LawyerKM

I attended LegalTech New York and took some notes from Wednesday, February 4, 2009.    They may be a little rough, so please forgive any typos.

From the conference:  Session title:  Bringing E-Discovery In-house

• Operate in the most efficient and cost-effective way with external counsel
• Minimize objections from opposing counsel
• Create an effective working relationship between legal and IT professionals
• Recognize and address risks
• Identify necessary tools and when you need to use them
• Capitalize on potential savings
• Identify trends in the marketplace

Moderator:
Jason R. Baron, Director of Litigation, National Archives and Records Administration

Panel:
Will Robberts, CEO, Kempton Advisors, Former President, Livenote (division of Thomson-Reuters)
Tom Tigh, President, SuperiorGlacier
Christopher A. Byrne, Esq., Christopher A Byrne, Esq., P.C, Former Assistant Director, FDIC’s Division of Liquidation
Stuart W. Hubbard, Attorney, Schiff Hardin LLP
Johannes C. Scholtes, President / CEO, ZyLAB North

My notes from the presentation:

One goal of the panel is to help legal types and tech types to better communicate and understand each other.

The panel was impressed that Judge Facciola talked about concept searching in his keynote address this morning.

As Judge Facciola said, it is critical for lawyers to keep up on the technology around e-discovery and to understand it.  It is no longer an option.  You simply cannot litigate these days without knowing about e-discovery.

Cooperation among parties (and among lawyers and in-house IT professionals) is key to saving money matters involving e-discovery.

Mentoring: Baron’s rule of thumb is to get the youngest person in the organization to be involved in e-discovery and make sure they know about it.  But maybe this is bottom-up mentoring?  It works both ways; it fosters cooperation and each learns from the other and develops a positive relationship.  And it helps the firm or corporation to save money on vendors.

Communication is difficult between and among IT folks, lawyers, and records professionals.

Among the audience, many want to bring e-discovery in-house.  For those in the audience who have had success with it, a lot has to do with the good relationship between the lawyers and IT.

The Role of Record Management: starting your strategy with RM and records retention policies and planning can help control the costs and time down the road when you become involved in litigation.  With good RM techniques and practices (including ultimately, records destruction) the process is more manageable.  Destruction of records may sound bad, but in reality, it is simply part of the RM lifecycle.

Baron: The Achilies heel of records keeping is people.  The more you have to rely on people, the high the risk and the more work in the long run.  Auto email archiving can be helpful, but it must be done correctly, or else it can get way out of hand.

Knowledge Management: Baron claims that there are tons of KM conferences, but they never invite lawyers.  Of course, I beg to differ.  Case in point: LegalTech NY – there was a whole legal KM track in this very room on Monday.  Readers of this blog know that there are many KM conferences that are focused on law and lawyers are welcome.  Nevertheless, Baron’s point is well taken: lawyers are often ignorant about KM principles and they are important when considering RM and e-discovery.  These are all connected.

Most companies react to things out of fear.  The key is to be pro-active and to address this before the need arises – before the lawsuits.

Search: Johannes C. Scholtes (ZyLAB pitch): Knowledge management search is different than “legal” or e-discovery search.  KM search just wants the best results, e-discovery search is concerned with finding “everything.”   ZyLAB provides the high level of recall.  But with high recall, you get a lot of “junk” and “noise” (i.e. non-relevant search results).

Finding what’s not there: the technology can find words and concepts that are not actually present in documents.

Key: Early collaboration (before the meet & confer) between the lawyer and technologist to develop strategy and how to perform the search.

How can law firms bring e-discovery in house?:  the panel really did not dig into this issue.  I expected more concrete advice on it.  Perhaps someone will ad a comment and augment my notes?

Factors to consider when selecting e-discovery / EDRM vendors: Ownership of IP – the vendors should own their platforms; important product requirements: scalability, open formats and integration with in-house systems, usability, compare coverage with the EDRM model; Cost of software; size of vendor doesn’t matter – focus on competencies and service levels; speak to references.

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

     

I attended LegalTech New York and took some notes from Tuesday, February 3, 2009.   I was reluctant to call this “social networking” but the name persists.  They may be a little rough, so please forgive any typos.

From the conference: Web 2.0: Best Practices for Online Networking Exhibit

• Opportunities in online networking for attorneys
• Re-energize the traditional, valuable art of networking with tightened budgets, time and resources
• Growth areas, benefits and challenges of online networking
• Best practices on selecting a network
• Gaining the strategic advantage of an online network

Moderator:
Robert Ambrogi, Journalist

Panelists:
John Lipsey, Vice President, Corporate Counsel Services, LexisNexis
Vanessa DiMauro, CEO & President, Leader Networks
Eugene M. Weitz, Corporate Counsel, Alcatel-Lucent
Olivier Antoine, Counsel, Crowell & Moring

My friend and fellow KM guy, David Hobbie,  is also blogging this session on Caselines.

My notes form the session:

Not surprisingly, this session on packed.

Among business people, online networking and social media (SM) is a source of fear.

One survey said 15% of people in the legal industry are members of some sort of social networking (SN).  Another survey says that 59% of lawyers are members of some sort of SN.

