Generation X, Y, & ME in Your Law Firm (from ILTA) | Knowledge Management

I’m very interested in how different generations of lawyers and legal staff will affect the way law firms will operate.  See Attorney 2.0 – Generation Y in Your Law Firm.   Here’s my coverage of a related ILTA program called Baby Boomers and Generation X and Generation Y – Addressing Generation Gaps in Culture and Technology in the Legal Industry. 

ILTA – August 28, 2008 2:00 pm

These are my notes from the ILTA program [Since I am taking paper-free notes and because there is free Wi-Fi here, I thought that I’d add the notes to the blog.  Disclaimer: my notes are rough, so forgive the typos.]

From ILTA:

Title: Baby Boomers and Generation X and Generation Y – Addressing Generation Gaps in Culture and Technology in the Legal Industry  – slides
Description: Are law firms dealing with the reality that there are real differences in how the various generations perceive the world, the expectations they have around technology and mobility, and how they relate to each other and member of different generations?  With most law firms being run by Boomers, we need to consider the issues around the fact that most new attorneys and staff are members of gen-X, gen-Y or gen-ME.
Speaker(s): Mark Cameron Willis – Kutak Rock LLP
Matthew Willis – IKON Office Solutions, Inc.
Learning Objectives: Learn new approaches to management.

LawyerKM’s Notes:

Today’s Emerging Law Firm

• Many firms have been involved in mergers and acquisitions
  Firms are operating like larger companies (they have c-level people)
  There is a global practice
  Competition for institutional clients
  multi-generational workplace

Generation Characteristics

Traditionalist

• Characteristics:
  64+ years old (5% of firm population)
  traditional family values
  loyalty to firm
  strong work ethic
• Legal practice:
  not tech savvy
  prefer phone vs email
  traditional legal practice – value of relationships
• Value to Firm:
  loyal clients
  relatinships in community / practice areas
  good mentors (valued by younger generations)
• Myths / perceptions:
  perception - that this group has stopped learning
  reality – they have vast knowledge

Baby Boomer

• Characteristics:
  late 40-60’s (70% of law firm partners)
  they surpassed the former generation many ways (e.g., first to go to college, etc.)
  work your way up mentality
  the “me generation” – affluent
  work-a-holics
• Legal practice:
  loyal clients
  traditional legal practice, but they embrace change dictated by their clients
  client-service oriented
• Value to Firm:
  managing the firm
  transition from traditional practice
  these people run the firm
• Myths / perceptions:
  perception – they are obsolete
  reality – they run the firm
  perception – work-a-holic
  reality – hard workers

Generation X

• Characteristics:
  30s / 40s year old
  saw 50% divorce rate growing up
  7-8 career changes
  consider themselves as “free agents”
• Legal practice:
  traditional legal training- research and writing
  they question traditional firm policies
  first generation to adopt technology advances (e.g., Westlaw and Lexis)
• Value to Firm:
  money makers
  control day-to-day relationship with clients
  they embrace technology
• Myths / perceptions:
  perception – self-centered (e.g., salary hikes)
  reality – family-centered
  perception – sense of entitlement
  reality – unwilling to sacrifice personal life for firm
  perception – “slackers”
  reality – maybe, but positive response to challenges

Generation Y

• Characteristics and values:
  late 20s year olds
  quality of life
  brought up on technology in school and in social networks
  “trophy generation” – they need a reward for what they’ve done
• Legal practice:
  technology is the backbone of practice
  diversity
  few strong client relatinships
  pressure to bill hours
• Value to Firm:
  fresh insight
  resourceful and adaptable
  teaching boomers and traditionalists
  access to information (e.g., Findlaw)
• Myths / perceptions:
  perception – undisciplined
  reality – they actually crave structure
  perception – they challenge authority
  reality – they crave to learn from their elders
  perception – disrespectful
  reality – they tend to treat everyone as equals

Firms Adjusting to the generation gaps:
Check out the matrix in the slides that show differences
Communications: face-to-face > telephone > email> email/text/sms
Bridging the generation gap

HR:
offices are designed to attract and keep employees (i.e., Google style vs. Stuffy NYC firm style)
quality of life – some firms have QoL committees
telecommuting
feedback that matches the generational needs
firm evaluations (the employee can offer reverse feedback)
mentoring
meaningful work
pro bono opportunities

Technology:
Education and training (training up and down, promoting new technology – wikis, web hosting, webinars, virtual conferneces)
Showed Common Craft’s Wikis in Plain English – the audience actually applauded this video – they loved it.
Technology committee – involving tech end users in tech decisions; comparing tech with corporate clients

Marketing: the new way of marketing involves blogs

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

More ILTA Coverage | Knowledge Management

Today is the last day of ILTA.  I’ll be covering a couple of sessions later. 

