Strategic Legal Technology

This is a live post from the College of Law Practice Management Futures Conference. This session is Future View: Do You See What I See?. 

[As with all my live posts I try to capture the highlights of what panelists discuss and report accurately. Any of my own editorial comments appear in square brackets preceded by my initials, RF.]

Moderator: Sally Fiona King, SNR Denton
Panelists: Ross Fishman, Ross Fishman Marketing; Dave Hambourger, Seyfarth Shaw LLP, Janet Taylor Hall, Integreon, Chris Murray, Jones Lang LaSalle Americas, Inc.; Chris Petrini-Poli, HBR Consulting

Sally King Introductory Remarks
The new normal is clear, all prior bets are off, innovation is the order of the day. Law firms are under tremendous client pressure to reduce costs. Total demand for legal services is down. Clients are more sophisticated. Twenty years ago, the only GC lever was spend inside or outside. Today, the GC has many options to adjust and control costs. The GC is aided today by e-billing data stream, which provides insight that allows GC to compare and contrast law firms, determine who has is efficient and who is not. One GC told Sally recently that quality is a given - he cares about cost. Many law firms chase the same assignments. Realization rates are down - they average 84%. Profitability is down.

Some of the questions to consider today:
How should firms improve profitability and ensure their survival?
What should we make of alternatives such as LPO and Lawyers on Demand?
Should law firms embrace? If so, how?

Janet Taylor-Hall re LPO

Q: Where does Integreon expect to grown. What is happening with LPO. Can you tell us more about CMS Cameron McKenna?

Janet Taylor-Hall: Discusses the move from “LPO 1.o” to “LPO 2.0″. The company has grown from 10 legal professionals a few years ago to 750 today. This gives a sense of how LPO has scaled tremendously. These lawyers do work for both GC and law firms.

CMS Cameron McKenna, #13 law firm in UK, has outsourced its entire middle office to Integreon except for some very senior managers, marketing, and secretaries. The lessons learned: it’s not easy to do this outsourcing, either for the firm or the outsourcer. But it’s working because both sides are collaborating. If you talk to Duncan Weston, the managing partner, he explains he decided to outsource because he wants partners focused on clients and client relationships, not on any operational issues.

Ross Fishman re Marketing

Q: How are firms changing the way they market? What are some unsual moves recently? Do you have any insight on CMS Cameron McKenna?

Old advice: Law firms need to avoid brochure cliche. New advice: Law firms need to avoid website cliche. Marketers are fighting the same battles and having the same conversations about marketing for the last 20 years. “Boring cliches still prevalent.”

Notes that in smaller communities law firms have even more opportunity to differentiate themselves because there is less competition so even less emphasis on marketing and positioning. These smaller firms now target BigLaw work. With recession, they now have a shot at success. Large firms now fact skilled spin-offs, litigation boutiques, and competition from other small players. Dave Hambourger notes that yesterday the GC of Jones Lang specifically said he wished more small firms would pitch him.

Small firms still need to build their brand so that if big clients come calling - or if they call on big companies - the buyer has some awareness of the firm. Some of the small firms target specific niches or geographies.

Brochures are dead or very small; big brochures are all on the web now. Brochures moving to mobile device. But they are still boring. Has not seen any useful firm apps.

Social Media: expresses some skepticism about social media. Law firms are not the Chicago Bears or Justin Bieber. Clients don’t form emotional attachments to law firms. So social media has a different function for law firms. Law firms are not inherently interesting; firms must make themselves interesting. But several in audience say that younger generation “swim in the Facebook waters” and that longer term, firms have to find way to play in social media.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): this will be key for law firms.

Chris Petrini-Poli re Law Firm Strategy

Q: Law firms are changing the way they do business. Given survey you just conducted, what advice do you have for law firms?

Law firms have vast number of acceptable options. They have to choose the right ones. Clients are requesting pro-active interface, asking for new billing and fee ideas. Firms can capitalize on this.

Peer Monitor Index came out yesterday. Demand dropped, expenses are up.

Strategy worked stopped at many law firms in the recession. That is worst time to stop strategic thinking. Firms made many cuts in recession but did not make truly fundamental changes in operations - that is beginning to happen now. Is there a “Tier 2″, a way to fundamentally change how law firms operate? Sally asks about Six Sigma. Chris says firms have not really embraced it in any meaningful or wide-spread way. Janet says in UK, now firm has gone as far as Seyfarth has - but more lawyers today do know what Lean means.