Vanessa DiMauro finds that web 2.0 stuff is still new, but maturing.  SM is no longer about tools, but how to apply them and measure them and determine ROI.

John Lipsey – Martindale Hubbell is looking to transform from what it was (print-based lawyer listings) to what it will become (a more useful way for lawyers to fulfill their business needs). The new product is Martindale Hubbell Connected (MHC).  He likes the term “professional networking” rather than SN – me too. They have done a lot of research to figure out what lawyers want and need.

The MHC does not allow anonymous users – it authenticates so that the members have confidence that they know who they are communicating with.  The advantage that MH has is a HUGE database of information on lawyers that they can use to make and enhance connections.  They want to integrate into existing workflow.  This could include the connectors that InterAction (another LexisNexis product) has with LinkedIn.  [makes sense to me]

Olivier Antoine is a practicing attorney who gave his perspective about the value of SN.  It provides value to clients so that you can provide information about who knows who.

Eugene M. Weitz mentioned how he has 2 Blackberrys because he has a professional network and a social network.  He maintains these separately intentionally.  He wants to keep them separate.

The networks allow in house counsel to connect with those who they want to – among in-house counsel, for example.  They can discuss things that are important to them and collaborate within that group.

Bob Ambrogi questioned how Weitz is able to maintain two separate networks.  The investment in time is very difficult to justify.

[side note: while blogging this, I'm also watching Twitter, which is on fire with the #LTNY.  Doug Cornelius just wondered--on Twitter-- when MH Connected will be launched.  Mary Abraham, who was in the room, passed along the question and go the answer: Q1 this year.]

DiMauro says there are different social norms that come along with SN – much of the communication is transparent, so you need to be careful.

There was much discussion about networks of trusted people – this reminded me of the really nice ILTA online networking community that is used to connect and ask questions without the threat of vendors reading of contributing

Weitz stressed the need to maintain client confidentialities when participating in online networking communities.   Even asking a simple question or asking for a recommendation can disclose certain information that shouldn’t be disclosed.

Weitz says that this is no different than the type of communication by lawyers – only the vehicle has changed.  The bottom line is that lawyers haveto be as careful with SN sites as they are with all communications – and is some cases, more careful.

DiMauro noted that many other industries have adopted SM and SN.  The legal industry — which has been a late comer and fearful of it — can learn from these other industries.

An audience member asked about the value of LinkedIn.  Oliver gave an example about how he could see that five people from a company he pitched had looked at his profile after the pitch.  There is no other way to get that type of information.  Bob Ambrogi noted that LinkedIn is at least an online directory of business people on the web – the way Martindale Hubbell used to be.

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

     

I attended LegalTech New York and took some notes from Monday, February 2, 2009.   They may be a little rough, so please forgive any typos.

From the conference: What is Twitter and How Can I Use It?

• What is Twitter and why should ‘I’ use it?
• At the end of the day is Twitter the “ultimate time waster” or a “great tool”?
• From ‘huh?” to “a ha!” – one lawyer’s journey into the Twitterverse. — alternative title “How I learned to stop worrying and love to Tweet!”
• Time to Tweet? How to use Twitter without losing time to Twitter.
• Lawyers, Twitter and Client Development
• How lawyers are using Twitter for sharing and camaraderie among each other

Bob Ambrogi introduced the panel.

Moderator: Monica Bay, Editor-in-Chief, Law Technology News, incisivemedia

Panelists:
Matthew Homann, Founder, LexThink LLC
Kevin O’Keefe, Chief Executive Officer, Lex Blog
Chris Winfield, President, 10e20

My notes of the presentation:

There are already several lawyers and a handful of law firms using Twitter. Chris Winfield polled the audience to see who is on Twitter – quite a few.  Maybe 30-50%

Twitter is about the conversation – it’s not to do “old fashioned” marketing and just slam your message down someone’s throat.   But, as I’ve said, I believe that it can be used to publish marketing-type updates.   Not that it should be used exclusively for that, but it is one possible use.

Chris went through all the basics about how to use it, including search, hash tags, etc.

Chris actually tweeted as he prepared for his presentation and asked people to tell him what Twitter is.  He got many responses and displayed them to demonstrate the way people use it and the value  they find.

Went over Twitter tools:
- search.twitter.com
- TweetDeck
- twitterFon
- EasyTweets – for easy Twitter marketing

Described ways to use Twitter as a lawyer
- learn
- build relationships
- make connections

Matt Homann

Many people in the audience were tweeting the presentation using #LTNY to indicate “Legal Tech New York”

Why do people use it?

- it’s a Kool-Aid application – once you use it and get it, you can’t stop talking about it.
- Matt gets his news from Twitter – through featured and trending topics.  It often has news that does not make it to the mainstream media.  And Twitter users often break news much more quickly than mainstream media.

Twitter is like a river – you can’t see it all at once.   And don’t feel overwhelmed if you miss something – you’re not supposed to see it all.  But, you can always search for key words and find what people have said after the fact.

It is a way to initiate a relationship – the best thing that you can do is make the connection and then follow up with a phone call or some other “real” in-person conversation.

