Training of associates. Everyone agrees it’s critical. But all too often, it’s left to happenstance. As I have discussed before, happenstance training often penalizes women and people of color. Older white partners gravitate toward younger versions of themselves when making assignments that serve as training.
Even beyond that, a “luck of the draw” training
Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash
With all the hype over GenAI, the metaverse, the digital world where people/avatars can mingle, has been largely forgotten. After all, the notion of working in teams of cartoonish avatars seemed unlikely at best. And silly at worst, particularly for any business purposes. No one seemed interested in dealing face to face with an avatar that looked like, say, Donald Duck. So, most of us dismissed the metaverse, putting it in the same class as blockchain. Much ado about nothing. Solutions in search of problems.
But then I happened to come across some groundbreaking work that Meta (formerly known as Facebook) is doing. The program is called Codec Avatars. It focuses on making the avatars closely resemble what we really look like and less abstract. They call these things Codec avatars. The goal is to make the avatars what they call “photo realistic” as opposed to expressive. Ok, you say, big deal, they are still unrealistic avatars with no arms and legs, etc. Why not just keep using Zoom?Continue Reading The Metaverse and Blockchain for Legal: We’re Back
The typical law firm business model and lawyer hubris often stymie effective succession planning.
Not that long ago, there was a plethora of articles and consultants focused on succession planning for law firms. You couldn’t attend a legal conference without seeing numerous presentations by well-heeled so-called experts on the subject. Of late, though, the craze seems to have died down. Propose a presentation on the issue now, and you probably won’t be invited to speak. It will be met with heh….old topic, already covered.
That’s why I was surprised to hear Laura Leopard, founder, and CEO of the consulting firm Leopard Solutions, being interviewed on the podcast, The Geek in Review, on just this subject. I must admit; I almost didn’t listen because I thought the topic had been beaten to death, and because I thought it had nothing to do with tech or innovation.Continue Reading Succession Planning for Law Firms. Hold My Beer
Trellis’ new state court analytics tools provide much needed insights into litigators and their law firms which will lead to better strategic decisions. But the real value of the tools may be to firm management, especially for large firms with offices in multiple locations.
Lost in the hoopla recently from the announcements of big players in legal tech of their generative AI offerings (as impressive as they were) was an announcement by Trellis of an important new set of analytic tools.
Trellis is a state court legal research and analytics platform. I have written before about Trellis’ laser focus on state court analytics. While other bigger players focus on federal court—where the data picking is easier—or offer state court analytics as another product line, Trellis understands the state court game better than anyone. Continue Reading Trellis New State Court Analytics Tools: Improved Litigation Decisions and Better Firm Management
Back in the day, there was a professional fireman named Red Adair. But Red was not just an ordinary fireman. He became famous for his knowledge and expertise in fighting oil well fires. Even more than that, he was known internationally as an innovator in a highly specialized and hazardous business: extinguishing and capping oil well blowouts. These blowouts were huge, expensive and happened both on land and offshore. These fires were challenging and required unique and far-reaching expertise.
As a lawyer, I modeled my mass tort marketing on Red’s pitch. We held ourselves out as only doing big complex cases. These cases are multi-faceted with constantly moving parts. Successfully handling them requires not only litigation savvy but media relations skills, precise risk assessment, and the ability to develop unique workflows to handle the litigation, often in multiple jurisdictions. Like Red, we touted ourselves as having abilities and the experience to handle these kinds of “fires” (and they often involved actually fires) that few others could match.Continue Reading Tackling Mass Tort and Complex Case Challenges with Redgrave Data’s Innovations
A few years ago, when contemplating whether to continue working full time in my law firm, perhaps as a CIO, or start my blog, I talked to Aaron Street, co-founder of The Lawyerist. Aaron told me, “There are firms that want to be innovative, and then there are firms that just want to say they are innovative.”
One of my favorite podcasts is Legal Speak, produced by Charles Garner. The topics are always interesting. The guests consistently offer thought-provoking ideas and positions.
Last week’s episode was entitled Why There Will Never Be a One-Size-Fits-All Solution to the Remote Work Conundrum. The podcast consisted of an interview by Patrick Smith with Ira Coleman, chairman of the large law firm McDermott Will & Emery.
It’s important at the outset to recognize and commend Coleman and his firm on the remote work issue. Many of his opinions recognized and were sensitive to the needs of lawyers. Many of his views were nuanced and recognize the needs of associates for flexibility in their work lives. Much more than many law firms, he and his firm demonstrate forward thinking and a recognition of new work realities.
But somewhat contrary to the title, Coleman’s position seemed to be that data supports the idea that lawyers (mainly associates) who work in an office somehow perform better. Better than those associates who work more at home. Continue Reading Remote Work: Lawyers Can’t Handle the Truth
“It’s a game changer when the game has changed.”
Richard Tromans.
There has been a lot of speculation lately about the significant impact large language models (LLM) will have on the future of law practice. The theory goes that these models will tremendously reduce the time lawyers spend on many tasks. This reduction, in turn, will force lawyers and law firms to rethink the financial business models upon which the firms have primarily been built. Law firms will be forced to change what they do, especially when clients demand it. And many pundits think this sea change will happen quickly.
Richard Tromans, a thought leader in the industry, writer of the blog artificiallawyer and the force behind the well-known and ground breaking Legal Innovators conferences, reccenlyt weighed in on these theories.
In a recent podcast interview and an excellent subsequent article, he analyzes change in the legal industry and what has to happen for real change to occur. Tromans concludes that change in legal will not come easily. Or quickly. (Tromans is hosting the U.S. version of Legal Innovators conference in San Francisco on June 7-8, at which the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and LLMs on the legal industry will no doubt be a topic of substantial discussion.)Continue Reading Generative AI and Legal: Its Not a Game Changer Until the Game Has Changed
I recently listened to Stephen Poor‘s podcast entitled Pioneers and Pathfinders. I am a regular listener and find it to be always enlightening. (Poor is Chair Emeritus of the large and innovative law firm, Seyfarth Shaw). This past week, Poor’s guest was John Alber, a former partner at Bryan Cave and its Strategic Innovation Partner for many years. Alber was one of the first chief innovation officers in a big law firm, so his experience in that regard, I thought, would be pretty revealing. And he didn’t disappoint. Continue Reading When It Comes to Tech, Lawyers in Law Firms Are Entrepreneurs
The truth is law is just not a client service driven business. And it looks like the pandemic has done little to change that.Continue Reading The Wolters Kluwer Future Lawyer Survey: Law Just Ain’t Client Service Driven