95% of law departments report they are taking active measures to control outside counsel spend. Number one is keeping work inhouse. Inhouse headcount is up. AFA is second biggest. But law departments split 50-50 if alternative fee arrangements really work or save money. Average hourly rate paid to top three firms has gone up. This suggests that GC still willing to pay for premium advice. Sally notes however that even premium firms have realization issues, which suggests that clients may be willing to pay for expensive partners, but not for the overhead (meaning junior associates).

Chris Murray on Space Costs

Q: After people, leases are most expensive cost. Real estate in US is about 8% in US and 12% in UK. Up significantly from past. How are firms dealing with this?

Firms are outsourcing, developing more flexible space.

Client-Facing Space: Conference room utilization has not gone down. Most firms have moved to central conference centers - this allows higher utilization. Many firms used movable walls that go up into ceiling. These are sound-proof. Allow more flexible space utilization. More law firms now provide concierge services for visitors. Some firms focus on consistency of client experience across their global footprint (e.g., be able to plug computer in any office). There is a move toward food service in a common area. This allows more diverse food offering and reduces expenses. Firms not worried about clients mixing because they mix in reception and rest rooms anyway.

Practice Space: Not designed for client visits. Lawyers spend about 50% of their time in “quiet, reflective work”. 35% is in collaboration. This drives design. Many law firms now have coffee areas adjacent to conference center - both a client and practice amenity. In US, outside of lawyer offices, no walls should be fixed. In UK, move to open office landscape even for lawyers. American lawyers demand quiet unlike lawyers elsewhere in world. For one firm, had design sound-proof lawyer offices. In UK, cites examples of 2 firms that started with open lawyer space and a year or two later, built walls. Jury is still out on open lawyer space. In US, interior lawyer offices are becoming a viable option, especially with glass walls, and LEED requirements.

Practice space includes “teaming rooms”. Some are used to store paper, still [RF: !!] but firms are moving away from paper, but it’s still a slow process. More firms are putting in “convenience stairs” so that lawyers can more easily interact across floors. Firm developed lingo: “stair conversations”.

Support Space: As staff ratios go down, less use for interior space. Many firms moving to secretarial teams. The secretaries sit together and serve a group of lawyers. In one firm, a 3-secretary team support 21 lawyers. As secretarial ratio goes up (lawyers to secretaries), hard to find ways to use the space. The more a firm can consolidate support and centralize, the easier it is to plan space. Deciding what support staff can move offsite can be hard.

Dave Hambourger on Technology

Q: Tech is expensive still. How do we harness recent developments? What has the best potential to change the way we work? How should firms protect against firms that force upgrades by refusing to support older versions?

In past, firms would reject outsourcing out of hand. That attitude is gone today. That does not mean cloud solutions are automatically accepted, but they are not automatically rejected. Law firms realize they provide advice and documents; they don’t have to run servers. Lawyers think that inhouse solutions are more secure but Dave points out that cloud providers specialize in what they do and may, in fact, offer better security.

By offloading core services to the cloud (or other outsourcing solutions), IT management can focus on strategic solutions. Slowly emerging is an attitude that good enough is good enough - the tech does not have to be perfect.

Mobile Devices: CIOs historically fought outside services such as social media and mobile devices. Today, the “secret CIO” is the managing partner. He or she brings in a mobile device and wants it to work with firm IT infrastructure. So CIO has to make mobile devices work. Lawyers choose their own mobile devices so if firms enable the devices, the training issue goes away. Lawyers will use services such as Dropbox. CIOs have to figure out how to let lawyers use these services while minimizing risk. Devices are only getting more capable so lawyers will use them even more.

Re managing vendors who strong-arm upgrades: Little to do concerning Microsoft. If legal-specific, you can negotiate with vendors.

This is a live post from the College of Law Practice Management Futures Conference. This session is What is the Future of Price: Defining Value in Value Billing, Part II. 

[As with all my live posts I try to capture the highlights of what panelists discuss and report accurately. Any of my own editorial comments appear in square brackets preceded by my initials, RF.]

