You could be forgiven for believing that I am anti-IT. I have written about the End of IT. I have called IT people names. I have generally been pessimistic about our ability or desire to change.  I stand firmly behind all of the things I have written, but I am absolutely not anti-IT. (Some of my best friends are in IT.) I am, however, terribly afraid that IT as it is currently practiced is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the business. Whatever business your company happens to be in.

To that end, I’ve been working on an IT evaluation exercise. The idea is to evaluate each of the services that an IT department provides and begin to have conversations around the specific value that those services bring to a firm or company. This is built on the premise that IT provides the most value when it is actively supporting the business rather than “keeping the lights on”.  That is not to say that there is not value in keeping the lights on, just that in many cases there may be other less expensive, more reliable, and more secure ways to do that.

This exercise is intended to give context to the ongoing conversation about what IT should be doing and where IT should be investing its time and money. This is not guaranteed to provide any clear or easy answers to those questions. The example below is focused on Legal IT, but you could replace the word “Legal” with your industry of choice, and “Firm” with your company name and I think it would work for any IT department.

I would like to open-source this concept. By which I mean, I want someone else to try it out and let me know how it goes. Suggestions or recommendations are very much encouraged and welcome. 

Ryan

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All IT services fall into one of three categories: 

  1. Universal IT: Technology, infrastructure, or functionality that every Information Technology Department in every company in the world provides.
  2. Legal Specific IT: Technology services that are specific to Law Firms.
  3. Firm Specific IT: Technology services that provide a unique value to our firm and our attorneys.

Enter each category as a heading in a table and list each IT service as an entry beneath the appropriate heading (like below). 

Universal IT
Legal Specific IT
Firm Specific IT
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.

  1. Evaluate each service and articulate the specific value that the service provides to the firm.  If you cannot define the value provided, cross out the service.
  2. You want to try to move as many services as possible to the columns on the right. If you believe you can enhance the service in any way that would provide greater legal or firm specific value, then move it to the appropriate column, make note of the potential value add, and underline the service.
  3. Add any NEW services that would potentially provide legal or firm specific value and place an asterisk on either side.
  4. Circle any services that an outside vendor could potentially provide at an appropriate service level AND the entire Universal IT column.
  5. Draw a box around any service in the Legal Specific or Firm Specific columns that is not crossed out, underlined, asterisked, or circled.

Any services that are:

  • Crossed-out:  Just because IT cannot articulate the value to the firm does not mean the service provides no value.  Ask other departments, or attorneys, to articulate a particular service’s value to them. If no clear value can be determined, begin the End of Life process immediately.  There should not be many, if any, of these.
  • Circled: Begin looking for vendors to take these off your hands. A circled service should not be automatically “outsourced”, but it is probably a good candidate for the kind of service that can, and eventually will likely, be outsourced. Yes, I said to circle the entire Universal IT column. Not everything in this column will be a candidate for outsourcing, but if it’s in this column, it should be considered.
  • Underlined or Asterisked: These are opportunities to increase the value that IT provides to the firm. Invest in R&D for these enhanced or additional services.
  • Boxed: These are the current services which provide the most unique value to the firm. Focus on these and continue to invest resources here.
Repeat this exercise every six months.
Image [cc] CN Impressions

I read a great interview of an EVP from a major financial institution recently. It had two value points for me. The first was the international economic data he explained. He basically said everything is in place for a major expansion, except nobody seems to be paying attention. Whether that bodes well or ill for law firms is yet to be seen.

The second value point was more pressing for law firms. The final interview question was: What keeps you up a night? The EVP had a succinct and focused answer: Talent. He went on to explain that his senior management team needs to be “best in class.” For him this meant a combination of subject matter expertise, willingness to work hard and the ability to bring in business. Or in other words: Get the business and keep the client happy. He knows these goals will drive his business, both in terms of revenue and profitability.

So where are law firms on such a scorecard?

Traditionally law firms viewed talent as purely subject matter experts. Lawyers would gain a seat at a firm based on law school performance and then rise through the ranks to partner based on their lawyering abilities. So being “best in class” meant you were a high-level subject matter expert willing to work hard.