There are so many great programs here that it’s impossible to attend all of the ones that you’d like.  That’s why I am very happy to see that several people are sharing their notes and thoughts about the sessions.  Many people have expressed appreciation for this, so I want to make sure that everyone knows of some of the other live bloggers:

I’ve mentioned coverage by David Hobbie of Caselines and Doug Cornelius of KM Space.  I noticed that Amy Witt of Nina Platt Consulting is ILTA blogging at The Law Firm Intranet. 

If you know of others, please drop me a line and I’ll revise and / or repost a new list. 

Thanks. 

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

The Ultimate Legal Technologist (from ILTA) | Knowledge Management

ILTA – August 26, 2008 1:30 pm

These are my notes from the program.  [Since I am taking paper-free notes and because there is free Wi-Fi here, I thought that I’d add the notes to the blog.  Disclaimer: my notes are rough, so forgive the typos.]

From ILTA:

Title: The Ultimate Legal Technologist
Description: We discuss the value of legal or IT expertise as a foundation for legal technologists, specifically in the field of practice (or litigation) support.  The panel discusses their findings and experiences when the pendulum is swung in either direction.  Can you find legal technologists who hold in-depth expertise in both areas, and do they make the ultimate technologist?
Speaker(s): Joel Vogel – Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, LLP
Florinda Baldridge – Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.
Michelle Mahoney – Mallesons Stephen Jaques
 
Learning Objectives: Identify the dynamics that lead to a successful service delivered by multi-disciplined professionals.
Learn about the personality types, perceptions and the reality when managing expectations of legal staff and clients.

No LawyerKM notes due to technical problems.  I recommend checking out the slides from the presentation.

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

Web 2.0 Law Firm Adoption (from ILTA) | Knowledge Management

ILTA – August 27, 2008 1:00 pm

These are my notes from the program.  [Since I am taking paper-free notes and because there is free Wi-Fi here, I thought that I’d add the notes to the blog.  Disclaimer: my notes are rough, so forgive the typos.]

From ILTA – See the description and download the slides here

Title: Web 2.0 – Law Firm Adoption
Description: As Web2.0 tools mature, there is an increased number of adoptions by Fortune 500 companies.  We explore and learn if Web 2.0 solutions already being adapted by Fortune 500 companies would be accepted by the lawyers in your firm.
Speaker(s): Bruce MacEwen – Adam Smith, Esq.

Learning Objectives: Learn how the new Web 2.0 tools are being utilized by Fortune 500 companies and its potential impact for law firms.
Analyze adoption rates amongst law firms.

LawyerKM’s notes:

These notes are highlights, you can see the slides on the ILTA site.
Bruce has many good diagrams in his presentation – check it out.

Web 2.0 Agenda:

• Blogs
• Wikis
• Mashups
• Social Networking
• Implications for law firms

The nature of the web and how it has changed:

Web 1.0 > Web 1.5 > Web 2.0
key difference is 1.0=surf, 1.5=search,  2.0=share

Blogs 101
23 blogs known in 1999
125 million blogs in 2008

Blogs as a management tool: a place in professional services firms because there are so many advantages over email.

Blog Basics:
important to have firm-wide blogging policies
you’re personally responsibe
respect and keep secretsinclude positive and negative comments (for credibility); some firms use blogs just for a replacement of client alerts, etc. and disallow comments (whether your firm does this depends on the culture)
be nice

Be Aware:
there is significant time committment to blogging.
your firm may require legal approval

Do’s & Don’ts:
there were a number of these, see the slides link above.
Highlights: don’t get defensive; develop a tone of voice – there is a brand aspect to your blog, a brand is a promise to your readers.

Why blog?
Internally – facilitates collaboration
Externally- demonstrates expertise

Web 2.0 [and Enterprised 2.0] –  At the heart of the knowledge management function; also at the heart of the project management function.

What lawyers do (cases, deals, etc.) are projects.  The intrinsic characteristics of blogs lend themselves to project manaement – the most recent thing is on top.

