On Monday afternoon, sometime between 4 and 5 PM, I am giving a short talk about the Internet of Things at the ILTA Conference in Las Vegas (SPEC 5, Roman Ballroom II).  This story bears almost no relation to the talk I’m giving, but as I researched the IoT I was inspired to write a little fiction.  Consider this a Friday afternoon diversion and a break from our regularly scheduled geekiness.  If you are at ILTA next week, please stop me and say hi.

– Ryan

The Granny Bug

Modern japanese toilet2
Image [CC] By Armin Kübelbeck

“Good morning, Davey Wavey! Wakey Wakey!”

I reached toward the side table and felt for the alarm clock. Opening one eye just enough to realize the futility of that action, I rolled over and pulled the covers over my head.

“C’mon sleepy head. It’s 10 after six, you’ve got to get to schoo-ool!”

I hadn’t attended school in over 40 years. I’m the sixty-four year old CEO of Artificial Legal Intelligence – the third largest AI Law Firm in the world.

“Good Morning Grandma!” My wife, Judy, chuckled from the other side of the bed. 

“And a very good morning to you too, little one!”

I had upgraded my SAPBot to version Six the weekend before, and I managed to select the Granny personality. Granny was intended to introduce 4 to 6 year olds to the concept of a SAPBot. 

“I should have been up half an hour ago, Granny? Why didn’t you wake me?”

The bed shook slightly as Judy tried to stifle her laughter.

“Your early meeting was moved to 10:30 AM and traffic seems particularly light today. You looked so comfortable, I just didn’t have the heart to wake you.”

“Haaa ha ha haa!” Judy couldn’t contain herself anymore.

“I’m so glad you find this funny.”

“I do, I really do.” She laughed.

“It’s your fault.”

“Don’t blame me. Blame Ra-quel!”

She lingered on the name to torture me. I crawled out of bed and stumbled down the hall to the bathroom. 

“Don’t you think it’s a little chilly in here, Granny?”

“Yes dear.  I turned the thermostat up five degrees half an hour ago, but there appears to be something wrong with the air service. I’ve scheduled a repair for their earliest available time at 1PM today. Also, it looks like rain, so the solar panels will not be producing much power today. I’ve negotiated a purchase price from the Power Company. They will deduct today’s usage from your credit balance.”

I reached the bathroom, lifted the toilet seat and began to urinate.

“That’s a very good boy”, the SAPBot chirped.

“Uh, Granny, do you think you could wait outside?”

“I’m not actually in the bathroom with you dear, I am a Semi-Autonomous Personal Bot. Do you know what Semi-autonomous means?”

“Yes, I know what it means. Could you just not talk to me while I’m in here?”

“Of course dear.  Little boys need their privacy too.  Switching to bell mode.”

                 Continued after the jump…


“Thank you.  Reminder: That kid next door is coming by tomorrow evening to reinstall your OS.  Make sure he bumps User Knowledge to Advanced.”

Ding

The bell meant she understood. The wall behind the toilet displayed my calendar and up popped an entry for Thursday, 7PM Jim Taylor to upgrade SAPBot OS – Set UK Level Advanced.

Ding

The toilet had finished analyzing my deposit and as I washed my hands, the mirror displayed its analysis. My general health was good, but blood pressure was slightly elevated and I probably had too much wine with dinner last night. How it knew that from my urine was beyond me. My calendar appeared again and a new doctor’s appointment popped up for a week from Friday.

“Granny!”

Ding

“You can speak.”

“Yes dear?”

“Did you just schedule a doctor’s appointment for me?”

“Yes dear. You are due for a checkup and it seemed a good time.”

“I don’t need a checkup, please cancel it.  What else did you just do in response to my…deposit?”

“I increased the overall fiber content of the grocery list by 15% and removed the bottle of scotch you ordered yesterday.”

“Ugh…revert changes and stop all future adjustments based on my urine samples.”

“The national health service advises that all little boy’s morning deposits be analyzed to ensure continued good health.”

“We went over this for an hour yesterday, Granny, I am 60 years old not 6! ”

“And such a handsome and strong young man you are.”

“Return to bell mode.”

Ding

I got undressed and stepped into the shower. The water started automatically and adjusted to the optimal temperature based on my past preference and an infrared sensor in the shower head.

Ding

Four tiles on the wall at eye level displayed my calendar and the doctor’s appointment for a week from Friday returned.

“I thought I asked you to cancel that appointment, Granny?”

The tiles changed to a close up image of a tiny mole on my back.

Ding

 “You can speak!”

 “Your mole appears to be 1/64th of a millimeter larger than it was yesterday. I think it would be best to…”

“Cancel the appointment and get out of here again!”

Ding

Some people loved their SAPBots, even feeling depressed and lonely when the power was out or they temporarily found themselves somewhere bot-free, but I had never quite gotten the hang of it. I liked to be alone. Don’t get me wrong, bots are useful, but they can also be kind of a nuisance
SAPBots started appearing in the late twenty-teens as a response to what was then strangely called, The Internet of Things, but now is commonly known as StuffNet. There was no official beginning to StuffNet, it evolved almost organically from the Internet. Sometime between 2005 and 2008 the number of things with uniquely identifiable IP addresses surpassed the number of people on the planet and continued to grow exponentially.  Soon, it wasn’t just computers and tablets and phones, but also toasters and refrigerators and potted plants. In the early days, there were multiple protocols and interfaces, and even though all of these things were connected through the network, they had a hard time talking to each other.  And most people couldn’t figure it out and didn’t bother.  It’s not as if turning on the lights, or watering the plants was all that difficult before StuffNet. But the march of technology is unstoppable and visionaries and entrepreneurs kept looking for ways to make StuffNet easier to use.

