Google's massive size and repeatedly demonstrated ability to move into and dominate new areas of information and search suggest that any effort by it even to dip its toe into the ocean of the law should be taken seriously.
As such, as has been amply noted by many others, and as officially announced in its blog, Google's new case search should be examined as a free source of many years of federal and state appellate caselaw. To access it, go to Google Scholar, and select the "Legal Opinions and Journals" button, or just search, caselaw is now included.
Below I quickly address the new tool's coverage of recent cases; its relevancy ranking; potential use of the case hyperlinks; and pin cites.
Scope of Search
As pointed out by Carole Levitt of "Internet for Lawyers," Google has buried some information about the scope of the search on its Google Scholar Help page:
"Currently, Google Scholar allows you to search and read opinions for US state appellate and supreme court cases since 1950, US federal district, appellate, tax and bankruptcy courts since 1923 and US Supreme Court cases since 1791 (please check back periodically for updates to coverage information). In addition, it includes citations for cases cited by indexed opinions or journal articles which allows you to find influential cases (usually older or international) which are not yet online or publicly available."
I'm a Massachusetts lawyer, so of course today I assessed its recent coverage in an area I know something about, Massachusetts case law. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court archive allows free access to recent opinions: Google Scholar contains the Commonwealth v. Avila case issued September 15, 2009 (roughly two months ago) but not the Commonwealth v. Odgren case (available temporarily free from Westlaw here) issued October 15, 2009 or the Massachusetts Appeals Court case Sheriff of Suffolk County v. AFSCME COUNCIL 93, LOCAL 419 (temporarily here) issued October 1, 2009. Oddly Google Scholar knows about the Odgren case as a citation--perhaps more functionality will be unveiled about this aspect of the tool in future months. Similar treatment is found for the even more recent SJC slip opinions, that is, Google Scholar knows about the citation but not the case.
Relevancy and Case Significance
The commentators have noted that Google is not simply turning its regular algorithm loose on the text of legal opinions. Rather, the relevancy ranking clearly shows that some serious thought and attention has been paid to how the legal system works. My search for in personam jurisdiction produced results similarly impressive to those I had seen with Precydent. I would guess that Google tracks the number of citations in other courts to a given case and factors that into its algorithm.
Case Hyperlinks
I noticed that each case has a unique not-horribly-long URL. For instance, the URL for Cement-Lock LLC v. Gas Technology Institute, 523 F. Supp. 2d 827 (N.D. Ill. 2007) is:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15113571434740791015
The broad coverage and solidity of Google technology suggests that such hyperlinks may be an excellent tool in the kit of those who write in about legal issues in HTML-enabled text, such as legal bloggers and lawyers working with internal blogs and wikis. No login is needed to access the case (thanks Ernie the Attorney for pointing that out).
Pin Cites
I've previously noted in my review of PreCydent that pin cites are really important for legal research and writing. Google Scholar cases indicate where the page breaks are in the original text.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Client-Facing Knowledge Management
I'm continuing in a KM peer group meeting in a discussion on client-facing knowledge management. There was a good presentation about client facing KM including a very impressive instance of law department and law firm collaboration in KM, training, and beyond.
How can client-facing KM add value and get clients to work more closely with the firm?
KM is perceived as delivering value to internal clients. It can also be structured to deliver value directly to clients.
Our natural tendency may be to focus on the internal clients but there are opportunities with external clients.
It is hard to identify value--"one man's meat [tofu] is another man's poison." Qualitative measurements of value are more appropriate but entail repeated conversations. Ask if particular KM initiatives are delivering value.
What will value look like in the future? Is the recession a temporary dip or a transformational event?
Clients' demands have clearly changed as a result of the recession.
There are three tiers of client-facing opportunities. Every client expects firms to have models, samples, and extranets as commodity services. Above that some KM initiative have brand distinguishing initiatives (e.g., "Blue Flag"). Above that are "bespoke" KM tools such as expert systems that can identify answers or advice to clients through a dialogue (as those discussed at ILTA). Bespoke systems are the most challenging and the most rewarding.
You can't charge for commodity level of services.
Quoting the ACC Value Challenge, "corporate clients want and need value driven, high quality legal services that deliver solutions for a reasonable cost and develop lawyers as counselors (not just content-providers), advocates (not just process-doers) and professional partners." "The problem is not cost per se, but the fact that cost is disconnected from value."
GCs historically have not had good answers when asked for a definite number for annual legal spend. It is not always the lowest cost that a GC looks for, as a predictable cost is of high value to them as well.
What can KM do?
A specific client will have a specific view of what KM can do for them. One classic challenge is resistance from the relationship partner in getting information about what the client needs. Can you proactively get information about KM needs of client? KM managers would have to pitch the internal client. You need to be persistent. It's acceptable to start with small initiatives and build from there.
Case Study
A large company had a GC who had come from a large firm with a strong KM program. He wanted to build a stronger legal department that would allow the in-house team to do more of the legal work themselves. They developed a KM strategy for five business units in six weeks.
Initiatives included a portal, knowledge bank, matter management, expertise management, and enterprise search. They needed some place where the hundreds of in-house lawyers could share knowledge. They created a global knowledge management officer. The GKMO built a global network of "knowledge champions" in different business units. The law department had set of objectives that, after the GKMO came in, included concrete KM goals. KM was seen as a way to link outside counsel and the law department. They have built out four of the five systems (leaving matter management for future development). The company now has sophisticated internal knowledge management.
Their goal was to integrate law department and law firm systems seamlessly through a personalized portal. It's hard for clients to have a view of the law firm's work if they have to visit multiple portals each with their own passwords. They want to be able to search their internal and law-firm created content in their own portal. They also wanted a comprehensive training portfolio.
The value they were seeking was in making their lawyers more effective and efficient; managing their legal spend; improving their lawyers' skill levels; and expanding their knowledge repositories.
One law firm that had a large client team for that company was asked to provide a training program. The discussion started with substantive KM (forms, models and samples) but expanded into communication models, e-billing, and more.
After some development the two had a day-long summit with extensive participation by senior leaders on both sides. The goals for the summit was to deepen the relationship, find some mutually beneficial outcomes, and become a higher performing virtual team. The firm developed bios for the law department staff. The conversation was very valuable. The summit gave each side a better understanding of the drivers in each enterprise. There are now formal client team coordinators for other clients.
The law firm's KM team had been formulating its strategy for providing KM support. The big connection was on the training front. KM had involved training, both substantively and in terms of training processes. KM participated in trainings by including model documents in them and by quarterbacking the communications (with the marketing department). The firm has also proposed managing CLE credits for the law department. They also found third-party trainings that law department staff might be interested in and also found and listed law department staff's speaking engagements. Increasing awareness of the law department staff's activities led to more potential contact points.
