This week’s guest is Jennifer Leonard, Chief Innovation Officer at The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and the Executive Director of the Future of the Profession Initiative (FPI) at Penn Law. Jennifer joins us to talk about her work with FPI, the record $125M donation to Penn Law from the W.P. Carey Foundation, and the amazing Board of Advisors and people behind FPI. The multidisciplinary approach that FPI takes toward shaping the future of the practice brings together the wealth of schools there at Penn, including the Wharton School, Penn Engineering, the School of Nursing, and more. This approach fits Penn’s founder, Benjamin Franklin’s “entire notion of what education should be is deeply interdisciplinary” and it bridges the ideas of different industries in a way that overcomes some self-limitations that the legal industry places upon itself.

The Future of the Profession Initiative allows for creative approaches to how we educate our lawyers, and how we envision what the profession looks like in ten years with events such as the Law 2030 Conference, and the Future of Racial Equality webinar. One of the most unique projects coming out of Penn Law and FPI is the Five-Year Out Academy which brings back Penn Law alumni at their five-year post-graduation mark and helps these grads navigate the next phase of their career.

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Information Inspirations

There are big data, and there are small data, and there is storytelling. The trick is understanding how to leverage all three. The upcoming webinar on “Storytelling: How to bridge the gap between small and big data” looks to explain exactly how to do that.

Sara Lin, a former guest on the podcast, points out that Data Science and Library Science are partners when it comes to ways of working smarter with information. Her article, “10 ways Data science can help Librarians in AALL Spectrum, checks off the reason librarians need to develop data science skills.

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) are a big deal these days. K&L Gates decided to put out a client alert explaining NFTs and then minted that article into its own NFT.

In-house legal departments are demanding that tech companies start recruiting talent who have firsthand knowledge of the problems facing their departments. With companies like Deloitte hiring people like Bob Taylor, it seems that some are getting the message.

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Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcast. Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. You can email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca
Transcript

Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 116 – Jennifer Leonard of Penn Law’s Future of the Profession Initiative

We have discussed the concept of the T-Shaped Lawyer on previous episodes, but we jump into a new concept this week called the Delta Model. Alyson Carrel from Northwestern Law School joins returning guest Cat Moon from Vanderbilt Law School’s Program on Law and Innovation to discuss this intriguing idea of helping lawyers understand the pyramid of skills surrounding understanding the law, business & operations, and personal effectiveness.

We suggest taking a look at this primer from Carrel, Moon, and other members of the Delta Model working group (Natalie Runyon,  Shellie Reid, and Gabe Teninbaum) from Bill Henderson’s blog, Legal Evolution. This model of three principles, along with the ability to shift the center of importance for each skill set, helps explain, and guide the overall needs of the legal industry. Carrel and Moon give us an insider’s view of the model and explain why this concept will help with the holistic training of law students as well as practicing attorneys.

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Information Inspirations

In the article, Innovation, Disruption, and Impact: Should We All Jump Aboard the Legal Tech Hype Train? by Peter Melicharek and Franziska Lehner, the authors talk about the need to unwind the PR from the actual technology in the legal industry. The primary benefit of technology is to assist in achieving results by eliminating mundane tasks, and assisting in getting to better legal results, faster, and cheaper.
Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 59 – Alyson Carrel and Cat Moon on The Delta Model

Welcome to a mini-episode of The Geek In Review. Shot on location in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Law School Stress??  No Kidding!

This week, we continue our discussion on how law students can have a stressful time in the three years they are in law school. We can’t change what happens during law school, but we’ve asked some experts to tell us what they do to help law students reduce stress as they prep for finals, and what they can do to be successful as summer associates in law firms.

We finish our series about how law schools are reducing stress by hearing from the following schools:

  • Howard University
  • University of Hawaii
  • University of Houston
  • University of Wisconsin
  • Georgia State University
  • University of Texas

We appreciate these schools (and the ones from last week) taking the time to tell us what all they are doing to help students deal with finals.\

Hey Summer Associates… Listen Up!

We also talk with a number of AmLaw 100 firms about what their expectations are for how summer associates can have a successful tour of duty at their firms. Greg and Marlene were at a conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, and they asked a number of their fellow attendees what they do to help summer associates succeed, or what their expectations are for how law schools should prepare them for this work, and what they allow from outside vendors in regards for training as assistance during the Summers’ time at the firm. 
Continue Reading Advice for Law Students – From Reducing Stress to Nailing Your Time as a Summer Associate

The Geek In Review – Episode 18 is ready just in time for your Thanksgiving travel enjoyment. Don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes or Google (or where ever you listen to your podcasts) so that you automatically get the latest episodes. Comments can be sent to @glambert or @gebauerm. Also, if you like our new theme music, check out Jerry David DeCicca’s new album on Spotify, or iTunes,

Nicholas Alexiou, Director of LL.M and Alumni Advising at Vanderbilt University Law School joins us for an in-depth discussion of what law schools are teaching students in the three years they have them. In an environment where students only care about things which are on the final, or on the bar exam, should professional development programs be required or affect GPA’s? While 1Ls and 2Ls get lots of attention from the professional development course, 3Ls are left to their own devices. Greg thinks there is room for improvement with 3Ls professional development from the law schools, law firms, and vendors.

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Marlene points out an MIT answer to “What is AI?” Sometimes a complicated concept can be explained on a napkin with a flowchart. This explanation is so simple, even Marlene’s Mom can understand it. Now, if MIT would come up with a flowchart to explain to Greg’s Mom what it is he actually does with a law degree and a masters degree in Library Science. 
Continue Reading E18 – Nicholas Alexiou – Professional Development Needs for Law Students

Marlene (@gebauerm) and Greg (@glambert) talk with the University of Oklahoma School of Law’s Director of Technology Innovation, Kenton Brice. Kenton discusses how OU is leveraging the advances in technology to expand upon the university’s commitment to not only teach students how to think like a lawyer, but to also have a grasp of some of the skills needed to practice law efficiently.

Continue Reading Podcast Episode 9 – Getting Law Students Familiar with Legal Tech

While some law schools in the US
are closing
, in Canada, a prospective new one received
preliminary approval in late December 2017  by The Federation of Law Societies of Canada, Canadian Common Law
Program Approval Committee on its application to create a new law school.  This is the
next step in the school’s bid to