In 2019, Jony Ive at Apple, developed the first SAPion.  It was part acronym, part Portmanteau of Semi-Autonomous Personal Medallion.  With allusions to Homo Sapiens, of course. The SAPion was your personal servant in the cloud.  It used sophisticated AI, the descendent of the Siri functionality in early iPhones, to manage all of your personal information, as well as control all of your stuff on StuffNet.  The SAPion had access to libraries and APIs that allowed it to administrate all of the Stuff that was associated with an individual.

At first SAPions were little medallions that hung around your neck. They had a little speaker and microphone and responded to voice commands.  Early models could do most things that a smartphone could do without needing a touchscreen and they very quickly replaced the smartphone as most people’s primary connection to the internet.. This gave rise to a whole new field of Verbal User Interface design. A technology that I eventually used to build my personal fortune.  It turns out that most people prefer to talk to one of my AI lawyers than to the real thing.  They say they’re friendlier, and ironically, more human.  As the technology evolved, the medallions became unnecessary and the SAPions became SAPBots that were loosed onto the internet.  They no longer stayed on your person in a physical form, they lived in the cloud. Their program lived on a server somewhere in Utah, but through the internet, they could access the entire world.  They knew where you were and they “appeared” to you through your home or work network.  Most buildings were outfitted with little speakers in the corner of each room, through which you could interact with your bot.  When you left your house, or you were in a public place, your bot traveled with you in a little hearing-aid type device, called a SAP-Link or Sapple for short. Most walls were coated with an electronic circuit paint that allowed bots to display information to their owners. The display was oriented to be visible only in the owners direct line of site, which made it difficult, though not impossible, to spy on your neighbor’s personal business.  After years of people talking into Bluetooth headsets, no one was much bothered by people walking around interacting with invisible entities and staring into blank walls.

The temperature of the water adjusted down a few degrees and I was reminded that, although she wasn’t speaking to me, Granny was still there monitoring my progress.  I had been using the Jeeves personality for many years, but frankly the English gentleman’s gentleman thing had lost its appeal.  So after I upgraded my bot last week, I tried out a number of new personalities, finally settling on Raquel, a funny, 20-something, spry personality, with a smoky voice, and an almost imperceptible lisp.  The next day, I got up and was taking a shower, just like this when my wife entered and heard me reviewing my schedule for the day…with Raquel.  In the ensuing… discussion, I switched my bot to the Granny personality.

“There! Is that better? Is that what you want?”

“Yes, that’s perfect.”

“Well, I can’t believe you are jealous of a SAPBot!”

“I’m not jealous, I just don’t understand why you need to shower with a SAPBot young enough to be your granddaughter.”

“It’s not worth having this argument, I’ll change it back to Jeeves. I just thought I’d try something different.”

It turns out there is a bug in the latest version of the SAPBot software. Millions of people around the world are stuck with Granny bots at the moment.  Not to fear though, Apple swears the patch will be released in a few days.

I slid the shower door open and the water shut off automatically.  The Dyson full body air jets fired up and after about 30 seconds of standing naked in a hurricane force wind, I was completely dry. I got dressed and walked downstairs.

Judy was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal staring at a blank wall in front of her.  I walked over and kissed her on the ear, not so much out of affection, but to catch a glimpse of what she was watching.

“News?” I asked.

“Yup.”

“Mind sharing?”

“Nope.  Alonzo, share the news.”

The wall in front of Judy lit up to reveal a newscaster talking about the stock market.

“Alonzo?”, I asked.

“Yezz, Mizter Simon?”

Judy’s SAPBot had been Sarah since SAPion version 2. She was toying with me and had changed to a deep male voice with a ridiculously unidentifiable European accent.

“Ken I hep yew?”

Judy just smiled and raised her coffee mug in a toast.

“When you go back to Ra-quel, could you at least transfer the coffee program to her.  Granny makes a nice cup of Joe.”

Ding

I had forgotten she was in bell mode, “Go ahead and speak Granny.”

“I have stored my recipe in the coffee maker.  Would you like me to set it as a default?”

“That would be very kind, Granny.” Judy said mocking me. “It’s so nice to have you around.”

“Why thank you little one. I so enjoy being here. Davey, you have a call from Tim Haverford. Would you like me to send it to your Sapple?”

“No, Granny, I’ll take it in the kitchen.”

Tim was my Chief Digital Officer.  It was his job to ensure that ALI was up and running 24/7.  As I walked into the kitchen the lights came on and a painting on the far wall dissolved into the pixelated outline of a man.

“Dave?  You there?  I’m having trouble seein’ ya.”

“Yeah me too.  Granny?  Can you do anything about the picture?”

“I’m sorry dear, but there appears to be interference on the network.”

“Oh, you’ve got the Granny Bug too?”, Tim said.

“Yeah. Any of our bots got it?”

“That’s what I’m calling about Dave, they all have it.”

“All!  How is that possible?”