Kevin O’Keefe

Kevin was a Twitter skeptic, but after using it for a few months he was converted.  He gave a concrete example of how he made a customer contact through a Twitter conversation about baseball.

Social Media is more important than search engine optimization.
Kevin — like Guy Kawasaki — would rather go without his cell phone for a week than to go without Twitter for a week.

The Twitter small talk leads to real conversations and relationships.

I had a chance to chat (really, a real conversation – face to face) and he mentioned that he knows of some practicing lawyers who have landed clients through Twitter.
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms

     

I attended LegalTech New York today and took some notes.   They may be a little rough, so please forgive any typos.

The first session, How Integration Drives KM, was a good one.  It addressed:

• Early approaches to KM
• Individual, highly customized systems
• Commercial applications
• Benefits of powerful combined approach

Speakers:

Tom Baldwin, Chief Knowledge Officer, Reed Smith
Preston McKenzie, Vice President and General Manager, Business of Law – West, a Thomson Reuters Business

My notes of the presentation:

Opening Remarks by Oz Benamram, CKO at White & Case.

Preston McKenzie spoke first about the framework and context of KM, including client development and the fact that in this economy, we are expected to “to do more with less.”  So, the emphasis is on productivity.

Three Key Challenges of law firms today:

1. Information complexity
2. Organizational complexity
3. Market complexity

Historically, vendors have offered point solutions.  They solve the problem, but they are not efficient, in fact, they’re  expensive.  And it increases complexity because there are several systems and tools to do different things.

Now, systems are much more open and able to be integrated – e.g., ContactNet integrated with Westlaw for contacts mashed up with the content of cases on a Westlaw search.  Features:

• open architecture allows for the integration.
• deployment and development consistency.
• ability to provide hybrid applications.
• lighter tech footprint is needed.
• more intuitive.

West km is an example.  The feature of the application are now unbundled
(the ability to do something is what’s important – not the application or the product as it has historically been delivered by the major vendors).

They are getting back to the core value of the product – for West km it is the taxonomy.  The system becomes configurable by the law firm – to use in the way it wants.

This idea of integration is all about the ability to create mash-ups of information.  This has been happening on the web for quite a while now and it is becoming more common inside law firms.

Tom Baldwin spoke next.  He covered a few preliminary thoughts and then explained how they are integrating systems at Reed Smith.

What does “doing more with less” really mean?

ATV – Awareness-Training-Visibility

• A – need to market the tools that we already have
• T – make sure they know how to use them – in a cost effective manner.
• V – a self preservation issue.

How are you providing value?  Demonstrating value and helping the cause.

Gaining and Maintaining Adoption:

• KM systems are not considered essential (like email or the DMS) – try to change that.
• Find your champions.  Not just that, but find those who will take credit  like it’s their idea (like Al Gore and the Internet).
• Attorney testimonials are key – get lawyers to tell others – you must ask them to do it.  Even ghost write the testimonial for them – good for PR.
• Make sure people understand what the system does and how to use it.  Go to the practice group  meetings, etc.

Measuring the Value of KM

• Report on the numbers – # of extranets, blog his, search usage, business generation.
• Lawyer and client testimonials.
• Go for easy, cheap wins.

Reed Smith’s “ouRSpace” – this is the firm’s new portal.

Vendors and products:

• XMLAW
• Recommind
• West km
• Dot Net
• Monochrome
• Silverlight
• AJAX

The wrapper for the portal is SharePoint, but looks nothing like SharePoint.

- The interface is clean and simple
- There is one icon-style navigation bar at the top
- items are targeted by subject, practice group, office, etc.

Live Demo

- navigation is one simple icon based navigation bar.
- time zones – interactive time zone pop-up app with an integrated meeting organizer.
- standard XMLAW SharePoint functions, but, again looks nothng like SharePoint.

West km inside of Recommind inside of SharePoint (also searches the whole DMS – InterWoven)
- West km docs are weighted higher
- incorporates all of the WKM
- prominent red search box – uses XMLAW-type search scopes.
- all SP content (intranet) is indexed y Recommind.

People search
- integrates all types of information about the lawyers.  Even billing rates and compensation are visible by everyone.

WSJ News Ticker – right below the the navigation bar
News and Information section
New Partners section introduces the firm to new partners.  They have started to add video with their video conferencing systems; not highest quality, but good, inexpensive and sufficient.  Other videos are organized by various categories.  This is done with SilverLight

Blogging within the Firm:
- firm heavily discourages email blasts to the whole firm (most people are not even able to send firm-wide emails – only Chiefs, and certain partners).
- All Chiefs, Managing Partners, etc. are a part of the Management corner, which includes blogs.
- blog feedback has been good.
- it was difficult to get people involved, and sometimes the KM staff ghost writes the blog posts.

Financial Information
- is distributed to users based on the users position.
- Rate look up is a very popular feature – it allows lawyers to look for associates based on location, billing rates, class year, etc.

This was a highly-customized system, was not cheap, and required a lot of custom work and a large staff.

This was a great presentation.  It’s always good to see what Tom is doing.  He is one of the more cutting edge KM people out there.

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