
The Geek in Review Ep 113 – Bob Taylor, Valerie Dickerson, and Mark Ross on Deloitte Legal Business Services

In our 40th Episode, Greg and Marlene interview Erin Levine, an attorney and founder/CEO of Hello Divorce, a service that makes divorce more human and accessible by offering legal help and wellness support throughout the process of dissolving a marriage. Offered in California, Hello Divorce offers access to resources and tools and different service levels, from basic to concierge to a la carte access to independent fixed fee attorneys. Erin highlights that the legal process can be confusing, dis-empowering and expensive and that Hello Divorce is a necessary guide to help people navigate the system in a way that doesn’t destroy them financially and emotionally. While divorce representation is a consistent legal need, Erin highlights that there are many other parts of the process that are also necessary which don’t require attorney skills. She leverages various forms of process improvement including outsourcing, automation, smart contracts to make the service application scalable.
Part of what is interesting about the discussion (and there are lots of interesting parts) is that Erin stands the idea of aggressive and hostile divorce action on its head. While Erin has critics, she maintains the benefit of taking down level of tension and fear between the parties. In fact, 92% of divorces started with hello Divorce have concluded without having to refer out to full rep attorneys. (10:17 mark)
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Information Inspirations
According to Aliqae Geraci from Cornell and Shannon L. Farrell from University of Minnesota wrote an article entitled “Normalize Negotiations!” we teach librarians a lot about management skills, but we’ve lacked in teaching them basic skills like salary and promotion negotiation skills. There is a place for the American Library Association (ALA) and the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) to teach their members these skills. (4:05 mark)
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Continue Reading Ep. 40 – Erin Levine on the Efficiency of Divorce as a Service
(This is part 4 of a 4 part series. You can download the entire SOLP 2013 below.)
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Image [CC] – Jeffness |
The newer the legal pricing role, the more likely it is to be defensively motivated. By defensive, I mean the pricing role is narrowly focused on holding the line on profits. The more mature…
(This is part 3 of a 4 part series. You can download the entire SOLP 2013 here.)
For the last fifty or sixty years, law firms have used the infamous hourly billing rate pricing model almost exclusively. More importantly, during this era they had the luxury of constantly raising prices under growing demand. This…
(This is part 2 of a 4 part series. You can download the entire SOLP 2013 here.)
In-house legal departments are now facing the same cost savings pressures as other corporate departments. In the past “legal” was able to largely avoid this conversation with leadership. They would dodge the question by insisting that they…
(This is part 1 of a 4 part series. You can download the entire SOLP 2013 here.)
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IMage [CC] – Frank Kovalchek |
Partners, Executives, CFOs, CIOs, CPOs, Marketers, and Legal Pricing Aficionados of all types, titles, and roles, I have come to report that the current state of legal pricing is absolutely chaotic.…
A couple weeks ago, Michael Robak guest blogged about his experience on Why ReInvent Law Was Not Just a ‘Preaching to the Choir’ Conference. There was, and still is, a lot of discussion on this Silicon Valley conference, both with the presentation model, and the content. Now you can see for yourself what all…
[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…
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Image [cc] zen |
There has been talk for the last few years about the unsustainability of the Graduate School program in the United States. For many of us, we have heard the segment that talks specifically about law schools, and have watched as many of the schools are caught in… shall we say, stretching the truth…
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