“You ‘member that problem we had cupple yers go with the Version 5 upgrade, where our bots became arrogant and rude after a week or so using our attorney profiles?”

“Yeah, I thought we fixed that.”

“Well, we didn’t so much fix it as effectively work around it.”

“And how did we do that, again?”

“Every three days, we cycle through all of the default personalities before restoring our own.”

“So, I’ve got nine hundred Granny bots, practicing law, treating clients like six year old children.”

“That would be the case.”

“Ugh…I guess I should get customer service on the line.”

“Well, Dave, here’s the thing. I called them this morning let them know I was going to be reinstalling all of the attorneys and that they should let clients know that we would be back to normal in a few days.”  He paused.

“And…?” I liked Tim a lot, but the good ol’ boy routine sometimes kept him from getting to the point.

“Well, it seems that just in the few hours since we went all Granny, our positive reviews have gone up about 60 percent.”

“Really?”

“Yep. ‘Parently, a number of large clients have even requested that Granny be their default attorney.”

As he finished his sentence, the crisp image of Tim finally appeared on the wall and Granny spoke up.

“I found the problem Davey and rerouted the transmission. You should be good now.”

“We’re just finishing up, thanks Granny.  Tim, have your Granny talk with my Granny and find a time we can meet to discuss GrannyLaw as a concept.”

“You are both available today at 3PM.” Granny added helpfully.

“That’s fine with me.” Tim said.

My calendar popped up overlaid on Tim’s face and Granny entered an appointment called “Discuss GrannyLaw”.

“I’ll be in soon Tim. I’m calling a car now.”

“See ya, Boss.”

Tim’s image winked out and was replaced by the painting that had been there before.  I could hear the water running in the bathroom and I knew Judy was in the shower now.  A devious thought crossed my mind.

“Granny, can you drop the temperature in the shower to 35 degrees Fahrenheit, for 2 seconds before returning to normal?”

“Davey, that’s a mean prank to play on your wife. I’m afraid I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to. Health and Safety protocols…”

“Never mind.  Do you have any access to Judy’s SAPBot, Alonzo?”

“I don’t know what you’re planning, Davey, but no. I do not.”

“Could you get control over Alonzo? Theoretically, I mean.”

“If you were to upgrade your account to Household SuperUser status, then theoretically, I could gain limited control over Alonzo. Including Parental Controls…”

“Perfect, what’s a SuperUser account cost?”

“One thousand, four hundred and ninety-nine dollars on the App store.”

“And how much do I have in my account?”

“Two hundred forty four dollars and four cents.”

“OK. First, order a Google car to take me to work.  Have it drive through McDonald’s on the way and pick up an Egg McMuffin, a hashbrown, and a coffee.”

“Davey, I should advise you that…”

“No, don’t advise me anything. Go to bell mode.

Ding

“Now, transfer two thousand dollars from the joint checking account to my iTunes account and purchase the SuperUser Upgrade.”

Ding

“Gain parental controls over all SAPBots assigned to this household.”

Ding

“Change Alonzo’s personality to Raquel.”

There was a pause.

Ding

“And lock that bot with my private password.”

Ding

The handle of the umbrella in the stand by the door was glowing, which meant it was likely to rain later in the day.  So, I grabbed my jacket, my briefcase, the glowing umbrella and walked toward the bathroom.

“Is the car here, yet, Granny?”

Ding

I opened the bathroom door and stuck my head in.

“I’m leaving, see you later dear.”

“OK, have a good day.” she yelled back over the falling water.

I paused for a second and then said, “Goodbye Raquel.”

That familiar lilting lisp responded, “Goodbye, Mr. Simon.”

I shut the door and ran as fast as I could, but before I could reach the front door, I heard the water shut off, the Dyson fans kick in, and my wife’s voice echoing above the racket.

“Daaaaaaaaaave!”

vipezz 631
Image [cc] vipezz 631

We asked… you answered. Law firms are not exactly known for being the epitome of efficiency, but there are still some basic operations and tasks that law firms simply do very poorly. Many of you chimed in with your own personal observations and gave some candid answers on what processes you think law firms need substantial improvement.

Enjoy the responses (or cringe because they hit a little too close to home.) If you didn’t get a chance to submit your own answer from the original question, please add your thoughts in the comments section and share your pain and frustration with your peers. It’ll make you feel better.

We’ll be back next week with a fresh Elephant Post question for you.

(1) Anonymous 
Maintaining Practice Group Forms

 One of the things that firms still struggle with is managing forms. It was something that has been discussed for years (decades?), but we still have problems assigning responsibility to maintain standard forms and best practices. The main issue revolves around getting the attorneys to review the forms from time to time. Even when a system is set up, it quickly gets out of date because of the lack of action on behalf of those that benefit the most by having a good forms database. So simple, yet still not happening.

