it. It is probably shorter than the post that follows.

    [Scene: a bar at the fabulous, just-concluded ILTACON]


     Strawman: I read your last post criticizing convergence initiatives.

    Me: “Criticize” might be a tad strong. Convergence initiatives are among my core consulting services. I am a proponent. But I consider convergence a precondition. I am candid that what happens post convergence is more critical to success than convergence itself. Yet convergence has become one of those ‘things that law departments like us do.’ The original sin of so many preferred provider programs is that too little thought goes into ‘and then what.’

    SM: What about Microsoft?

    Me: What about Microsoft?

    SM: Their new outside counsel initiative is publicly premised on deeper relationships with their primary providers.

    Me: Yes, it is. Looks fantastic. Kudos to them.

    SM: But don’t you see the inconsistency? Aren’t they doing precisely what you said law departments don’t do?

    Me: My claim is about most law departments. What Microsoft is doing is remarkable. It is remarkable precisely because it is different. If they were doing what everyone else is already doing, there would be no story. There are many law departments that earn their headlines and are worthy of not only admiration but emulation in some of their approaches to managing external relationships—Microsoft, 3M, 7-Eleven, ADM, Avis, Barclays, DHL, GE, GSK, Shell….it is long list in raw numbers with a lineage that dates back to at least the DuPont model. But it remains a much smaller percentage of the Global 500 than logic or press coverage would seem to suggest. It’s not like I’m an original thinker. I had to get my ideas from somewhere.

    SM: That’s my question. What ideas? I read that entire post waiting for you to explain what law departments should be doing post convergence. I found nothing.

    Me: Did you click on the links?

    SM: Links? No one has time for that.

    Me: Well, there was a link to a free ACC guidebook I wrote a little over a year ago where I discussed in excruciating detail my thoughts on managing relationships with external providers.

    SM: Oh yeah, I know the one you are talking about. I downloaded it when it first came out. But, you know, tl;dr.

    Me: tl;dr?

    SM: Too long, didn’t read. You can get a bit, um, wordy.

    Me: That I can. Well, I’ve got good news. I wrote a primer for the Buying Legal Council. The main body clocks in at under five pages of actual text if you ignore the table of contents, deliberate white spaces, and appendix.

    SM: What does it say?

    Me: Really, you aren’t going to read five pages?

    SM: I might. But I need to be convinced it warrants that kind of commitment.

    Me: I believe clients need to pay sustained attention to systems for legal service delivery—how expertise is leveraged through process and technology. This demands not only a different degree but a different kind of engagement with external providers. Engagement premised on accountability, collaboration, and a shared commitment to co-prosperity. Clients are the urgency drivers and must take the lead in ensuring that continuous improvement is woven into the fabric of their relationships. They should create feedback loops with their primary providers incorporating consistent quantitative and qualitative measurement, regular inquiries into service delivery, site visits, and structured dialogue. This is a true program, not a one-time push. It requires follow through, including a willingness to take decisive action. No lip service or virtue signaling. No discount kabuki. Real dollars must be at stake.

    SM: That went way over the 140 character limit. Still, it might prove interesting. I’ll check it out. That said, I’ve always wanted to ask you a question. Do you have any hobbies?

    Me: Not really.

    SM: Didn’t think so.

    [End Scene]

    The primer is here.

    ______________________________________
    D. Casey Flaherty is a legal operations consultant and the founder of Procertas. He serves on the advisory board of Nextlaw Labs. He is the primary author of Unless You Ask: A Guide for Law Departments to Get More from External Relationships, written and published in partnership with the ACC Legal Operations Section. Find more of his writing here. Connect with Casey on Twitter and LinkedIn. Or email casey@procertas.com.