The Moderator: Ronald Staudt, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law
The Panelists: Toby Brown, Vinson & Elkins; Lisa Damon, Seyfarth Shaw LLP; Paul Lippe, Legal OnRamp; Mark Ohringer, Jones Lang LaSalle Americas, Inc.; and Ellen Rosenthal, Pfizer

Lisa Damon, Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Seyfarth Lean Background: About 6 years ago, clients started asking for alternative fees. Lawyers just guessed and, more importantly, were pricing inefficient services. Management wanted to understand how lawyers did the work, re-engineer the process, become more efficient. This led to Lean Six Sigma. It was hard to absorb for lawyers. Ended up keeping parts of it and jettisoning parts. Project management was especially important.

Lean Six now pervades Seyfarth. “Hard to articulate the extent of the change at the firm.” Lean has allowed the firm think differently about how it practices. One element of Lean firm kept is “DMAIC": Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control. Especially important is to find and fix the root cause.

Applying root cause of law firm problem today is how firms compensate lawyers. This is not for today but illustrates how Lean will ultimately affect law firm management.

When applying Lean to clients, meet with clients, lawyers, and law firm staff. Lawyers will say what they do but then the staff say what the _really_ do. This shows where the waste in the process is. In law, firms are motivated to bill so much until the client fires the firm. Lean and DMAIC avoids this.

The firm has client-facing project managers (PMP certified). This helps matters stay on track.

Data is incredibly important to Lean and Seyfarth. A new matter starts with data analysis. Client comes with a problem; the firm starts with work value per matter, illustrating with a scatter gram comparing value and work. Another key tool is process mapping. Some clients are not interested in this but many are. The more sophisticated clients understand that the process mapping removes inefficiency at both the firm and the client.

Observes that in typical firm, partner only sees what work a lawyer did at the end of the month. At Seyfarth, time keeping is daily. Firm will share this will clients, though many don’t want it because they are on value billing. But this lets project managers and partners see what work is being done.

Firm is working on a scorecard that will eventually change the compensation system. It’s based on the ACC value challenge. Beginning to use this to change partner evaluation and compensation; will eventually cascade down to associates.

Toby Brown, Vinson & Elkins

Made a transition from knowledge management to alternative fee arrangements a few years ago. Has been involved in hundreds of AFA arrangements.

Frequently hears “the question", meaning which AFA and how much? Tries to analyze past matters but the data are not very good. A varian on this question is “which one works?” Points out that there is no consistency. The success keys are trust and communication, not the specifics of the AFA structure.

The benefit of AFA is to become a trusted adviser in a long-term relationship.

Keys to making AFA work:
1. Define goals. Make sure to understand the client’s real need. For example, is it speed, precedent, stall, predictable costs?
2. Define scope. Doing a bid based on a complaint does not support defining scope.
3. Define the fee goal. Is it predictability or certainty, which are not the same: a client may want monthly predictability or certainty regarding total fee. Former may relate to cash flow, latter to budgets. Understand what drives the client and how GC is evaluated. It could be budget, outcomes, some type of audit for fair value.

===Discussion===

Q: How does above discussion relate to small firms?
A: Clients are figuring out that smaller firms in lower cost locations often offer more value. Damon says Seyfarth now collaborates more with smaller law firms. Sees “walls coming down” so that small firms work more with large ones. Brown says his firm competes with small firms and boutiques.
Damon says that all these movements also create alternative delivery mechanisms, including LPO and lawyers working virtually, which firms of all size can use.

Q: How does this apply to consumer law or small business lawyer?
A: Lippe says the same trends apply to all practices. Technology will be key everywhere. Clients will focus on value. 95% of the issues will be the same across practices and firm sizes.

Q: How should firms respond to value billing - where should we squeeze overhead / costs to make up for this?
A: Value billing does not mean less profit. Discounts are not value billing; if you use flat fees or capped fees, you can re-think how you do the work and maintain profits. It’s less “squeeze” than “re-shape how you do the work”

===Wrap Up===

Moderator: how do we keep this conversation going beyond the conference?

