tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85167202024-03-08T09:43:36.084-08:00KnowledgelineThoughts and opinions of Tom Baldwin on law firm management, technology, knowledge management and other issues affecting our industry.Tom Baldwin - Chief Knowledge Officerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17784991145294186359noreply@blogger.comBlogger79125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-77651091085384442062012-03-26T10:22:00.000-07:002012-03-26T10:22:19.061-07:00Modal LPMWhen you talk to hard-core project managers, one of the tell-tale signs of their 'school' of LPM is what language they use to describe their process and one of the hardest things for some PM's to acquiesce to is the short-comings of their school. From my experience, there's no perfect PM methodology, each has great characteristics, but each has flaws. The ideal LPM program is derived not from one methodology (PMBOK, Scrum, Agile, Waterfall, Prince, etc), but by cherry picking the best from each. <br />
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Once you've done that, you'll need to consider how to apply to your new LPM methods, taking into account that different types of matters will require different levels of LPM rigor. Adding another layer of complexity is that once you've defined what level of rigor is attached to each matter type, you'll likely have to factor in 'modal LPM', for lack of a better phrase. This is to say that even within a given matter, you're going to need to further refine your LPM efforts based on matter velocity - you'll need to have different modes for different phases of a matter. For example, perhaps you're working on a litigation matter that is going to last a couple years. You may reach phases where the case is somewhat dormant and meeting monthly might be perfectly acceptable. But, at certain points, you may need to transition into what Scrum practitioners refer to as a "<a href="http://www.scrumalliance.org/articles/358-daily-standup-beyond-mechanics-a-measure-of-selforganization" target="_blank">Daily stand-up</a>." Key point is to be flexible in your approach, but base your flexibility on a foundation that allows for that. <br />Tom Baldwin - Chief Knowledge Officerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17784991145294186359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-53569999690644567062012-03-15T16:09:00.001-07:002012-03-15T16:09:52.998-07:00LPM, Lawyers and Project Managers<span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A 4 year college degree, plus 2-3 years of work experience and class work (4,500 hours to be exact), on-going education needed to maintain your standing, and passing a brutal 4 hour - 200 question entrance exam (that has created a cottage industry for exam prep). </span><br />
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What does this sound like? No, it's not a newly proposed format for earning your JD. It's the </span><a href="http://www.pmi.org/en/Certification/Project-Management-Professional-PMP.aspx" target="_blank"><span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">requirements</span></a><span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> to achieve the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, but as you can see earning this certification is not trivial.</span><br />
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<a href="http://mbahighway.com/wp-content/uploads/Multi-Tasking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: white;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="320" src="http://mbahighway.com/wp-content/uploads/Multi-Tasking.jpg" width="242" /></span></a></div>
<span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But listening to some of the banter about LPM lately, what does seem to be somewhat trivialized is a lawyer's ability to Vulcan mind-meld this amount of experience and education in a few training sessions and come out a good project manager suitable of carrying forward a firm's LPM program goals. Does one need to earn a PMP to be a competent PM? Certainly not, but on the flip side is it realistic to expect someone to go through a few hours of training and be good at something that others do as a career? Can they learn the basics and become conversant on the topic with clients, certainly. Can some absorb it all and instantly integrate the teachings into their daily practice - it's possible, but not likely and certainly not likely on a firmwide level. We already have lawyers doing enough jobs, some of which you could argue they aren't ideally suited for, so why do we add on this to the list? </span><br />
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are already seeing firms get smart about this and leave certain jobs to the pros, take pricing for example. There are at least 12 large firms with dedicated pricing professionals, people with finance backgrounds, very few of whom are lawyers. My firm, Vinson & Elkins, Bracewell, Fish & Richardson, Baker McKenzie, Bryan Cave, Goodwin Proctor, Dechert, King & Spalding, Ogletree, Mayer Brown and Winston all have groups like this - with more on the way. We saw the first 'non-lawyer' CEO </span><a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2012/02/07/pepper-hamilton-law-firm-in-phila.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">hired</span></a><span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> this year at Pepper Hamilton (by the way, can we come up with something better than 'non-lawyer'?). The point is, I believe there's a trend where law firms are starting to realize that there are better ways to fill these roles - PM should be viewed similarly.</span><br />
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some lawyers argue that they already do project management and have no need to be trained. Tell that to the litany of folks that have been involved in large projects (IT projects, office moves, insert 'big project here') where the people PM themselves and the ones with a dedicated PM - there's no comparison. People that have experienced what a well trained, experienced PM can bring to the table know the difference, the problem is that many lawyers have never gone through the experience - they don't know what they don't know. </span><br />
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes when I'm posed with challenging business issues, I like to look outside legal and see what our counterparts in other related verticals are doing, as I tend to think they take more 'business minded' approaches to things. Interesting that when I did a search in LinkedIn for the title 'project manager' Accenture, Deloitte, KPMG and E&Y cumulatively have over 1,000 people <u>currently</u> in this role. They can't all be doing internal PM on IT projects and office moves....</span>Tom Baldwin - Chief Knowledge Officerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17784991145294186359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-33245095934795588682010-04-12T16:46:00.000-07:002010-04-12T17:40:52.680-07:00Observations from Computerworld's Premier 100 ConferenceIt was quite a wake up call to attend a conference outside of legal and I was certainly woken up on several occasions at the <a href="http://www.premier100.com/ehome/index.php?eventid=7510&">Premier 100</a> conference put on by Computerworld Magazine. When you're in the same room with companies that have an IT budget that exceeds (gulp) 1 billion dollars, I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore. It was awkward to walk around and not know many people, but I did manage to find <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/spring/p100/detail/233">Melvin Evins</a> (an <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.iltanet.org">ILTA </a>member), the only other person from a law firm that won an <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/101394304864379499573/Premier100?feat=directlink#5448893453282684978">award</a>.