If you’re going to submit documents with citations to unpublished decisions to US International Trade Court Commission Administrative Judge Dee Lord, you’re going to have to make sure it has Westlaw citations and not Lexis. In Judge Lord’s ITC Order [pdf] she ordered the parties to change the “incorrect” LEXIS citations for unpublished decisions and resubmit the briefs and reply briefs with WESTLAW citations.

The parties’ post trial briefs and reply briefs include several incorrect legal citations and citations to LEXIS databases for unpublished decisions, which are no longer available to the USITC. To ensure that the cited legal authority is considered, the parties are hereby ordered to review their briefs and verify the accuracy of their citations. The parties shall file corrected briefs, no later than February 14,2014, using Bluebook formatting for citations, fixing any errors in the citations and including WESTLAW citations for any unpublished decisions (including USITC orders and opinions).

Judge Lord joined the ITC Bench in September last year, and it would seem (and I am hoping) that this is her preference to how she wants briefs filed and not a larger trend. Since according to the USITC website [pdf, page 21], decisions can be researched on both Westlaw and Lexis, it would seem that both citations would be accepted by the USITC. However, the part in Judge Lord’s decision that says that Lexis unpublished decisions “are no longer available to the USITC”, may be driving this decision and thus creating an “incorrect LEXIS” citation.

This type of decision could mean that anyone submitting documents to the USITC would have to use Westlaw in order to submit “correct” citations. Let’s hope not!! Of course, it would be great if the courts would use a universal citation for their published and unpublished opinions, but that might be just too much to ask…

[Hat tip to Amy for pointing this out, and to Mark for getting me the USITC mention of using Westlaw or Lexis for USITC research.]

[Ed. Note: I incorrectly referred to the ITC as International Trade Court. I should have said International Trade Commission. – GL 2/15/2014]

Note: My good friend, Michael Robak, from the University of Missouri, Kansas City, Law School attended the ReInvent Law NYC conference, and has a guest post of his experiences. I had all kinds of good intentions to make it to the conference this year, but alas, my day job and a Partner Retreat scheduled for the same day got in the way. Thanks to Michael for sharing his experiences with us.

Greg – I am heartened to learn that you had a ticket for Reinvent Law NYC 2014 and were all set to go so you could see it for yourself.  Truly sorry that your work kept you from attending because, in my view, Dan Katz and Renee Newman Knake created another terrific and thought provoking event!
What I found very interesting is that I couldn’t really compare NYC to the Silicon Valley event because even though the subject matter was similar it contained its own unique energy and vibe.  I’m sure there were quite a few people who had been at both or had followed via the “prism of twitter” (which is no way shape or form like actually attending a conference, but that’s my view) and have different views.  The commentary is already beginning to fill up the “blog-o-spheres”, so let me add some more.

Held at the Great Hall at Cooper Union, we were warned of a strict adherence to the fire code’s people limits, so at least two emails warned in the two days before the event.  The event was free but emails let you know that even if you had a ticket reserved you still might not get in because they conference was “oversold”, so best to get there early.

The doors opened at 8 a.m., so I showed up at around 7:20 to find a few people already gathered.  One of those was Monica Bay editor in chief of ALM’s Law Technology News who had just finished putting on one of the best LegalTech and CIO Summit shows I’ve ever attended.  So it gave me a chance to visit and pitch an article idea (we law librarians should be writing for LTN, although I recognize for some of us this doesn’t quite qualify as peer reviewed scholarship, it’s where our writing should be seen).  Also, a shout out to 3 Geek guest blogger, Ryan Mclead, whose presentation was terrific and Ed Walters’ talk at the CIO summit one of his funniest/thought provoking best.
[ed note: after Ryan’s post from yesterday, Michael may want to take back his shout out to Ryan.]

While waiting at that early hour I also had the great good fortune to meet Andrew Weltchek, a practicing solo attorney in New York who knew nothing about the conference but had received an email and was intrigued by some of the presentation titles.  I say good fortune because, since he was not one of the usual suspects, it was wonderful to engage in conversation about the speakers and content in a way that helped me think through why I think there is so much to what Dan and Renee have done with their Reinvent Law lab.