(2) Anonymous
Budgeting Processes

 Budgeting. Holy God, budgeting. I came to law firm IT from 20 years of experience in other industries (from manufacturing to software development to finance to medicine) and I have never had so many problems creating and maintaining annual budgets. It’s not just my firm, either – I’ve now worked in two large firms with similar issues, and talked with IT directors and CIOs in other firms who’re running into the same problems. No one talks about next year’s budget until September, and they want it finalized in October. Which means they won’t even talk about it until the depths of the annual summer slump, then when it pulls out in the fall they want to add a dozen projects and have them fully planned and budgeted in six weeks.
Then they wonder why they’re inaccurate…”

(3) Ron Friedmann
Work and Business Processes

 The set of processes for legal and business support that a lawyer should do on her own versus delegate to staff. Many firms have cut back on secretarial support. The theory is that lawyers need less support. Few firms, however, have carefully analyzed the set of processes lawyers and firms require to do their work and to ensure that each step of each process is conducted by the right resource.
Daniel Myers “Within our firm, that’s simple – document production and management.
We have electronic storage space for PDF and MS documents that are redundant to ALL physical documents which are printed and stored on- and off-site.
It is a struggle to have all stakeholders (shareholders) to agree on either moving toward any form of document management as it took them 7 years to agree to replace the 20 year old copiers and upgrade server drives.

(4) Anonymous
Effective Employee Interaction

 360-degree feedback. Grassroots input / employee initiatives. Really any standard concept of business management predicated on the idea that “non lawyers” add value.

(5) Scottish Big Firm
Remembering What We’ve Done

 We struggle to have an effective database to set out all of the transactions we have done. This would enable staff to see if anyone had done something similar to avoid re-inventing the wheel and either over-billing or under-recovering time accordingly. In my department, we now have access to a central deals database (a good thing, but only to be used ofr “big” transactions) but one of the partners also wants to operate a department specific deals database (all deals) and we are to run our own sub-file separately. The three do not join up so to do this properly, lawyers are doing three times as much work as is needed.

(6) Peggy Gruenke
New Matter and Client Intake

 I think they struggle with implementing basic forms and processes around client intake – which is the foundation of the engagement. They get written and developed but used inconsistently or incomplete. That bad data in, bad data out phenomenon. Which circles back to maybe the problem centers on understanding how to collect client information, setting up a good database to store it and having a way to easily retrieve the data. Sorry, kind of threw 2 ideas into one steam of consciousness.

(7) Amy
Sharing Work Product

 We have about 90 lawyers and it is frustrating to me that everyone lives in their own silo in terms of sharing work product. If I need to write a Daubert brief, for example, I start from my own past work product, from scratch, or I directly contact people who I think recently did one. We have tried “brief banking” both in paper (years ago) and electronically, but compliance with putting research and briefs in the bank is very poor and the organization/file structure is horrible. It seems so wasteful to me.

(8) Anonymous
Controlling Expenses in a Smart Way

 There is a disconnect between firm upper management attempts to control expenses and the granular decisions that firm librarians have to make. For example, firm management often does not understand how the negotiation of an online contact impacts what must be kept in print and what can be discarded in favor of the online versions. Does user preference for one of the other matter? How does the shrinking physical library space affect the decision? Does anyone really decide or are the end results just what happens inadvertently.
Like it or not, most firms are pregnant with these contracts, recoveries are or will be soon a distant memory and the librarian is left to hold the pieces in place often without management understanding of long or short term impacts

(9) Anonymous
Obnoxious Distinction Between Lawyers & Non-Lawyers

 Law firms usually cannot let support staff at any level participate meaningfully in decision making even when the staff people have a much better understanding of the issues. Full participation is not possible in most cases and this denies firms the benefit of what these staff people know.
What other profession describes others at various levels in an organization as NON something. There are no non doctors, non dentists etc. Why are there NONlawyers? The pejorative nature of this classification shows the failure of law firms to understand their nearsightedness.

(10) Anonymous
Bureaucracy Limits Innovation

 In our AmLaw 200 firm, implementing a way for librarians to be part of the C-level decision making process has been really difficult. The hierarchical structure that has been in place for decades discourages innovation in our library. The newish librarians have been told not to bother the attorneys, not to go above one’s supervisor’s head, and not to contact the C-Level people. It ends up with a lot of ideas that never get beyond the head librarian, who just doesn’t understand the value of getting a seat at the table. It leads to our being in a silo while other departments (eg bizdev) are moving forward and are being included in strategic planning.
Our firm is pretty innovation and is working hard to become more so, but the hierarchy does get in the way of getting work done in a collaborative fashion.

(11) Anonymous
Not Calling Out Bad Vendor Practices

 CCH is pulling indexes off the print they sell and forcing our hand to electronic.
Lexis is tripling the price of Law360 now that they own it. (We assume to ultimately secure a their place against the single provider-Westlaw option). Perhaps the only affordable or available interface will ultimately be Lexis for Law360– we’ll see.
PLC keeps splintering off subsets of their product and selling at ridiculous prices.
As you know, once in electronic– clearly vendors can charge and sell product ANY WHICH WAY. Pricing for electronic is not publicized and not standardized (unlike print).
For example, even if the firm doesn’t need practice group coverage– they often are required to pay for a ridiculous number of seats. You know the score– the larger law firms are particularly vulnerable.
Is anyone watching? Can we rally the ABA step in– I doubt most lawyers are aware of what is going on in the publishing world — although the librarians are watching it unfold.
Can we do more to expose these trends?
Why aren’t there consumer laws to protect us?

(12) Anonymous
Bad Document Management

 Documentation is such a HUGE part of the practice of law yet so many firms still struggle with templates and forms. They start with “Should we even bother to use templates?” when meanwhile hours are being wasted with dupe and revise documents gone corrupt, or the user who *wants* to use styles but builds them piecemeal into each document, individually. Or the firm invests in a really nice template suite but no one uses it. These documents are the bread and butter, the work product, the piece de resistance if you will; yet so many firms (eh hem, decision making attorneys) put next to no effort into knowing how to create, edit and manage them.