The way a firm is organized is usually different that the way people interact (see Bruce’s diagram)

Wikis
like a blog with multiple authors (e.g. wikipedia)
“it will never work in theory, but it works in practice”
the concerns that people will vandalize wiki pages is unfounded (if it happens, the good people will fix it and the vandals will be exposed)
Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein reported 75% drop in email on projects after implementing wikis.
There is very little instruction required.

There is not much downside to trying out wikis and blogs becuase they are generally inexpensive and they are generally accepted because they mirror the way people work.

Mashups
Definition: basically mixing two or more databases together (e.g. craigslist rentals with google maps or chicago crime with google maps)
Hypo – key clients mashup with a map of an area – could have real value to a firm.
Hypo – “caller ID on steroids” when a client calls, identifies the person as a client, it pulls up all types of firm info and a news feed related to the client.  [this is a great idea - other than this I haven't heard too many good ideas for mashups in organizations].  this is real “just in time” information that can be very useful for lawyers – getting the right information to the right people at the right time.

This stuff is not “high tech” it is “appropriate tech”

Social Networks
MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Legal OnRamp (specifically for lawyers).

Bruce is disturbed by the number of members and the presence detection features of Legal OnRamp.   [to me this is of minor concern - better platforms, like Facebook allow better control over privacy and presence detection].

Success Stories:
there are some anecdotes, but most are struggling for a balance

McKinsey study: companys are shifting from experimental to broad adoption.  But, 21% were satisfied and 22 were not satified.
Specific internal uses: KM is 83%
External uses: improving client services is 73%

Leadership buy-in, promotion, and endorsement are keys to the success of social networking.  [in my view, this certainly is the key.  you may get some adoption, without it, but it will never be widely adotped and considered a success without it.]

Main take-away: power of the tools is to strengthen relationships that already exist.  It requires business and IT / KM to really collaborate.  It is the IT / KM job to identify new tools, such as social networking, and for senior management to push it forward.

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

Project Management Anatomy – Standards, Roles, Responsibilities and Skills (from ILTA)

ILTA – August 27, 2008 11:00 am

These are my notes from the program.  [Since I am taking paper-free notes and because there is free Wi-Fi here, I thought that I’d add the notes to the blog.  Disclaimer: my notes are rough, so forgive the typos.]

From ILTA:

Title: Project Management Anatomy – Standards, Roles, Responsibilities and Skills
Description: You’ve just been assigned the role or title of “PM” and not exactly sure what that means, or you’re a project manager looking to be even more effective, or your firm is considering adding a project manager position to the staff.  We discuss the different roles that project managers play and the key skill sets that are important to be successful.

Speaker(s):
Juliet Alters – Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, L.L.P
Heidi Golabek – Shearman & Sterling
Kristin Linoski – Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.
Judy Katany – Huron Consulting Group
Scott David – Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP
 
Learning Objectives: Understand the skills and responsibilities included in a typical job description of a project manager.
Recognize different skill sets that impact the success of a project manager.
Chart project manager career growth and/or development opportunities.

LawyerKM’s notes:

Where does PM sit within the firm:
Some in IT, some are not yet formal, some are one-person PMOs

Art and Science of Project Management

Art – negotiation, communication
Science – budget, scope, etc.
Three Cs:communication, collaboration, and closure.  Need to know your audience when communicating. 
People, processes and technology are the three pillars. 
Collaboration – how to get it.  It goes back to communication; build trust, stand up and support your team, PM is like a movie director, provide guidance without over-directing.
Humor is important – to relieve stress.
Closure – this is most important, of course.  Need a sense of completion.  Post-implementation review (post-mortem has a negative connotation), document it for lessons learned, and for reporting to senior management. 
Reviewing the project – it may make sense to to reviews at various points in the project – not necessarily at the end. 
Tips for developing soft skills: meetings to review points in private so people feel free to be open and honest; invite internal speakers to discuss what is going on in other departments – helps give people context and get to know others in various departments. 

Hiring a Project Manager – What to look for when hiring a PM?

1. In resumes: Objective: look for desire to engage in “project management” – not just “management”;
2. Postion tenure: it often takes a long time to complile a list of accomplishments – beware of short tenures.
3. Metrics: what kind of metrics did they achieve? save money, reduce staff, etc.
4. Engagement vs. Oversight: how involved was the candidate in their projects?
5. Writing Style: the resume can be an indicator of their work on the projects they manage (also ask for writing samples, get a sense of the templates they’ve used)
6. Business case: look at the application as a business case.
7. Professional Development – look for initiative by the applicant – shows passion and drive.
8. Consider internal applicants because they have insight in the firm; but external applicants bring frest ideas and insights.
9. Interviews: individual meeting followed by a panel and others. 