This was such a fantastic venue for its history, but no liquids were allowed in the Great Hall, creating a situation where the coffee break was offered in the very narrow corridor outside the hallway and the coffee placed somewhat in the middle and if, like me, you sat on one particular side of the hall, the coffee and coffee line were between you and the restroom.  Which led to my having to explain to more than one caffeine deprived person that I really wasn’t cutting into the coffee line that I really was just trying to get to the restroom.  I changed seats at each break thereafter to avoid such issues.  Plus it was just cool to see the stage from different parts of the auditorium.

But narrow break space and no wifi aside, there were 40 speakers at the event including Richard Susskind as the end speaker.  There were a lot of great talks, lots of ideas, and I’m writing to you because I’ve already seen push back from some who attended (and some who just followed the conference) on whether this was really a great event, or just more of the same old pablum.
I’m writing to again explain why I think this is the real deal (and what I mean by dealier) but also to tell my brethren law librarians that they need to pay particular attention  to what is happening here because it signifies opportunities amidst all the hype of doomed law libraries.

Let me start with some particular highlights for me and see if I can unite them as a theme within the conference.  This is hardly a comprehensive review but a snapshot of some of the talks and ideas that particularly resonated with me.

First, for me, was Paul Lippe’s talk, Legal by Design.  This idea of the need for thinking about designing service was woven throughout the day, particularly again with Margaret Hagan’s talk later on.  I particularly enjoyed Paul’s describing his own early days of working to re-conceptualize the delivery of legal services with “the cabal” of Susskind, Carr, and Chandler.  And discussing his current work, after re-entering the legal industry a few years ago, in trying to push along what he thought surely should have been accomplished by now.  Paul’s talk is when I first thought talking about “design” meant we are talking fundamentally about law as an information intensive industry much in need of a UX rethink.  The next talk I thoroughly enjoyed was David Howarth’s Law as Engineering.  I’ve had his book on my desk for the last couple of months because it explains well that, again, we are talking about information systems that are subject to design principles.  Or, more correctly, subject to rendering as drawings and schema.  Librarians, of all people, should be able to grasp this concept best of all, particularly those of us who know how (and love) to use Visio to bring clarity to the systems that surround us.

Now, here is where the “dealier” part comes in; the next presentation that grabbed me wasn’t so much of a talk as it was a real time presentation of all the folks in the room who have gotten venture capital backing for startups in the legal space.  Joshhttp://www.lxbn.com/2014/02/07/joshua-kubicki-shines-light-legal-startups-reinvent-law-nyc/ua Kubicki’s presentation had him asking all the members of the audience who had been funded as a legal start up to come up on stage.  People started pouring on stage to provide stark evidence of the $458 million that has been bet on such startups.  Now, as was said throughout the day, a lot of these will fail.  But, as Kyle Westaway said in his opening talk, you have to be smart enough to know whether to pivot or persevere, i.e., your idea didn’t work, should you pivot and go elsewhere or tweak and correct and persevere.  The other talk that particularly reinforced this “dealier” aspect was David Perla’s.  David is the co-founder of Panagea3 and his talk asked whether we were at the stage of a number of new legal industry business forms or something just before.  He took a number of the startups (many of whose founders were in the room) and described a taxonomy of “new life forms” which will most likely lead to newer and better forms of business after a time of evolution.  I highly recommend watching all the videos but his is particularly interesting for the way he describes the “pre-Cambrian” life forms.

One of the ventures he described in the legal research space was Judicata which had been presented earlier in the day by Itai Gurari.  What I thought was useful from Itai’s presentation was his showing a picture of Thomas Edison’s first phone and identifying how John West developed the topic and key number system at roughly the same time.  There was no new legal research analog for the iphone Itai then showed. 

The other talks that particularly drew me in were:  the “T shaped” lawyer talk by Amani Smathers, in which she took a look at how IBM developed human capital and identified similar skill sets needed for the 21st century lawyer.  Her idea was the long downward part of the T was the deep lawyer domain knowledge but the skill set placed in the top of the T were a mix of tech and business skills.  Also, the previously mentioned Margaret Hagan talk on using design to create smarter and better access to justice for the consumer and, of course,  Richard Susskind’s talk.  His talk was really worth the day long wait since he neatly, I think, identified the stages that have happened and are happening on the way to 2038 when law should, in his view, finally look fundamentally different.  Or, rather, should be expressed along the lines he began writing about back in 1988.