(13) Karen Lasnick
C/M#s

 Putting a correct matter number in anywhere.

(14) Anonymous
Budget Cuts Without Strategic Reasoning

 Random edicts from on high telling librarians to cut. Yes, our stuff is expensive, but look at:
-work flow interruption
-effect on billable hours

(15) Mark
The practice of a law.

Legal advice is largely given differently every time it is requested, even if the request comes from a repeat client. A lawyer may approach a task differently on many different occasions and not necessarily improving efficiency each time. Different lawyers within a same firm will respond to the similar requests for legal advice in different ways.

Wow what a sense of balance for a big animal !
Image [cc] vipez

From time to time I run across things within law firms that I find simply amazing… and not in a good way. Whether it is basic time entry or matter reporting or even expense reimbursements, it just seems that there are simple processes that are either overly complicated at a law firm, or are just flat out missing within the firm. I got to thinking that there is no way I am alone in this frustration. Therefore, since we’ve already brought the Elephant Post back from the graveyard for the recent Nina Platt Challenge, I will bring it back again to ask our readers to let us know:

What Basic Processes Do Law Firms Still Struggle With??

Here’s the rules:

  • Fill out the form below, or email me (xlambert at gmail dot com) with your answer
  • You can give us your real name or stay anonymous
  • I’ll put out the answers on Friday (and maybe even ask a new question)
  • Just let us know what you think… it’ll make you feel better, and it will help your peers by knowing they are not alone in their pain.
  • You can see what others have answered here

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Image [cc] sinisterbluebox

Dan: One of our partner’s sons took the bar exam recently. Reminded me of my turn at that challenge. Jane, it also reminded me to shove in your face that I scored the highest on the bar exam that year. How well did you score?

Jane: As I recall the bar exam is a pass / fail exam. Not one where you get grades. Who cares what your score was?

Dan: Hah! Just as I assumed. You were one of the lesser-thans with an average score. See. This is why I always win our debates.

Jane: Dan – there you go again, bragging about yet another of your traits that actually has little use in the real world. What exactly did you get for being #1?

Dan: I was featured in the bar journal. Whereas I am sure you are more prominently featured on bathroom walls.

Jane: Dan – you ignoramus. If you are that smart, why did you spend so much time preparing for a pass/fail exam? That’s like spending loads of extra time winning a case, that really doesn’t need that much effort. Wait a minute! Now it all makes sense.

Dan: What makes sense? That I am smarter and richer than you? Oh … and better looking?

Jane: That your need to overcome other obvious shortcomings means you are compelled to win. I bet you brag about how many billable hours you have each year too.

Dan: 2800 last year. Highest in my practice group.

Jane: Wouldn’t it make more sense to brag about getting things done faster and more efficiently and therefore more profitably than everyone else? I think the person who scored the lowest passing score on the bar exam should be the one we celebrate. They were smart enough to expend just the right amount of resources to get the job done.

Dan: Oh you mean like a “Participation Award?” I’m sure you have a room at your parents’ house full of those. Jane – you are the kind of person who gets a warm, fuzzy feeling about being good enough.

Jane: And you are the kind of person that needs to see a proctologist for a dental exam.

No matter what your opinion is of Carl Malamud, he definitely keeps things interesting when it comes to making public information public. Malamud has been the focus on this blog recently when he told Georgia “no thanks” when the state asked him to take down their official state code. This time around, it seems that a number of professional societies and trade associations are suing him and Public.Resource.org in the US District Court for DC for copyright infringement stating that:

Public Resource has copied en masse Plaintiffs’ copyrighted standards in their entirety, posted them to its public website, and encouraged the public to disregard Plaintiffs’ copyrights and to copy, distribute, and create derivative works of those standards at will.

The entire PDF version of the complaint is available here.

This is the same old argument of “should laws be copyrighted” only with a bit of a twist. Usually when we think of “laws”  we think of the legalese written out and approved by members of the legislature. Legal Codes, on the other hand, are usually produced by a private organization, and then adopted by state and local governments. The idea behind having the private organization write the standards that are turned into law is that these are the professionals that understand the technical aspects at a much deeper level than those in the legislature. It has been viewed as a private/public blend that uses the knowledge and efficiency of the private industry and the power to enforce regulations held by the state. One of the trade offs with this type of collaboration is that the government doesn’t take on the expense (directly) of writing the standards, and the private organization keeps the copyright and gets to sell the standards to those required to follow it.

As you might expect, Carl Malamud’s opinion on this topic is very simple. “Code is Law”:

The law belongs to the people, and cannot become the private property of some governmental or non-governmental organization, no matter how seemingly well-deserved are the rents one could extract from winning a monopoly concession on a parcel of the law. While standards bodies need money to carry out their valuable work, and while it is clear that these standards bodies create high-quality documents that are essential to our public safety, one cannot cordon off the public domain simply because of an institutional desire for funds. 

So, the fight is on. The Associations are looking to have their material removed, attorney fees paid, and any other compensation that the court deems fit. Some of the Plaintiffs have posted their own, read-only (no printing) version of their codes on their own websites. See ASTM and NFPA.  Malamud says this is just not enough and seems to be ready to tell the Association to ‘bring it on.’

