Image [cc] Wonderlane

I’m usually not big on sharing motivational sayings, but occasionally I run across things that make sense to me and make me feel a bit more motivated in moving forward in my profession. I have run across two of those things in the past 24-hours.

First of all, I read Andy Hines’ post on Ten Do’s and Don’ts for an Aging Futurist. Andy’s a great guy and has works in the field of Professional Futurists. You might remember the post on “Coolhunters” I did last year. Andy lists ten things that Aging Futurists should, and shouldn’t focus on as they enter the twilight of their careers. I particularly like #5 (the “Do” part, not the “Don’t” part.)

   Don’t… Do….
5. deflate the energy and enthusiasm for a project or idea by pointing out how “this is nothing new” or “this was already done before,” often by pointing out a critical paper written 20 years ago (that probably was not read then either ) build up ideas rather than tear them down; if there is relevant history, contribute what we can learn from it that aids the present case

Andy ends his list with the idea that “Don’t” think of all the above as just related to aging. I’ll add to that by saying “Don’t” think that this only applies to Futurists. Thanks Andy. I also look forward to hearing more about this when you are the lunch speaker at the AALL Conference in Seattle this July.

The other list was just pointed out to me by Geek #2. Inc. magazine has a list of 17 Ways to Be Happier at Work. He especially played up #7 on the list:

7. Daydream more rather than less.
The idea that daydreaming and working are mutually exclusive belongs back in the 20th century. It’s when you let your thoughts wander that you’re more likely to have the insights that will make you both unique and more competitive.

 I like #16, too. Trash everything in your work area that isn’t useful or beautiful. I’ll even expand on that one to include the attitude you take at work with a saying that my Aunt Joyce used to say in her infininte Southern Wisdom: “Don’t act ugly.”

My kids were going through every TomSka (asdfmovie) video on YouTube last night when the first five seconds of asdfmovie4 caught my attention (as well as my wife, who is also a librarian.)

Although she has to deal with Pre-K through 5th Graders, and I have to deal with lawyers, we just smiled at each other and nodded.

Now, I’m off to do more Internets!! Whoooaaa!!!

Image [cc] theanthonyryan

I found a cool resource a couple weeks ago and think it has some definite possibilities for those Client Development and Monitoring projects that many of us have to create and maintain these days. The idea is to use information that companies dissemenate on Facebook, but in the more managable form of an RSS feed.

Now Facebook used to allow you to convert a public page into an RSS feed (it was tricky, but doable) up until last November when it (apparently) changed its policy and nixed it unless the company specifically change the settings to allow for RSS. That is a shame, but not surprising, as how could they make money on all those ads if you were getting information without going straight to the Facebook site??

I use RSS feeds to pass into my InfoNgen account (I assume that the other products out there for aggregation should do this, too), and set up Client or Industry monitoring news and alerts based on those feeds. I really liked having the Facebook feeds because it tended to give more “what’s happening right now” information than the company’s website. So, I found it to be pretty valuable information. Perhaps some of the other aggregators can index Facebook pages directly, but InfoNgen doesn’t because Facebook apparently prohibits aggregators from doing so. However, why should I let a little thing like Facebook rules keep me from figuring out how to do it?? In other words, “Okay Facebook, challenge accepted!”

Here’s what I found that can do the trick, and my process that keeps it manageable.

  1. Have the user set up a generic Facebook account.
  2. Find the Facebook page that you want to monitor and “Like” that page (it can be individual or company)
  3. Go to http://fbrss.com and connect that Facebook account with this service
  4. The FBRSS page will take all of your “LIKE” pages and create an RSS feed for each of them.
  5. Copy the RSS links and request that they be added into your aggregator (or into your own RSS Feed Reader*)

I think this will work (at least until Facebook screws with something and causes the FBRSS service to fail.) Let me know if you get this to work in other aggregators, or if you have other tricks of dissemnating RSS Feeds that you don’t mind sharing with the rest of us.

*By the way… I’m still ticked that Google is killing off Google Reader. They have really thrown a monkey wrench in many of my add-on features (like Shaunna Mireau discusses on SLAW) that I’ve developed over the years using Google Reader as the resources!! I give you a “-1” on that Google! Boo!!