<br /><br />There were a ton of good sessions and while not all of them were always relevant to law firm IT or KM, I did take away some interesting concepts:<br /><br /><u>Ken Korless, Executive Director, Business Applications, from Accenture:</u><br />They espouse a fail cheap/fail often mentality. This is not to say they want failure on major projects, 'cheap' meaning that it be low in both cost and risk.<br /><br />One of his right hand folks is actually tasked with having 10 failed ideas/projects a year. Again, these aren't failures on major projects, but smaller ideas. Their goal is that if they push the envelope and fail, through those efforts, they will hit a home run.<br /><br />The acceptance of 'cheap' failure, they claim, helps drive innovation and creativity with the IT group at Accenture.<br /><br />An example of a cheap idea that took off was a simple application they created based on an idea from within Google. Google has this tool that let's you see how many people were hired after you and then gives you a percentage, the higher the percentage the more people were hired after you. Because of the hiring pace at Google, people were interested in where they stood. Accenture IT thought this might be interesting as well, they built it within a very short window (less than a week) and didn't do much to advertise it internally. Within the first month, it was one of the most frequently accessed applications around the globe.<br /><br /><u>Bruce Michelson from HP: (<a href="https://www.eiseverywhere.com/image.php?id=10434%26acc=562">view presentation</a>)<br /></u>IT standards should not be unilateral, but based on role. Investment in innovation (however they define innovation at HP) delivers a 30% ROI, while investment in infrastructure delivers an 8-10% ROI<br /><br /><u>Author and former CIO of EDS, Frito-Lay and Delta Airlines, Charley Feld<a href="https://www.eiseverywhere.com/image.php?id=10434%26acc=562"> (view presentation)</a></u><br /><br /><ul><li>IT has advanced, but the common language between IT and management hasn't</li><br /><li>Innovation can't happen in a 3 year cycle, you need to deliver it now</li><br /><li>The CIO role should stand for Chief Integration Officer, with a focus on end-user intimacy and global leverage</li><br /><li>Many IT organizations play not to lose, rather than playing to win. </li></ul><p><u>Glenn Noga, CIO from Polycom:<br /></u>A slight sales pitch as Polycom was one of the sponsors, but still a few interesting tidbits<br />They are delivering new technology that will cut the bandwidth needed for good video conferencing by 50%, down to 512k. Polycom feels that they've finally got to the point with this breakthrough that desktop video conferencing is ready and won't be as huge a network burden as it has been in the past.</p><p>Looking ahead, he mentioned delivering a better experience through the 'communication ecosystem', which includes suppliers, partners and customers. He talked about establishing direct gateways with key suppliers to facilitate desktop based video conferencing. Interesting to think about how we could do the same thing with key clients to further foster relationships.</p><p><u>Jim Fortner, Vice President Information Technology Development & Operations from Proctor & Gamble: (<a href="https://www.eiseverywhere.com/image.php?id=10434%26acc=562">view presentation</a>)</u><br /></p><ul><li>Over 4,000 people and a 1 billion dollar budget in their IT organization, which they DON'T call IT, they call it IDS (Information, Decisions, Solutions).</li><br /><li>I like their focus on decisions. We serve up all types of data, but what decisions or actions can we better facilitate?</li><br /><li>They spend a lot of effort taking reports that senior management get in excel or in a list view and creating 'cockpits' which are very visual dashboards. These cockpits help drive decisions based on the data presented in a much better, faster way then the excel spreadsheets management used to get before </li></ul><p><u>General observations<br /></p></u><u><ul></u></ul><li>Since the conference was centered on innovation, lot's of ideas on how to drive innovation from within the organization. There may be existing people that are innovative, but have yet to be tapped into for that purpose. One group started using the <a href="http://www.kolbe.com/home.cfm;jsessionid=ln31f509tba3">Kolbe index </a>to help gauge and indentify personalities that might best suited to help drive innovation. Kind of interesting to think about using that not only for your existing folks, but also during the interview process of potential candidates.</li><li>Lot's of talk about the new generation coming into the workforce and what changes need to be made to accommodate how they work and leverage their strengths. Many companies talked about building out better internal social networking tools for use within the company. Think of an internal version of Facebook. Accunture and Deloitte both have very popular and widely used systems like this. Seems corporate america is a bit more concerned about accomodating younger talent than law firms generally tend to.</li>Tom Baldwin - Chief Knowledge Officerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17784991145294186359noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-52821595276510645682010-03-24T17:41:00.001-07:002010-03-24T17:55:54.335-07:00Slogging is the new blackWell, like most good New Years resolutions, one that I've been slowly getting around to is trying to get a few more posts on here. While I've stated that I'm retired from blogging, you all saw through that as my excuse for not being more <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">diligent</span> in posting. It'll probably be more like slogging (slow blogging) . Not sure I'll ever get on Twitter, I doubt most of you care what I had for lunch today, what the weather is like here in LA (if you're unsure, it's a good guess that it's 75 and sunny), or what I did over the weekend. Don't get me wrong, it's a great tool, but I'll have a hard enough time getting a post up here with any kind of regularity.<br /><br />Unlike the past, the posts you'll see from me won't go into great depths about what we're doing at the firm. Otherwise if I told you, I'd have to... well you get the idea. All kidding aside, I think we are on the cusp of a fundamental shift between what KM has been traditionally focused on and where we are headed. I'll save that rant for a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">separate</span> post.<br /><br />Mostly, it will be much more boring thoughts and observations about the legal industry and general thoughts about how KM ties into all of it. To the extent that I hitchhike my way to a conference, I'll try and report back on what's discussed, as I realize many of us have <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">uber</span>-tight travel budgets these days.Tom Baldwin - Chief Knowledge Officerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17784991145294186359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-41441234670859871812008-09-04T12:18:00.000-07:002008-09-04T13:06:53.624-07:00Okay, so it's been a while..It's a good thing I don't try and make a living as a blogger, my time between posts has been quite long - which is a good indicator of how busy we've been here. While every firm is grappling with the change in the economy, that certainly hasn't slowed us down with the projects we're undertaking at the firm. The two biggies this year for us are our rollout of FileSite and our intranet project.