Toby: We need a Sedona Conference for value. [RF: Sedona is a leading non-profit that works on e-discovery issues]
Lisa: Lawyers and clients need to share success stories. That’s not happening now. A core change management principle is show success.
Paul: In so many words, “just act” - there are lots of management tools and measures in the market - try and adopt. One step: create inventory of law firm processes
Ellen: Work with other peers in other corporations so that when talking to law firms, the firms hear a more unified message about value. This will help change conversations in law firms.
Mark: Find ways to lower costs (e.g., put people in lower cost locations), use technology and use it well, adjust compensation to align incentives. Successful firms will figure out the right cost structures.

This is a live post from the College of Law Practice Management Futures Conference. This session is What is the Future of Price: Defining Value in Value Billing. 

[As with all my live posts I try to capture the highlights of what panelists discuss and report accurately. Any of my own editorial comments appear in square brackets preceded by my initials, RF.]

The Moderator: Ronald Staudt, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law
The Panelists: Toby Brown, Vinson & Elkins; Lisa Damon, Seyfarth Shaw LLP; Paul Lippe, Legal OnRamp; Mark Ohringer, Jones Lang LaSalle Americas, Inc.; and Ellen Rosenthal, Pfizer

Ellen Rosenthal, Pfizer on An Overview of the Pfizer Legal Alliance

Gets a lot of questions from law firms about how to value work. She did not have a good answer for how to set the price for a large chunk of work on an annual basis. There are no good metrics. Law firms measure on an hourly basis; Pfizer measures based on value received. The two are not speaking the same language.

Pfizer forbids its lawyers from talking about hours with the engagement partners. Wants to move away from lawyers. But the 500 lawyers of Pfizer push back a lot. They need to think a new way about value, outcomes, and deliverables. Coming up with a language to discuss pricing or value is very challenging.

The premise is that the billable hour is dead. About 70% of its global legal work is non-hourly billing. Pushing to put all of the legal work in the Pfizer Legal Alliance (PLA). The PLA consists of 17 firms; there has not been any turnover. Pfizer views this as a real alliance and collaboration. Pfizer believes that long-term, committed relationships will produce better value. The PLA law firms are integrated with the businesses and each other. The firms really work with each other. They do not hoard work because with a fixed annual fee set at outset of year, there is no incentive to hoard.

Pfizer is heavily invested in training the lawyers in the Alliance. Within Pfizer, three senior lawyers are on a governance board ("Steering Committee") with the Alliance’s Roundtable governance group.

The core value of the PLA is mutual value. Cynically, one could say Pfizer is asking for a discount. But real view is for changed economics and search for non-economic benefits. Thinks mutuality is a key idea of value.

The PLA value proposition:

• Cross-firm collaboration and information sharing and predicable income flow
• Access to learning about Pfizer
• Regular meetings between Pfizer and each PLA firm
• Knowledge sharing platform
• Annual meetings and firm visits

Law firm lawyers enjoy practicing more because they work collaboratively internally, with other firms, and with Pfizer. Pfizer sets a fixed fee a the beginning of the calendar year, payable monthly, irrespective of the level of work. Firms have predictable cash flow; moreover, they have no incentive to say they can do something well just to get the business. Alliance firms get to hear from CEO and other very senior Pfizer managers. There is a secondment program for law firm associates; there is also an associate roundtable (cross firm).

Pfizer sets the price in December. Discussions start soon to discus scope of work in 2012. 70% of scope is known; 30% not known. Staudt asks “how do you discuss scope without raising hours?” Rosenthal: we just don’t talk about hours. Also, we do not discuss specific matters in detail - we address the entire portfolio. But this is the challenge: if we say we are paying a firm $20 million, how much work is this.

Lippe points out that part of value is that it’s better to prevent a problem than fix it. That should drive some of the discussion. Rosenthal sees this more as a tactic than a principle. Pfizer experiments each year with how to refine the value and fees. Trying to focus on risks, level of complexity. Risk has multiple aspects (e.g., reputation, financial). [RF: I wonder if Pfizer or law firms run Monte Carlo simulations to assess potential outcomes in a large portfolio of work.] Pfizer asks, retropsectively, where firms spent most of the resources and then compare that to the value provided. What is the value to effort ratio? Is this at right level and, if not, how should it be adjusted? These are open questions that Pfizer is working on.

There is no true-up at end of year. Bonuses are for collaborative behavior and extraordinary outcomes, NOT for doing more or less work than expected.

Mark Ohringer, Jones Lang LaSalle Americas, Inc.