I couldn’t stay for Career Path for a PM or Value of PM in the organization

Where to get more information: PMBOK – project management body of knowledge; ILTA PM members; Book: Project Management Jumpstart; seek out mentors; PMI

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

Legal Aspects of Collaboration Tools (Blogs, Wikis, etc.) (from ILTA)

ILTA – August 27, 2008 9:00 am

These are my notes from the program. [Since I am taking paper-free notes and because there is free Wi-Fi here, I thought that I’d add the notes to the blog. Disclaimer: my notes are rough, so forgive the typos.]

From ILTA:

Title: Legal Aspects of Collaboration Tools (Blogs, Wikis, MashUps, IM, Text Messages, Social Networks and More)
Description: Collaboration technologies help promote information sharing, efficiency, cost reduction and can provide competitive advantages. How does the legal environment deal with the information overload and the security of confidential information escaping the realm of the organization? What aspects of legal information need to be considered to help determine how collaboration tools should be utilized in the legal world (and when they should not)? What policies must be in place to protect the shared information?

Speaker(s): Tom Mighell – Cowles & Thompson, P.C.
Dennis Kennedy – MasterCard Worldwide

LawyerKM’s notes:

• See my notes from yesterday’s presentation
• Collaboration is no longer an option.
• Web tools are moving beyond email.
• News and communication:
  Blogs -
  IM -
  Twitter -
• Working together:
  Documents – drafts & revisions: the old way was redlining.
  Conferencing – scheduling is a major difficulty and very time consuming.
  Wikis -
• Web 2.0
  1.0 – focus was getting all the info online – no interaction
  2.0 – making the info available to people in more interesting, interactive ways (e.g. Google Maps, Mashups); moving to user-generated content (e.g., wikis and blogs); software as a service (SAAS); cloud computing.
  e.g., Yelp, Delicious, social networking tools, Facebook and LinkedIn are the main players.
  Martindale-Hubbell is testing their own social network (should be coming out in the next couple of months.
  Mashups – SharePoint can be used to mashup information
  Google Sites – allows you to make a mini portal platform on the web
• The benefits of collaboration:
  1. taking an active role
  2. enhancing the workflow
  3. getting better results
• Potential Problems of collaboration:
  1. Loss of control – lawyers are tought that they should control the draft and the drafting proscess. Collaborative drafting (like with Google Docs) can take away this feeling of control, blog comments and wikis also may contribute to the feeling of loss of control. Internal vs. external storage (many lawyers are not comfortable with their data on external servers) there is also the issue of down time of third-party systems.
  2. Security – because you are going outside the firewall, there is a concern. You are potentialll opening up multiple points of compromise.
  3. Ethics – need to be a lawyer’s ethical responsibilities. There have not been many ethics decisions about technology. None were cited about collaboration. Is encryption mandatory? Metadata – one state has found that lawyers should have knowledge that metadata exists in their documents.
• The Balance between riks and benefits:
  1. Cultural – what is the tolerance for risk at your firm? Balanced scorecard, risk-reward framework.
  2. Costs – many of these tools are free – so lawyers might be inclined to try it out. But, some of those tools may be risky. Hidden costs – free tools have implimentation issues [and what about ads in Gmail].
  3. Portfolio approach – is an economic portfolio approach right (i.e., having a diversified portfolio)? Check out some of the collaboration tools.
• Defining and Implementing Appropriate Policies:
  1. channel appropriate behaviors – lawyers are good at finding work-arounds when they can’t get what they need.
  2. keeping control – policies, procedures, processes – need some sort of formality to it. Very few people in the audience have any sort of policies or procedures that cover collaboration tools.
  3. security and ethical concers – #1 is confidentiality; different levels of access, authority are key to this.
• Looking into the Future
  1. recent devlopments – since the cost of travel is high, there is/will be an increase in online collaboration.
  2. trends – web2.0 is becoming more common and people are willing to explore
  3. predicions – clients will drive this (if they want it, lawyers will provide it) video will be bigger in the future
• Conclusions:
  1. keep current – read blogs [like LawyerKM!]
  2. action steps – find your firms policies; look at the tools that you use; think about the issues that arise with the tools that you use.

