Reinventing Professionals

I spoke recently with Nicole L. Black, a renaissance lawyer, who is a member of the legal Twitterati (@nikiblack), a quintuple blogger and the creator of LawTechTalk.com, which she describes as the "Consumer Reports of Legal Technology." She connects lawyers to Web 2.0 and other aspects of legal technology using screencasts that compare different offerings. Her most recent program, Web-Based Law Practice Management Systems, focuses on Clio, LawRD, and Rocketmatter. Nicole also offers practice management tips in her Legal Currents column for The Daily Record. To enhance efficiency, she suggests that lawyers use, among others, Google Apps and virtual assistants.

I spoke with authors Shawnna Childress, an Associate Director of Navigant Consulting and co-founder of Women in eDiscovery, and Allison Brecher, the Senior Litigation Counsel and Director of Information Management and Strategy at Marsh & McLennan Companies, about the publication of their new book, eDiscovery Plain & Simple: A Plain English Crash Course in E-Discovery (Author House, June 25, 2009), which reflects on the duo's vast experience . Written from a multi-disciplinary perspective with graphic supplements, the book is meant to aid lawyers realizing that as Brecher noted in our conversation, "All discovery is e-discovery."

I spoke with Mike Kohlsdorf, CEO of Aderant, an application software company that focuses on professional services firms, about the changes in the economy and an increased need for technology solutions at law firms. We discussed criteria that law firms use to evaluate technology, i.e., quality, implementation speed, and customer support. He highlighted that great products are architecturally open, scalable, feature-rich functionally, and have a low total cost of ownership. He also offered his predictions for the remainder of the year, noting "We are starting to approach, at least in the legal vertical, some level of stability." He referenced Citi Private Bank's Managing Partner Confidence Index, which reports, according to this article in The Recorder, "About two-thirds of 133 managing partners or chairmen surveyed said the economy is the same or better than six months ago, and 59 percent expect a stable or improving economy over the next six months." In fact, "there is a lot more optimism today than there w

I spoke with Kevin Chern, the President of Total Attorneys, Inc., which founded the Total Practice Management Association and served as the principal sponsor of the conference. There were purportedly 250 live attendees and over 2,100 unique log-ins to its real-time web stream. Kevin highlighted: By doing things smarter, you can work less and be more successful, e.g., instead of managing staff, hire virtual assistants. There is a misconception that you have to start working at 9am and leave the office at 5 or 6pm. By having balance, there does not need to be a strict demarcation between your personal and professional life. His ultimate message: You can have a better quality of life and be more successful while working more reasonable hours.

I spoke with Steve Matthews, the founder of Vancouver-based Stem Legal, which helps lawyers with SEO optimization and coordination of their social media efforts, about the usage of LinkedIn by legal professionals. In tracking the tool for over a year, Matthews found that about 100,000 members of the legal industry worldwide maintained LinkedIn accounts in April of 2008 At the beginning of June, the number of lawyers on Linkedin increased to over 800,000. He offers insights on that rise and suggestions for taking advantage of LinkedIn to help raise your profile.

I spoke with Grant Griffiths, the co-founder of Blawging Lawyers, about the value of blogging for legal professionals and ways in which law students can help practitioners jump-start their marketing efforts. Grant offers great insight on starting a blog and the time commitment involved in the endeavor.

I spoke with Aviva Cuyler, the founder of JD Supra, a legal content publishing and distribution platform. I profiled JD Supra in "A Revolution in Online Content" a year ago and in this interview, we discussed the evolution of the JD Supra platform, the company's new Law Centers, its integration with social media and her recommendations for lawyers interested in expanding their presence online.

I spoke with Rob Robinson, the VP of Marketing for Orange Legal Technologies, about effective ways to communicate with customers and the industry news update he distributes weekly called Unfiltered Orange.

I spoke with Joe Utsler, Vice President of Product Strategy for IPRO Tech, which is focused on document acquisition, management, and production, about new initiatives, trends, and predictions.

I recently spoke with Jonathan Martin, the Vice President and General Manager of Information Management at Hewlett Packard. We discussed e-discovery trends, foreign jurisdictions with current e-discovery concerns, and the results of a study HP commissioned in which an outside researcher interviewed 142 business and technology executives. Some of the findings included: Approximately 40% of companies are hindered by a lack of in-house expertise and an unclear information strategy. Workflow transformation, records management and e-discovery/compliance are areas in which companies are expected to invest in the next two years. Nearly half of the survey respondents were unfamiliar with the EDRM.

I spoke with Rich Turner, the Vice President of Marketing for Content Analyst, a concept search engine developer, about the search market, related trends and the impact of the economy on e-discovery.

I spoke this morning with Andy Adkins, Director of the Legal Technology Institute at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and author of The Lawyer's Guide to Practice Management Systems Software, Second Edition (ABA, 2009). We discussed the release of his new book, practice management trends and future developments in legal technology.

I spoke yesterday with Nate Pruitt, VP of Sales and Marketing for Netsimplicity, the maker of Meeting Room Manager room scheduling software. We discussed the legal industry's increased emphasis on productivity, cost control and time management.

I spoke this morning with Larry Port, Founding Partner and Chief Software Architect for Rocket Matter, a maker of web-based software for law firm productivity. We discussed the ABA Tech Show, the growth of his company, and the convergence of law and technology in this unstable economy. There is a detailed article about the company, which appeared in the Connecticut Law Tribune late last month.

I spoke recently with Wayne Ford and Rob Jensen, the Senior Vice President of Marketing Channels and Business Development, and the Senior Director of Marketing, respectively, for Anacomp, the maker of CaseLogistix. We discussed trends in e-discovery, including more efficient searching and improved culling of information, streamlined litigation review, and hidden metadata. With respect to hosted review, Ford and Jensen highlighted the following advantages: (1) leveraging the infrastructure of another organization; (2) seamless scalability; and, (3) controlled access.

I had an interesting discussion with Carolyn Crandall, Rich Faris and Chuck Williams of i365 at LegalTech about the success of the Metalincs acquisition, the launch of version 5.0 and some predictions for the coming year.

I spoke with Nicole Eagan, the dynamic Chief Marketing Officer for Autonomy, on the last day of LegalTech a few weeks ago. In addition to sharing stories about the evolution of the technology industry and our respective experiences in the dot-com era, we discussed trends related to audio information governance and other issues that will affect the landscape in 2009.

I spoke with Dean Gonsowski, VP of E-Discovery Services for Clearwell Systems, on the last day of LegalTech NY. We discussed the continuing trend of enterprises taking e-discovery in-house, internationalization and data mapping. He noted that "good proactive hygiene" in e-discovery has always been the goal.

I spoke with Sasha Hefler, the President of The Masters Conference, at LegalTech NY about the state of legal technology conferences in the current climate.

I spoke with Karthik Kannan, the VP Marketing/Business Development at Kazeon. We discussed the continuing trends for e-discovery management in 2009: Bringing e-discovery in-house; Early case assessment; End-to-end legal hold management; In-place analysis; and, Legal review.