Future challenges include a client request for concise regular updates on matter status and very targeted, edited current awareness information, based on what client's issues are.
The partnership is a success because both knowledge initiatives were trying to be stronger. The training program has met the law department's needs for developing their own skills (a corporate initiative that has fed into the legal department's initiative). They have complex multifaceted training goals. And the law firm lawyers have been showcasing their expertise in the trainings and through the forms and samples, as well as keeping the firm on the increasingly shorter list of outside counsel.
Success factors were:
How can client-facing KM add value and get clients to work more closely with the firm?
KM is perceived as delivering value to internal clients. It can also be structured to deliver value directly to clients.
Our natural tendency may be to focus on the internal clients but there are opportunities with external clients.
It is hard to identify value--"one man's meat [tofu] is another man's poison." Qualitative measurements of value are more appropriate but entail repeated conversations. Ask if particular KM initiatives are delivering value.
What will value look like in the future? Is the recession a temporary dip or a transformational event?
Clients' demands have clearly changed as a result of the recession.
There are three tiers of client-facing opportunities. Every client expects firms to have models, samples, and extranets as commodity services. Above that some KM initiative have brand distinguishing initiatives (e.g., "Blue Flag"). Above that are "bespoke" KM tools such as expert systems that can identify answers or advice to clients through a dialogue (as those discussed at ILTA). Bespoke systems are the most challenging and the most rewarding.
You can't charge for commodity level of services.
Quoting the ACC Value Challenge, "corporate clients want and need value driven, high quality legal services that deliver solutions for a reasonable cost and develop lawyers as counselors (not just content-providers), advocates (not just process-doers) and professional partners." "The problem is not cost per se, but the fact that cost is disconnected from value."
GCs historically have not had good answers when asked for a definite number for annual legal spend. It is not always the lowest cost that a GC looks for, as a predictable cost is of high value to them as well.
What can KM do?
A specific client will have a specific view of what KM can do for them. One classic challenge is resistance from the relationship partner in getting information about what the client needs. Can you proactively get information about KM needs of client? KM managers would have to pitch the internal client. You need to be persistent. It's acceptable to start with small initiatives and build from there.
Case Study
A large company had a GC who had come from a large firm with a strong KM program. He wanted to build a stronger legal department that would allow the in-house team to do more of the legal work themselves. They developed a KM strategy for five business units in six weeks.
Initiatives included a portal, knowledge bank, matter management, expertise management, and enterprise search. They needed some place where the hundreds of in-house lawyers could share knowledge. They created a global knowledge management officer. The GKMO built a global network of "knowledge champions" in different business units. The law department had set of objectives that, after the GKMO came in, included concrete KM goals. KM was seen as a way to link outside counsel and the law department. They have built out four of the five systems (leaving matter management for future development). The company now has sophisticated internal knowledge management.
Their goal was to integrate law department and law firm systems seamlessly through a personalized portal. It's hard for clients to have a view of the law firm's work if they have to visit multiple portals each with their own passwords. They want to be able to search their internal and law-firm created content in their own portal. They also wanted a comprehensive training portfolio.
The value they were seeking was in making their lawyers more effective and efficient; managing their legal spend; improving their lawyers' skill levels; and expanding their knowledge repositories.
One law firm that had a large client team for that company was asked to provide a training program. The discussion started with substantive KM (forms, models and samples) but expanded into communication models, e-billing, and more.
After some development the two had a day-long summit with extensive participation by senior leaders on both sides. The goals for the summit was to deepen the relationship, find some mutually beneficial outcomes, and become a higher performing virtual team. The firm developed bios for the law department staff. The conversation was very valuable. The summit gave each side a better understanding of the drivers in each enterprise. There are now formal client team coordinators for other clients.
The law firm's KM team had been formulating its strategy for providing KM support. The big connection was on the training front. KM had involved training, both substantively and in terms of training processes. KM participated in trainings by including model documents in them and by quarterbacking the communications (with the marketing department). The firm has also proposed managing CLE credits for the law department. They also found third-party trainings that law department staff might be interested in and also found and listed law department staff's speaking engagements. Increasing awareness of the law department staff's activities led to more potential contact points.
Future challenges include a client request for concise regular updates on matter status and very targeted, edited current awareness information, based on what client's issues are.
The partnership is a success because both knowledge initiatives were trying to be stronger. The training program has met the law department's needs for developing their own skills (a corporate initiative that has fed into the legal department's initiative). They have complex multifaceted training goals. And the law firm lawyers have been showcasing their expertise in the trainings and through the forms and samples, as well as keeping the firm on the increasingly shorter list of outside counsel.
Success factors were:
- Client's specific need
- Firm skills and resources that met the need
- In the law firm, lawyers, IT, KM, Business Development, and Professional Development worked in partnership
- Client perception of value added
Usability and Usability Professionals
The next presentation at this KM peer group meeting was on web design and usability. I've found myself doing a fair amount of work that implicates usability, as one of my firm's main methods of providing information is through its intranet and KM has a role to play in some aspects of that intranet.
People who are involved with usability might be called visual designers, interaction designers, information architects, or user experience researchers. The real value is in combining these roles.
Identifying pain points becomes more anthropological.
People who are good at usability need to:
Design mistakes:
People who are involved with usability might be called visual designers, interaction designers, information architects, or user experience researchers. The real value is in combining these roles.
Identifying pain points becomes more anthropological.
People who are good at usability need to:
- Not mind asking dumb questions
- Be fascinated with human behavior
- Focus on task, try to keep people who aren't actually end-users from interfering
- Customer service oriented
- Eye for detail
- Enjoy complex problem-solving
Design mistakes:
- Filling all white space
- When in doubt add News
- "Useful Links" or even "Very Useful Links"
- Equating "easy to build" with "easy to use"; usability must be balanced with ease of design
- Equating you with your audience; avoid by getting proximity and facetime with users
Good design approaches:
- Research first
- Build prototypes through web applications such as AXURE--more than wireframes; can make entirely clickable sites
- NPS score-a subjective means of providing quantitative information. Ask likelihood that someone will recommend that site. Do before and after measurements.
- Personas
- Card-sorting-- put names of pages on index cards and ask users how pages should be organized (or use Optimal Sorting)
- User testing
KM and ROI
I'm at an international knowledge management peer group meeting today, under the terms of which speakers and affiliations are not identified.
My subject line acronyms, standing of course for "knowledge management" and "return on investment," all too rarely appear together either in discussions or strategy. This was in some ways an introduction to ROI at a fairly basic level, but given the relatively woeful state of business analytics at most law firms, investigating ROI may be a real opportunity for KM programs.