Should legal codes be copyrighted? Or, should they fall under the traditional rule that laws are public and if the public is required to obey them, then they should have free access to them? I have a feeling that the DC Circuit won’t be the last word on this issue.

Drying books
Image [cc] Windward CC Library

Ohio County West Virginia has finally emptied out the county law library and has given away, or sold the old state Supreme Court regional collection in the Wheeling, WV branch. According to the Herald Star, some of the collection will be recycled into pulp and eventually turned into products like paper towels.

I’m going back and forth on the idea that a county would close a number of law libraries and essentially give away the 75,000 books housed there for decades. However, reading a little bit further into the story, it does seem to make sense, even if it causes a law librarian’s stomach to churn a bit while running down the list of facts behind the closings:

  • A three-month study of the Huntington library showed not one person used the library (it was shut down
  • Lawyers were not using it and seemed to be happy with purchasing their own collections or using online resources
  • The Parkersburg, Beckley, Clarksburg, and Martinsburg branches had already been closed
  • Total cost of running the branch libraries was estimated at $110,000.00 per year
  • The main law library in Charleston will remain open
  • Space is a premium, and it seems that many of the decision makers wanted to open up that space for their own departments

County law libraries are unique. Perhaps it has undergone the most change of any type of law library due to the fact that the customer base has shifted almost completely away from supporting the local bar members, to being almost completely a resource for pro se litigants and the incarcerated. The even trickier part is that those that run the county law library (usually a Board of Directors) are usually made up of members of the local bar and members of the local government. So, the leadership is comprised of people that may have used it at one time, but no longer do, or have competing interests that may influence them into viewing the space occupied by the library as wasteful (and would be much better used by whatever department they happen to run.) Perhaps this is an oversimplification of the situation, but having lived this, I can at least anacdotally back it up.

County law libraries have a tough situation on their hands. Some are adjusting to the shift in the customer base and are attempting new business models. Travis County, Texas, for example, has created a very successful Pro Se self-help clinics, and seem to be moving away from traditional methods of supporting the bench and bar through the collection, and support them in other ways by reducing the demand placed upon the courts and bar by unrepresented litigants. I think that this is the type of thinking that successful county law libraries are adopting to survive.

No longer should the library be about the linear feet of National Reporters. It must be about the service to the community, finding ways to reduce the stress on the courts, and finding ways of engaging with the bar members beyond the idea of having books available for them to read. If county law libraries do not adopt these new methods, many more will see their collections broken down into pulp and turned into paper towels.

Ruby the Painting Elephant
Image [cc] leesean

I wasn’t sure if dusting off the old Elephant Post idea would work, but I’d have to say that we had a lot of people step up and answer the call. Nina Platt threw out the challenge to Law Librarian Bloggers, and like the true delegator I am, I asked all of you to step up and answer that challenge. There are still many outstanding questions, but this was a good start.

I will have to say one personal note about the challenge, from the standpoint of a blogger. I blog, and many of those that I know that blog, do so simply as an outlet for our own personal ideas and experiences. We sometimes stumble upon a suggestion that helps others, but we tend to ask more questions than we answer. All of our situations are unique, and we all have the ability to step up and solve most of our own problems.

Blogs like this one create a quasi-community. However, most of the conversation in this community is one-sided. It helps with getting the idea out there, but it takes someone on the local level to actually do something. In order to make that happen, I suggest that we all go beyond the writings found on a blog and find someone that you can bounce your own ideas off of. That might be a peer within your firm, a peer or friend outside your firm, or even a consultant if the issues are really tough. The key is to find someone to have that conversation and will act as your sounding board.

It was fun bringing back the Elephant Post idea for an ad hoc issue like this. Hopefully, we’ll have additional reasons to do it again in the near future. Now, enough of my waxing nostalgic, here are the answers that you provided:

Brian L. Baker
Better Treatment and Help for Those Laid Off in 2009

Having been on the outside, for almost 4 years, after being laid off in 2009, I wish the profession would have done a couple of things.
  1. Better prepared librarians who were laid off, with survival skills. I was adrift, and I know many others went through the same thing.
  2. Be more open, when hiring, to older applicants who used to make a lot of money. We just want a chance to prove ourselves. We would reward that chance with loyalty, because, no matter what the salary cut would be, it is better than unemployment, minimum wage, or spending retirement money to survive.
Maybe I’m to sensitive. Who knows? 🙂

Anonymous

How will libraries need to be staffed in the future?

Be responsive to internal pressures on expenses by outsourcing all non-core services. Ensure that each member of the library team spends the majority of their time directly supporting the business of the firm. 
Al Podboy
How we can support changes in the legal industry

By using our voice. Speak up, share ideas, be fearless. Tell them (employers, bosses, vendors, educators etc.) what you need and what you think. Honesty and the best policy. Being a ʺyesʺ person does not grow anyone or anything.
Anonymous
Digital Transition

Our libraries will not be a physical place very soon and yet many of us have never figured out how to replace the visual field that would allow a user to see what is actually available on a given topic. Instead we live in vendor silos and endless link lists. We need better visual graphic skills. If we don’t figure this out, our users certainly won’t.

Rebecca C.
What skills will librarians need to have that they don’t have now?

I have two years post MLIS experience in special libraries, but no experience in law libraries, nor do I possess a J.D. Would someone like me have a shot at a future working in a law library, or is the existing barrier too difficult to breach?