But that is no longer enough. For starters, keeping clients satisfied is only indirectly measured at firms. When a client goes from being a large one, to a less large one, management does take some notice. But even then, reductions in fees can easily be explained by episodic litigation or any number of other factors seemingly out of the partner’s control.

The ability to bring in business has become a more prominent factor for evaluating law firm partners, but this is still in a transition in terms of being a “best in class” measure. For instance, laterals are evaluated on billings, however the profitability of that revenue is not typically measured.

My 2 cents: Today’s Managing Partners should be “kept up at night” on the talent issue as well. But they should revise and expand their definition of talent at the partner level. In order to do this effectively, they will need to start measuring partners with different metrics.

One of the last things the EVP mentioned was that he knew where he had “best in class talent” and where he didn’t. So he spent his energy on making sure the “best” was happy and was pursuing talent to replace those that don’t make the grade. Another good lesson for law firms.

2013 Conference LogoThe Canadian Association of Law Libraries is holding their
annual National Conference May 5th to 8th in beautiful
Montreal. The conference theme is: Librarian:
a multi-faceted professional, which was inspired not only by the current
demands of our profession, but also by the city of Montreal.

I will be attending the Conference as the representative of
the Special Libraries Association Legal Division, and I couldn’t be more
excited. This is a fabulous opportunity to network with colleagues and friends,
learn from all the fabulous educational sessions and explore a beautiful city.
I wanted to take a quick moment to highlight a few sessions I’m planning to
attend and provide the Twitter information (#callacbd2013) in case you want to
follow the discussion and/or comment.

Date & Time (Eastern)
Session Name
Monday May 6, 2013 @ 9:00 a.m.
Plenary Session: Thriving on Chaos (Winds of Change:
The Future of Law Librarians)
Tuesday, May 7, 2013 @ 9:00 a.m.
Librarians Under Pressure: Stress Management Secrets Shared
Tuesday, May 7, 2013 @ 3:30 p.m.
Librarians as Innovators
Wednesday, May 8, 2013 @ 9:00 a.m.
Plenary Session: Land of Confusion: EBooks’ License Negotiation
Demystified

 

Colleen Cable is a Library Consultant for Profit Recovery Partners bringing the “consultant angle” to Three Geeks.
Image [cc] PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE

As I sat through a demonstration of the LexisNexis Digital Library (eBook) platform, there were a few thoughts that crossed my mind:

  • The eBook platform for law firms is inevitable
  • How do I keep from suddenly having (paying for) the same “book” in three formats – print, database, and eBook?
  • Holy crap… I’m going to need a really good Technical Services Librarian to manage this!
Whenever a question came up about actually managing a digital collection, the common response was, “the library can simply go to the [eBook platform/library catalog] and run report X” or “process and distribute eBook Z” or “recall the eBook” or “place the eBook on hold” or “place the link to the eBook in your 852 or 856 fields”, and so on. Again, most of the conversation assumed that your Acquisitions librarian, Serials librarian, or Cataloger would simply do their job, but the resulting item was simply an eBook instead of a traditional Monograph, Personal Copy book or a Treatise. In an era of shrinking physical books, the role of the technical services librarian didn’t seem to be a vital. However, in the era of managing eBook collections, that role may be rising from the ashes of the collection.
Bess Reynolds’ article, The Challenges of E-Books in Law Firm Libraries, hits the issue right on the head when she wrote:

The mechanics of acquiring and distributing books, making sure they are up to date, and retrieving books from departing attorneys are all part of the job of the technical services department. Transferring these tasks to e-books was therefore already within our department’s job description.

She goes on to talk about the interaction between the Integrated Library System (ILS) and the eBook distributor and the need to manage the collection for the firm. The key to success is the seamless transition between physical book and electronic book for the actual user (read: attorney.) That seamless transition seems to hing upon the firm’s ability to manage, distribute and maintain the collection and the vendors ability to create a method flexible enough to allow the firm to handle the eBooks in the way that works best for that firm. The connecting piece in this puzzle is a good technical services librarian. So, if you don’t have one already, you better start looking now.