People want to believe there is a way to comprehend any puzzling or momentous force. Convince them you are the key to comprehending it and you will gain great status.
Having a basic grasp of finance can give you a leg up in law firms over most people at the firm except perhaps the CFO or COO.
ROI was a misunderstood term of art. KM people took it mean "show us what you are likely to do and how it will help."
We are starting to see a trend of relating KM to profitability or even revenue generation.
As firms have begun to embrace professional managers, it's become much more important for KM managers to establish ROI.
ROI, defined as earnings per dollar of investment, compares solution cost to monetary benefits. Measuring ROI varies between industries. There will always be some black magic behind it. It does not take into account work-life balance. An ROI of 25% means that investment cost plus an additional 25% of the investment is returned.
ROI is calculated first by identifying the solution benefits, less the total costs (not just cash investments), x100 expressed as a percentage.
Utilization rate is the actual hours billed divided by target. So an associate who bills 900 hours with an 1800 hour target has 50% utilization rate.
Realization is collections divided by billings. So a matter in which $200,000 was billed but $100,000 collected would have 50% realization rate.
As KM managers are integrated more and more into the business discussions we need to have a better understanding of the language of business.
Process improvement helps cost savings when a better-articulated, well-documented, more accessible, and standardized best practices reduces the time required for a person to accomplish a goal or complete an activity.
For example, ask attorneys how much time they spend sorting / dealing with email.
It is not as simple as saying that an hour saved is an hour that would have been billed. Tie rather to a firm initiative such as business development investment time. Look for firm initiatives that set goals for new business acquisition, client outreach, cross-selling, and so forth.
Sales metrics; one large legal market vendor tracks sales activity down to the level of clicks in a demonstration. This is not inappropriate but rather is the type of business process necessary to survive in a global economy.
At one firm, five of six projects needed no ROI. On the sixth, the KM manager identified hours that could be used for something else with the new project and used that to successfully sell the project. Another firm will be requiring ROI analysis but has not identified how to do that.
Few firms have assessed ROI on business development.
Value can be defined in a lot of different ways.
The discipline that the "ROI game" imposes helps us better find the business objectives, articulate the goals and objectives of KM work, and communicate better to lawyers about it.
KM taking over the risk management at one firm led to cost savings in not hiring a general counsel. If practice area is servicing more clients in the same amount of time, then you've helped the business of the firm because the firm didn't have to hire more people.
"You will spend less time searching" or "you will spend less time doing X" gives the direction and lawyers intuitively understand that working more efficiently means more time for managing the business or delegating more. Firm leaders may not have spent the time identifying how people should be spending their time.
It drives smart people crazy when business processes are handled poorly. Setting a good example of doing something better proves your value.
One way to get some return on invesment is to do a survey about people's pain points and degree of contentment.
Another way to tie to think about ROI is saving moeny for the client.
One firm has a "precedents" library with metrics about popular precedents, popular users, and unpopular precedents. The parallel "research" library doesn't have comparable metrics. The KM manager's CIO from an accounting firm is asking for an ROI, although the project is required to be in place before metrics measurement can really be done (chicken-egg).
The "wild card" KM managers can play in ROI discussions is risk.
One financial measurement is risk and cost of being sued. Making substantive legal mistakes due to poor precedent or absence of search is a risk and potential cost of having a poor research collection.
KM managers can trace ROI by looking at usage of precedents, derivative works, number of searches, etc.
We can estimate software cost by figuring implementation and consulting may take about 1/3 of the annual cost. Focus on three year period as implementation costs drop off quickly.
Doing calculations can help you identify if your assumptions are incorrect. You won't actually get an ROI of 71% from implementing metrics assessment.
ROI analysis ties well into matter management and alternative fee arrangements.
A major benefit of ROI analysis is a more rigorous business approach.
One commentator said that our firms do not apply rigorous analysis to major business decisions. Most don't even do profitability analysis.
My subject line acronyms, standing of course for "knowledge management" and "return on investment," all too rarely appear together either in discussions or strategy. This was in some ways an introduction to ROI at a fairly basic level, but given the relatively woeful state of business analytics at most law firms, investigating ROI may be a real opportunity for KM programs.
People want to believe there is a way to comprehend any puzzling or momentous force. Convince them you are the key to comprehending it and you will gain great status.
Having a basic grasp of finance can give you a leg up in law firms over most people at the firm except perhaps the CFO or COO.
ROI was a misunderstood term of art. KM people took it mean "show us what you are likely to do and how it will help."
We are starting to see a trend of relating KM to profitability or even revenue generation.
As firms have begun to embrace professional managers, it's become much more important for KM managers to establish ROI.
ROI, defined as earnings per dollar of investment, compares solution cost to monetary benefits. Measuring ROI varies between industries. There will always be some black magic behind it. It does not take into account work-life balance. An ROI of 25% means that investment cost plus an additional 25% of the investment is returned.
ROI is calculated first by identifying the solution benefits, less the total costs (not just cash investments), x100 expressed as a percentage.
Utilization rate is the actual hours billed divided by target. So an associate who bills 900 hours with an 1800 hour target has 50% utilization rate.
Realization is collections divided by billings. So a matter in which $200,000 was billed but $100,000 collected would have 50% realization rate.
As KM managers are integrated more and more into the business discussions we need to have a better understanding of the language of business.
Process improvement helps cost savings when a better-articulated, well-documented, more accessible, and standardized best practices reduces the time required for a person to accomplish a goal or complete an activity.
For example, ask attorneys how much time they spend sorting / dealing with email.
It is not as simple as saying that an hour saved is an hour that would have been billed. Tie rather to a firm initiative such as business development investment time. Look for firm initiatives that set goals for new business acquisition, client outreach, cross-selling, and so forth.
Sales metrics; one large legal market vendor tracks sales activity down to the level of clicks in a demonstration. This is not inappropriate but rather is the type of business process necessary to survive in a global economy.
At one firm, five of six projects needed no ROI. On the sixth, the KM manager identified hours that could be used for something else with the new project and used that to successfully sell the project. Another firm will be requiring ROI analysis but has not identified how to do that.
Few firms have assessed ROI on business development.
Value can be defined in a lot of different ways.
The discipline that the "ROI game" imposes helps us better find the business objectives, articulate the goals and objectives of KM work, and communicate better to lawyers about it.
KM taking over the risk management at one firm led to cost savings in not hiring a general counsel. If practice area is servicing more clients in the same amount of time, then you've helped the business of the firm because the firm didn't have to hire more people.
"You will spend less time searching" or "you will spend less time doing X" gives the direction and lawyers intuitively understand that working more efficiently means more time for managing the business or delegating more. Firm leaders may not have spent the time identifying how people should be spending their time.
