Pre-pandemic, I faithfully attended ALM’s LegalWeek every year. The event was traditionally held in late January, in the dead of New York city’s winter. So every year, it would snow sometime during the conference. Attendees were fond of saying: it ain’t LegalWeek unless it snows.

 

This year, the conference was moved from late January to last week due to the Omicron surge and finally kicked off this past week. I figured it wouldn’t snow (and it wouldn’t be the normal LegalWeek) since it was mid-March and the crocuses were already in bloom. But sure enough, on the first full day of the conference, just like the swallows returning to Capistrano, on cue, it did indeed snow.

 

And just like the weather, the Show itself provided a sense of normalcy finally after two long years.

Continue Reading It’s Not LegalWeek Unless It Snows

The first ABA 2022 live TECHSHOW since 2020 concluded this past Saturday, and from all indications, a good time was had by all.

 

Maybe the best description of the Show I heard came from Jim Calloway, the Director of Management Assistance at the Oklahoma Bar Association. Jim said the Show felt like one half tech show and one half family reunion. And so it was. Lots of people seeing each other for the first time since 2020. Lots of smiles. Lots of hugs. Lots of random meetings in hallways and on the Exhibit floor.

 

One of my other friends remarked that he thought it was so nice to not travel and be with his family during the pandemic. That he might just keep doing that as we come out of it. And then he arrived at the Show, and as he put it, “It dawned on me how much I missed all this.” I think it was true for all of us, myself included. Jim was right: it felt like a good family reunion.

Continue Reading TECHSHOW 2022: It’s a Wrap!

A recent article in The Atlantic by Derek Thompson caught my eye. In the article entitled The Five Day Workweek Is Dead, Thompson opines that the future of work, at least for those not saddled with having to work at a specific place, will be radically different. The pandemic has introduced millions of workers to the new freedom of remote work—be it at home, at the beach, or Starbucks. And, says Thompson, they ain’t going back.

 

Instead, workers may return to the office part time-say Tuesday through Thursday. The rest of the time, they will work wherever and whenever they want.

Continue Reading A Three Day Lawyer Work Week?

Want to know what legal tech shows and conferences will look like in the new normal? We are about to find out. In less than 2 weeks, TECHSHOW, the American Bar Association Law Practice Division’s premier tech event, will kick off in Chicago. And the week after that, American Law Media’s LegalWeek will be held in New York City. TECHSHOW runs from March 2-5, while LegalWeek will run from March 9-11. (LegalWeek was postponed from early March due to the Covid surge).

 

TECHSHOW was one of my favorite legal technology events even before I became part of the leadership of the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Division. (I am currently Chair-Elect of the Division, which has some 20,000 members. LP is responsible for and puts on TECHSHOW). This year is the 35th such Show. Since its geared more toward smaller firms and solo lawyers, there is less high-power selling like LegalWeek. This creates space for more substantive discussions and learning from vendors. The last in-person Show in 2020 featured multiple substantive tracks, over 2000 attendees, countless exhibitors, a startup competition, and even a silent disco.

Continue Reading TECHSHOW 2022: Game On!

The Blackberry is dead. Officially. The Company recently announced that the remaining Blackberry operating system and software would no longer be available. And Blackberry warns, “devices running these legacy services and software …will no longer reliably function.” (Were there any such devices left?) Ah, the Blackberry. Rest in Peace. You served us well, at least for a time. And you ushered in the era of remote work.

Continue Reading The Blackberry: It Showed Us the Promised Land of Remote Work

There’s nothing worse than someone saying about your post, TL,DR. (meaning of course too long, didn’t read). It’s a kiss of death for a blogger.

 

There’s nothing worse than someone saying about your post, TL,DR. (meaning of course too long, didn’t read). It’s a kiss of death for a blogger.

 

But now, some members of Congress want to legislate this concept at least for those pesky app terms and conditions. Those terms and conditions that app developers make you accept to use their app. I mean who reads those things? Who knows what we really are agreeing to? And even if you did read and understand them, would it make any difference?

Continue Reading Legislate “Too Long Didn’t Read”?

A former law partner of mine was fond of saying “a lawyer spends half of his or her life worrying about not having enough to do and the other half worrying about having too much.” If the recent Thomson Reuters-Georgetown 2022 Report on the State of the Legal Market Report is any indication the profession is certain in the too much to do half on steroids. And that phenomenon may portend some fundamental and long-awaited changes.

 

In a nutshell, the Report demonstrates that to thrive post-pandemic and even survive, lawyers will need to better adopt technology, use better workflows, and make sure work is done by right mix and training, and experience. Otherwise, the work that is piling up during the great talent shortage just won’t get done.

 

According to the Thomson Reuters press release, the State of the Legal Market Report is issued jointly each year by the Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession at Georgetown Law and the Thomson Reuters Institute. The Report relies on data collected by Thomson Reuters. The Report reviews the performance of U.S. law firms and attempts to identify what factors drive long-term change and strategy.

Continue Reading Thomson Reuters’ Report May Signal Sea Change In Legal Profession

There used to be an advertisement for Oldsmobile automobiles that started with the phrase “not your father’s Oldsmobile”. The idea of course was to rebrand Oldsmobile into something different that how if was perceived. I thought about this ad as I was reading a recent article in the ABA Journal about the state of the profession as we go into the third year of the pandemic. The article included a discussion of solo law practice. The data discussed in the article suggests that solo law practice is not what it used to be and is evolving in some pretty important ways.

 

Some background. Several years ago, as most of you know, I left big law to become a blogger and legal tech consultant. I also maintained a law practice under the moniker embryLaw LLC.

Continue Reading Solo Law Practice 2022: Going Virtual

Well, I did it. Sort of. At the beginning of 2021, I set a goal of posting once a week on this blog. I didn’t hit a post every week, but I ended up posting 52 times for an average of once per week. I hit my goal despite a lengthy hospital stay of someone close in early 2021, a personal bout of breakthrough Covid, and numerous other minor and not so minor setbacks, slights, and ups and downs.

 

Some posts I know were better than others. Some too long. Some too short. Some made little sense, but some, a precious few, were pretty good, I think.

 

In retrospect, I learned (or maybe relearned) four things about blogging in 2021.

Continue Reading Four Things I (Re)Learned About Blogging 2021

“It’s like déjà vu all over again…The future ain’t what it used to be.” Yogi Berra

 

2021. A year that started with such hope. Vaccines had arrived. Hope and joy as it looked like we might come out of Covid darkness and resume life as we knew it. In-person conferences and meetings slowly returning. There were serious conversations about returning to work and the benefits.

Continue Reading Déjà Vu…All Over Again