Image [cc] cseeman

That celebratory sound you heard from your local library today was your librarian reading the Kirtsaeng v. Wiley (PDF) case handed down by the US Supreme Court this morning. I’ve added a statement on the case from The Owners’ Rights Initiative, about the Supreme Court ruling that even books purchased outside the United States are subject to the ‘First Sale Doctrine’ as long as they are legally purchased (piracy is still a no-no), and brought into the United States. As Duke University’s Kevin Smith wrote about the decision, “It seems that libraries have really ducked a bullet here.” However, he also warns that we should also be on the lookout for changes in the First Sale Doctrine brought in by the publishers through the US Congress. So, stay vigilant my librarian friends!!

Owners’ Rights Initiative Applauds Supreme Court Decision in
Kirtsaeng v. Wiley Case

March 19, Washington, D.C. – The Owners’ Rights Initiative (ORI) issued the following statement today after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 opinion in favor of Kirtsaeng, reversing the Second Circuit Court decision. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Breyer, clearly affirmed that the Copyright Act was not intended, and cannot be misconstrued, to limit the distribution of authentic goods. Andrew Shore, Executive Director of ORI said:

“ORI is gratified by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in favor of Supap Kirtsaeng in this important copyright case. This decision is a landmark win for consumers, small businesses, online marketplaces, retailers and libraries nationwide and an affirmation of the ORI motto, ‘you bought it, you own it.’ This decision definitively affirms the first sale doctrine, cementing the right of consumers and organizations to sell, lend and give away goods that they bought and own, regardless of where those goods were made.

“While we are energized by this decision, we expect that some will continue attempts to eliminate owners’ rights, reduce competition in the marketplace and restrict the global trade of authentic goods. ORI will continue to be vigilant and diligent in protecting owners’ rights now and in the future and we expect policymakers to do the same.”

Many ORI members have issued statements about the Supreme Court’s opinion. These comments will be made available on the ORI website at www.ownersrightsinitiative.org. 

###

About Owners’ Rights Initiative
The Owners’ Rights Initiative (ORI) is a diverse coalition of businesses, associations and organizations that have joined together to protect ownership rights in the United States. ORI believes in the fundamental premise that if you bought it, you own it, and should have the right to sell, lend or give away your personal property. Members include:  American Free Trade Association, American Association of Law Libraries, American Library Association, Association of Service and Computer Dealers International and the North American Association of Telecommunications Dealers (AscdiNatd), Association of Research Libraries, Computer and Communications Industry Association, Chegg, CXtec, eBay Inc., Etsy, Goodwill Industries International, Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), Impulse Technology, International Imaging Technology Counsel (ITC), Internet Commerce Coalition, Just Between Friends, Network Hardware Resale, Overstock.com, Inc., Powell’s Books, Quality King Distributors, Radwell International, Redbox, United Network Equipment Dealers Association (UNEDA), and XS International. 

Visit http://ownersrightsinitiative.org for more information.
 
Image [cc] jimbethmag

The Maine State Library is leveraging its Public Library System and its Volunteer Lawyer Projects (VLP) along with video conferencing services (via Jabber/MOVI) to bring services focused at low-income citizens on specific topics. The idea is to have a presentation on a topic, like landlord-tennent rights or end-of-life issues, and then allow people to ask the lawyer general questions at the end of the session. The video conferencing tools allow for the interaction to go statewide, and in real-time. It is one more example of how libraries (whether court or public) are helping achieve access to justice programs. This program, called Lawyers in Libraries, received a grant to produce the workshops/clinics and is defined by the State Library as:

  • The project will allow volunteer lawyers to provide information clinics on specific civil legal subjects that are likely to be of interest and use to Maine people with low incomes (but open to all patrons of public libraries). These clinics will be remote, but in real time, so patrons in different libraries will be able to attend and ask questions directly to the attorney who will be available by video conference.
  • This project will allow Volunteer Lawyers Project to set up actual consultations for people with low incomes to speak privately with a lawyer over the MOVI technology. The client will be at their local library, while the lawyer will be at the Volunteer Lawyers Project offices.
  • The focus will be on bringing these video clinics to rural areas that have less legal resources available, but will be open to participation for all Maine Libraries.