<br /><br />You may have seen some press lately around our purchase of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.recommind.com">Recommind </a>, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.contactnetworks.com">ContactNetworks</a>, and selecting <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.xmlaw.net">XMLAW </a>to help us with our intranet redesign effort. There's been a lot of discussion about our implementation of Microsoft CRM with the help of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.crm4legal.com">Client Profiles</a>, which is being led by Victoria Gregory from our Marketing Department. She spoke at <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.iltanet.org">ILTA </a>recently about the project. Having scars from my own CRM implementations, I'm confident that Victoria's approach to this rollout will lead us down a path of success.<br /><br />Speaking of ILTA, our own <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/741/288">Lisa Gianakos</a> represented Reed Smith as we took home <a href="http://www.reedsmith.com/press_office.cfm?cit_id=21321&widCall1=customWidgets.content_view_1&usecache=false">1st place </a>in the annual MCC design competition co-hosted by Baker Robbins and Interwoven. Our approach was quite different than some firms and we got excellent ideas from this year's <a href="http://www.interwoven.com/templatedata/events/gearup_2008/index.html">GearUp</a> conference, especially looking at what Faegre & Benson had done. <br /><br />Powerful search changes the game dramatically. For those firms about to embark on an MCC project, your design should account for how people will organize/retrieve work product now that Interwoven has included the <a href="http://vivisimo.com/">Vivisimo </a>product with their core line-up. One partner at my last firm made the statement, "If I have good search, wouldn't I just need a folder for e-mail and one for documents?" While that may sound far fetched, it certainly got me thinking about the actual need for the granular level of folders we've seen in the past. In fact Justin North, of <a href="http://jandersdeanleadership.blogspot.com/">Janders Dean International</a>, worked with Gilbert+Tobin to design <a href="http://jandersdeanleadership.blogspot.com/2008/08/gilberttobin-reach-ilta-mcc-awards.html">their MCC implementation</a> with something this simple in mind. While not a new trend, per se, I do think we're seeing more firms look at a clean, simple design.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-20494722618533209932008-05-27T14:01:00.000-07:002008-05-27T14:11:53.591-07:00Slow your roll on outsourcing?In an interesting twist, <a href="http://www.nmhlaw.com/">a Bethesda, MD firm </a>has filed a suit in Federal court claiming that law firms who outsourcing their legal support services overseas could be jeopardizing their client confidentiality. <a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202421668147">This story </a>was picked up by several news sources, including Law.com.<br /><br />The main point of contention is that once the data leaves the US, the privacy <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">privileges</span> we enjoy go out the water and even claims the US <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Government</span> might go out of its way to run surveillance on the data:<br /><br />"It seeks this declaration knowing that foreign nationals who reside overseas lack Fourth Amendment protections," says the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">firm's</span> complaint for declaratory judgment and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">injunctive</span> relief. "It seeks this declaration having been informed ... that the United States government engages in pervasive surveillance of electronically transmitted data."<br /><br />To add more fuel to the fire, the lawsuit names President George W. Bush as a co-defendant along with <a class="linelink" href="http://www.acumenlpo.com/" target="new">Acumen Legal Services of India</a> and its U.S. subsidiary, Acumen Solutions of Houston, Texas.<br /><br />I'm not an attorney, so I certainly don't have a legal opinion on this, but it certainly is something I hadn't considered before and is worth following.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-77440080395421443902008-04-22T15:35:00.000-07:002008-04-22T15:50:29.425-07:00Live from GearUp 2008So far this is been pretty informative. Guy Kawasaki kicked off the morning in the Keynote, if you've not heard Guy speak before, he's <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">fantastic</span>. Later in the morning there was a panel comprised of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">CIO</span>/IT Directors from a range of firms, including <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Ashurt</span> from the UK. No surprises, everyone was still very much challenged with how to manage e-mail. In a room with well over 100 people, only 3 hands went up when the moderator asked who had 75% or higher of adoption for e-mail filing. After lunch there were several breakout streams, I sat in the on the Business Strategy track where Neil <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Araujo</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Rafiq</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Mohmmadi</span> outlined the product <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">roadmap</span> for the next 12-18 months, including their discussions around version 9, code named '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Meritage</span>'. Much like the fine wine that blends the best from many grapes, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Interwoven's</span> version 9 purports to be a totally new platform, leveraging a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">SAAS</span> model, which they hope will allow them to extend their product line to smaller firms that have traditionally found the implementation a barrier to entry. The last session was conducted by Jerome <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Pesenti</span>, Chief Scientist at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Vivisimo</span>, the makers of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Interwoven's</span> new enterprise class search product. In true scientific form, Jerome quickly went through a myriad of slides, it would have been nice to see a live demo, but I think the audience certainly is interested in seeing more.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-34503646621237585672008-04-21T17:22:00.000-07:002008-04-21T17:28:36.093-07:00Introducing the new Director of Knowledge Management at Reed SmithThanks to all of you who either referred someone you knew, or applied for the position directly. We had a TON of interest in the position and there were many fine applicants. <br /><br />I'm pleased to announce that <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=1826888&fromSearch=0&sik=1208483872856&split_page=1&rd=in&authToken=11yGlqpqu5m5-XWkNBIjvRi4digkljnQldgkV5h48Rgj0Tc3B5gP4Ue3wSczwN&authType=NAME_SEARCH&goback=%2Esrp_1_1208483872856_in">Lisa Kellar</a> has accepted our offer and will join Reed Smith in May. We are extremely lucky to be able to bring in someone of Lisa's caliber and experience.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-1949184405341872392008-02-28T14:15:00.000-08:002008-02-29T07:23:44.937-08:00Director of Knowledge Management opportunityFor those interested, I am looking to bring in a right hand person to do "km stuff" :) Major initiatives this year include a MOSS <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">rollout</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Recommind</span> installation, Interwoven/<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">MCC</span> deployment and a few other things I could tell you, but then I'd have to.. well you know how that goes. [UPDATE] A couple of points to address now, based on some of the questions I've gotten:<br /><ul><li>Although I'm based in LA, the preference is to have someone based in either Chicago, NY, DC, PHL, or PIT.</li><li>If you don't live in one of the cities where we have an office and are interested in the position, working from home or telecomuting aren't options. You'd need to be prepared to relocate.