It drives smart people crazy when business processes are handled poorly. Setting a good example of doing something better proves your value.
One way to get some return on invesment is to do a survey about people's pain points and degree of contentment.
Another way to tie to think about ROI is saving moeny for the client.
One firm has a "precedents" library with metrics about popular precedents, popular users, and unpopular precedents. The parallel "research" library doesn't have comparable metrics. The KM manager's CIO from an accounting firm is asking for an ROI, although the project is required to be in place before metrics measurement can really be done (chicken-egg).
The "wild card" KM managers can play in ROI discussions is risk.
One financial measurement is risk and cost of being sued. Making substantive legal mistakes due to poor precedent or absence of search is a risk and potential cost of having a poor research collection.
KM managers can trace ROI by looking at usage of precedents, derivative works, number of searches, etc.
We can estimate software cost by figuring implementation and consulting may take about 1/3 of the annual cost. Focus on three year period as implementation costs drop off quickly.
Doing calculations can help you identify if your assumptions are incorrect. You won't actually get an ROI of 71% from implementing metrics assessment.
ROI analysis ties well into matter management and alternative fee arrangements.
A major benefit of ROI analysis is a more rigorous business approach.
One commentator said that our firms do not apply rigorous analysis to major business decisions. Most don't even do profitability analysis.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Wikis at ILTA 2009 Part 2, SmartSpace Integrates Wikis Into Leading Document Management System Platform
SmartSpace
PBWorks is a tool squarely in the Enterprise 2.0 space. SmartSpace attempts to merge the traditional core document management system functionality of legal market leader iManage (Interwoven) with an enterprise wiki, or actually, thousands of wikis. To understand this tool you have to understand a little bit about how iManage's "matter centric collaboration" or MCC system works.
iManage Background
With MCC each legal matter or practice area is automatically assigned a "workspace" that contains iManage folders. These iManage folders function something like a Windows explorer folder, but are located essentially within the application (webparts allow folders or workspaces to be displayed in portals, however). To assign a matter number or other characteristic to a document or email, it is placed in a folder in a workspace. At the "workspace level" proper, however, no information is displayed and no documents can be located. Workspaces, like folders, can be associated with metadata like client / matter numbers, legal service codes, and practice areas.
Baker Robbins has leveraged the curious opportunity created by the "blank" workspace to create and display a workspace-specific wiki. As with any wiki, new pages can be linked and created on the workspace wiki. The home wiki page is currently somewhat "structured," such that documents in iManage can be added as part of a "briefing" at the top of the home wiki page.
Technically I understand that the SmartSpace wiki is hosted on a separate server and is displayed within iManage dynamically based on the workspace information (this suggests that it would not be challenging to show the SmartSpace alone on a portal, say in conjunction with one of the many Matter Pages intranet systems or in an extranet).
Document Management System Collaboration??
I think it is really interesting that a top consultant has figured out a way to add a matter-specific collaborative tool right into the main-line document management system. Providing attorneys and staff the ability to interact with and add context to the key set of documents they work with could very significantly enhance their ability to find and leverage work product, and also could provides an easy way for wiki knowledge-sharing and collaboration to be embedded in the normal attorney / staff workflow.
Suggestions For Improvement
The product was first discussed (released?) in June (2009) so, not surprisingly, I see a few ways that the current SmartSpace approach could be improved to make them more of a collaboration and communications platform.
1) Notifications (Signals)
Notification of changes is core wiki functionality, in my opinion, because it provides a signal of changes and allows the wiki to serve as a communications platform instead of simply an on-line database.
I did not see notifications built into SmartSpace. It should be easy to sign up for notifications of changes to the SmartSpace (and perhaps also the documents in the workspaces?). Notifications work best if the user can select the notification frequency, whether immediately, daily, or weekly digest formats.
In addition, the type of notifications provided can be really important. As noted by my former colleague in "Sharepoint Wiki Disaster," Sharepoint 2007 (a/k/a MOSS) provides the latest version of the page "entire," without a redline or indication of changes. This has limited (though not eliminated) the utility of those wikis.
Notifications are typically provided by email, or, in fully Enterprise-2.0-compatable organizations, through an RSS feed.
2) Ease of Editing
A wiki is supposed to be easy to edit. The edit button should be large, friendly, and inviting. That encourages people to start the editing process. Lowering the barriers to authorship enhances the opportunities for attorneys and staff to add value to the workspace wikis.
3) Structured vs. Unstructured Wiki Pages
Currently SmartSpaces allows users to right click on a document anywhere in iManage and add a document to a "briefing" section on the home page of a workspace wiki. I understand and applaud making it easy to add documents to these wikis.
I am concerned however that limiting where the documents go when they are added will dramatically reduce the opportunity for users to provide context to the documents through organizing and formating the page and set of pages to on which the document is linked. It is the ability of users to control and add to the context and organization of wikis that make them superior, from a knowledge management context, to traditional document databases.
One way to improve the flexibility would be to let users choose from a list which page on the wiki to add in the link. Another would be to have the right-click create the full link, complete with text, for addition into any place on the wiki. A third way would be to have the right-click simply identify and copy a unique URL for the document (this is clunkier).
4) Search
Another concern is search. An organization with enterprise search could readily search both the iManage system and any related wiki. Without federated search, however, the documents themselves and the context for the documents and the text provided by the SmartSpace wiki would need to be searched separately, which is problematic. And search within SmartSpace might be limited to that workspace wiki, or extended to all of the wikis.
5) Security
A separate system would need to map and abide by the same security settings found in the iManage workspaces. For instance, it should not be possible to even view the name of a workspace wiki if only certain people in the firm are allowed to access the matter (the names themselves can constitute information that needs to be kept from everyone except those on the matter team).
Conclusion
Despite these concerns, I am very intrigued by the concept of adding matter-specific wikis into the law firm environment. I have been looking for a wiki package that would allow automatic generation of wikis based on matter opening, and this system certainly fits that need. It remains to be seen if this system can meet enough other needs to rise to the level of a truly useful and adoptable tool.
PBWorks is a tool squarely in the Enterprise 2.0 space. SmartSpace attempts to merge the traditional core document management system functionality of legal market leader iManage (Interwoven) with an enterprise wiki, or actually, thousands of wikis. To understand this tool you have to understand a little bit about how iManage's "matter centric collaboration" or MCC system works.
iManage Background
With MCC each legal matter or practice area is automatically assigned a "workspace" that contains iManage folders. These iManage folders function something like a Windows explorer folder, but are located essentially within the application (webparts allow folders or workspaces to be displayed in portals, however). To assign a matter number or other characteristic to a document or email, it is placed in a folder in a workspace. At the "workspace level" proper, however, no information is displayed and no documents can be located. Workspaces, like folders, can be associated with metadata like client / matter numbers, legal service codes, and practice areas.