More information can be found on the Lawyers in Libraries outreach from the Bangor Daily News.

Hat-tip to Bob Ambrogi for pointing this out to me. And, hat-tip to the State of Maine for using the public library platform, technology, and the VLP to at least bring a little sanity to the legal process for the public at large.

First of all, I am not Catholic. I was raised Pentecostal (just one step below snake handling.) However, I saw a picture running around Facebook last night that was being disseminated by major news networks that implied that society has so drastically changed between the death of Pope John Paul II (2005) and the announcement of Pope Francis I (2013).

With all due respect, I’m calling BS.

First of all, apparently, the picture from 2005 is a shot from JPII’s corpse being displayed. So, many are saying, “Hey, of course people wouldn’t take pictures at a funeral!!”

Au contraire mon frere.

Image [cc] Ammar Abd Rabbo

Take a look at this picture that I found in doing a simple little Flickr search (for creative common pictures, no less.) Granted, all of these cameras don’t double as phones, GPS, pagers, blackberry’s, gaming systems, ect. But, basically, people haven’t changed, technology has (slightly.) Turn all of those flip-phones, digital cameras, film cameras, and video cameras into cell phones, and iPads, you have a duplicate of the 2013 pictures.

I’m not saying that anyone is right here. But, I will say that all of the “news” outlets that pushed this out as some monumental shift in humanity in eight years has overblown downfall of said humanity. We haven’t changed at all… we just have new toys to play with.

So, the next time you see something on Facebook that makes you think that humanity has lost its mind… just remember, by applying that rule, we lost our mind about the same time that the Internet evolved, or cell phones evolved, or instant photography evolved, or tintype cameras evolved, or pencils evolved, or paper evolved, or our ability to share a common experience evolved.

People that think that this is some garish expression of the base of humanity, let me share to you what I shared with a friend on Facebook last night that posted the initial photo:

I don’t know… each one will share it with multiple friends as a personal experience. So, even though there will be a news reel with the same scene, there will be 100,000 personal experiences being shared with millions of friends. That’s not reporting a news story, that’s sharing a personal experience with friends. [someone commented that this is why the media is there, so people should just soak in the experience]
Personal experiences should be… well, personal, but today, it is seen like you are being selfish if you aren’t sharing that with someone else. I don’t think that any of these people feel that they are unique, but rather that they are sharing a unique experience with someone else.

Even after all of this, I still think that all of those media outlets that released this photo with a deceptive caption should be called out for lazy journalism. I’m just a simple blogger that doesn’t exactly spend a lot of time researching the topics I write about, but I know when something looks too good to be true. I usually don’t point out when my Facebook friends get hooked by these types of sloppy journalism tricks. But this time, I’m standing up and calling BS!! Technology shifts at a rapid rate… humanity usually lags far behind.

[Ed. Note: I had a great email conversation with my friend, Michael Robak, Associate Director of the Law Library and Director of Technologies at UMKC School of Law and all-around geek like me, about the Reinvent Law Silicon Valley 2013 conference. Long story short, I bluntly mentioned to Michael that the twitter feed was so full of the usual buzz words, and the usual suspects preaching to the usual choir that’s been going on for the last four to five years. Michael’s response was very thoughtful when he, and I’m paraphrasing here, said “Greg, you are stupid.” Well, if I had tried to rewrite his response, that’s all I would have remembered, so I asked him to guest post and elaborate on what he found valuable. So, thank you Michael for taking me up on the offer. -GL]

