All too often, we think of the legal market, especially for law firms, as being composed of BigLaw or at least lawyers that bill by the hour.
The truth is, though, that today’s legal marketplace is composed of various segments. These segments have business models and goals that are so different that they might
Lost in the acrimonious abortion debate in the wake of last week’s Supreme Court ruling are fundamental and downright scary questions. What does the brave new world of privacy? What privacy protections are there, or what should there be now that abortion is illegal in so many states? A brave new world that may terrify
I had an interesting discussion recently with Peter Baumann. Peter is the CEO and founder of data privacy and governance software provider ActiveNav. According to its website, ActiveNav, founded in 2008, helps “privacy and compliance teams quickly identify, inventory and map sensitive data.”
Peter’s present goal is to develop solutions that address what he calls the “elephant in the room .”That is businesses having and maintaining too much unstructured that they really shouldn’t.
Continue Reading Law Firms and Unstructured Data: A Disaster Waiting to Happen?
Several articles have recently discussed the claim by a Google computer scientist that a Google AI system was a sentient being. The scientist, Blake Lemoine, used his interview with the AI program to support his claim that the program appears to have consciousness. If you go by some of the interview responses, I got to wonder whether a lot of lawyers can be considered sentient.
For those who don’t know, sentient refers to the ability to perceive or feel things. The general thinking is that only humans are sentient and in the club. Animals (Dogs? Cats?) are not. Certainly, computers are not.
At the risk of stating what perhaps should be obvious, lawyers valued for their abilities and insight are generally happier. They are certainly happier than those valued almost entirely on their production (i.e., billable hours). The latter group is by and large less healthy than the former. And in the long run, the happier lawyers are more–not less– productive than their unhappy, stressed out brethren.
Makes sense, right? Then why do so many law firms evaluate and compensate lawyers–especially associates–based on the billable hour yardstick? Maybe it’s because of a lack of empirical data demonstrating the advantages of the long-term view. If so (and as set out below, I am not convinced that that is the case), at least now there is data that confirms the obvious. Happier lawyers are more likely to be more productive over the long haul.
Continue Reading Lawyers Valued For Insight and Ability Are Happier. And More Productive
Continue Reading Data Analytics: It’s All About The Question You Ask
Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced via Twitter that Tesla “is building a hardcore litigation department where we directly initiate & execute lawsuits.” The lawyers will report directly to him. Said Musk, “Looking for hardcore streetfighters, not white-shoe lawyers like Perkins or Cooley who thrive on corruption.”
Early on in the ABA’s most recent annual diversity Survey Report, the authors quote the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr: “The more things change, the more they stay the same”. The bottom line from this year’s Survey is summed up in one sentence from the Report: “White attorneys, male attorneys, non-LGBTQ+ attorneys, and attorneys
Early this week, Richard Tromans at Artificial Lawyer reported on a Survey done by the ContractWorks group of Onit. Onit is an enterprise workflow solutions provider. Onit acquired ContractWorks earlier this year.
ContractWorks surveyed some 350 general counsel, in-house lawyers, and other legal department members in the United States and the United Kingdom. The purpose of the Survey was to determine their satisfaction (or lack thereof) with tech implementation within their departments.
A couple of commentators noted the announcement by AmLaw 100 firm Hogans Lovells last week that making partner requires “being all in .” According to Hogans Lovell, being all in typically means 2400 hours per year. (Hogans Lovell says it recognizes this “goal” could be achieved by billable hours and “further contributions .” But Hogans