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

Collaboration Tools and Technologies for Lawyers (at ILTA) Knowledge Management

ILTA – August 26, 2008 3:30 pm

 

These are my notes from the program.  [Since I am taking paper-free notes and because there is free Wi-Fi here, I thought that I’d add the notes to the blog.  Disclaimer: my notes are rough, so forgive the typos.]

 

From ILTA:

Title:   Collaboration Tools and Technologies for Lawyers

 

Description:     Collaboration technologies and tools are the most important current developments in legal technology and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. During this session, the speakers discuss collaboration technologies for law firms, review tools and explore alternative platforms.

 

Speaker(s):     

Tom Mighell – Cowles & Thompson, P.C.

Dennis Kennedy – MasterCard Worldwide

 

Learning Objectives:  

Identify collaboration tools and technologies for law firms.

Analyze their utilization and explore alternative methods.

LawyerKM’s Notes:

• Do you know how your lawyers are collaborating?
  • email
  • wikis
  • meetings
  • SharePoint
  • etc.
• Collaboration is not new
  • history of collaborating
  • telegraph is the first form of IM (sort of)
  • telephone
• Collaboration today
  • mainly email 
  • document collaboration (redlining, track revisions, etc.)
  • conference calls
• Internal & external collaboration
  • geography and the parties are factors
  • audience is important – e.g. metadata stripping is important when collaborating with third parties, but not necessarily with internal parties
  • Internal: everyone on the same team, see metadata above; brainstorming, etc. openness about the documents
  • External: the collaborators might be on the same side, but might be adversaries.
• Basics: Documents and Projects
  • Documents – take advantage of the fact that documents are in a digital format.
    • Redlining and track changes are the norm today
    • Google Docs – a place for multiple people to collaborate on a document (Dennis and Tom used Google Docs to collaborate when writing their book: The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together)
  • Project Management – lawyers are very much project managers
    • they need to manage the cases and / or deals that they are working on
• Basic Collaboration Toolbox
  • choice depends on how you work
  • determining what you’re trying to do helps you match tools to the problem
  • calendaring, conferencing, document collaboration
• Collaboration Platforms
  • SharePoint
  • Google Apps (Dennis is surprised at the interest in this from a large law firm perspective – so am I see Web 2.0 in Law Firms)
• Web 2.0 Tools
  • key definition – using the internet as a software tool or application platform  (web 3.0 is the semantic web, see here)
  • Blogs, Wikis, Cloud computing
  • they are platform agnostic (PC or Mac – all the same – you just need a web browser)
  • Calendaring on the web allows easy collaboration
  • web-based large file sharing (e.g. Drop IO, usendit)
• Next Generation Concepts
  • user-generated content publishing (see, e.g., Wikipedia, YouTube, SlideShare, Mash-ups)
  • social networking (LinkedIn, Facebook) becomes an expertise locator.  [what about Twitter?]
  • Legal OnRamp, JD Supra
• How to learn about collaboration options
  • lots of collaboration blogs: Dennis and Tom’s blog
  • RSS feeds (subscribe to collaboration tag in technorati)
• Approaches to develop a collaboration strategy
  • is your approach active or passive?
  • collaboration audit – don’t assume that you know how your attorneys are collaborating – check it out. 
  • what is your firm’s collaborative culture?  - look at the way people actually work (even from a non-technological way)
• Defining and Implementing your collaboration approach
  • try to guide people to accepted products and approaches
• What is your collaboration culture?
  • the audit will help
  • what are people doing now
  • strengthen collaboration culture – establish a collaboration coordinator [sounds like a KM position; an evangelist]
  • let people know about successes
  • learn from your failures
• Conclusions
  • no longer an option
  • impact on day to day practice can be huge
• What to do next?
  • observe how you are collaborating (notice what tools you use)
  • pick one tool and investigate it

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

Enterprise Content Management (from ILTA) | Knowledge Management

ILTA – August 26, 2008 11:00 am

These are my notes from the program.  [Since I am taking paper-free notes and because there is free Wi-Fi here, I thought that I’d add the notes to the blog.  Disclaimer: my notes are rough, so forgive the typos.]

