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I just returned home after four days in New York City for LegalWeek2020. LegalWeek is one of the biggest and most well-known legal tech conferences more info. While there are other conferences, LegalWeek is more eDiscovery and vendor orientated. CLOC, for example, focuses more on substantive issues surrounding legal ops. ABA’s TechShow is designed to get basic information to a broad audience.

LegalWeek is geared more toward larger commercial law firms. It’s the tech show for the AmLaw 200. Yes, there is good substantive programming, but  it’s also the opportunity for tech vendors to sell their wares to big law. Plenty of sales meetings, plenty of parties, plenty of marketing speak. It’s appropriate that’s in held in New York where everything is big, expensive and the hustle is always on.

Continue Reading LegalWeek 2020: 5 Impressions of a Lawyer Turned Blogger

One hallmark of good technology is that it addresses a customers’ pain point and makes life easier. If that’s true, then LexisNexis® CounselLink® new FastTrack product hits the mark.

This is the time of year —right before and during LegalWeek, which deems itself with some justification as “the largest and most important legal technology event of the year”—for new legal tech product announcements. One of these that caught my attention was a new offering from LexisNexis® CounselLink® called CounselLink FastTrack. CounselLink FastTrack is an innovative approach to vendor and financial management. It helps law firms get paid sooner while providing extended payment terms and some cash back on invoices to firm clients.Continue Reading CounselLink FastTrack Reduces Payment Pain Point

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Turn and face the strange

Changes David Bowie 1971

I went back to my old law firm for an open house this week. It was the first time I had been there since leaving the firm to blog, consult, and practice law on my own. My former partners were very welcoming but curious about how I was doing. If I liked what I was doing and happy with the change. In a word, my answer was absolutely. My only regret is that I didn’t make the change sooner.

Change is sometimes particular hard for lawyers. I can’t tell you how many unhappy lawyers I know who can’t just seem to make the decision to change. To do something different, to do something they really want to do. I know, I was one.Continue Reading Dithering About Career Change? Three Life Lessons That Will Help

You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else.

Paul Austerer, Winter Journal

As I do every year, I’m in Las Vegas this week for CES. (CES used to Stand for Consumer Electronics Show but now it want to just be called CES). CES calls itself the world’s largest and most important tech event, where the entire technology ecosystem gathers to conduct business, launch products, build brands, and network (aka party).Continue Reading A Lawyer At CES. The Top 10 Takeaways

The highest and best use of AI is where AI is combined with human intelligence to get the best of both worlds. This lets AI do what it does best: search through a large number of data points, find things like hidden patterns, and “learn” from previous applications. AI frees humans to do what they do best: use experience, knowledge, and insight to see nuanced connections, and use lateral and system thinking.
Continue Reading BlackBoiler Maximizes AI/Human Interaction For Contract Negotiations

Why does lawyer marketing suck? A new Survey by LexisNexis Interaction suggests its because most law firms don’t use data to make strategic marketing decisions.
Lexis Nexis Interaction today published its Law Firm Marketing & Business Development Survey. The Survey was conducted between August and October 2019. One hundred three legal marketing leaders across the U.S. and Europe participated, many from 40 Am Law 100 firms. Most were with established multi-office firms with over $500 million in annual revenue. In other words, biglaw.

Continue Reading Why Does Lawyer Marketing Suck?

As has been widely reported, it’s no secret that the number of actual jury trials have declined precipitously in recent years. Too much risk. Discovery costs–particularly those associated with electronic discovery–have made the pretrial process simply too expensive. And there is a reluctance by some to trust juries with what they believe are complicated issues. The result: more cases are settled, typically in mediation.
Continue Reading The Elon Musk Verdict: Some Cases Have to Be Tried 

Last week, I talked about why social media for lawyers is essential. In this post, I want to talk about the practical: what has worked for me in using social media to develop business.

How to Use Social Media

When you use social media, you are creating an image of who you are as a person and your brand. First and foremost, that image must be authentic and consistent with who you are as a person. Then, what you do on social media must be compatible with that image.Continue Reading Social Media and Lawyers: Forming Human Relationships. Part II

There’s been much hype over the last couple of years about blockchain, what it might do in terms of simplifying and documenting transactions and digital information and how it may affect lawyers and what they do. While it’s admittedly hard for many to get their heads around how the blockchain works, there has been gradual acceptance among businesses of its value.

Lawyers, on the other hand, have by and large looked askew at the whole concept of blockchain and how it may impact how they do their work and, for that matter, the kind of work they may be doing in the future. For most lawyers, the blockchain has been mostly noise.Continue Reading Automation. Blockchain. A formula to reduce Legal spend?

“The Best Innovation Tool is Continuous Learning”

Dennis Kennedy recently published a new book entitled Successful Innovation Outcomes in Law: A Practical Guide for Law Firms, Law Departments and Other Legal Organizations.  In essence, it’s a primer and “how-to” on innovation in law and generally.

Kennedy is well known as an astute legal commentator and thinker. Perhaps that’s because he has worn so many hats during his career: in-house lawyer, technologist, author, and adjunct professor, to name a few. As he puts it, “innovation is a visible thread that runs through my career.” (By way of disclosure, I have known Dennis for several years and, like many others, turn to him often for advice and guidance. He never disappoints).
Continue Reading Dennis Kennedy’s Latest Book: Everything You Need to Know About Innovation