</li><li>If you're interested in the job, please e-mail your resume using the info below, don't email me directly as our HR folks have asked that everything go through them for tracking/reporting, etc. If you want me to know that you've applied, just cc me on the email.</li><li>The rollout of IWOV has already begun and both Recommind and MOSS are approved and FUNDED projects.</li><li>The is a Director level position and the compensation will be as such.<br /></li></ul><p>Here's a <a href="http://www.reedsmith.com/careers/job_search.cfm?cit_id=18790&faArea1=customWidgets.content_view_1&usecache=false">link</a> to the job description, if you're interested e-mail your resume to <a href="mailto:jobs@reedsmith.com">jobs@reedsmith.com</a>.<br /><br />Cheers!<br /><br />Tom</p>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-76961042041953048772008-02-21T16:04:00.000-08:002008-02-21T17:06:45.896-08:00The Generational Divide..An interesting string started today on the <a href="http://www.iltanet.org/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">ILTA</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">listserves</span> </a>regarding the generational rift within IT Departments as reported in a recent <a href="http://www.cio.com/article/178050/Gen_Y_Gen_X_and_the_Baby_Boomers_Workplace_Generation_Wars"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">CIO</span>.com article</a>. This falls <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">in line</span> with what we're seeing in all corporations, <a href="http://kmpipeline.blogspot.com/2007/05/sucession-planning-and-war-for-talent.html">especially in law firms</a>.<br /><br /><br />This also has an important impact on how technology is designed and how we go about training lawyers on technology. <a href="http://kmspace.blogspot.com/2007/10/four-types-of-search-and-vivisimos.html">A great post</a> by Doug Cornelius which discusses/defines the types of searches a lawyer conducts when looking for documents got me (abstractly) thinking more about this issue.<br /><br /><br />As we get more focused on the needs of lawyers in our design of systems, the knee jerk reaction is often to build to the needs of the Partners and rightfully so. They are the ones that ultimately employ us and bring money in the door. On the flip side, there's the possibility that you are building systems based on the wrong user group, if for nothing else, because many partners won't bother using the technology - regardless of how great and user friendly it is. You often hear the term "building to the lowest common <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">denominator</span>", which is a nice way of saying that we'll build something so even our least tech-savvy lawyer can use it. But, is that the right approach? Will your least tech-savvy lawyer even bother trying out what ever system you have built and if so, what percentage of your lawyer population actually falls in that category? Furthermore, how much longer will that crop of lawyers be at the firm? Conversely, tailoring your systems to the needs of young, tech-savvy, Associates might also be a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">CLM</span> (Career Limiting Move).<br /><br />Going back to Doug's post and thinking about some of the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">comments</span> by my good friend Beau <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Mersereau</span>, perhaps you do both and build systems around "where they live". When you build document retrieval systems, you focus on the needs of the Associates, as they are the ones most likely to use a system like that. Partner's aren't usually taking a first cut at a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">MSJ</span> (motion for summary judgment), or being asked to dig up a buyer-friendly asset purchase <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">agreement</span>, it's the Associates. On the flip side, when looking at implementing a portal, or Outlook integration, Partners have a greater need to aggregate information from various locations than Associates do.<br /><br />Then you start looking at how we traditionally train lawyers. I'm still mystified at all the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">rollouts</span> that rely on classroom training for lawyers. I guess we're all still stuck in the late 90's, when we could get lawyers to show up for classroom training for the WP to Word/DOS to Windows training. Ah, the days of watching people play <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Solitaire</span> for hours on end while they "learned" to use a mouse.. That went out around the same time Pearl Jam stopped being popular, but we (much like Eddie <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Vedder</span>) are holding hope that there are glory days still ahead of us.<br /><br />Partners don't have the time (or desire) to spend an hour learning the latest and greatest tool being rolled out and the misnomer that food will bring them in is also a joke. These guys make plenty of money, they can afford to pay for their own <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Quiznos</span> sandwich. Associates are equally pressed for time and many of them feel that they can usually pick up whatever new software you put in front of them within minutes. Unlike their senior counterparts, they were practically born with a keyboard in their hand and dismiss the notion that they need training on most anything.<br /><br />This requires a shift in the way you deliver training to lawyers. This isn't to say that you stop all forms of classroom training, it's still a valuable tool - especially for staff. But, you can't rely on it as your only means of training the lawyers. Take the 1hr session and boil it down to what you can deliver in 10-15 minutes, usually the most <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">relevant</span> 5-10 features/functions that are critical for the lawyers to know. Walk the floors and make personal visits to every attorney armed with "Do you have 10 minutes for me to show you a new tool that might make your day a little easier?" Now, you're doing on their terms, in the comfort of their office and doing it in a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">timeframe</span> that they'll accept. While this approach requires more people, time and effort, it's a sure fire way to optimize the acceptance and adoption of new tools.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-72470297332523855232008-02-21T16:01:00.001-08:002008-02-21T16:03:16.261-08:00Anyone know people that would be interested in our new Firmwide Director of Records position?While this is in poor form, it's my blog and I can do what I please.. I guess :)<br /><br />In any event, this is a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor and be able to implement a new records system (Interwoven) along with new policies and procedures. We're also looking to go paperless, it's a very exciting opportunity for the right person. The person can be based in Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh or DC. For more information look at the link below:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.reedsmith.com/careers/job_search.cfm?cit_id=18688&faArea1=customWidgets.content_view_1&usecache=false">http://www.reedsmith.com/careers/job_search.cfm?cit_id=18688&faArea1=customWidgets.content_view_1&usecache=false</a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-39918461428801391622008-01-08T12:38:00.000-08:002008-01-08T12:50:55.245-08:00Meet the new CKO at Reed Smith...First and foremost I hope that everyone had a safe and fun Holiday season. For those of you that hadn't heard yet, I accepted the <a href="http://lawfuel.com/show-release.asp?ID=16608">Chief Knowledge Officer </a>position at <a href="http://www.reedsmith.com/">Reed Smith</a> effective January 7th. I've been in Pittsburgh this week to meet everyone here, it's been fantastic so far - everything I expected and more. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Sheppard Mullin and have fond memories, but I am really excited to begin working on all the various projects here at Reed Smith.<br /><br />I'll still be 'based' in Los Angeles, which is where I'll be getting mail and having dust collect in my office, I'll likely spend more time in the Friendly Skies on United for the next few months, so I'm not sure how much I'll be writing here. For those that will be attending LegalTech NY this year, I look forward to seeing you.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-23085025084365576862007-11-19T09:43:00.000-08:002007-11-19T09:48:40.575-08:00Law.com article from Mark Gerow on implementing large-scale extranets with SharePointFenwick & West have long been on the SharePoint bandwagon and Fenwick's Mark Gerow has litterally <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Client-Extranets-SharePoint-2003/dp/1590596358/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195494376&sr=8-2">written the book </a>on SharePoint on extranets for a law firm. <a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1195207452210">In this article</a>, he covers the technical issues and the human element of building and rolling out an extranet with SharePoint:<br /><br />"In this article I'll discuss how <a class="linelink" href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=D51730B5-48FC-4CA2-B454-8DC2CAF93951&displaylang=en" target="new">Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0</a> (SharePoint) has been used at <a class="linelink" href="http://www.fenwick.com/" target="new">Fenwick & West</a> to meet the challenge of making extranets available for each and every matter opened. I'll also cover the key issues that must be addressed in order to scale to thousands of extranets and terabytes of data. At the conclusion of this article you'll have a better idea of what can be accomplished with SharePoint at your firm, as well as a road map to get you started. "<br /><br />This is a great article for anyone interested in SharePoint, especially those thinking of using it as an extranet.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-85468795441947383692007-11-19T09:32:00.000-08:002007-11-19T09:34:30.636-08:00Sheppard Mullin case study gets a 'top 17' nod from MicrosoftWhat do BMW, MTV, Enterprise Rent A Car, Mary Kay Cosmectics and Sheppard Mullin all have in common? We're all listed on the <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/05/03/top-17-case-studies-for-microsoft-office-sharepoint-server-2007-and-several-new-moss-based-web-sites.aspx">official blog </a>for Microsoft's SharePoint Product Group as having top case studies for MOSS. While it's nice that our case study is part of this group, it's actually really interesting to take a quick peek at the other case studies. We can learn a lot from folks outside of legal.<br /><br />Those of you looking to automate new hire intake will find <a href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/1/f/61f4b191-6cdb-4a44-9d28-e7040544f576/MTV.pdf">MTVs case study </a>of particular interest. They focused heavily on addressing many of the shortcomings for new hire intake and have found significant time and cost savings.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-23630356434379752922007-11-08T16:17:00.000-08:002007-11-08T16:36:06.404-08:00New site on the KM sceneEvery now and then, something comes along that is <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">compelling</span> to spend time with. Today I received an e-mail from <a href="http://matthewparsons.com/">Matthew Parsons </a>with a link to his new site(co-authored by <a href="http://www.neilrichards.net/blog">Neil Richards</a>), <a href="http://knowledgethoughts.com/">Knowledge Thoughts</a>. I'm hard pressed to classify it as a blog or a wiki, I suppose it really a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">bliki</span> - <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">combining</span> elements of both. Here's Matthew's description of the site:<br /><br />"Today Neil Richards and I are delighted to launch <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Knowledgethoughts</span>.com, an open source resource for the KM and legal KM communities. This is a personal, collaborative learning effort, and is not associated with any organisation." <a href="http://www.knowledgethoughts.com/blog/?p=19">more..</a><br /><br />In my initial scan of the site, it's already rich with a variety of content for those seasoned vets in the KM space, or those just starting out and wanting to learn more. There's a wiki section with some terms classified such as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">CKO</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">PSL</span>, along with selling points for those looking to add these roles to their firms. There's a <a href="http://knowledgethoughts.com/wiki/KM_University">section with a ton of rich media content</a>, aimed at helping explain KM. Much of this comes from outside legal, which is a great thing. A section bound to be on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">everyone's</span> "to be seen" list is their <a href="http://www.knowledgethoughts.com/wiki/Leading_people_and_thinkers">leading people and thinkers </a>page. If you're looking for ideas to kick-start your knowledge management <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">initiatives</span>, there's even a <a href="http://www.knowledgethoughts.com/wiki/Thought_starters">thought starters </a>section. <br /><br />I'm going to need to sit down and dedicate some serious time to this site, there's too much to just quickly glance through.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-34740751020719346682007-11-07T11:26:00.000-08:002008-11-12T20:46:16.441-08:00Recap from the Legal Technology ExchangeThis was a great event, as it blended leading C-level folks from law firms as well as leaders from many major in-house legal departments. The <a href="http://www.iqpc.com/cgi-bin/templates/document.html?topic=672&event=13747&document=101001">speakers </a>represented a great cross-section of in-house counsel and law firms. For me, it's always helpful to be reminded of the pain points our clients are feeling and try to identify ways we can help.<br /><br />One of the main themes was the continuing pressure in-house counsel face to reduce legal costs. This is squarely in opposition to the constant rate increases many firms are pushing on their clients. You know corporations are serious about cost-cutting when companies like <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Citigroup</span> have someone with the title of "Director Legal Expense Control". The salary of first year associates was brought up routinely. If we think it's an issue within law firms, it's even more of a problem for our clients. They view the rate increases solely as a mechanism to help absorb these associate salary increases, while maintaining what I like to call a law <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">firm's</span> "stock price"- profits per partner. Think your firm is different and really listens to its clients' needs? Check out this <a href="http://www.bmacewen.com/blog/archives/2007/10/how_do_clients_perceive_y.html">article</a> from Bruce MacEwen's blog - there's a huge disconnect between how our clients perceive us and how law firms view themselves as it relates to outside counsel satisfaction. One more piece of evidence to demonstrate the disconnect is found in the InsideCounsel <a href="http://www.insidecounsel.com/issues/insidecounsel/pdfs/ic_july06_survey_fin.pdf">Magazine's 18th annual survey</a>. Clearly there is room for firms to proactively go to their clients with ideas on how to reduce legal expenses:<br /><br /><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5132103494134570018" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7XyM9cWw6Lw/Rzjk79ZunCI/AAAAAAAAACw/K0kHM0-XIQY/s400/reality+check.JPG" border="0" /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Offshoring</span> and outsourcing of low-level legal work (like first-cut document review) has been the fashionable thing to talk about lately, but when talking to folks at legal departments, they didn't seem all that interesting in their law firms doing it - at least some of them. Much of a company's comfort level with off-shoring legal work seems to be directly linked to the company's own use of off-shoring for other functions. So, before you go down this path with a client, find out if the company currently does any off-shoring, you might save yourself some grief as there were several companies in the room that would take serious offense to it.