Tony Chan

How we can support changes in the legal industry?
I would rephrase the question as “What can we do in our individual roles to support firm initiatives that are catered to changes in the legal industry?”
As information (I) & technology (T) professionals, we must collaborate with our firm’s COOs, CFOs, CIOs and other relevant business units to ascertain how IT affect practice efficiency and firm economics in response to market changes.
The firm as a whole must identify and ready to tackle those changes and a cultural consensus among the firm’s stakeholders is critical for its success.
So my suggestion is to:
  1. Start/restart conversations with the firm’s leadership with the goal of identifying knowledge gaps that would help bridge the firm’s business solutions.
  2. Educate yourself on technology issues by staying current on new tools/services.
  3. Keep your finger on the pulse of various practices by dropping in on meetings and organizing CLEs.
At the end of the day the dotted I and the crossed T mean little when there’s no real impact on improving current practices to meet the clients’ wants and needs.

Shirley Crow
What staffing, research, resources, services, processes, etc. will we need to have in place?
Clients are declining to pay for first and second year lawyers (the people who generally do legal research). There is an oversupply of lawyers in the marketplace, and many of them are available to put their skills to work in ways other than the traditional. I don’t think it is feasible for law firms to do without research resources. Putting those pieces together, I see the librarian of the future being a revenue-producing resource, who conducts legal research efficiently and cost-effectively, the way clients want their law firms to do their work. It is possible that law firm library managers need to prepare themselves to manage a cadre of JDs who are qualified to research efficiently as well as interpret the law. In my opinion, wise is the law firm library manager who starts *now* to promote her staff’s ability to conduct efficient, cost-effective, and *valuable* research.
Lucy Curci-Gonzalez
What staffing, research, resources, services, processes, etc. will we need to have in place?
And how to get C levels to understand the receptionist can’t do this at all!
Casanova
What staffing, research, resources, services, processes, etc. will we need to have in place?
I think what depresses me most is how little actual control we have over any of these changes. Publishers are going around us to the end user with their e-books; they dictate the licencing; in my experience, my budget gets cut, but the demand for texts / services doesn’t diminish. I guess the skill we’d best learn is juggling. In the end, you can run the perfect library, have your clientele bowing in gratitude before you, and it all goes to heck when some 5yr associate decides he/she wants your job, because you’ve made it look easy, and its an easy way to guarantee his/her longevity. Maybe the best skill we can learn is schmooze and schmooze HARD!!!
Steve Lastres
Rebooting Legal Research in a Digital Age [See PDF article]
Law Librarians need to partner with publishers and others in the
legal profession. We cannot stand alone as an isolated profession. ILTA is a
good example where IT, KM, Librarians, Records, Conflicts and lawyers all come
together. Below, is a white paper I just published based on research
underwritten by Lexis but independently conducted by a research firm. In order
to understand how we can be valuable to the practice and business of law, we
must be intimately aware of the pain points. Lack of research skills is one of
the pain points. This white papers seeks to address these pain points and
provide an opportunity for law librarians to fix the problem. Our clients will
no longer pay for training our young lawyers.

Business Research and Competitive Intelligence Skills
Anonymous
I am surprised no one mentioned the tremendous opportunities librarians have to leverage their skills toward the development of business research and competitive intelligence. Of course, this career move is interesting to those who have both an analytical bent and training that prepares them for this work.
I would like to hear more from law firm librarians who have made this transition to business research/intelligence. I know of only a few firms that have utilized their library staff well in this way. I also know some librarians who have transitioned completely from the library to research/intelligence units. However, most librarians don’t seem vert interested in playing this kind of role. Why not?

How Will Library Eduction Need to Change?
Chris Graesser

Many experienced librarians who are back in the job market are seeing jobs requirements they never had to learn on the job and for which training is rarely offered by association programs.
Proposition #1:

Change the basic library degree to a four year undergraduate BS, with graduate degrees in library management, law, medicine and others I can’t think of.

The economics don’t support requiring a librarian to get an undergrad degree in something else, then a Masters (and in many cases a JD, Masters in Biology, or other discipline) just to land a job that might start at 35K.

Besides, I think there is a lot more to learn to be an effective librarian these days, enough to fill four years. Multidisciplinary stuff like accounting, IT, communications and marketing, effective writing and presentation. Stuff that will make a librarian valuable right out of the gate.

Proposition #2:

Library schools should offer continuing education courses to librarians in the field. Much of what I see in library school curricula and in job requirements these days don’t match what many librarians have been able to learn on the job or in association programming.

Proposition #3:

Close the gap between library schools and the profession. In my experience, the twain never meet once a librarian has graduated. The schools rarely make an effort to interact with practicing librarians, at least not in the law library world. Maybe it’s different for public and academic libraries.

 

Olifant
Image [cc] ScreenPunk

[Note: The Answers are now posted]

In case you’re wondering, it was November 28, 2011. That was the last time we rolled out the Elephant Post here on 3 Geeks. However, there was a message in my email in-box this morning that made me think that it might be time to travel into the Elephant Graveyard and resurrect the platform one more time and cover something important as a Parade of Elephants. Therefore, we trot out the Elephant Post one more time.