Baker Robbins has leveraged the curious opportunity created by the "blank" workspace to create and display a workspace-specific wiki. As with any wiki, new pages can be linked and created on the workspace wiki. The home wiki page is currently somewhat "structured," such that documents in iManage can be added as part of a "briefing" at the top of the home wiki page.
Technically I understand that the SmartSpace wiki is hosted on a separate server and is displayed within iManage dynamically based on the workspace information (this suggests that it would not be challenging to show the SmartSpace alone on a portal, say in conjunction with one of the many Matter Pages intranet systems or in an extranet).
Document Management System Collaboration??
I think it is really interesting that a top consultant has figured out a way to add a matter-specific collaborative tool right into the main-line document management system. Providing attorneys and staff the ability to interact with and add context to the key set of documents they work with could very significantly enhance their ability to find and leverage work product, and also could provides an easy way for wiki knowledge-sharing and collaboration to be embedded in the normal attorney / staff workflow.
Suggestions For Improvement
The product was first discussed (released?) in June (2009) so, not surprisingly, I see a few ways that the current SmartSpace approach could be improved to make them more of a collaboration and communications platform.
1) Notifications (Signals)
Notification of changes is core wiki functionality, in my opinion, because it provides a signal of changes and allows the wiki to serve as a communications platform instead of simply an on-line database.
I did not see notifications built into SmartSpace. It should be easy to sign up for notifications of changes to the SmartSpace (and perhaps also the documents in the workspaces?). Notifications work best if the user can select the notification frequency, whether immediately, daily, or weekly digest formats.
In addition, the type of notifications provided can be really important. As noted by my former colleague in "Sharepoint Wiki Disaster," Sharepoint 2007 (a/k/a MOSS) provides the latest version of the page "entire," without a redline or indication of changes. This has limited (though not eliminated) the utility of those wikis.
Notifications are typically provided by email, or, in fully Enterprise-2.0-compatable organizations, through an RSS feed.
2) Ease of Editing
A wiki is supposed to be easy to edit. The edit button should be large, friendly, and inviting. That encourages people to start the editing process. Lowering the barriers to authorship enhances the opportunities for attorneys and staff to add value to the workspace wikis.
3) Structured vs. Unstructured Wiki Pages
Currently SmartSpaces allows users to right click on a document anywhere in iManage and add a document to a "briefing" section on the home page of a workspace wiki. I understand and applaud making it easy to add documents to these wikis.
I am concerned however that limiting where the documents go when they are added will dramatically reduce the opportunity for users to provide context to the documents through organizing and formating the page and set of pages to on which the document is linked. It is the ability of users to control and add to the context and organization of wikis that make them superior, from a knowledge management context, to traditional document databases.
One way to improve the flexibility would be to let users choose from a list which page on the wiki to add in the link. Another would be to have the right-click create the full link, complete with text, for addition into any place on the wiki. A third way would be to have the right-click simply identify and copy a unique URL for the document (this is clunkier).
4) Search
Another concern is search. An organization with enterprise search could readily search both the iManage system and any related wiki. Without federated search, however, the documents themselves and the context for the documents and the text provided by the SmartSpace wiki would need to be searched separately, which is problematic. And search within SmartSpace might be limited to that workspace wiki, or extended to all of the wikis.
5) Security
A separate system would need to map and abide by the same security settings found in the iManage workspaces. For instance, it should not be possible to even view the name of a workspace wiki if only certain people in the firm are allowed to access the matter (the names themselves can constitute information that needs to be kept from everyone except those on the matter team).
Conclusion
Despite these concerns, I am very intrigued by the concept of adding matter-specific wikis into the law firm environment. I have been looking for a wiki package that would allow automatic generation of wikis based on matter opening, and this system certainly fits that need. It remains to be seen if this system can meet enough other needs to rise to the level of a truly useful and adoptable tool.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Wikis at ILTA 2009, Part 1, Bracewell & Giuliani Litigation Knowledge Base
Wikis (a significant interest of mine) came up in three largely unrelated contexts at the ILTA conference this year.
One law firm, Bracewell and Giuliani, is using an externally-hosted wikis provided by PBWorks for "core" knowledge management and retrieval in the litigation group at one of their offices. I attended an Enterprise 2.0 session on this on Monday as part of the Enterprise 2.0 track (more details below).
Second, I had a preview of an iManage-reliant technology called "SmartSpace" in developement by Baker Robbins that integrates wikis with iManage's matter workspaces (details in the second part). Increasing people's ability to easily add context through a wiki or other interactive tool like tagging has great potential to change the way that people work with and relate to the document management system. (Disclaimer: my firm has employed Baker Robbins from time to time).
Third, at a knowledge-management track session on Creative Adoption Techniques, I learned that another law firm is using Sharepoint wikis to store practice-area related information. I did not obtain any significant details about this and so have little to add to this tidbit. Wikis are clearly beginning to make some inroads for limited purposes even at firms not noted for Enterprise 2.0 adoption.
Bracewell & Giuliani -- Wikis as Litigation Work Product Research and Knowledge Sharing Tool
Bracewell's project was an outstanding example of leveraging the power of Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0 tools to enhance a group's sharing and alerting of valuable core knowledge, for one litigation practice.
Background
The New York office of this firm has less than 30 litigators, yet they had difficulty finding legal research that had been previously carried out at that office. They did not have a work-product retrieval tool like West KM(TM) or Lexis(TM) Search Advantage. They did have an enterprise search tool but it was providing them with "too much information."
They were using a set of centrally-located research binders, but they were hard to maintain and keep current.
One of their attorneys heard that the U.S. State Department is using wiki technology to share and collaborate across the globe (through Diplopedia), and they have since investigated and adopted wikis as the primary way of storing and retrieving valuable work product (in that office).
They commented that if you can’t share the research it’s not efficient and makes the next attorney reinvent the wheel.
Tool, Form, and Adoption Techniques
They chose PBWorks as an easy-to-use externally hosted platform into which they could load the documents and create a browseable view of resources (PBWorks is the first E20 vendor to really focus on the legal market with its PBWorks Legal).
The B & G wiki focused on what NY litigators wanted. Their wiki covers areas such as substantive law of New York (the example they showed was contract law); civil procedure; and information about judges and courts (for instance, filing practices in particular New York Supreme Court offices). Each topic page enhances browsing by linking to related procedures, areas of law, and court information. Search on the wiki also works quite well because of the targeted nature of the content.
Their adoption approach leveraged attorneys' competitive nature. They set up a substantial reward for the most (real) new entries over a certain period of time. In 3 months they went from a handful of entries to hundreds of entries, with an especially numerous clump of entries on the (near-holiday) night the contest closed. They are now able to find valuable precedent through searching, or, just as often, browsing the wiki.