<br /><br />However, I think there are opportunities to help clients <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">reduce</span> litigation costs in the document review area. <a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/llf/PubArticleLLF.jsp?id=1193907832842"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">McDermott</span> fired the first salvo recently</a>, by creating a new tier of associates. Think of them as permanent contract associates -- to handle lower-end tasks at lower billing rates. I was also told during the week that there is a surplus of lawyers in cities like Detroit and Charlotte, as a result you can get contract lawyers in those cities at rates not much higher than that of Indian off-shoring companies. I heard of one firm that setup an office in Charlotte simply to conduct document review, taking advantage of this talent surplus.<br /><br />The takeaway for me was, and has been for a while, that we need to truly listen to our clients needs and pain points and take <strong>real</strong> actions to help them.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-39350339743134307272007-09-17T16:28:00.000-07:002007-09-18T11:04:18.355-07:00New Sedona Conference comments lend credence to new search toolsThank goodness there are lawyers out there willing and able to cull down commentary from the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Sedona</span> Conference into bite-sized morsels we can all consume. In this case, Ralph <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Losey</span> has done a great job on his blog in summarizing <a href="http://ralphlosey.wordpress.com/2007/09/16/sedonas-new-commentary-on-search-and-the-myth-of-the-pharaohs-curse/">the most recent commentary from the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Sedona</span> Conference</a>, published in August of 2007.<br /><br />What's interesting is direct verbiage from the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Sedona</span> Search Team almost admonishing the reliance on simple keyword search technology for the review of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">ESI</span>:<br /><br /><em><span style="color:#6666cc;">. . . the experience of many litigators is that simple keyword searching alone is inadequate in at least some discovery contexts. This is because simple keyword searches end up being both over- and under-inclusive in light of the inherent malleability and ambiguity of spoken and written English (as well as all other languages). . . .</span></em><br /><br /><em><span style="color:#6666cc;">The problem of the relative percentage of “false positive” hits or noise in the data is potentially huge, amounting in some cases to huge numbers of files which must be searched to find responsive documents. On the other hand, keyword searches have the potential to miss documents that contain a word that has the same meaning as the term used in the query, but is not specified. . . .</span></em><br /><br /><em><span style="color:#6666cc;">Finally, using keywords alone results in a return set of potentially responsive documents that are not weighted and ranked based upon their potential importance or relevance. In other words, each document is considered to have an equal probability of being responsive upon further manual review.</span></em><br /><br />But the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Sedona</span> Search Commentary does not end on a negative note; instead it discusses new search technologies that will significantly improve upon the dismal recall and precision ratios of keyword searches:<br /><br /><em><span style="color:#6666cc;">Alternative search tools are available to supplement simple keyword searching and Boolean search techniques. These include using fuzzy logic to capture variations on words; using conceptual searching, which makes use of taxonomies and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">ontologies</span> assembled by linguists; and using other machine learning and text mining tools that employ mathematical probabilities..</span></em><br /><em><span style="color:#6666cc;"></span></em><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The last tidbit Ralph brings to our attention is a call to action from the Team:</span><br /><br /><em><span style="color:#6666cc;">The legal community should support collaborative research with the scientific and academic sectors aimed at establishing the efficacy of a range of automated search and information retrieval methods.</span></em><br /><em><span style="color:#6666cc;"></span></em><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Looking at these comments, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">albeit</span> in a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">vacuum</span>, it's astonishing to see such a clear line in the sand drawn by the Team. Clearly, reliance on simple keyword such isn't going to cut it for much longer. Vendors like <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9"><a href="http://www.recommind.com/">Recommind</a></span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10"><a href="http://www.engeniumsearch.com/">Engenium</a></span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11"><a href="http://www.syngence.com/">Sygence</a>, <a href="http://www.contentanalyst.com/">Content Analyst</a></span> and the like will be drooling once word of this gets to them. </span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">There's a lot more on Ralph's blog about this and he writes much better than I do, so I encourage you to read <a href="http://ralphlosey.wordpress.com/2007/09/16/sedonas-new-commentary-on-search-and-the-myth-of-the-pharaohs-curse/">the post</a> in it's entirety.</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-46061559073549645592007-09-17T08:49:00.000-07:002007-09-18T10:52:00.625-07:00Australian Law Tech Summit - RecapOn my recent visit to Australia, I spoke at the <a href="http://www.chillimarketing.com.au/file_download/11">2nd Annual Law Tech Summit </a>in Noosa, Australia. Put on by the fine team at Chilli Marketing Solutions, it was a very well organized event, with a lot of great content. The highlights for me, were the keynote given by <a href="http://www.susskind.com/">Richard Susskind</a> who's concepts and theories have heavily influenced how I view IT within legal, and <a href="http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/article/0,1002,sid%3D5521%26cid%3D78564,00.html">Peter Williams</a>, a Partner at Deliotte and CEO of their web and software development business, Ecplise. I found Peter's views on how to rapidly experiment and implement technology very refreshing, as we often get too bogged down in the minutia of a project to actually get it off the ground.