Company is one of the two largest providers of commercial real estate services such as managing or investing property. CBRE is the main competitor. Jones Lang invented the idea of outsourcing real estate management.

Mark is very frustrated with law firms. Has not found any strategy that is effective to manage and work with law firms. His strategy is to try to minimize work sent outside because fees are “sky high”. It got better for “about five minutes” during the Great Recession. Law firms are like private schools and hospitals - always going up.

Whenever Mark has a lot of repetitive work, e.g., contracts, he will hire a lawyer. His cost of getting a happy, experienced lawyer is about $125/hour. So once he has a full load of work, he hires someone inside. No firm can compete with his inhouse price. Manages 2 billion square feet of space. That means a lot of slip and fall cases in offices and retail space. Has completely outsourced all of this work to insurance companies. So the insurers deal with law firms.

Mark calls his department competition to law firms. Has hired 60 lawyers to work on revenue generating contracts. He cannot pass this cost through to customers (unlike banks). Does as much as possible to keep litigation from going to court. Wants to keep contentious matters out of law firms hands. If it becomes clear that a dispute is well-grounded, company will investigate. If something really went wrong, write a check to fix is better than litigating. Same with HR / employee matters.

So what’s left for law firms is hard to predict work such as M&A. Acquisitions can be global and flow unpredictable plus require specialized expertise such as ERISA and antitrust. For this limited scope of work Mark sends outside, he is willing to pay hourly. But he has people on staff who watch law firms like a hawk. Restrict outside counsel to where expertise is really hard - then watch carefully.

Cannot find way to motivate law firms to get to quick resolution of matters. They have no financial incentive to do this.

Mark recognize he is just one voice. Not claiming this view is a universal gospel. About 3/4 of money on law is NOT for outside counsel. For work that does not yet justify hiring a full-time lawyer, Mark works with Axiom. Legal OnRamp is working with company to automate forms. All this to keep work away from law firms.

Now, so little goes to firms that Mark is reasonably satisfied - as long as he carefully manages and gets just the senior partner and not all the minions.

“Completely flummoxed” with how to deal with law firms.

So the principle here: inhouse law department is the competition for law firms.

Paul Lippe, Legal OnRamp

Key value principles:
1. Always listen to client
2. Consider cost of doing work internally as alternative
3. Always easier to improve value than talk about it
4. Need alignment: common platforms, common incentives

Does a 2x2 grid.
1. Lawyers are actually smarter and act like they think they are smarter: this is status quo
2. Lawyers are actually smarter but act like clients are smarter: out compete other firms
3. Lawyers are not as smart as clients but act like they are: smarter bankruptcy [cites Kodak]
3. Lawyers are not as smart as clients and act like clients are smarter: dramatic success with clients

Lisa Damon, Seyfarth Shaw LLP;

Key value principles:
1. What’s best for the client is best for the law firm. This may mean bills are lower. Just listen to clients and follow-up.
2. Focus on relationships. When you do value right, relationships are different. Go from vendor to business partner quickly. Lawyers are much more satisfied
3. Clear and flexible approach to measuring success. Lawyers resist establishing success criteria. Start with a clear definition with client of success. OK to change this as long as you discuss with client.

Toby Brown, Vinson & Elkins

Key value principles:
1. Reiterate relationship, do what’s best for client
2. Understand the client’s goal
3. Define scope: is it a single matter, a portfolio? What does client expect?
4. Understand the fee goal
5. Price with fees, not rates. Assess fair market value (FMV) of services, not number of hours. But recognizes FMV may be hard to establish. But FMV of rate has not bearing on FMV of fee.

Yet another large law firm has opened a low cost service center. Is this old news that firms can simply note - or a call to action? 

Last week Pillsbury announced that it will open a low cost service center in Nashville, TN. Let’s start with a review of which other firms have already opened such centers.

Several firms now operate centralized service centers in low cost locations. Among US-based firms, Orrick has a center Wheeling, WilmerHale in Dayton, Reed Smith in Pittsburgh, Baker McKenzie in Manila, and White & Case in Manila. Among UK-based firms, Clifford Chance has a center in India, Allen & Overy in Belfast, Herbert Smith in Belfast, and Linklaters in Colchester. Separately, many firms in both countries have outsourced one or more business functions to companies that operate low-cost, centralized facilities.