The bad boys of legal research, Ed Walters and Phil Rosenthal of Fastcase, are once again looking at unique ways to look at legal information and create new methods to cull that information. In the latest iteration, they have come up with a way to use an algorithm to identify court cases with negative treatment. They are calling this enhancement, “Bad Law Bot”, not to be confused with J.J. Abram’s movie production studio called Bad Robot.

The idea of algorithmically setting up a way to identify ‘bad law’ has been floating around since the idea of placing legal decisions in database began. When I was at the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s OSCN.NET, we dreamed of doing exactly this same type of identification of bad law, but simply did not have the technology, expertise, or guts to take on that challenge. Looks like Walters and Rosenthal are stepping up to the plate to take a swing at it.

Ed does list a couple of caveats, that should be expected when you use technology to replace humans on decision making processes like this:

  1. It’s an algorithm… thus the “bot” name
  2. If you see that Bad Law Bot has presented negative treatment, then that means there’s a good chance the case has probably been overturned, however if Bad Law Bot doesn’t show negative treatment, that doesn’t necessarily mean the case is ‘good’ law. You should double-check with Shepards or KeyCite.
Despite these caveats, the fact that Fastcase is willing to go out and present something like this to its users shows that they are ready to test the boundaries of what you can do with legal information, technology, Big Data concepts, and the guts to go out and actually do it.
Bad Law Bot is available starting on April 25th, and the press release from Fastcase is included below. Also, Ed Walter’s introduces the product in this two-minute YouTube video.
Fastcase Enhances its Authority Check Citator Service

“Bad Law Bot” Uses Big Data to Identify Negative History for Judicial Opinions

Washington, DC (April 25, 2013) – Legal publisher Fastcase today released an algorithmic enhancement to identify overturned or reversed cases in its Authority Check system – Bad Law Bot. Bad Law Bot uses algorithms to identify court cases that are cited with negative treatment and to alert researchers of a case’s negative citation history.

The Bluebook manual for legal citation requires that, when courts cite a case that has been overturned or reversed, they say so right in the citation. Judicial opinions, and particularly their citations, are full of this kind of “big data” about which cases are still good law. Bad Law Bot scours all of the citations in judicial opinions. When the opinions cite a case as being overturned, Bad Law Bot flags the case for Fastcase users, identifying negative history as reported by the courts.

“Fastcase’s Authority Check feature is already a very powerful tool for identifying whether your case is still good law,” said Fastcase CEO Ed Walters. “Authority Check includes data visualization tools to see the later history of cases, citation analytics and filterable lists of later-citing cases. The addition of Bad Law Bot, to help identify negative history, is a major step forward. This is the first of many additions to Authority Check that we’ll roll out over the next year.”

The new Bad Law Bot feature helps users identify negative treatment of the cases judicial opinions. However, because it only reports what cases say in citations, researchers should rely on Bad Law Bot as an aid to identifying negative history, not as a comprehensive guide.

Since 1999, Fastcase has been building smarter research tools for understanding the law. In 2012, the company launched eBook Advance Sheets available for the major eReaders (iPad, Kindle, Android, and Nook). 

In 2010, Fastcase was the first company to launch an app for legal research, and later, the first company to launch an app for iPad. The American Association of Law Libraries named Fastcase for iPhone the 2010 New Product of the Year. In 2011, Rocket Matter named Fastcase’s apps for iPhone and iPad the Legal Productivity App of the Year and the company furthered its mobile market presence by debuting the Fastcase for Android app in 2012. Lawyers on the go appreciate Fastcase Mobile Sync, which allows full integration of its mobile apps with the desktop version of Fastcase.