<br /><br />I learned a lot about the legal market, the economic climate and the 'proper' way to pronounce such words as aluminum and tomato, as well as certain acceptable words in the States that are off limits in Australia :)<br /><br />"Brain drain" was a phrase used often at the conference. The country is experiencing a flight of talent, mostly to the UK. While wages appear to be decent for most tech-related jobs, the cost of living is very high (a Volkswagen Passat costs around $40k and a Snickers bar at a convenience store was $2.00 - food was particularly expensive) and as a result many of Australia's brightest young minds are taking their talent overseas.<br /><br />More and more legal work is coming from all the growth from China. With construction comes a lot of legal work, especially litigation. One consultant, Justin North, suggests that the next large merger will not be "vertical" (NY-London), but "horizontal" (China-Australia), because of the synergies between these two countries and their respective economies.<br /><br />Over the years, I found that there are a handful of highly innovative firms in Australia, such as Mallesons who have taken the Recommind product to new levels with their <a href="http://www.recommind.com/2007/decisiv_email.html">Decisiv</a> e-mail management tool. While there are firms in Australia that are arguably more advanced in their use of technology than any firm here in the States, it seemed that firms are generally a bit behind what we are doing here as an industry. Many of the conversations were on topics we were dealing with 3-5 years ago.<br /><br />There are also many thought leaders from Australia, both within law firms and on the vendor side. Justin North, who recently left Baker Robbins/Thomson to start his own consulting company (<a href="http://www.jandersdean.com/">Janders Dean</a>), is among those leading the charge on the innovation front - not only in Australia, but across the globe. Most recently, he's been working with a few of the largest firms on the planet on the selection and implementation of enterprise search.<br /><br />All in all, it was a very interesting conference, well run, with a good mix of content and opportunities for networking. Anyone in Australia should consider their next event in 2008.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-34415612923398924032007-08-30T13:15:00.000-07:002007-08-30T13:26:04.889-07:00Blogging at ILTA's conferenceWhile I had a few posts from the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">ILTA</span> conference, some seemed to be surgically attached to their PC while in sessions. It's amazing to see the amount of information spewing out from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">bloggers</span> like <a href="http://caselines.blogspot.com/2007/08/last-ilta-session-sharepoint-2007-at.html">David <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Hobbie</span></a>, <a href="http://kmspace.blogspot.com/2007/08/human-side-of-information-technology.html">Doug Cornelius</a>, and <a href="http://commonscold.typepad.com/commonscold/">Monica Bay</a>. I think folks providing near real-time posts are great for the industry. Daily headlines from <a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/PubArticle.jsp?id=1188205346665">Sean <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Doherty</span> </a>also let those not able to attend get some of the major highlights of the conference. Keep up the good work!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-7786344802297720482007-08-29T12:03:00.000-07:002007-08-29T12:19:53.196-07:00Enterprise Search, uncovered and revealedJohn <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Alber's</span> recent article titled, "<em><a href="http://www.llrx.com/features/searchenterprise.htm">Search at the Foundation of the Enterprise</a></em>", does a really nice job of explaining the business issues solved by enterprise search and goes on to discuss, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">in depth</span>, the various types of underlying search technology used today. It's in plain <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">English</span>, so even I can understand it. John was nice enough to include pictures and charts to help explain set-theoretic models, algebraic models, and probabilistic models. Understanding these principles helps provide the basis for which John explores the pros and cons of search products like Autonomy, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">SharePoint</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Recommind</span> (which is what his firm uses). He finishes the article talking about how enterprise search technology can be best utilized within a law firm and a few plugs for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Recommind</span> :) A great primer for those embarking on enterprise search technology.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-66530867134036354372007-08-21T11:31:00.000-07:002007-08-21T11:40:14.111-07:00Live from ILTASo far, things are pretty interesting. KM tracks yesterday were well attended, so perhaps there is hope for KM, despite my earlier post ;)<br /><br />Today the buzz is about <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">OpenText's</span> <a href="http://www.opentext.com/news/pr.html?id=1914">announcement around their <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">SharePoint</span> strategy</a>. I was not in the session, as my firm is an Interwoven shop, but here is what I heard from others that attended:<br /><ul><li>There will be the option to have <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">SharePoint</span> become the main store for documents</li><li><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">OpenText</span> is looking to extent beyond <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">DM</span> to more full blown matter/document <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">lifecycle</span> management, using <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Sharepoint</span> to accomplish this.</li></ul><p>The feedback around the show is mixed. Some are very excited by the news, while others wonder what this means in terms of their investment in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">OpenText's</span> current product architecture.</p><p>Both <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">DM</span> vendors seem to be scrambling to respond to the product offering from <a href="http://www.starlaw.com/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">StarLaw</span></a>, which purports to have a more comprehensive solution for document <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">lifecycle</span> management (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">DM</span>, RM, etc.), or as they put it an "intelligent Enterprise Information Management system".</p>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-52264433164398772882007-08-17T14:39:00.001-07:002007-08-17T14:59:34.663-07:00Is KM Dead?That seems to be the question on the minds of many these days. Or more softly put, how do <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">CKOs</span> ( or other KM types) fit into a world with strategically minded <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">CIOs</span> and other IT folks. Technology has also gained a solid footing in the KM space and while there is debate as to how far technology can be taken to replace people (especially in PSL roles) it's certainly established itself as an important tool. I'm speaking at the <a href="http://www.chillimarketing.com.au/file_download/11">Law Tech Summit </a>in Australia this September and the <a href="http://www.ark-group.com/home/xq/asp/sid.786828C4-B2EA-4913-9E34-2F705EEB7E45/eventid.F8E1308A-AEC8-4999-B336-BEAB91A02035/eTitle.KNOWLEDGE_MANAGEMENT_IN_THE_MODERN_LAW_FIRM/qx/events/event.htm">Ark Group KM Conference</a> in Chicago in October, and in both cases these concepts have been thrown around a lot. While I won't address this topic at length here, I do have some starting points.