Does Social Media matter to law firms?
PUNCHLINE: If Social Media matters, then it matters to law firms because everything that matters to society in general must matter to law firms sooner or later. Watch this and make your own decision.
Wolfram Alpha from Steven Wolfram (a computational knowledge engine)
This is the most important technological breakthrough I've seen in 10 years. The fact that it was not designed specifically for the legal profession should not deter you from availing yourself of this resource starting NOW.
Google is amazing… Wolfram Alpha transcends it. Try it out !
WATCH THIS DEMO - 13 minutes that will change your life.
(Thanks to my son Daniel Riskin, PhD for making me aware of this.)
When Better Service Is a Bad Thing
What is your initial reaction to the title of this blog post? I thought it was daft… until I read the complete post by Susan Cramm on June 25, 2008 on her Harvard Business Blog: Having IT Your Way.
Here is an excerpt from her blog post:
PUNCHLINE: Based on my observations in the firms I serve around the world, I would say that too many lawyers pride themselves on their IT incompetencies believing that it makes them somehow charming and brilliant. I say they might as well be sneaking into the firm at night and taking cash out of the safe. The costs associated with that attitude include:
Here is an excerpt from her blog post:
Over the past decade, IT organizations have worked hard to improve services and in turn increase IT’s impact on the business. But in the quest to deliver great service, IT actually may have been disabling rather than enabling the enterprise.
How? In two ways. First, continual hand-holding leads to a loss of precious time that could be devoted to more important activities. Second, helping others who can help themselves circumvents learning. It lets them off the hook and alleviates their sense of responsibility. And ultimately it slows down progress as communication is constantly being run through an intermediary. In delegation lingo, this is called taking on someone else’s monkey.
PUNCHLINE: Based on my observations in the firms I serve around the world, I would say that too many lawyers pride themselves on their IT incompetencies believing that it makes them somehow charming and brilliant. I say they might as well be sneaking into the firm at night and taking cash out of the safe. The costs associated with that attitude include:
Allow me to transpose one of Susan’s comments for Managing Partners and CIO’s in the legal profession:
- poorer client service by failing to capitalize on the efficiencies technology offers
- competitive disadvantage (clients do not find incompetency charming ever)
- wasted IT personnel time
- distracting and therefore delaying or discouraging the latest IT initiatives
- <I’ll bet the IT folks out there can add lots to this list>
Pleasing partners shouldn't be IT’s ultimate goal (or that of the Managing Partner). Rather, the ultimate goal of the Managing Partner and the CIO is to ensure the success of the firm. Help IT serve you and the firm by making sure that IT isn’t doing anything for individuals that they can, and should, do for themselves.
Can you pass the Critical Thinking test of a Global Law Firm?
Lovells offers a “try out” Critical Thinking test which you can take right now, anonymously.
Lovells is one of the largest international business legal practices, with over three thousand people operating from 26 offices in Europe, Asia and the United States.
It is amusing to hear Americans debate the non-constitutionality of asking applicants to submit to testing while the rest of the world has absolutely no problem with it and in fact sees significant benefits. I will leave that debate to others but thought you might have some fun with a sample test.
Take Lovells' Critical Thinking test HERE.
PUNCHLINE: Enjoy!! I’ll tell you my score if you tell me yours!
NOTE The test is no longer accessible
Offshoring in India Changing Legal Services in the West
In Three myths about legal services offshoring (The Hindu) there is some very very sobering information especially for those who hope that it means offshoring will just fade away sooner or later.
If you intend to practice law for 10 or more years then: READ THE ARTICLE
Here are some teasers/excerpts:
"Attacks on the competence of Indian lawyers and law graduates are about as valid as saying that Indian software engineers are incapable of handling sophisticated IT (information technology) work. To the contrary, the Indian IT industry is a world leader, and the same will be the case with offshored legal services."
"A recent study conducted by Harvard Law School and LexisNexis reveals that 75 per cent of US law graduates admit they do not have the necessary skills to practise law."
"So you would expect that these deficiencies would be met by rigorous training programs undertaken by Western law firms. Guess again! The Harvard-LexisNexis study reveals that 64 per cent of young lawyers receive no organised, on-the-job training."