I think I can sum up my highlights by saying the practice of law is information intensive and governed by a series of identifiable rules, business processes, and work flows.  Many, if not most, of the legal startups are looking at the delivery of legal services and identifying the processes that occur, the artifacts that fall out of those processes and asking why does it have to be that way? is this the best we can do to deliver the services of an information intensive industry?  So, to think in Paul Lippe’s terms of Legal by Design, as law librarians, as an information professionals, we should be at the center of this movement that seeks to explain the business of law as a developed repository of information and a delivery of information, on behalf of the client seeking a trusted advisor to assist with the nature of their law problem.  Law librarians can help explain, guide, and provide an integrative view of the legal system in the service of rethinking how best to deliver service.  Really, it is about information governance, a term entering its second or third year as a proper buzzword at LegalTech. 

Basically Ediscovery has opened the lid on how poorly organization’s information systems handle the ebb and flow of information, the connections between people and knowledge, within organizations.  So I don’t use the term as described at LegalTech.  Instead, I would seek to co-opt this term, “Information governance”, for law librarians.  I would say we are in the best position to help with this discussion because we can bring clarity to this information intensive industry and its rules and business processes and work flows.  With clarity there stands a chance for lawyers (and others) to make a good living and provide greater access to justice…. In my humble opinion.   My thoughts here are still a work in progress but, to paraphrase Dana Carvey’s grumpy old man, “dang nab it” we librarians ought to be in the thick of all this reinvention.  Thanks for letting me get the word out.  And, as I say, check out the videos, much better than relying on a Twitter feed.

http://www.susskind.com/images/book-tomorrows-lawyers.jpg

During the first week in February every year e-discovery vendors descend on the New York Hilton for E-Discovery Week LegalTech NY.  The rest of the legal technology vendors set up shop in nearby hotels and pilfer attendees away for customer forums and individual demos. It becomes increasingly difficult to find people who admit to coming to New York that week to actually attend LTNY.  They may go to a session or two, or breeze through the vendor hall, but most of the people I meet claim to come for one on one vendor meetings and other festivities taking place away from the Hilton.

This year’s LTNY was followed by ReInvent Law NYC, a TED-style event presenting forty or so short presentations about new approaches to legal services and technology, created and hosted by Michigan State University law professors, Daniel Katz and Renee Knake.  I was not able to attend all of the talks, but I saw enough to know that THIS is the way to give presentations; 6 to 10 minute sessions.  All of the presenters I saw were great, but even if the topics didn’t interest me, I didn’t have to sneak out or grind my teeth through an hour of Windows 9 installation hurdles, I could just check my email for five minutes until the next topic was introduced.  I have been fortunate to be a part of similar sessions at ILTA last year, and LTNY this year, and I heartily encourage those organizations to follow ReInvent Law’s lead and expand the use of these short sessions going forward.

Despite the slick presentation style of ReInvent Law, I came away with the same question that often plagues me after forward thinking LTNY or ILTA sessions. Who are we trying to convince?  The self-selected audience for an event like ReInvent Law already gets it.  These are the people that are already changing the way law is done, or attempting to change their firms, or writing (or blogging) incessantly about the need to change the way we do things.  The same goes for this blog. If you read 3 Geeks more than once, there’s a pretty good chance that you already agree with our progressive approach to doing things differently.

I am certainly not the first to point out the existing echo chamber in the legal blogo-conference-sphere, but I want to be the first to present a solution to break out of it. It is time to embrace the time-honored traditions of growing religious organizations everywhere.  They understand that you can’t grow your following by simply preaching to the people who show up week after week, you have to go out and proselytize and evangelize.  You have to go to where the heathens live and browbeat them convince them with logic and reason of the fundamental truth of your beliefs. It’s time to send the young presenters of ReInvent Law on missions to visit the upper management of our largest firms, the people who don’t come to ReInvent Law, but actually have the power to (you know) reinvent law firms once they are successfully converted.

