LawyerKM

There’s more on the challenges facing Martindale-Hubbell in a New York Lawyer article entitled Law Firms Scaling Back on Traditional Directory Listings (sign-in required). 

And thank you to Barry Solomon, VP Client Development at LexisNexis for his great comment on “Can Martindale-Hubbell Fight Back?“  According to his comment, the answer appears to be “Yes, they can.”  It looks like M-H is doing some interesting things.  

While the books are dead, the web-based M-H is still a viable and valuable resource.  Some large firms may feel that they don’t need to be listed, but from a KM / practice support perspective, it is valuable to have one place to go to find most, if not all, of the information you need about law firms and corporate legal departments.  Those who decide to cut ties certainly won’t perish, but they may face an out-of-sight-out-of-mind challenge in some circumstances. 

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms 

An interesting article at ComputerWeekly.com called Legal Firms Wake Up To the Benefits of Enterprise Search notes that law firms, like Linklaters, are turning to enterprise search systems because “finding information from many different collections and sources … has become … one of the biggest challenges facing lawyers in the information age.”  It also reports, not surprisingly, that law firms are the biggest customers of enterprise search vendors due to the “extremely document oriented” nature of firms’ work. 

And while not all large law firms have enterprise search systems, most seem to understand the value of being able to quickly find their intellectual capital with tools more sophisticated than a document management system.  More than half of the Am Law 100 firms have a work-product retrieval system from one of the four more popular vendors: West km, Lexis Total Search, Practice Technologies RealPractice, or Recommind.  And some lucky firms have more than one. 

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms

Legal KM folks are innovators. They’re always looking for new ways to get the right information to the right people at the right time.  Always trying to make the practice of law more efficient. 

Innovation, by definition, is about newness. “The introduction of something new” or “a new idea, method, or device,” according to dictionary.com. New can be good or it can be bad.  Either way, it will meet resistance. Most people tend to dislike change – the more drastic, the more resistance. Lawyers, and those others who work in the legal field, are not shy about expressing their aversion to change. 

Remember when your firm announced that it was switching from DOS-based WordPerfect 5.1 to the new-fangled Windows-based WYSIWYG Microsoft Word?  Remember “reveal codes?” Some legal secretaries still want to go back to those good old days, but most are now pretty happy with the change.

My mother didn’t need a microwave oven in the late 1970s, — or more accurately, she didn’t know she needed one. Today, estimates claim that 95% of households have one. There’s a reason for it. It’s not the only way to cook food and boil water and pop popcorn, but it’s pretty efficient.

The same goes for my iPod. Aside from being super cool, it is a great device that makes it easy to listen to music.  I could carry around my old Sony Walkman and a bunch of cassette tapes, but, well you get the picture. 

So, why do lawyers, in particular, hate change? I’ve experienced this, but I’m not alone. There are several reasons, and this article mentions some.  A lot has to do with focus and familiarity.

Lawyers work long, hard hours. They write briefs, try cases, do deals, etc. Few, however, focus on the business of law or ways to make the practice of law better.  If they work at firms, then they assume that there are others that deal with that. 

Lawyers, like most people, also tend to do what’s familiar.  We like what we like.  We fear things that are different.  Even if something is better and more efficient, we find ways to avoid it. 

That’s where the KM folks come in.  We don’t focus on what lawyers focus on.  We focus on making it easier for them to focus on what they need to focus on.  We are also more comfortable with change, so we need to make it as painless as possible for them.  Say what you will about lawyers, but they tend to be a reasonable bunch.  Once you get them past the focus and familiarity challenges, they are usually receptive (and sometimes even appreciative).  In the end, most of the time they’ll ask you, “Why haven’t we been doing it this way all along?”  And that’s just what you want. 

So, why innovate? 

Or should I avoid the “i word” and say, “Why introduce some new method or idea?”?  Well, it’s not for innovation’s sake.  It’s not for the sake of being cutting (or bleeding) edge.  It’s to help make things better, easier, and more efficient. 

My mom never asked for a microwave oven, but she did plead for more time to do things other than slave over a hot stove.  Your lawyers may never ask you for a work product retrieval system, an enterprise search engine, blogs, or wikis.  But they will ask you for a better and faster way to find the firm’s documents and other information.  They will ask for a better way to communicate with members of their practice groups and clients.  In short, they’ll ask you to innovate — just not in so many words.   

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms

With all of beatings that Martindale-Hubbell has been taking recently (See here and here), it seems that they have been trying to fight back with ads.  There are also and subtle “news stories.”  New Yorkers have noticed ads on New York City phone booths touting M-H as source that “9 out of 10 lawyers consult … when selecting counsel.“  There’s a piece of “news” from Fox 23 News in Albany, New York that asks: “Why is it important for an attorney to have references?“ (looks like an ad to me). 

M-H says that it is trying to stay relevant and re-create itself to keep up with the times.  But some people, especially “Real Lawyers Have Blogs” blogger Kevin O’Keefe, seem to suggest that Martindale will go the way of the dodo.  Perhaps, as with the dodo, only time will tell. 

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms

The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) has published its 2007 IT Staffing Survey.  It’s chock full of interesting information.

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One part of the study examined who manages the KM efforts at law firms of various sizes.

A few trends to note: (1) the larger the firm, the more likely that KM is managed by groups outside of the IT department; (2) larger firms tend to not outsource KM; (3) there are still a lot of firms who are not performing any KM.  