"By contrast, reputable legal services offshoring companies in India provide rigorous training to their lawyers, and the hours spent on training do not appear on invoices to clients."
"…at least in the US, law graduates for the most part are notoriously incapable of writing effectively in English. The problem is so severe that some large US law firms now assign a writing coach to each incoming associate. However, most lawyers in the West never receive this kind of training. By contrast, reputable legal services offshoring companies in India train all their attorneys in English writing."
"The future of the legal services offshoring industry in India appears very bright."
"Corporations, not Western law firms, will drive the market in the years ahead."
"Another way that corporations will drive the market, indirectly, is by obtaining flat (or fixed) rate billing from their outside counsel, instead of hourly billing. For example, the mega law firm, Morgan Lewis & Bockius, now handles all of the litigation for Cisco Systems for a fixed annual fee."
"Every sector of the legal offshoring industry will grow dramatically, including lower end services, such as document coding and legal transcription. Ultimately, however, the biggest impact, the long-term mother lode, will be higher-value services such as legal research and drafting – services that constitute the bulk of the legal work now done in the West."
"Long-term, India’s enormous, mostly untapped population of over one billion citizens will continue to make India competitive in relation to other offshore destinations… ultimately it will not only decrease poverty, but increase the number of law graduates."
"On the most positive note, the growth and development of the legal offshoring industry in India will help bring about a major change in the way legal services are delivered in the West."
Telepresence (for your law firm?)
The despised business of videoconferencing is about to get a new lease on life.
This weeks Economist has an article on Telepresence. The full title is “Behold, telepresence - Far away yet strangely personal”. (Requires subscription). Image above is from the article.
Here are a few excerpts to whet your appetite for the story – the headings are mine:
The Problem:
Videoconferencing was supposed to put an end to corporate travel. But positioning people in front of a camera, fiddling endlessly with controls and then either giving up or proceeding to stare at a tiny picture of a blurry face often seems less satisfactory than the humble telephone.The Solution:
Designers want people in telepresence meetings to appear life-sized, and the tables and rooms at the two ends to blend together seamlessly. (Rooms, furniture and even wallpaper are often identical, to aid the illusion.) People must also feel that they are making eye contact, which involves multiple cameras and enormous computing power. The delays in sight and sound must be negligible (ie, below 250 milliseconds, the threshold at which the human brain starts to notice), so that people can interrupt each other naturally. Sound must be perceived to come from the direction of the person speaking. And getting things started must be simple—ideally involving a single button or none at all.Saving Money and Time (law firm example driven by client):
In addition to saving money, Cisco argues that telepresence saves time. The firm recently completed a takeover in eight days (as opposed to the usual weeks or months) by putting the lawyers in telepresence rooms instead of on aeroplanes.More examples:
Lee Scott, the boss of Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, is said to see great scope for improving his supply chain. DreamWorks, a Hollywood studio that helped HP develop its telepresence system, says the technology will help it make movies cheaper and faster, by allowing creative types to collaborate without travelling.My Punchline:
Managing Partners – don’t think about this opportunity from the law firm’s perspective but rather your client’s. You may have some clients who will acquire this technology and will want you to participate – I welcome this as I believe that most law firm technology comes because the clients want us to have it (sometimes, “insist”). If top corporations in your markets populate your client list, perhaps you should become familiar enough with this technology to initiate the discussion with your major clients. After all, wouldn’t it be refreshing for your client to believe of you that your firm is progressive enough to be at the forefront?
Footnote (Greetings from Uruguay): Speaking of technology and the world becoming more virtual, I posted this blog entry from my hotel room in Montevideo, Uruguay following an assignment with an MDP (accounting and law) firm here. The Economist arrived promptly on my desk top this morning and I was able to effortlessly post this story. Perhaps before too long I will be able to conduct the kind of assignment I traveled here for by video conference.
About The Economist: You can of course buy the hard copy or subscribe on line. This story is marked: Aug 23rd 2007 | SAN FRANCISCO? From The Economist print edition