<br /><br />While there are certainly both operational and strategic elements to what IT and KM do, there are different types of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">opportunities</span> for each group. This idea was illuminated recently on a call with my friend (and idol) <a href="http://www.bryancave.com/people/bio.asp?id=2467">John <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Alber</span> </a>at Bryan Cave, one of the more innovative folks in the business. Furthermore, we might stop calling it KM and start calling it something else. All one needs to do is look at the titles of people performing relative degrees of KM duties these days:<br /><ul><li>Director of Practice Innovation </li><li>Director, Consultant Services/Client Advocacy </li><li>Director of Professional Services </li><li>Director of Practice Management </li><li>Director Professional Development </li><li>Director, Legal Business Systems </li><li>Director of Practice Systems</li><li>Director of Practice Support </li><li>Chief, Practice Systems & Services </li><li>Director, Legal Information Systems</li></ul><p>Notice something missing from these titles? How about the word 'knowledge'? Personally I like the Director of Practice Innovation the best, very fitting. If someone were really bold, Director of Practice Enhancement might also be apropos, although it could lead to some interesting dialog with Partners who might not feel their practice needs 'enhancement'.</p><p>In any event, I look forward to seeing everyone at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">ILTA</span> next week and stay tuned as we talk about this topic more in the months to come.</p>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-66203954693632816382007-06-07T09:36:00.000-07:002007-06-13T10:24:22.041-07:00Microsoft worfklow gaining momentumIn a recent roundtable, sponsored by <a href="http://www.esentio.com/">e-Sentio</a>, the topic was mainly focused on workflow. While some of the firms were looking at a few different solutions, many were looking at (or already building) workflow using Microsoft's suite of Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) and SharePoint 2007.<br /><br />The popularity of SharePoint 2007 has exceeded even Microsoft's expectations and related technologies are coming along for the ride, with workflow being one of them. Cost, flexibility and the development environment seem to be the main factors for firms looking to leverage their SharePoint investment by building workflow. I've attached the <a href="http://amd.streamload.com/tbaldwinusc/Links/FF9D31E9F1#">PowerPoints slides from e-Sentio's presentation</a> (with Nestor's blessing) and also attached an <a href="http://amd.streamload.com/tbaldwinusc/Links/97C432CF5C#">article I wrote </a>highlighting some of the issues surrounding workflow development and the merits of Microsoft workflow.<br /><br />I think that there are many opportunities to gain a competitive edge with workflow, as clearly illustrated in the number of workflow options spelled out in both e-Sentio's presentation and the article. There are also some unique challenges to be aware of in developing workflow and most of them are not technical, if you get my drift.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-89585643423867617272007-05-21T16:27:00.000-07:002007-05-21T16:32:55.564-07:00Free MOSS wild card search add-onFor many, wild-card searching is a huge gap in the MOSS enterprise search product. Those of you that own the <a href="http://www.xmlaw.net/products/enterprise_search.aspx">SPxConnect Enterprise Search </a>product from XMLAW get the entire Ontolica suite, which is wrapped into their product. If you just want wild-card searching, Ontolica is now offering their wildcard add-on for free, I suppose a teaser of sorts to get you to buy their entire product line.<br /><br /><a title="http://www.ontolica.com/Download/Request%20Product.aspx?prod=" buy="0" href="http://www.ontolica.com/Download/Request%20Product.aspx?prod=onwi&buy=0">http://www.ontolica.com/Download/Request%20Product.aspx?prod=onwi&buy=0</a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516720.post-29458055629830888992007-05-02T09:43:00.000-07:002008-11-12T20:46:16.734-08:00Sucession planning and the war for talent<div><a href="http://www.hildebrandt.com/Consultant.aspx?Ppl_ID=4821">Dr. Larry Richard</a>, who heads up the Leadership and Development practice group for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Hildebrandt</span> recently spoke at my <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">firm's</span> Partner Retreat, where he opined on a number of points. </div><br /><div>One of the more interesting dilemmas facing law firms is succession planning for all the baby-boomer partners heading towards retirement. In his presentation, 'The Talent Challenge: Lessons on Lawyers and Leaders', Dr. Richard states that the 80 million boomers in our population represent 70% of law firm Partners and are starting to retire. The next generation, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">GenX</span> only represents 40 million of the population and the group farthest from Partnership, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">GenY</span>, has a whopping 80 million. Bottom line is that the bulk of partnerships at large law firms across the country will be retiring soon. I'm not sure how many firms really have a good grasp on how to transition the knowledge, but more importantly, the relationships and books of business these partners have. </div><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7XyM9cWw6Lw/RjjqYcYFo_I/AAAAAAAAACI/wwYo9jHTMUw/s1600-h/generations.JPG"></a></div><br /><div>It's also an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">intriguing</span> study when looking at the various generations with in a law firm today and the generational differences. Dr. Richard was kind enough to let me post one of the slides from his presentation, which does a great job of succinctly outlining the 4 generations and their traits.<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7XyM9cWw6Lw/RjjqYcYFo_I/AAAAAAAAACI/wwYo9jHTMUw/s1600-h/generations.JPG"></a></div><br /><div></div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7XyM9cWw6Lw/Rjjuu8YFpAI/AAAAAAAAACQ/675z5J1xwCI/s1600-h/generations.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5060056671599305730" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7XyM9cWw6Lw/Rjjuu8YFpAI/AAAAAAAAACQ/675z5J1xwCI/s400/generations.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>What's most interesting is the transition that has taken place in the perception of lawyers entering a law firm in their first year. The Traditionalists and many Boomers entered the legal profession with the mindset that the first law firm they work for will be their last - lifers. Gen <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Yers</span> will likely have anywhere from 5-8 career changes and many leave law school with no intention of practicing law. They won't sacrifice their personal life for the sake of their career, a heretical concept to many Traditionalists and Boomers. The current vintage of young associates is a far cry from the ones currently leading most firms, which makes it all the more difficult for them to relate and properly motivate them. Given the growth of most large firms and the relative flat line of law school graduation rates, it's a sellers market for law schools grads and younger associates. Another great quote from Dr. Richard's presentation, summing up the war for talent, comes from Robert <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Sheehan</span> of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Skadden</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Arps</span> - New York, "It's a sobering thought that all of my assets go down in the elevator every night, and I can only hope that they come back up the next morning."</div>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0