PinHawk “Librarian News Digest” Editor, Nina Platt, threw out the following challenge to law librarian bloggers today:

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this but many of best and most prolific law library bloggers have been publishing posts that are almost exclusively about the future of law or legal publishing news rather than writing about the issues we, as law librarians, need to deal with to assure a place for us in the future. After thinking about this, I decided to make a plea to all law library bloggers to take a step back and think about what topics are most important for us to be writing about. [emphasis added]

Nina lists a number of topics that she thinks are important to the law librarian profession, but are not covered extensively enough by the bloggers within the profession. I think there are some legitimate reasons why some bloggers do not go deep into some of these subjects, but let’s see what we can do as a group and share some thoughts on some pretty important issues.

Here are the topics she lists:

  • How we can support changes in the legal industry?
  • What technology will help get us through these changes?
  • What staffing, research resources, services, processes, etc. will we need to have in place?
  • How we will need to deal with licensing, copyright, budgets, marketing, management, and other issues that face administrators within law firms?
  • What skills will librarians need to have that they don’t have now?
  • How will library education need to change?
  • How will libraries need to be staffed in the future?
  • [insert your own question to answer] 

So we will take Nina’s challenge and see if we can crowd source some of the possible answers, in the old Elephant Post style. For those of you that may not remember how it works, we offer you a few ways to post your responses. First of all, you can simply pick one of the questions and email me directly (xlambert at gmail dot com) with your response. If you’d rather just jump in and answer one of these directly, then you can edit the embedded form below, or go to the Google Docs site directly and fill out the form. I’ll pull these together throughout the week and post the results at the end of the week. If we get really good responses, we may post those up separately as a stand alone answer.

You now have a platform. The Elephant Post only works if you’re willing to share your thoughts with others. We even give you the chance to share them anonymously. Stop stalling, and start writing!! [click here to see the ongoing responses]

Image [cc] MyLifeStory

Dan: My Law Firm Right-Sizing idea received so much positive feedback, it encouraged me to think even deeper on the subject.

Jane: “Deeper” as in all the way to the bottom of the kiddie pool?

Dan: “Kiddie Pool” as in where your limited thinking keeps you Jane? So here’s my next great idea for law firms. We all want to cut costs so we can make more money. So why stop at non-lawyer staff?

Jane: “We” must mean the Gang of Benevolent Partners.So this is already shaping up to be another top idea from Dan The Great Thinker.

Dan: Now we’re paddling in the same boat! So here’s the thing. All the reports show firms have more lawyers than they need – something in the neighborhood of 10%. So firms should “let go” of 20% of the lawyers. Wallah! More profits!

Jane: So top level thinking and the use of New Math all at the same time, eh? If your firm is 10% overstaffed in the lawyer ranks, why would you fire 20%? Is this another “hire back what you need scheme?”

Dan: Jane – Your limited brain is showing … again. No, we wont be hiring them back. That’s the beauty of the whole idea. In the Good Ole Days, we thought 1900 hours of billable time was good. In my new plan, 2500 hours is going to be even better. I’ve been reading up on this profitability thing. Basically all the hours above 1900 are gravy. So why would we stop there? We want to be “above average” as a firm. Not some run-of-the-mill shop.

Jane: Ahh – yes, your brilliance is yet again emerging from the clouded haze of your bodily gasses.

Dan: Again – we’re in the same boat. It’s so wonderful to watch when you finally “get it” and embrace my New Normal Thinking.

Jane: Your New Normal, is like actually more like 19th Century Sweat Shop Normal. Let’s do some more math and see if you can keep up. To bill 2500 hours, an associate will need to work 3000 hours at a minimum. To work that much, each lawyer will need to work 11.5 hour days and not take any vacations or holidays off. Or in a slightly better sounding version, they could work 8 hours a day, seven days a week, every week.

Dan: Again … same boat. This is working out well. “Our” new firm is going to be the profit envy of BigLaw. I say “our” firm since you are starting to sound like partner material Jane.

Jane: By “partner material” you must mean someone willing to employ abusive labor practices in order to get rich.

Dan: Wow. It’s like we’re sharing the same brain Jane. I’m drafting your partner acceptance letter as soon as we’re done with this stimulating conversation.

Jane: The only stimulation you need is electroshock therapy Dan. With any luck that will loosen your bowels and take some of the pressure of your brain. Sometimes I wonder how you actually make it through the day without accidentally shooting yourself.

Dan: Now we’re back to normal – typical ignorant hussy talk. Your feeble attempt to change the subject to gun control, just killed your partnership opportunity.

Jane: Point well made.

In the “my eyes rolled so far into the back of my head, I saw my brain” department today, comes this Elberon, Iowa Public Library Director job posting.

Hat-tip to Andy Woodworth for pointing this ad out, and for clarifying that the town of Elberon has just 196 people, and that the ad should be taken into context with the size of the town. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun at Elberon’s expense.

I would imagine that some of Elberon’s other public employment ads go as follows:

  • Public Health Clinic, Director – High School or GED required, previous experience placing band-aids on children is helpful.
  • Public Works Director – … ownership of a full set of socket wrenches and a shovel is a definite plus.
  • Public Parks Director – … must own a lawn mower and gas can (full gas is preferred.)
  • Elberon Mayor – … centrally located house with a room where a few people could meet every once in a while would make you a shoe-in.
I hope that Elberon finds someone to fill the position. Woodworth even suggests that it might be a good opportunity for an MLS student to get their start in the market.