Reinventing Professionals

I spoke with Tim Corcoran, the principal of Corcoran Consulting Group, which is focused on helping law firms, law departments and legal service providers profit in a time of great change. He is the author of Corcoran’s Law Biz blog and is the president-elect of the international board of directors of the Legal Marketing Association. As chairman of the 2013 InnovAction Awards, which recognize the innovative efforts of members of the legal community through the College of Law Practice Management, we discussed the background of the accolade and criteria for selection, among other topics. Corcoran noted that “the definition of innovation is changing,” and as a result, he expects to see a variety of entries this year. He highlighted certain changes to this year’s evaluation process, cited the qualities of past winners, and offered helpful advice for prospective nominees.

I spoke with Larry Barela, the Chief Technology Officer for Catalyst Repository Systems, the developer of Insight, a cloud-based e-discovery platform. We discussed how Insight differs from other available tools, including the advantages of a single dynamic XML back-end, the benefits of cloud-based software, addressing security concerns, and his predictions for the continued operation of e-discovery functions in the cloud.

I spoke with Garth Landers, the Director of Product Marketing at EMC, a global information management provider, who is responsible for the company’s pervasive governance portfolio. We discussed the evolution of information governance, its trajectory, and key trends that are impacting that direction. He noted that organizations are increasingly focused on litigation readiness, realizing a measurable return on their e-discovery investments, and drafting practical data policies. The key challenges are aligning the various custodians of the organization’s most important information and bridging the disconnect between legal and IT. He highlighted that many companies lack the ecosystem for optimal information governance because ownership and accountability are often muddled.

I spoke with Michael do Rozario and Brian Borskjaer, Special Counsel and Director of the firm’s Legal Technology Solutions team, respectively, at Corrs Chambers Westgarth, a prominent Australian law firm with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth. We discussed Casefolio, the firm’s new award-winning document review app, its development, and the user experience, among many other topics. When it received the Lawtech Award For Innovation in Legal IT at the 7th Annual Chilli IQ Lawtech Summit & Awards in 2012, one judge noted: “This iPad app is simply clever, innovative and delivers a truly ingenious and effective solution to the vexed litigation practitioner.” Casefolio is available for free trial download in the US, UK, Canadian, and Australian iTunes stores. Corrshas also developed a converter that allows documents and metadata to be exported and imported from a range of litigation support databases, including Ringtail, Relativity, and Summation.

I spoke with Dr. Jim Hassett, the founder of LegalBizDev, which helps law firms increase client satisfaction and profitability by improving project management and business development. Dr. Hassett is the author of 11 books, including his most recent: Legal Project Management, Pricing, and Alternative Fee Arrangements(Amazon Digital Services, Inc., 2013). He highlighted that large and mid-sized law firms are dealing with three key pricing concerns: How to price high enough to make an acceptable profit, but low enough to get the work [aka Suicide Pricing]. When are alternative fees the best arrangement for the client and the firm? How to manage the profit once the work commences. Dr. Hassett suggested that although robust legal project management is helping professionals address these concerns, few firms are making meaningful progress. “There is a gap between what people are saying for PR and what is really going on,” he advises, predicting a drop in overall pricing, a rise in alternative fees, and improved pr

I spoke with Samantha Williams, the Director of Employer Relations at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, where she focuses primarily on small firm outreach and employer development. Williams is the co-author (with Linda Calvert Hanson) of Small Firms, Big Opportunity(LawyerAvenue Press, 2012), which provides readers with practical steps to identify where jobs are, how to get hired, and how to succeed in the new legal economy. Williams shared tips on why law students and recent graduates should be focusing on smaller firms as potential employers, the best resources for those seeking employment with small firms, and the single most important concept to be aware of when looking for job opportunities with small firms.

I spoke with Larry Port, the founder and CEO of Rocketmatter, a cloud-based legal practice management and time and billing software product, about Rocket X1, the company’s new Internet marketing agency and hosting platform. We discussed the company’s mission to combine public relations, website design, search engine optimization, and marketing. Port noted that by building accountability in marketing, leveraging analytics, and structuring a creative message, users will realize unprecedented results.

I spoke with Peter Mercer, the founder and managing director of Vound, an Australia-based software development company focusing on forensics and e-discovery, which is the maker or Intella, the company’s signature tool for processing, searching, and analyzing electronically stored information. We discussed the growth in user-created data, the trend of law enforcement technologies being adapted to e-discovery, and the increased focus on productivity, which Mercer noted is driving the adoption of this technology. He predicts that the rise in cloud adoption and the interest in reviewing data more simply will help to transform the forensic and e-discovery industry in 2013.

I spoke with Eddie Sheehy, the CEO of Nuix to discuss Proof Finder, a unique venture by the company to offer its e-discovery and investigation software to users at $100 per year (limited to a maximum case size of 15 gigabytes), with 100% of the proceeds from all sales given to Room to Read, a global non-profit organization focused on literacy and gender equality in education.

I spoke with Desiree Moore, an attorney and the founder of Greenhorn Legal & Greenhorn Bold. Moore is also the author of Thrive – A New Lawyer’s Guide to Law Firm Practice (American Bar Association, 2012). We discussed her venture providing what she describes as “the foundational information law students and lawyers need,” her motivation for writing Thrive, and the launch of her on-demand practical skills training series, which focuses on professionalism, time management, communication, networking, and marketing, among other core competencies.