A service center outside a high-cost city offers two obvious benefits. First is lower cost. Moving jobs from DC to Dayton, London to Belfast, or LA to Nashville reduces compensation and rent. The second is improved efficiency and effectiveness. Consolidating and centralizing a function offers several benefits: more flexibility to adjust staffing to meet peaks and troughs in demand; staff can develop specialized skills; easier to offer 24x7 service; and better potential (relative to dispersed support) to streamline and automate processes.

Now that a half-dozen US firms have opened low cost centers, will the market tip? Do other large firms risk suffering a cost and operational disadvantage if they do not have one? Yes, but the message is less “open a low cost center” and more “figure out how best to centralize support and reduce cost”.

Firms with offices in lower cost cities can centralize support in one of those cities (as Reed Smith did.) Those that operate in high-cost cities may need to open low-cost owned and operated centers or outsource.

Firms that do so should take full advantage of the opportunity. The transition can be costly, financially and psychically. Management should therefor take the opportunity to take a deep look at how they provide support overall. As I suggested in 2009 in Law Firm Staffing Reference Model, the “theory of law firm support” is not well developed. Benchmarking goes only so far. It can instill false comfort since many firms, despite lay-offs, are over-staffed or “wrong-staffed”. Smart law firm managers thus need to ask what support areas are weak or strong, what lawyers really need (and not just want), what training / experience is required to provide the support, and where those staff should sit. Answering these questions thoughtfully will make any centralization that much more valuable.

Firms that do not assess support needs and reduce costs may eventually need to lay-off staff. If the lay-offs in 2008 are any guide, the best they do is cut costs. Without careful planning and analysis to re-tool support, lay-offs are just a short term fix. Whether motivated by fear of future lay-offs or needing to remain competitive, I expect to see more firms open low cost centers or outsource.

Over the weekend I was reminded of how, in the early days of the Net, Google supplanted Yahoo as the place to find websites. And that made me think about the current e-discovery predictive coding discussions. 

The web exploded around 1995. Yahoo! was among the first success stories helping users locate useful websites. And I mean “locate", not “search”. Yahoo!’s approach was a directory, a human-built, nested set of menus.

Good idea - until search engines came along. Google invented an algorithm that used the number of inbound links as a “voting engine” to rank sites. That blew away the directory idea. The automated approach beat the human approach.

A similar story will likely play out in e-discovery. Published studies support what many of us have long known: humans are neither particularly accurate nor consistent. See, for example, Predictive Coding: Reading the Judicial Tea Leaves in today’s Law Technology News.

Human review of discovery documents is like the Yahoo! approach. Fine for low volume. Not so for high volume. We already see today the challenge of scaling.

This does not mean humans cannot sometimes pick better websites / documents than computers. It just means that as volumes grow, the latter are more reliable / consistent than the former.

Ordinary internet users figured this out in a year or two. How long will it take lawyers and judges to figure out that a skilled humans using smart software are better than the brute force of an army of humans?

I like my iPhone and iPod but I am no Apple fanboy. After upgrading to iOS5 and trying to use iCloud yesterday and migrating these devices to a new PC 10 days ago, I am frustrated and have lost a lot of time. 

I’ll start with a condensed narrative of my woes, then draw my conclusion.

The upgrade to iOS5, Apple’s latest operating system for iPhones and iPads, was bumpy. I saw a lot of chatter on the web that many people had problems. In the end, my upgrade worked but the prompts along the way were confusing.

Even more confusing was iCloud, which allows synchronizing contacts, calendars, and other information automatically across i-devices and a PCs or Macs. A blow-by-blow explanation would bore so I point you to Outlook 2010 PC? It’s iCloud Or Google Calendar Sync, Not Both – And Outlook 2011 Mac Gets No Love, a blog post by noted techie / search engine expert Danny Sullivan.

Sadly, I was not able to find any helpful Apple documentation; I had to rely on web searches and hits like the one cited. Along the way, I noticed that in iTunes (the synchronization software), under Help, iTunes Help, I received a “Not Found - The requested URL /itunes/win/10.5/ was not found on this server” error. Huh? This was a freshly updated iTunes.