I see hordes of young, recently graduated, Michigan State lawyers knocking on the doors of BigLaw Managing Partners everywhere, not to beg for work, but to raise high their dog-eared copy of Tomorrow’s Lawyers and ask, “Have you accepted Richard Susskind as your Legal Savior?”

Image [cc] camknows

The keynote speaker for the Marketing Partner Forum, Joe Pine, focused his discussion on the idea behind advancing the service economy into an experience economy. He began with the idea of the gumball machine and how adding the experience of seeing the gumball roll down a spiral ramp before exiting the machine has revolutionized the gumball machine industry. He notes that the experience does nothing to improve the taste of the gum, or does it improve anything about the actual gumball itself. In fact, if you think about it, the spiral ramp actually decreases the efficiency of the gumball machine by taking a longer time to dispense the gumball to the consumer. The product stays the same, but the service has advanced by improving the experience of the consumer. Having seen this in action with my four children, I can attest to the fact that the experience drives the customer to come to me and ask for any quarters I have in my pockets.

Pine went on to discuss a number of other services that are improved through engagement of the customer in ways that changes the interaction between the service and the customer. Hospitals that have focused on personalizing, humanizing, and demystifying the hospital stay have created improvements in healing and overall health care experience. Architectural firms that personalize the experience of their customers and cause an engagement between the firm and the customer’s project that makes the customer feel as though they have the complete focus of the firm on their projects. Restaurants that create an environment where the customers are actually a part of the overall presentation, and not simply a bystander there to eat a meal.

There was one example that Pine gave that he says failed in his opinion to engage the customer, although it is known for creating an interesting and interactive environment. The Rain Forest Cafe is a chain that creates an atmosphere of interesting automated animal creatures, but that alone is simply not enough to create an experience (at least not a positive one.) The scene is set, but there is no one directing the experience. I remember my first time in one of these, and was told that there would be a “show” every twenty minutes. We watched, we waited, the animals made a few sounds, moved a bit, but we never actually saw a show. When we left (after about an hour), we asked about the show, and the waitress said that we’d seen the show three times. We left disappointed, and I’ve never gone back.

This type of “show without direction” reminded me of what law firms have created in their receptionist areas of their offices. Lots of interesting items that line the room with spectacular views, and even a few items lying around waiting to be picked up and read. But the experience is usually this:

  1. Exit the elevator; look around for the receptionist area
  2. Greeted by the receptionist; asked for name, who you are here to see
  3. Receptionist calls the attorney and announces you are here
  4. Receptionist invites you to sit down in one of the comfy chairs
  5. You wait until the attorney comes to get you (usually after they’ve finished up editing a document or finishing up an email)
  6. You are then walked back to the meeting room or attorneys office
  7. When you finish, you are walked back to the receptionist’s area
  8. Parking validated
  9. Enter the elevator and leave

There is ample opportunity for engagement with the client, yet the time spent before and after the meeting results in very little engagement actually performed.

The main problem that popped into my head while considering this process is that law firms have created a highly efficient receptionist that can handle high volumes of telephone calls, visitors, and deliveries that enter and exit the law firm. It is all very utilitarian. However, the trade-off for being so efficient is that there is no individual experience. Views may be great, but views with a story behind them are twice as great. We lack that engagement… that storytelling of why something is laid out on the table enabling the customer to see more than the words and pictures before them. No one is making the customer feel as if he or she is important to the firm. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Vendors coming in to sell products to the firm are given the same treatment as clients bringing in thousands or millions of dollars of business to the firm.

I began thinking of how we could change this bland, one-size-fits-all, experience and make it more engaging to the client, and more productive for the law firm. Ideas of a client concierge began forming in my mind. Imagine having someone in your Marketing, Business Development, or Client Teams departments greeting clients (especially key clients) when they walk off the elevator. Knowing exactly who they are, who they are there to see, and being ready to engage the person or persons in conversation. One of the points that Joe Pine made in his talk was that the experience should be a presentation, staged, if you will, and no “back stage” preparations should be exposed to the customer. Therefore, the attorney should be ready to meet with the client and all other business (telephone calls, document editing, emails, etc.) should be put away. If there are timing issues between the attorney’s availability and the client’s time to meet, the concierge should be ready to expand their engagement to fill that time. However, the client’s time is just as valuable as the attorneys, so this should only be a brief extension of the concierge’s performance.