I spoke with Eric Hunter, the Director of Knowledge, Innovation & Technology Strategies at California-based Bradford & Barthel, as well as the Executive Director of Spherical Models, a business model innovation consultancy. We discussed his firm’s transformation to a completely Google Apps environment and his team’s efforts to create a social media-like atmosphere the leveraged internal champions to motivate this shift by 100 lawyers and over 250 users. He recommends developing a clear workflow and to give users time to adapt. Hunter also discussed how his success at Bradford & Barthel fueled the creation of Spherical Models.

I spoke with Matt Homann and JoAnna Forshee, producers of the annual LexThink.1 legal innovation conference, which is being held in Chicago on Wednesday, April 3rd on the eve of the ABA Techshow. Homann is the well-known founder of LexThink, a legal innovation consultancy, as well as the creator of the popular [non] billable hour blog. Forshee is the CEO of InsideLegal, which she describes as “the insider’s guide to doing business in legal technology.” Homann noted that LexThink.1 started 4 years ago as Ignite Law. Participants have 6 minutes (as in one-tenth of an hour of billable time) and 20 slides, which rotate every 18 seconds, to convey their ideas on this year’s theme – disruption. Prior sessions focused on the future of law, the future of legal tech, and client service. (I had the privilege of participating in the inaugural event in 2010, with a session called: What I Learned About the Future of Legal Marketing From Playing Wii Bowling With a 4 1/2-year old.) Ten speakers selected by “more than one t

I spoke with Roe Frazer, the founder of Cicayda, a Nashville-based software company providing cloud-based e-discovery tools; Case Logistix, now owned by Thomson Reuters; and, Digome, a digital marketing firm. Frazer noted that the name of his new venture, Cicayda, comes from the quest to find a rare blue-eyed cicayda and compared it to a legal team’s search for documents in the era of big data. Calling it “Angry Birds for e-discovery,” he highlighted that Cicayda offers an app-like look and feel for all of the company’s offerings. Frazer’s goal is to make software that lawyers can use while bringing “transparent pricing and price sanity” to the marketplace through a pay-per-use model. He considers this new offering “iteration 0.0” because he expects that customers will drive future development through social media channels.

I spoke with David Netzer, the founder of the legal industry job site, LitigationSupportCareers.com, where companies, including law firms, litigation support providers, e-discovery vendors, and government agencies, among others, advertise open positions for the legal vertical. It also offers a searchable resume database, as well as resources for career development. We discussed the genesis of LitigationSupportCareers.com (created in 2008), how it is distinct from other “niche” job boards, the costs of use, and its potential for reinventing the executive recruiting field. Netzer advised that in addition to expanding its robust resume database, LitigationSupportCareers.com is developing partnerships with other job sites, adding multi-lingual features, and launching on different human resources platforms and applicant tracking systems.

I spoke with Cynthia Nerland, the Business Development & Communications Manager at Dye & Durham Corporation, a British Columbia-based legal support services firm, about her expectations for the Canadian legal market in 2013. Among other developments, Nerland predicts a rise in the number of international mergers. She cited the 2012 combinations of Canada’s Fasken Martineau and Johannesburg-based Bell Dewar, as well as SNR Denton, Salans LLP and Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP effort to form Dentons, as evidence of this trend. She advised that to prepare for these changes, legal support services providers need to be mobile and leverage multiple platforms. Nerland also expects more lawyers to blog and engage in social media to raise their profiles in the recovery.

I spoke with Naritomo Ikeue and Sunil Mudunuri, President & COO and Senior Manager of Marketing & Business Development, respectively, for UBIC North America, Inc., the maker of Lit i View, an e-discovery tool that evaluates English and Asian-language characters, encoding schemes, and native file systems. We discussed the global landscape for electronic discovery and multi-lingual predictive coding, among other topics.

I spoke with Bill Young, the product line and legal operations executive for Bridgeway Software, a legal solutions provider focused on process technology support. We discussed key trends and ways that organizations can prepare to address them. Young sees a growing alignment between the legal department and disparate business divisions. He also expects a movement towards mobility and initiatives focused on sharing the right information with the appropriate executives.

I spoke with Rich Turner, the vice president of business development and strategic marketing for C2C Systems, an e-mail archiving and information management software company. We discussed the most significant e-mail archiving trends, the information management challenges companies will be facing this year, how they can address them, and his predictions for the next 12 months. He noted that while there is still no one-size-fits-all solution, many processes are being virtualized.

I spoke with Jon Resnick, the managing director and head of global sales for Huron Legal, about key operational issues that law departments and law firms will need to address in 2013. Resnick noted that globalization is a growing concern as businesses become more internationally integrated. He also predicted that increased governmental scrutiny and information management challenges will prompt organizations to centralize responsibility for these concerns with the chief compliance officer. Finally, Resnick expects the emergence of more robust enterprise-wide technology solutions, including matter management, e-discovery, and data recovery, among others.

I spoke with Doug Stewart, the vice president of technology and innovation for Daegis, a full-service e-discovery company. We discussed his expectations for Legal Tech New York 2013, where the legal industry is moving, and how it is maturing. He predicted the emergence of quality standards, the release of diverse new e-discovery tools, and a continued focus on cost control.