I attended the March 8, 2013 Reinvent Law Silicon Valley 2013 conference held at the Computer History Museum.  Once the conference started, I realized that my good friend, and premier Geek, Greg Lambert, was absent.  After the event, I could not resist sending Greg a note asking why he missed, what I thought, was one of the best events I’ve attended about the changes in the legal profession and  needed changes in both the profession and legal education.
Greg immediately responded, because I swear he is the model for some of William Gibson’s cyber protagonists, that he had followed the conference twitter feed and thought it seemed one of those events where it was kind of just preaching to the choir, and then the choir folks get all excited, and then….nothing would come of it…  And, to this, I responded that Greg…was wrong…. this was not one of those events.  What follows is a cleaned up version of that response: (in which I leave out references to certain past and future events which may, or may not, involve… good scotch, gin, wine, or other such things)…
Greg,
Sorry you missed ReInvent Law Silicon Valley 2013.  You raise good points about this appearing to be an event where the faithful speak to each other, shout hallelujah, and then…nothing happens.
But I really must disagree.  Dan Katz  and Renee Newman Knake, along with Dean Joan Howarth of Michigan State University College of Law are, in my humble opinion, leading some game changing stuff. Have you had a chance to talk to Dan and Renee?   Dan and I share an Illinois connection, the late Larry Ribstein, whose work in the area has been incredibly influential to Dan and others.  I have been an ardent follower of Dan’s blog, Computational Legal Studies, and admire his works generally.   When I came to the University of Missouri – Kansas City from Illinois, I wanted, on some level, to create a niche like Dan had, but with a slightly different emphasis, from a 21st century librarian’s perspective. At last year’s ABA Tech show I connected with Dan and we had a great talk about how only a handful of law schools get this stuff.  And, as I told Dan, I am fortunate because my Dean, Ellen Suni, is one of that handful (and Bill Henderson will affirm!).  Plus, she understands my pitch about librarians as COO’s of Information for the Law School Enterprise.  And this is good stuff actually, very much “blue ocean” material.
I think what made this event different is that it brought clarity for a way forward for both legal education and for law. In my view, there is still confusion about how we discuss the “technology of law” and what it means exactly.. especially when you throw in legal research and associated tools.  And, it becomes even more confusing, when you throw in the whole discussion of Rule 5.4 as an inhibitor to the delivery of access to justice. 
This event had wholly new kinds of conversations about educating and practicing.  You are right on some level, there were people there who were reinforcing each other’s views,  but Aric Press was there and not someone I think of as necessarily part of that group. He tweeted about the vibe in the room and only 5 people wearing ties……I was one of the five and so had to seek him out and ask if that made me to cool, or counter cool, or …  I will say he was kind in his response…
Having said that, and speaking as a Law Librarian who sees a much bigger and important role for Law Librarians in both legal education and law practice,  this conference was huge.  Richard Susskind was our AALL keynote last year and that was awesome.  He outlined things we librarians can and should be doing to be not just relevant to the places we work but to actually take the lead in the changes happening in the legal ecosystem.  This conference completely underscored that and, to me, made it even clearer that we law librarians have a mega opportunity, to be at the center.

I think Marc Lauritsen and Oliver Goodenough’s book (Educating the Digital Lawyer, and free from LexisNexis) is a start, as is Susskind, but I have a different view on how law schools can move forward. Ken Hirsh is close with his course on teaching technology, but what I will have in place at UMKC in Spring 2014 is much more in line with Jerome Frank’s expression of experiential learning in “Why not a clinical lawyer school?” in his seminal article by that name.  But mine is “Why not have legal information professionals teach how to use technology in practice?”  (not quite as pithy, but I’m working on it…)

All I’m saying here dude is, I think there is a real opportunity for us (law librarians) to be at the forefront on shaping real change to both legal education and law practice. The twitter feed was ok but there was a palpable energy in the room relative to the potential opportunities, and not just folks coming together to sing amazing grace.  But my real take away here is that the “technology of law” is law librarian space.  It follows completely Thomson “re-branding” Westlaw to be Legal Solutions.  As Joe Hodnicki has declared (and, yes Joe, you owe me a drink in Seattle), it is all about Legal Research Plus.. and the plus is the “technology of law”.

Thanks for your update and congrats on the new job! We do need to meet at ABA Tech and talk, there are changes a coming and I think AALL and SLA folks really don’t understand. Actually it was Kingsley Martin’s talk that made it most clear why things haven’t happened with technology yet because of the need for machines to catch up. He had a great talk.

Look forward to seeing you in Chicago!!