From ILTA:

Title: Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
Description: ECM combines hardware, software, infrastructure and process enabling an organization to store, manage and access information generated throughout the organization, without regard to its form or source.  How do intranets, portals and SharePoint aid in these efforts?  Learn strategies firms can use to enhance relevance and usability of these tools so attorneys and other timekeepers develop trust in the information produced, and how firms can use these tools to get the right information to the right people at the right time for better business decisions and more effective client service.
Speaker(s): James Tuvell – Fox Rothschild LLP
Catherine Monte – Fox Rothschild LLP
Ellen Duff – Winston & Strawn LLP
Shy Alter – ii3

Learning Objectives: Identify the concepts behind enterprise content management
Learn how your portal, intranets or sharepoint can aid in ECM.
Learn quick development techniques to get started or push ECM further in your organization.

LawyerKM’s Notes:

• Shy started out with some video interviews from some folks at Osler about: “what is content management?”
  • a process
  • driven by strategic plans
  • a publishing process
  • an element of KM
  • key – right content to the right people at the right time
• Why are people focusing on CM now?  (videos continued)
  • it is an up and coming concept the way KM was 10 years ago.
  • there is a difference between CM and enterprise content management (ECM)
• enables content re-use [how to distinguish from goals of KM?] (videos)
  • 2 sides – legal and admin
  • desire for integration with CRM and content management
  • bigger paradigm is to create content without knowing in which medium it will be published.
• Self publishing a cornerstone to content lifecycle efficiency (videos)
  • anyone in the organization can publish
  • goal is for the lawyer to do this to eliminate the middle layer
  • this shouldn’t be a problem with younger lawyers because they are familiar with the process and ideas
  • not a replacement for a publishing process
  • ease of the use of tools is important
  • making technology transparent is important
• CM & KM (videos)
  • Cm is an element of KM but KM needs to understand the business process
  • is this a redefinition of KM?
  • CM system enables KM
• Case Study – Fox Rothschild – Lessons Learned using SharePoint
  • KM services has 15 people (Library, research, risk mitigation, training & development, Competitive Intelligence, portal)
  • Definng ECM – collect, synthesize and redistribute relevant information
  • ECM =  CM + IM + KM
  • all about efficiency
  • users need trust in the systems
  • Efficiency – reduce redundant data entry, end user search time, time to filter through, confusion about where to go for information.
  • Info Audit can be helpful
  • Taxonomy – try to standardize fields, etc. across systems
  • Systems: Elite, DM5, HR systems, etc.  (recently bought ContactNet)
  • SharePoint – goal – one-stop shop for all information
  • Trust – how to get users to trust the system?
    • relevance – info must be relevant to the individual
    • usability – easy and quick
    • timeliness – info current
    • accuracy – info must be right
    • reliability
  • Tour of FoxNet – the firm’s intranet (mostly out of the box, but is using Handshake for some things)
    • Relevance – content centricity (matter and other centricity)
    • department / practice centric
      • precedent/form library – someone within the group should be the gatekeeper
      • SP pages are dynamic
    • client centricity (uses Handshake)

Sorry about the cut off notes – lost my internet connection midway through the presentation.

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

Social Networking in Law Firms (at ILTA) | Knowledge Management

ILTA – August 26, 2008 1:30 pm

There are so many great presentations at ILTA.  And sometimes two that you’d like to attend are happening at the same time.  That’s the case here.  I’d love to have seen this presentation, but needed to attend a different one. 

I hope that Doug Cornelius at KM Space or David Hobbie at Caselines (or someone else – maybe noted on Twitter) will cover it.   

From ILTA:

Title: Social Networking – Marketing Boon, Malpractice Nightmare or Simple Boondoggle
Description: The recruiting manager has created a firm FaceBook site.  The marketing director is encouraging all the lawyers to join LinkedIn.  The firm’s general counsel is freaking out over the possible ethic violations and malpractice possibilities.  The older lawyers simply aren’t sure what to do.  The younger lawyers are wondering what all the hoopla is about.  We explore social and business networking, the potential problems and rewards and what you can do about it.
Speaker(s): Jeffrey Brandt – Crowell & Moring LLP
 
Learning Objectives: Explore social networking and analyze the driving force behind it. 
Learn the differences between social and business networking.

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

Web 2.0 in Law Firms (from ILTA) | Knowledge Management

ILTA – August 26, 2008 9:00 am

These are my notes from the program.  [Since I am taking paper-free notes and because there is free Wi-Fi here, I thought that I’d add the notes to the blog.  Disclaimer: my notes are rough, so forgive the typos.]