Outcome
They believe that an average successful search saves around 2 hours in fruitless searching or reinvention of work product. Theor wiki has resulted in more efficient service and cheaper client bills (happier clients).
The three attorneys who led the effort suspected that if a critical mass of information is built up, the information pool would reach at a certain point reach “critical mass” and be self-sustaining. As it turns out, the wiki has succeeded in terms of the number of users. Partners now will say “check the wiki first" or “just go to the wiki.” Partners have to answer for high bills and so they are driving use.
An additional goal is also to eventually provide the information on-line to answer questions, say, about liquidated and consequential damages under New York law from other Bracewell & Giuliani offices.
They find it much easier to post small bits of information on the wiki than to draft a formal research memo on a given subject. Attorneys can easily cut and paste an email into the wiki.
One paralegal was able to find a form for accepting assignment of a case to a mostly retired New York state judge on 30 seconds on the wiki, where it had taken two hours on the internet.
Alerts
Users get redlined changes of updates to wiki. This provides a way to educate all of them to keep up on new developments in the law.
Other Uses
While the litigation group's wiki was solely for internal use, they believe that the external hosting makes sharing the project wiki with the client a potential use for transactional work.
Reaction and Conclusion
At my firm we use West KM to retrieve previous examples of substantive legal research, and that tool works quite well for that purpose. We also use a collection of Sharepoint and Interaction lists and systems to track information about judges and courts. I am working on a Sharepoint wiki focused on federal civil procedure but Sharepoint's notifications limitations make it an inappropriate tool to serve as a tool for updating my department about developments in the law. And my systems don't currently provide an easy way for attorneys to capture knowledge contained in email or to contribute small bits of higher-level knowledge, such as the procedures and practices of a particular judge.
Litigation knowledge managers, practice support lawyers, and people with similar responsibilities inside law firms should look at the benefits that a substantive litigation wiki can provide their groups, and draw from this firm's experience with selection, adoption, and success.
One law firm, Bracewell and Giuliani, is using an externally-hosted wikis provided by PBWorks for "core" knowledge management and retrieval in the litigation group at one of their offices. I attended an Enterprise 2.0 session on this on Monday as part of the Enterprise 2.0 track (more details below).
Second, I had a preview of an iManage-reliant technology called "SmartSpace" in developement by Baker Robbins that integrates wikis with iManage's matter workspaces (details in the second part). Increasing people's ability to easily add context through a wiki or other interactive tool like tagging has great potential to change the way that people work with and relate to the document management system. (Disclaimer: my firm has employed Baker Robbins from time to time).
Third, at a knowledge-management track session on Creative Adoption Techniques, I learned that another law firm is using Sharepoint wikis to store practice-area related information. I did not obtain any significant details about this and so have little to add to this tidbit. Wikis are clearly beginning to make some inroads for limited purposes even at firms not noted for Enterprise 2.0 adoption.
Bracewell & Giuliani -- Wikis as Litigation Work Product Research and Knowledge Sharing Tool
Bracewell's project was an outstanding example of leveraging the power of Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0 tools to enhance a group's sharing and alerting of valuable core knowledge, for one litigation practice.
Background
The New York office of this firm has less than 30 litigators, yet they had difficulty finding legal research that had been previously carried out at that office. They did not have a work-product retrieval tool like West KM(TM) or Lexis(TM) Search Advantage. They did have an enterprise search tool but it was providing them with "too much information."
They were using a set of centrally-located research binders, but they were hard to maintain and keep current.
One of their attorneys heard that the U.S. State Department is using wiki technology to share and collaborate across the globe (through Diplopedia), and they have since investigated and adopted wikis as the primary way of storing and retrieving valuable work product (in that office).
They commented that if you can’t share the research it’s not efficient and makes the next attorney reinvent the wheel.
Tool, Form, and Adoption Techniques
They chose PBWorks as an easy-to-use externally hosted platform into which they could load the documents and create a browseable view of resources (PBWorks is the first E20 vendor to really focus on the legal market with its PBWorks Legal).
The B & G wiki focused on what NY litigators wanted. Their wiki covers areas such as substantive law of New York (the example they showed was contract law); civil procedure; and information about judges and courts (for instance, filing practices in particular New York Supreme Court offices). Each topic page enhances browsing by linking to related procedures, areas of law, and court information. Search on the wiki also works quite well because of the targeted nature of the content.
Their adoption approach leveraged attorneys' competitive nature. They set up a substantial reward for the most (real) new entries over a certain period of time. In 3 months they went from a handful of entries to hundreds of entries, with an especially numerous clump of entries on the (near-holiday) night the contest closed. They are now able to find valuable precedent through searching, or, just as often, browsing the wiki.
Outcome
They believe that an average successful search saves around 2 hours in fruitless searching or reinvention of work product. Theor wiki has resulted in more efficient service and cheaper client bills (happier clients).
The three attorneys who led the effort suspected that if a critical mass of information is built up, the information pool would reach at a certain point reach “critical mass” and be self-sustaining. As it turns out, the wiki has succeeded in terms of the number of users. Partners now will say “check the wiki first" or “just go to the wiki.” Partners have to answer for high bills and so they are driving use.
An additional goal is also to eventually provide the information on-line to answer questions, say, about liquidated and consequential damages under New York law from other Bracewell & Giuliani offices.
They find it much easier to post small bits of information on the wiki than to draft a formal research memo on a given subject. Attorneys can easily cut and paste an email into the wiki.
One paralegal was able to find a form for accepting assignment of a case to a mostly retired New York state judge on 30 seconds on the wiki, where it had taken two hours on the internet.
Alerts
Users get redlined changes of updates to wiki. This provides a way to educate all of them to keep up on new developments in the law.
Other Uses
While the litigation group's wiki was solely for internal use, they believe that the external hosting makes sharing the project wiki with the client a potential use for transactional work.
Reaction and Conclusion
At my firm we use West KM to retrieve previous examples of substantive legal research, and that tool works quite well for that purpose. We also use a collection of Sharepoint and Interaction lists and systems to track information about judges and courts. I am working on a Sharepoint wiki focused on federal civil procedure but Sharepoint's notifications limitations make it an inappropriate tool to serve as a tool for updating my department about developments in the law. And my systems don't currently provide an easy way for attorneys to capture knowledge contained in email or to contribute small bits of higher-level knowledge, such as the procedures and practices of a particular judge.
Litigation knowledge managers, practice support lawyers, and people with similar responsibilities inside law firms should look at the benefits that a substantive litigation wiki can provide their groups, and draw from this firm's experience with selection, adoption, and success.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
ILTA 09 Panel--Technologies That Will Disrupt Traditional Legal Practice
This was an excellent session that provided a good list with lightly described examples of disruptive technologies and three more in-depth case studies from two of the more technologically sophisticated firms.