The idea behind the client concierge is actually two-fold. First and foremost, they are there to engage the client and create an experience that lets the client know that they are important to the firm, and that at this moment in time, our resources are focused upon them. In addition to the engagement, there may be valuable information that the client discusses with the concierge. There may be exciting personal news the client talks about, or new business dealings brought up in the conversation. The concierge should relay these points to the attorney or departments responsible for this particular client. This isn’t about prying, it is about creating a better relationship, and improving the client’s overall experience with the firm.

I brought my idea up a couple of times, and was a bit surprised by one answer I received. “Clients like being left alone in the reception area. It gives them time to check and answer their emails.” I really hope that is not the case. I would think that clients do not like waiting (especially if they think the clock is running on the attorney’s billable time.) Instead of making them wait, engage them. Instead of letting them come up with ways to pass the time, take advantage of the time they are giving you by appearing at your office. Personal contact between clients and the law firms that represent them are fleeting. Firms should find ways of leveraging that time and engaging the clients in ways that produce a more positive interaction, and result in a better experience for the client.

While the east coast is buried in another snowstorm, I am in sunny Naples, Florida today to speak at the Marketing Partner Forum. Full disclosure: It was a bit chilly, so I had to stop and buy a light jacket to handle the temps that fell into the 50’s and will dip into the 40’s tonight, so I won’t be surfing these waves.

All kidding aside, I enjoy coming to these conferences mainly because it exposes me to people, ideas, and practices that are outside of my normal routine. In return, I expose the attendees and fellow presenters with ideas and practices that are outside of their normal routine. So it is a mutual benefit (at least I think so.)

Today I am speaking on the concepts of data found inside and outside of firms that help develop Business Development/Business Intelligence/Competitive Intelligence programs. It’s something that I’ve been talking about for nearly ten years, and you’d think that I’d run out of things to say or learn. However, it is usually quite the opposite. In crowds like I’ll face this afternoon, there will be folks that will seriously question my ideas. There will be people that have failed where others have succeeded, and there will be people that succeeded where everyone else has failed. It is a somewhat cathartic process for both the speakers and the audience.

One of the things that I’ve been thinking about lately, and will discuss in the talk today, is the idea of telling others to stop thinking of what we do as educating the attorneys about business development, or client risk exposures, or industry trends, and start thinking of ways to instruct the attorneys to make money off of the information placed in front of him or her. I imagine that this is not a new concept to Marketing and Biz Dev folks, but I think there is room to grow in creating a process where everyone along the assembly line of BD/BI/CI understands what the end goals are of the process, and what role they play in actually creating a chance to bring in new revenue into the firm.

Too much of the time, we think of presenting the information in a way to educate the attorney. We throw out the phrase “actionable intelligence” when we present the information, but are we limiting the actual meaning of that phase to merely educating the attorney rather than directing the attorney? Have we become some type of quasi-CLE provider? Perhaps we could rename our group to Continuing Business Education, or Continuing Client Education, and be honest in what we are actually doing.

When you are discussing a business opportunity with an attorney, be prepared to answer the following question: “How do we monetize this idea?”

If that is what we are attempting to do with BD/BI/CI, then that needs to be known throughout the whole process. Every step along the way, from concept, to research, to engineering, to technology application, to analysis, to final product… how will this drive business and bring more money in the door? When you move it away from education and into revenue generation, it can help identify what is and what is not business driving concepts.

I look forward to the audience blowing holes in my ideas this afternoon. At least I can then walk away with an idea for a follow up blog post.

Kate Martin, Law Library for the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, Maryland, is organizing an Access to Justice (A2J) Conference in Baltimore on March 21st. The conference is through the local law librarian chapter, LLAM, and anyone familiar with Kate should know that she tends to develop very strong programs that take on a life of their own (Martin established the Private Law Libraries Summit a few years ago.) More information on signing up for the conference will come in the next few weeks, but put a placeholder in your calendar for March 21st and get out to Maryland to enjoy the first day of Spring.