From ILTA:

Title: Recap of G100 CIO Event – Web 2.0 Focus

Description: Join the G100 CIO Advisory Board as they provide a recap of the G100 CIO event held on Monday, August 25 in conjunction with ILTA ‘08.  The focus is “Web 2.0 – What It Means to Law Firms,” including a summary of what Rajen Sheth, Senior Product Manager for Google Apps shared with the group around the phenomenon of Web 2.0 in general.
Date/Time: 8/26/2008 9:00 a.m.
Location: Fort Worth 5,6,7
Speaker(s): Peter Lesser – Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP
David Rigali – Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP
Karen Levy – Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
Peter Attwood – Simmons & Simmons

LawyerKM’s notes:

• The panel recapped the G100 CIO Advisory Board meeting from 8/25/08
• What is Web 2.0?
• an aspect of collaboration rather than just web consuption.
• structured vs. unstructured data – it may be ok to have multiple collaborators.
• Is it different the Enterprise 2.0? – trying to take the concepts of web 2.0 and incorporate them in organizations.
• At Mallesons wikis started with IT staff and now it is among the practice groups – someof the most prolific users are the more senior attorneys.  average age of partner there is 39 (is this a factor?)
  • Firm culture is important – some use DMS as a confidential repository, some have them open.  The latter may find wikis more acceptable. 
  • They has a client facing wiki.
  • They allow people to even restructure the wiki page.
  • Firms are not looking to IT to set it up.  It is very low cost. 
  • Use: from a practice group perspective, the wiki content was not a part of the record (i.e., the matter records) – the content is more practice-group related rather than matter related. 
  • Some fear contributions to wikis becuase they don’t want to be seen as having written something stupid.
  • The wikis are getting 1000 hits per day. 
  • Best adoption was in IP practice group.
  • In technology department they have a wiki page for their meeting agendas.
• The panel was asked if they will use wikis.
  • Lesser said not now, but didn’t rule it out for the future.  It is a cultural thing.
  • Levy – there are ways to introduce it (admin first, perhaps) – find out where it fits.  It’s a tool and it may fit some problems, not others.
  • Attwood – has tried it in IT, some have worked, others not, agrees with Levy
  • Brandt – thought was – if it is “cheap to fail” why not try it. 
• Question: what about blogging?
  • Lesser’s firm has a policy against it – presumably refering to external blogs (but there is one internal blog).
• What about the fear of discovery (from a litigation perspective)?
  • Brandt – the stuff is still there (now it’s just in email and other electronic places) [great point - people need to understnad this!!].  Levy agreed. 
• Google Apps (some of the notes below are beyond Google specifically)
  • idea is cloud computing and using Offie-style apps (like Word, email, spreadsheets, presentations) on Google’s servers. 
  • the price is fixed, the upgrades in functionality are frequent. 
  • Docs has full doc version control.
  • there is real time collaboration on documents.
  • Attwood was surprised how far forward Google is.
  • Lesser thought this was the most interesting topic.  Many in the room thought they might see this in the next 1-1.5 years.  It may be client driven (if a client adopts it, law firms may have to adopt it as well). 
  • The thought was to sit with Google to adjust it to make it legal specific.
  • The functionality is very far from the feature set that we are used to from Microsoft. 
  • Security seems to be there.  It is encrypted. 
  • Google allows you to tie in your own authentication methods
  • There was debate about whether firms are ready to give up all they have done in the last 10-15 years. 
  • Many firms are looking at getting away from a specialiszed approach and going for a more corporate approach.  Stop making and using customized applications and use more standardized applications.
  • The cost issue (often 1/10 of what the existing systems might cost) may be the thing that convinces partners to move away from the customized apps and go for more standardized apps.
  • The panel agreed that communicating with Google early on may convince them to focus on what they might be able to do to make it work for law firms.
  • A benefit to focusing on more out-of-the-box approach is that you can upgrade quickly. 
  • The panel plans to reach out to Google and others, like Microsoft, etc. to see how firms can move in this direction.
• One take away
• Levy – the dramatic gap in cost between the traditional approach and the new Google approach.
• Attwood – this is moving much faster than he thought. 
• Lesser – thinks that the whole cloud computing could work.
• Brandt – There seems to be no real road map to the development of the products – it is based on user feedback, which is good.

It was refreshing to hear such forward-looking ideas on the panel. 

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