I am putting up these notes with fairly minimal review as I am presenting on matter management in an hour.
What is disruption?
Susskind recommends "The Innovator's Dilemma"; Christianson. Technologies that come and challenge the way that business works. What are the implications of disruption for market leaders? Often they dismiss these technologies when they first appear. Sometimes the innovators end up challenging the market leaders. For instance, Kodak ignored digital cameras and for a while were able to argue that film was better. They lost market but now are invested in digitial photography as well.
For Whom is it Disruptive?
For innovators, disruptive technology can lead to competitive advantage. Most law firms are far more afraid of being left behind than they are of leading the pack.
It's hard to motivate lawyers. It's more persuasive to say that other firms are doing this.
He's surprised by the persistance of the billable hour. He offered to pay his 12-year old daughter by the hour for a chore and she smiled and said "Well I'll take my time then." (You really have to say this out loud with a Scottish accent to get the full effect).
About 50% of general counsel are still comfortable with it.
Ten Disruptive Technologies
The legal world does change slowly. It will take 5-10 years.
1. Automated document assembly.
A lot of work is still hand-crafted. There us a fair amount in small shops with commoditized work. Automation has changed only a few sophisticated practices (European bond market).
Making them available on-line changes the ball game. You can go from a production level of several hundred to several thousand.
The automatic assembly of documents is disruptive because it takes the lawyers out of the business of producing documents.
2. Relentless Connectivity
We'll never be less connected than we are today. 24/7 availability is scary for senior lawyers. You need to put in place systems to have someone be responsive or accessible. Email is not going anywhere. "The calls on our time electronically are increasing."
3. The Electronic Legal Marketplace
We know we can auction services on-line. Clients can more quickly find out what services are available at what price. The idea that clients can find out about the availability of resources outside those of the law firm is fundamentally disruptive. Can a corporation find out that a law firm in Ohio has a week's worth of resources to throw at a due diligence project.
4. e-Learning
The romantic vision of bespoke services draws people to the law but does not reflect the current practice of law. How should we be training them?
There are simulation and learning techniques that afford a far more realistic view of legal practice. A lawsuit simulation might include a large filing the night before a scheduled oral argument that attempts to totally change the argument (which happens in practice but not moot court).
5. Online Legal Guidance
Current websites are fairly crude but still provide some information. There's great potential to provide legal services to a much broader pool of people, cheaply.
6. Legal Open-Sourcing
This will be more directed at citizens than at corporations. If people are networked together they can offer each other much in a community spirit. We'll start to see people coming together who have similar problems.
7. Closed Legal Communities
By and large there aren't many truly new problems. Big London banks collaborated to force law firms to deliver their legal know-how in a portal. Clients are also starting to come together.
8. Workflow and Project Management
We need to systematize and organize our project better. Rigorously apply well-tested techniques to project management. It is laughable to think that a lawyer can become a project manager by at most attending a 3-day training course.
Project management in principle and practice reduces the time and cost in providing legal services.
Project management becomes more necessary with multi-sourcing. Chunking up projects is a separate type of challenging task and needs to be managed.
Global tax compliance efforts are underway at large accounting firms. It's worth hundreds of millions. Accenture won it by saying that it was a complex project that needed a strong management instead of tax expertise (that was subcontracted out).
Are law firms ready to implement and train on project management? No, not currently.
9. Embedded Legal Knowledge
Rules are embedded in systems like computer Solitaire.
Self-monitoring and self-assessing legal systems will reduce need for lawyerly attention.
10. Online Dispute Resolution
He asks, "are courts a service or a place?" Cybersettle uses "double-blind bidding system." to resolve dispute. Over 30 days you negotiate until you're within 10%. The State of New York (?) has resolved hundreds of personal injury suits through such a system. Moneyclaimonline is a UK based dispute resolution.
********************
You know there are other ways to deliver legal services. The economy has catalyzed the uptake of new ways. There are radical new ways of delivering legal services that will be enabled by technology.
*********************
John Alber of Bryan Cave then addressed an online service his firm provides in the trade/export restrictions area.
Automating Low End Legal Advice
A good opportunity has:
Legal Advice for Clients: Import/Export Tool
They set up a client-facing decision tree tool for a client who needed information about import/export restrictions. Clients like it. They obtained all of the trade business for the first client. The service was completely repriced. They use it as a training toool.
Workflow for Due Diligence
They also applied technology to wireless spectrum sales. Radio station sales are very expensive, especially the due diligence.
They developed an automated workflow that walked 50 contract lawyers through a set of review steps and captures the information at issue. It has a significant reporting feature to track work. You can use Sharepoint workflow (it is not technically complicated). They put the people in large rooms and ran the paper flow through them.
The result is that the cost per unit of due diligence roughly by 2/3 and deal turn time is measured in months not weeks. Client's deal process is changed and they can do deals they could not have before. It's a real competitive advantage.
*****************
Gerard Neiditsch of Australia addressed "Mallesons Connect."
Mallesons did not want to provide "black box" services where what is happening with the matter teams is hidden from their clients. They are trying to provide greater client access to information about the work.
Clients most wanted financial information, project progress, and alerts.
They were also interested in current awareness and client training.
The security model is quite challenging. Making correspondence securely available to the client is critical.
They'll be introducing these "Dashboards" later this year.
At the top it lists the total and active matters (a number) and the number of unpaid invoices. Sometimes bills aren't paid because the general counsel doesn't know they are paid.
All links are active. Hovering over matter gives matter summary of financials. A person's availability (live!) is shown next to their name. Drill-downs also available.
a Search page provides access to drill down into projects through guided / faceted navigation (number of projects by category, location, partner responsible, etc.)
Financial information is shown in friendly form including "Aged debtors", 10 most recent invoices with a link to unpaid invoices, project estimates and which are over/under/near/ or no estimate. Making this visible makes project management start to happen inside the firm.
This was a very sophisticated approach to exposing client information, focusing on the information they expressed they wanted.
The project has seen pretty good adoption by clients. Using web 2.0 tool sets that are very rapid to fix makes it possible to change the technology.
*****
In the questions session, Susskind makes the point that you shouldn't base your decisions on having one reluctant client. If even half or three-quarters of clients want one of these then it is still probably worth it.
Rachelle Rennegal asked how Bryan Cave established pricing for the export tool. They now have sophisticated pricing tools. At first they took a guess at the economics and left the pricing flexible. The initial goal was to generate more high-end premium counseling business and break even on the software tool.
Susskind said that the skill and talent in chunking up the projects and planning outsourcing is significant.