Kate describes the relationships between law librarians and A2J as “a core value of law librarians – and it is becoming more critical as professional legal assistance becomes more expensive and beyond the reach of even average, middle-class Americans.” Many of the public facing law libraries have seen the increase of self-represented litigants over the past decade, and Martin believes this trend will only continue to grow. However, she does not think that the responsibilities of A2J lie on the shoulders of court librarians alone. Just because you may be a firm librarian, Martin believes you,  too, can help with A2J issues.

“We’re especially targeting private law librarians by showing them a way to use A2J to raise their profile within their firms and support their firm’s pro bono efforts,” says Martin. “A2J will also offers a way to give back to the community.”

The conference is being marketed on the national level, and will be the first symposium on A2J that is completely organized for librarians. There will be several tracks covering A2J issues and hands-on sessions discussing and advising on the current issues. Martin already has speakers coming in from Alaska, Montana, Minnesota, Utah, and Georgia, with more lining up across the country to speak and join in on the discussion. The registration (I’ll post a follow-up when the official announcement goes out), will only cost $65, and the seminar will be held at the University of Baltimore during Spring Break, so you won’t even have to fight students as you make your way around the building.

Image [cc] Topsy

Based on a delightful and wide-ranging conversation with Pratik Patel from Elevate about Legal Project Management (LPM), we were able to boil the LPM Challenge down to a single phrase. We were talking about what clients are demanding in terms of pricing and transparency. And how clients are pushing for more project management tools and efforts from their outside firms. But more importantly, clients are starting to ask for more meaningful answers to their LPM requests.

Of course this also lead to discussing how lawyers struggle with LPM and PM in general, always citing the unpredictability of legal matters. And here’s the rub – the lawyers are both right and wrong. Yes – legal matters are unpredictable, but clients still want to see meaningful implementations of LPM with their outside firms. Clients really want to see improved efficiencies from their law firms. They want better evidence that their matters are being handled in the most cost effective manner and they are looking to LPM as evidence this is occurring.

Previously I would have argued about lack of scope and how lawyers and clients don’t engage in out-of-scope conversations. This is obviously still the case. But instead, this time the conversation centered on efficiency and unpredictability.

So here’s the $64 phrase: Law firms need to demonstrate efficiency in the midst of unpredictability.

Unpredictability, poor scope, no scope … are all part of the landscape. Court hearings will be postponed. Closing dates will be moved. Motions will be filed. But through all of this, clients still want to see their work being completed Better, Faster and Cheaper.

So the real trick for LPM is finding the best way to demonstrate this to clients. Just telling them you are more efficient is not good enough. Firms will have to be able to functionally demonstrate it. Now this is no small task. But I suggest knowing what the challenge is in such a simple way is a great starting point.

I wanted to use this platform as a way to share our experiences on the new mandatory eFiling system for Texas Civil Courts. I have talked with many librarians around Texas over the past few weeks and have found many of us have been tasked with preparing our firms for the new mandate, and working with the vendors in testing the new system. To say it has been a strain on our sanity may be a bit of an understatement.

So that we may “share the pain” (or, if you have a success story, please share that too), please comment with your experiences on this post. I know that many have decided to switch from traditional vendors because of their inability to adjust to the new eFiling system, or for the inability to also meet the mandate for eService for the ten largest Texas county courts.

Here is the statement from the eFileTexas.Gov site on the mandate:

In December 2012, the Texas Supreme Court mandated e-filing in civil matters. The first group of counties (Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, Collin, Denton, El Paso, Hidalgo and Fort Bend), the Supreme Court, the Court of Criminal Appeals and the 14 Courts of Appeal become mandatory January 1, 2014. This means that attorneys will no longer be able to file paper documents at the clerk’s counter. E-filing in all other counties will become mandatory on a graduated schedule through July 1, 2016.

The eFiling system and consolidation under one platform is supposed to make it easier, faster, and more efficient for those filing matters with Texas courts. Has that been your experience? Have you jettisoned your current provider for a new provider? Have the Court Clerks for the counties affected been helpful during the transition? How are you preparing your attorneys, paralegals, secretaries, and other staff for the new eFiling system?

Please share your experiences with all of us!!