The first trend is not surprising.  The more “knowledge there is to manage” (ususally larger firms have more), the more specialized the staff needs to be to handle it and truly support the lawyers.  IT is essential because KM so heavily relies on technology; but increasingly, there are dedicated people and groups to focus all of their efforts on KM (both the content and technology). 

The second trend also makes sense.  Well-developed KM programs involve more than just a work-product retrieval system (which could be maintained by outsourcing).  Dedicated KM personnel who are integrated into law firms are more likely to be able to determine the KM needs and desires of the lawyers and staff.  

The third trend may make sense, but it is troubling.  Very large firms (more than 500 users) usually have greater need (and greater budgets) for KM, so the relatively high KM adoption rate seems right.  But over half of large firms (252-500 users) do not perform KM.  Let’s hope that they actually do KM but just don’t call it KM.  It will be interesting to see if this trend shifts in the future.   Even more troubling however, is that compared to last year’s numbers (see the report here), the percentage of firms not performing KM increased in all but medium sized firms.  (Small: -5% | Medium: +8% | Large: -14% | Very Large: -9%). 

While the numbers are what they are, they don’t seem to comport with the buzz on the web or on ILTA forums, and elsewhere.  It seems that more and more, firms are expanding their KM programs.  What does this mean for KM?  Please share your thoughts. 

By the way, if you are not an ILTA member, then you should join.  It is a fantastic organization. 

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms

KMWorld is nothing new, but while surfing the site, I came across thier handy Best Practices White Papers Archive.  Check it out. 

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms

Reports / Reports say that it may happen. 

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management for Lawyers and Law Firms

This is the first in a multi-part blog series test that will review various “voicemail-to-text” (“V2T”) services that are becoming popular on the web. These services work with your existing phone carrier (cell or land line, and some offer enterprise service) and transcribe your audio voicemail messages into text and deliver the transcribed message to you via e-mail or SMS so that you can read them, rather than have to listen to them. Some people refer to this as “visual voicemail,” which is also an accurate description, but should not be confused with the feature of the same name offered on Apple’s iPhone, which is great, but different than V2T.

First up, SimulScribe.

It is probably the most popular in the US. Ads for the service, denigrating voicemail, are popping up on New York City taxi cabs. There are even Apple “I’m a Mac – I’m a PC” rip-off ads found on YouTube, like this one:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVAX5OtbllU&rel=1]

Funny, but it makes the point. SimulScribe does not just display the numbers of the people that leave you voicemail, it transcribes the audio of the voicemail into text. I tried SimulScribe, and was impressed. I initially had it set to deliver the transcribed text message to my GMail address. It worked as advertised. I then added the feature that sends the message as an SMS text message so that I could read it on my phone. That didn’t work so well because one relatively short voicemail came in 5 separate text messages – but I think that is a function of the SMS (AT&T) and not SimulScribe.  For me, it is not a big deal to rely on email because I get my email on my iPhone.  The big question is: accuracy of the transcription. Does SimulScribe accurately transcribe what callers are saying? To test this, and the other competing services that I’ll write about in future posts, I left myself the following voicemail (for each, I used an iPhone, spoke in my normal tone, volume, speed and clarity):

Hey, it’s Patrick. I wanted to let you know that I am testing some voicemail to text services and writing about them and the results of my test in my blog, LawyerKM. You can read about the results at www.lawyerkm.com. If you’re not familiar with LawyerKM, it’s a knowledge management blog for lawyers and people in the legal profession. That’s it for the audio test of [name of the service]. Thanks.

So, how did SimulScribe do? Look for yourself – here is the transcribed message that I received in my email. It took 6 minutes, 34 seconds from the time I hung up the phone to the time the message arrived in my e-mail inbox.

Hey, it’s Patrick. I wanted to let you know that I’m testing the voicemail to text services in writing about them and the result of my test in my blood lawyer Ken. You can read about the results at www.lawyerken.com. If you’re not familiar with lawyer Ken, it’s a knowledge management law to lawyers and people in the legal profession. That’s it for the audio test of SimulScribe. Thanks.

So, not dead on, but not bad (I like “blood lawyer Ken”).

Note that this is not an either/or service. You can also still listen to your voicemail the old fashioned way if you want. To do so, you dial in and access your audio voicemail messages just as you do now. Unfortunately, if you have an iPhone you can’t use Apple’s visual voicemail function while using SimulScribe because the voicemail is handled on SimulScribe’s system, not AT&T’s. Another handy feature is that you can opt to have an audio file (mp3, wav, or GSM) delivered as an attachment to the email that contains the text of the message. So, you can read and/or listen to the message from your e-mail.

KM is more than just identifying, capturing, and disseminating intellectual capital. It’s also about using technology to help us do things more efficiently and effectively. V2T services are good tools to help us be more efficient and effective. Most lawyers get a lot of voicemail messages everyday. If your voicemail system is like mine, then you have to work through a maze of voice prompts and menus just to hear your messages. It is surprisingly time-consuming. It is faster to read those voicemails. Plus, V2T obviates the need to take notes from those voicemails – it already there. You can forward the message to others and save the message indefinitely. You can also access the audio and text of your messages even if you don’t have access to your email. Just sign in to SimulScribe on the web to access and manage your account.

All in all, we love the V2T concept and SimulScribe does a good job. There are three pricing options: $29.95 per month for unlimited messages; $9.95 per month for 40 messages ($.25 for each additional); and a $.35 per message option. In coming weeks, we’ll review other services and see how they compare. If you use any V2T products, please drop us a line and let us know how you like them.

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management for Lawyers and Law Firms