I am putting up these notes with fairly minimal review as I am presenting on matter management in an hour.
What is disruption?
Susskind recommends "The Innovator's Dilemma"; Christianson. Technologies that come and challenge the way that business works. What are the implications of disruption for market leaders? Often they dismiss these technologies when they first appear. Sometimes the innovators end up challenging the market leaders. For instance, Kodak ignored digital cameras and for a while were able to argue that film was better. They lost market but now are invested in digitial photography as well.
For Whom is it Disruptive?
For innovators, disruptive technology can lead to competitive advantage. Most law firms are far more afraid of being left behind than they are of leading the pack.
It's hard to motivate lawyers. It's more persuasive to say that other firms are doing this.
He's surprised by the persistance of the billable hour. He offered to pay his 12-year old daughter by the hour for a chore and she smiled and said "Well I'll take my time then." (You really have to say this out loud with a Scottish accent to get the full effect).
About 50% of general counsel are still comfortable with it.
Ten Disruptive Technologies
The legal world does change slowly. It will take 5-10 years.
1. Automated document assembly.
A lot of work is still hand-crafted. There us a fair amount in small shops with commoditized work. Automation has changed only a few sophisticated practices (European bond market).
Making them available on-line changes the ball game. You can go from a production level of several hundred to several thousand.
The automatic assembly of documents is disruptive because it takes the lawyers out of the business of producing documents.
2. Relentless Connectivity
We'll never be less connected than we are today. 24/7 availability is scary for senior lawyers. You need to put in place systems to have someone be responsive or accessible. Email is not going anywhere. "The calls on our time electronically are increasing."
3. The Electronic Legal Marketplace
We know we can auction services on-line. Clients can more quickly find out what services are available at what price. The idea that clients can find out about the availability of resources outside those of the law firm is fundamentally disruptive. Can a corporation find out that a law firm in Ohio has a week's worth of resources to throw at a due diligence project.
4. e-Learning
The romantic vision of bespoke services draws people to the law but does not reflect the current practice of law. How should we be training them?
There are simulation and learning techniques that afford a far more realistic view of legal practice. A lawsuit simulation might include a large filing the night before a scheduled oral argument that attempts to totally change the argument (which happens in practice but not moot court).
5. Online Legal Guidance
Current websites are fairly crude but still provide some information. There's great potential to provide legal services to a much broader pool of people, cheaply.
6. Legal Open-Sourcing
This will be more directed at citizens than at corporations. If people are networked together they can offer each other much in a community spirit. We'll start to see people coming together who have similar problems.
7. Closed Legal Communities
By and large there aren't many truly new problems. Big London banks collaborated to force law firms to deliver their legal know-how in a portal. Clients are also starting to come together.
8. Workflow and Project Management
We need to systematize and organize our project better. Rigorously apply well-tested techniques to project management. It is laughable to think that a lawyer can become a project manager by at most attending a 3-day training course.
Project management in principle and practice reduces the time and cost in providing legal services.
Project management becomes more necessary with multi-sourcing. Chunking up projects is a separate type of challenging task and needs to be managed.
Global tax compliance efforts are underway at large accounting firms. It's worth hundreds of millions. Accenture won it by saying that it was a complex project that needed a strong management instead of tax expertise (that was subcontracted out).
Are law firms ready to implement and train on project management? No, not currently.
9. Embedded Legal Knowledge
Rules are embedded in systems like computer Solitaire.
Self-monitoring and self-assessing legal systems will reduce need for lawyerly attention.
10. Online Dispute Resolution
He asks, "are courts a service or a place?" Cybersettle uses "double-blind bidding system." to resolve dispute. Over 30 days you negotiate until you're within 10%. The State of New York (?) has resolved hundreds of personal injury suits through such a system. Moneyclaimonline is a UK based dispute resolution.
********************
You know there are other ways to deliver legal services. The economy has catalyzed the uptake of new ways. There are radical new ways of delivering legal services that will be enabled by technology.
*********************
John Alber of Bryan Cave then addressed an online service his firm provides in the trade/export restrictions area.
Automating Low End Legal Advice
A good opportunity has:
- a recurring legal problem (import/export restrictions),
- perceived value/cost disconnect where paying for solving the same type of problem every day
- high-energy practice group accustomed to tight publishing deadlines
Legal Advice for Clients: Import/Export Tool
They set up a client-facing decision tree tool for a client who needed information about import/export restrictions. Clients like it. They obtained all of the trade business for the first client. The service was completely repriced. They use it as a training toool.
Workflow for Due Diligence
They also applied technology to wireless spectrum sales. Radio station sales are very expensive, especially the due diligence.
They developed an automated workflow that walked 50 contract lawyers through a set of review steps and captures the information at issue. It has a significant reporting feature to track work. You can use Sharepoint workflow (it is not technically complicated). They put the people in large rooms and ran the paper flow through them.
The result is that the cost per unit of due diligence roughly by 2/3 and deal turn time is measured in months not weeks. Client's deal process is changed and they can do deals they could not have before. It's a real competitive advantage.
*****************
Gerard Neiditsch of Australia addressed "Mallesons Connect."
Mallesons did not want to provide "black box" services where what is happening with the matter teams is hidden from their clients. They are trying to provide greater client access to information about the work.
Clients most wanted financial information, project progress, and alerts.
They were also interested in current awareness and client training.
The security model is quite challenging. Making correspondence securely available to the client is critical.
They'll be introducing these "Dashboards" later this year.
At the top it lists the total and active matters (a number) and the number of unpaid invoices. Sometimes bills aren't paid because the general counsel doesn't know they are paid.
All links are active. Hovering over matter gives matter summary of financials. A person's availability (live!) is shown next to their name. Drill-downs also available.
a Search page provides access to drill down into projects through guided / faceted navigation (number of projects by category, location, partner responsible, etc.)
Financial information is shown in friendly form including "Aged debtors", 10 most recent invoices with a link to unpaid invoices, project estimates and which are over/under/near/ or no estimate. Making this visible makes project management start to happen inside the firm.
This was a very sophisticated approach to exposing client information, focusing on the information they expressed they wanted.
The project has seen pretty good adoption by clients. Using web 2.0 tool sets that are very rapid to fix makes it possible to change the technology.
*****
In the questions session, Susskind makes the point that you shouldn't base your decisions on having one reluctant client. If even half or three-quarters of clients want one of these then it is still probably worth it.
Rachelle Rennegal asked how Bryan Cave established pricing for the export tool. They now have sophisticated pricing tools. At first they took a guess at the economics and left the pricing flexible. The initial goal was to generate more high-end premium counseling business and break even on the software tool.
Susskind said that the skill and talent in chunking up the projects and planning outsourcing is significant.
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