Fastcase has gained very strong momentum in the legal research market and continues to challenge the norm in legal publishing and legal technology. Fastcase was voted #1 in Law Technology News’s inaugural Customer Satisfaction Survey, finishing first in 7 out of 10 categories over traditional research providers Westlaw and LexisNexis. Fastcase has introduced new opinion summaries, Fastcase Cloud Printing, and has been named to the prestigious EContent 100 list of leading digital publishing and media companies alongside Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook for two years in a row.

For more information on the Bad Law Bot feature, visit the Fastcase Legal Research Blog at www.fastcase.com/blog and watch this video: http://youtu.be/ZsKu7FoO2Ns.

About Fastcase

As the smarter alternative for legal research, Fastcase democratizes the law, making it more accessible to more people. Using patented software that combines the best of legal research with the best of Web search, Fastcase helps busy users sift through the clutter, ranking the best cases first and enabling the re-sorting of results to find answers fast. Founded in 1999, Fastcase has more than 500,000 subscribers from around the world. Fastcase is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For more information, follow Fastcase on Twitter at @Fastcase, or visit www.fastcase.com.

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The Legal Duck is a brand new, very exclusive, and extremely expensive restaurant owned and operated by Lena Dewey and Daniel Cheatom, two of the most successful attorneys in our fair city.  Last week, we sat down with Lena and Dan to discuss their new endeavor…

3 Geeks:   So, what inspired you two to try your hand at being restaurateurs?

Lena:  Dan and I were partners at DCH for nearly 25 years…

Dan:  We both made partner the same year.

L:  Back when we were associates, we realized that we were both passionate about good food. We dreamed about one day opening a restaurant together.

D:  A couple of years ago, Lena strolled into my office and said, “You know, Dan, I think it’s time. We’ve got the money. We’ve got the knowledge.  We’ve still got the passion for good food. Let’s do it.”

L:  So we went for it.

3G:  And you decided to go with a legal themed restaurant?

L: You know what they say, go with what you know, right?

3G:  A number of critics have faulted you for your unusual style. For instance, the average lunchtime meal at The Legal Duck lasts about 4 hours.

L:  When we set out on this journey we decided we would take everything we had learned from our combined 70 years the legal business and apply it to running this restaurant.

D:  We would provide only the finest foods, prepared by the finest craftsmen in the business.  Our Partners and Associates are artists, creating unique and wonderful experiences for our customers.

L:  Perfection takes time.

3G:  Which brings us to another complaint that I’ve heard about the food not living up to the promise.

L:  Really? Where have you heard that?

3G:  Michelin gave The Legal Duck their first ever 2 Negative Stars.

D:  Well, I don’t think their reviewer really understood the value that we are bringing to our diners.  We are exclusively focused on providing the greatest meals to the people with the biggest appetites.  We aren’t really interested in creating commodity food.

3G: Which raises an interesting point. Michelin seemed to believe that’s exactly what they were getting.

L:  In consultation with our service associate, the Michelin reviewer decided to have a simple sandwich, the “Big Mike”.  

3G: Yes, he described it as, “two grass-fed Kobe beef patties, a mild tomato and mayo spread, a sprig of romaine lettuce, gruyere cheese, thinly sliced gherkin pickles, Vidalia onions, all on a sesame encrusted brioche bun.”  Doesn’t that remind you of anything?

D:  It sounds like an amazing sandwich.

L:  Yeah, my mouth is watering.

3G: Changing the subject… You mentioned the initial consultation with your Service Associate.  Can you talk a little about the unusual experience of dining at The Legal Duck?

L:  Sure! You are greeted at the front door by our lovely receptionist and asked to take a seat in the waiting area. 

D:  We believe anticipation is a big part of an enjoyable dining experience, so we ask people to wait even if there are no other diners.

L:  Once you are seated, you are visited by our Service Associate, who asks you a few questions about the kind of meal you are interested in having. 

D:  The kinds of meals you’ve eaten before? Who you’ve eaten them with? Etc. 

L:  Exactly. Then she or he will take that information and do some research on the kinds of meals that other people in your situation have eaten in the past. The associate, will consult with a more experienced Senior Service Partner or two and together they will draw up a customized menu for your perfect meal.  