Michael
Post script to the original email:
Have you heard about LegalForce (formerly Trademarkia) and their store front operation in Palo Alto? I had a chance to visit on Saturday, March 9, 2013 and  man, oh man, it is amazing.  A bookstore, a DIY law place, a place you can compare tablets (since, according to Calvin, the “legal concierge” who gave me a tour, LegalForce believes legal content will be delivered on these platforms, so why not try and compare).  All they need is a coffee bar.
Aric Press has written a terrific review of the event.
Bill Henderson, whose talk at Reinvent Law was amazing, has a terrific post.
Image [cc] Fox3siu

A good friend recently switch from BigLaw to in-house, not as a lawyer but on the business side. He shared a story about working with some consultants on a project. The story caught my attention not for the subject matter, but instead for the billing practices of the consultants.

The company is revising its records management practices. Although simple sounding, these efforts involve all kinds of issues both legal and business related. Companies have so much data and so many compliance rules to follow and they need to minimize risk at the same time, So these efforts are not for sissies.

The story involves some consultants from an unnamed provider; not a law firm. At a recent meeting ten Subject Matter Expert (SME) consultants attended. They covered compliance, technology, economics, etc. Some were even PhDs … which I read as “expensive.” And these consultants fly in for regular meetings from around the country. I didn’t ask, but would venture they bill for travel time.

Is anyone at the company screaming about this service approach? No.

If this was a law firm instead of a consulting company, you know there would be screaming.

Where am I going with this? It’s not to defend law firms, but instead to gain perspective.

Why aren’t people screaming? Because they expect consultants to behave that way. They used to expect lawyers to do the same, but something changed and they no longer abide such behavior. What changed was Trust. In the market it appears that clients are treating their lawyers as opposing parties instead of trusted advisors. They feel lawyers are there to just bill as many hours as they can and get rich at the client’s expense.

With consultants, I figure clients trust that they will bill as many hours as they can. Either that, or the client is focused on an end-goal (in this case a new records management practice) and are less concerned about how that goal is achieved. So the clients have some level of trust or understanding about the service model of the consultants. This makes it clear what law firms need to do: address the trust issue.  Yes – firms still need to “reinvent” and join the future, but more importantly, they need to re-establish a trusted advisor role with their clients. Without that reaffirmed trust, all of the efforts on efficiency and cost savings may well fall short of meeting clients’ expectations.

And, oh yeah … the service being provided by the consulting company could easily be part of a law firm’s offerings. I’m just sayin …

Image [cc] the|G|™

A friend from another firm recently told me a story that made me think about the way law firms are structured, the resources available, and whether or not attorneys actually take advantage of those resources. The story goes something like this:

A Practice Group Leader and a few other partners sat down with key people in the administrative departments (conflicts, records, library, marketing, business development, KM, document services, human resources, IT, litigation support, etc.) and started listing off the names of attorneys at the firm. The names were followed by questions like:

  • What is your opinion of this person?
  • How much do they use your services?
  • How often do they attend training provided by your team on relevant topics to their practice?
  • When they use your services, what kind of feedback do you get?

The idea behind these questions is actually pretty simple. The firm provides millions of dollars in people and products to support the attorneys’ functions at the firm… so, are they actually using it? Offhandedly, my friend said that for the attorneys where many of the admin people answered “Who?” or “Never seen or heard from them,” were suddenly missing from the ranks after a few months. Not to say that this was the sole consideration on the attorney’s value to the firm, but I imagine it was a factor.

Of course, there are many ways to evaluate talent within the lawyer ranks at a firm. Quality of work, relationships with clients, book of business, hours billed, are a few methods, so adding in the additional metric of “uses firm support departments” seems to me like a good idea. Polling the administrative staff may also raise some red flags in the way services are defined or distributed as well. If the same department answers “never heard of them” every time, then maybe the problem isn’t with the attorneys.

I am fantabulized by the vehemential angertude with which people have arguponded Greg’s post on the word “literally”.  I have no more amorosity to the upsidrong definition of literally than anyone else does, but language evolvopes.  The strength of the English language is its adoptationability.  Words have hardplace definitions, but they are at best temporational. In time, “literally” may instanbul into “not literally” and no amount of oenobitching will change that.

The real uberwow-whatnow is how to, or can you, write legal documents to account for the morphasticity of the language?