 

Image [cc] LendingMemo

Ed Walters love to mention that information and data can be ‘elequent.’ The ideas behind the eloquence is finding innovative ways of collecting, indexing, searching, recalling, and interfacing with the information in a way that captures the attention of the user, and gives them the ability to take action based on that interaction. It might sound like a lot of buzz-words, but when you think about it, the reason we conduct legal research is to obtain a result that allows us to take action, or advise others on what they should do next.

As I was watching Ed Walters retweet a number of messages today on the issue of alternatives to Lexis and Westlaw driving legal information to commodity status, there was a comment from The Raveller (@ravellaw) that caught my attention.  “The trend isn’t commoditization of research, it’s the reinvention of it.”

First off… let’s look at the definition of commoditization:
1:  commodify; specifically:  to render (a good or service) widely available and interchangeable with one provided by another company
2:  to affect (as a brand or a market) by commoditizing goods or services <fierce competition threatened to commoditize prices>

In this case, we tend to think of legal information as the products that our courts, legislatures, and administrative offices produce that guide our society on issues ranging from basic rights and wrongs, to how we conduct business in a uniform way. In the researcher’s world, we tend to think of it as primary law materials.

The comment from The Raveller on reinvention versus commoditization could be interpreted a couple of ways. First, have we already tipped the scale toward primary law being a commodity? Second, does it not matter that the massive primary law pool of information become a commodity in order for other vendors to create inventive ways of presenting the information? Can you get to this second option without first achieving commodity status? I sent a tweet back out to The Reveller and Ed Walters asking.

Ed responded with “Data — esp. primary law — should be (is?) a commodity. Software to make sense of it will be very competitive.”
David Houlihan answered with “Primary law is effectively a commodity. Access was the differentiator, but eroding fast.”

Having just gotten off of an hour and a half phone call on BigData, my brain was buzzing with possibilities of what new technologies, and different approaches to raw information like primary law could bring to the legal research community. We have thought of primary law very linearly for centuries. We are just now coming to grips with the possibilities that a non-linear, even chaotic, approach might unveil the hidden values buried in the raw data, simply because we’d never thought to approach the information that way. Much like technologies have accomplished in the electronic discovery industry.

I think that eventually someone will take the billions of dollars spent on e-discovery technologies and predictive coding, and will turn its focus on massive amounts of information like primary law and discover ways of retrieving actionable information that we never thought possible. Who knows… perhaps there will eventually be products spun out of the NSA that will have commercial use when it comes to primary law? Or, perhaps there is some kid in his or her parent’s garage right now working on the next great process that will take us in a way that no one predicted in 2014. It is very exciting to think about all the possibilities.

So back to my question of reinvention without commodity status. Does commodity status drive invention, or does invention drive commodity status? I think there are arguments for both sides, but I’d say that we’ve probably hit a tipping point where reinvention and the promise of more elequent methods of making primary law into something new and unique and useful in unexpected ways will drive whatever information has not slipped into commodity status into that category very soon.

Image [cc] MyEyeSees

In a time when it is easier to point out what’s wrong with the your profession, it is always enlightening to find someone that can still find enthusiasm for generating ideas and inspiring others to join them in achieving them. After seeing a number of negative emails and Facebook posts yesterday, I had an unsolicited phone call from a collegue who wanted to tell me about a project she is working on and how I, too, should be excited about it. By the time I hung up the phone, I genuinely was excited about what she was planning and offered to assist in helping her promote it once she had the specifics nailed down. (more to come in the next few weeks)

It isn’t the first time that she’s had this effect on me, but it is the first time that I actually thought about how someone with a positive attitude can improve the attitude of those around them. It’s refreshing to find someone that looks at a serious issue and says “hey, we are in a great position to do something good here, so let’s do it!” It really helped counter-balance the Facebook post I saw that explained that if I didn’t appreciate someone’s posts on insulting a whole group of people, then I should just blank-off and unfollow them (which I did.)

It reminded me of a good quote I heard from a really bad movie my daughter rented. “There are two ways to build the tallest building in the world. One: Build a giant skyscraper. Two: Tear down all the other buildings.” It is always more productive when you surround yourself with those willing to build.