D:  Then the entire service team will seek advice from an expert chef on the best method for preparing your meal, presentation suggestions, etc. 

3G: You mentioned your chefs, but I understand that you don’t actually have a kitchen in your restaurant.

D:  That is correct.  We’ve determined that the actual preparation of the food can be accomplished more efficiently and economically off site.  

L:  We have subcontracted food preparation to an industrial food services company that primarily caters to major airlines.  We’ve found that they can prepare the food at a tenth of the cost that we could do it ourselves. We pay them ten times what the airlines pay and they give our meals priority.  It really is a win-win.

3G: But isn’t the preparation of food the actual service that you, as a restaurant, should be providing your customers?

L:  (laughing) No. We work in conjunction with our customers to design and implement the perfect meal for their enjoyment.  

3G: Which someone else makes?

L:  Yes.

3G: Uh…OK.  One final question: The average bill per diner for lunch at The Legal Duck is over thirty-five hundred dollars.  First, how is that possible? And as a follow up, how do you justify those prices?

D: Yes, I admit our restaurant is expensive.  But we provide unparalleled customer service and we stand by our work.  We have only had to sue a handful of our diners for non-payment.

L:  And thirty-five hundred is not so much when you realize how much work is being put into each meal. To produce the typical four-hour meal requires at least six hours of a Service Associates time at, let’s say, a hundred and fifty dollars an hour. Then each Partner is charging around three hundred an hour, Expert Chef’s don’t come cheap, maybe five hundred… 

D:  Yep, depending on the time of day. Then there’s the minor incidental expenses for the ingredients, the preparation, and of course, the delivery of the food.  Before you know it, it’s real money.

L:  But it’s worth it.

D:  Yeah, we couldn’t be happier.

A consultant recently asked “Are you making this decision for the firm, or are you making this decision for the club?” The question has stuck with me and it is one that I’ve asked others when it comes time to make decisions that are going to cause some people to have to change their habits. It is a pretty straight forward question, but there is a lot of meaning behind it. Do you do something that benefits everyone, and causes pain to a few, or do you do something that has little to no benefit for everyone, but keeps a few select people happy?

Whenever  hear something like this, I immediately think of the scene in the movie Office Space where there is a banner hanging over the staff that asks “Is This Good for the COMPANY?” The Draconian concept of stiffling innovation and individuality and relying upon following every rule and playing your part as a single cog in a great big machine. With “The Firm or The Club” question, however, I don’t think it falls into this “Is this good for the Company?” category. Instead, I think it allows for creativity and innovation and discourages the collective and blindly following the rules. In fact, I would say that this question gets raised whenever new ideas and innovation are shot down rather than when new ideas are accepted. Most times when new ideas are dismissed, it tends to fall under the idea that “we can’t do that because Partner X, who has been with the firm for 150 years, wouldn’t like it.”

So the next time you have a discussion about changing the way you are doing business, and the idea is challenged or dismissed, ask those making the decision if they are deciding upon what benefits the firm, or what benefits the club?

I watched an excellent presentation by Anil Dash to the Berkman Center at Harvard where he talks about the craziness of Terms of Service that we take as “law” and how there is already a massive civil disobedience being conducted by the youth when it comes to YouTube and copyright violations. He talks about searching for the words “no infringement intended” on YouTube and how he sees it as poetry. He says that youth are basically saying:

I’m not trying to step on your toes, and I know there is some reason I shouldn’t do this, but the world needs to see this video and I’m going to put it up. 

We all know it is going on. We all know that it is blatant copyright infringement. However, we tend to write it off as just a fad, or just something that comes with the technology advancement, and not actually thinking of it as a solid form of social disobedience where a large number (millions??) of people are taking action to show that they think that sharing the information trumps the rules/laws and they are just going to start breaking that law because they either feel it shouldn’t apply to them, or that their need to share is greater than their need to follow the rules.

After a long email thread with a number of my friends about the Lexis move to convert some of their publications to ePubs and eliminate the paper versions completely, I started to wonder if there is a similar revolution brewing in the library world. Librarians tend to be solid rule followers. They tend to follow contracts and terms of service to the letter and snap at those that try to skirt the rules. However, as the formats change and we are forced to accept those changes without some sensible alternatives, and as the contracts become more restrictive, or the terms of service become more limited, will there be those that begin to put their own version of “no infringement intended” on these services (for, they really can’t be called “products” any longer), and make them accessible to the people they need to share them with?? Will there come a group that says:

Look, I’m not trying to step on your toes, and I am paying a fair price for your product, but your actions are making it very difficult for me to get the content to the right people, and I’m going to fix that in spite of your rules.

Take a look at Anil Dash’s presentation (around the 56:44 mark it will start at the “Civil Disobedience” section.) This section only takes a few minutes to watch. I suggest that when you have an hour, to take a look at it in its entirety. There are a number of relevant issues that he addresses of how the Information Age is shifting, and many of us are not even realizing it.

Happy Library Week!! My thanks to Katie Brown for pointing out the Anil Dash presentation.

I just saw my first Auto-Reply text message for someone that is driving. At first you may say, “Greg, that’s a good idea, because I hate seeing people text and drive!” And, I would agree with you. However, my first experience of the Auto-Reply Text was actually via a Facebook post. I’m sure it won’t be the last time I see it, and I can tell you right now that I’m already annoyed by it.

AT&T’s DriveMode AutoReply, or Sprint’s Drive First are a great ideas. While you are driving, and someone texts you, it will automatically send out a reply like this:

AT&T DriveMode AutoReply: Thanks for your msg. I’m driving and unable to reply. I will get back to you soon. When it comes to texting & driving, it can wait

Again, great idea, but the problem with texting these days is that it is no longer just a plain text. People have many of their social media resources connected to their text messaging platforms, and the lines get blurred on what’s a text versus a post versus a status update. So, the simple idea of auto replying to someone that you are driving, and are being safe, really isn’t something that you need to put as a Facebook reply, or Tweet.

I know that it is all easily fixed by going in and changing your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogger, Tumblr, Instagram, etc., etc., accounts to ignore those autoreplies. But, that can be quite a task, and almost as annoying as the autoreply itself, or even as annoying as this Dale Earnhardt Jr. commercial’s “But, who sent the text??” portion.

Remember: Don’t text and drive!! I’m tired of having to honk at you when the light turns green!!

Last week I went to Chicago to sit in on the AALL Executive Board’s Spring meeting. I also crashed a couple of TechShow parties while I was there, just for fun. During the Thursday morning stragegy meeting, the presenter, Paul Meyer, consultant with Tecker International, made a comment that resonated with me. Paul talked about the trap that members of a non-profit executive board fall into, especially one where there is a lot of member input and volunteerism involved. The trap is that whenever a suggestion or proposal is made by the members, the answer the Board has to the proprosal is never a “Yes/No” answer. Instead, the answer is:

“Yes/Maybe/WhatCanWeDoToFixThisSoWeWon’tHaveToSayNo”

Of course, I’m paraphrasing Paul’s actual statement. He went on to talk about why it is the resposibility of the Board to sometimes say No, and explain why we had to turn down the proposal (money, time and resources were the main contributors.)

It made me think back to last year’s PLL Luncheon when a consultant spoke about librarians never saying “No” to anything, but instead saying “Yes, we can do that is we have X number of Dollars, and Y number of People, so what can we do to get those dollars and people?”

I understand both consultants’ meaning here and know that the difference between saying “No” and saying “Yes, with conditions” is really determined by the audience to whom you are talking. The thought that’s been lingering around my mind over the weekend has been focused on whether many librarians are overusing the “WhatCanWeDoToFixThisSoWeWon’tHaveToSayNo” option and not using either the “No” or “Yes, with conditions” options at all? We do not like saying no, and we are not all that fond of saying yes, with conditions either. However, it would suit us well to brush off our “No’s” every once in a while because in order to be a leader, it is necessary from time to time to understand that leadership sometimes means saying no.