I had a similar experience 10 days. Once I lost my job, I had to migrate my two i-devices from the company computer to my own. I spent hours in advance trying to figure out how best to do so. My search of the Apple support site for what I thought must surely exist- the one-page, step-by-step guide for this task - yielded nothing very helpful. After consulting web resources, I thought I had it figured it out. I confirmed with a call to Apple support (my iPad is still in the free support period). My plan worked but I panicked initially because I thought all my apps disappeared. Then I realized iTunes had moved all the apps several i-device screens over to the right. Aside from the time to re-organize my apps, no where did I see a warning this would happen.

Running into these problems was a huge waste of time. The conclusion? Either the technology has to be so truly simple that no documentation is required. Or the developer has to acknowledge some complexity and provide adequate documentation. Documentation does not appear to be Apple’s strong suit. There is no question the iPhone and iPad are beautifully designed and wonderful machines. Yet they do entail some complexity. Complexity that Apple appears to ignore.

On and off, I consider switching from a PC to a Mac. After this experience, I am reluctant. With a Mac, I doubt it would be long before I ran into a tech glitch and struggled to find answers.

Law firm CIOs try to keep tech easy but know simplicity is not always possible. That’s why firms train and provide ample support. A BigLaw CIO who took Apple’s approach to complexity (seemingly ignore it) would likely not last long!

Friday was my last day working for Integreon. I will continue blogging here while I decide on my next job. 

In September 2007, just after joining Integreon, I wrote My Move from Consulting to Legal Outsourcing, to disclose my day job so you could assess any potential bias. When I “change hats", I inform so you know my perspective.

With four years of experience in legal outsourcing, I write not just about legal technology, e-discovery, and knowledge management. Now, in addition to outsourcing, I also write about the business of law and “alternative delivery” models for legal services, which includes many options:

• Law firms with low cost onshore or offshore business and legal support centers.
• Companies such as Axiom and the Practical Law Company, which represent, respectively, innovative approaches to staffing and to knowledge sharing and re-use.
• Legal process outsourcers (LPO).
• New-model law firms such as Clearspire or Valorem Law.
• Web-based providers such as LegalZoom.
• Options just now emerging as UK legal reform and alternative business structures (ABS) take effect.

Post the 2008 economic crash, the corporate legal market has a new mantra: cost-effective and price-predictable legal services for clients; maintain profitability for law firms. Packaging varies but a few key ingredients both support and drive these goals:

• Process improvement
• Centralizing and standardizing high volume work with appropriate staff in cost-effective locations.
• Technology to automate and, more importantly informate (see In the Age of the Smart Machine by Shoshana Zuboff), the law practice and business.
• Evidence-based decision-making, driven by analyzing BigData.

My posts do always discuss legal tech but it is implicit in most topics.

I aim to find a full-time position where I can continue developing solutions consistent with the new mantra: deliver cost-effective legal services with better processes, the right resources in the right places, and smart technology, all driven by sound analysis. I may consult in the interim.

I hope you continue to find my posts informative, provocative, and, if opinionated, fair nonetheless. You can also follow me on Twitter @ronfriedmann, where my Tweets are exclusively professional, for example, referencing and commenting on interesting articles and blog posts.

This is a live blog post from the Masters Conference session, A Discussion about the Emergence of Electronic Discovery Related Certifications. Good, bad, Indifferent? The panelists are Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola, DC; Charles Intriago, ACEDS; Tom O’Connor, OLP; and Allison Skinner, ACESIN.  

[I have tried to capture accurately much of the discussion. I hit “post” as the session ends. Any editorial comments will appear in square brackets.]

Judge Facciola observes that lawyers historically prided themselves on being generalists. The rule requiring “competent representation” has traditionally been interpreted as a lawyer could pick up whatever expertise he/she needs on the case. Tells the personal story of family members, not in legal, who had sat for multiple certifications. He asks, do we need this in the legal market.

Skinner is a professor of e-discovery in a law school and a “e-neutral”. As a professor, she has encouraged her students to look into both ACEDS and OLP. She says either would distinguish the test-take and demonstrate interest in e-discovery. But the “verdict is still out” on the value.

Intriago explains his background in developing anti-money laundering materials and training and how it is relevant to developing a certification exam. 300 have taken the exam to date; pass rate is 70%. Test takers must answer 145 questions. Lawyers and staff have taken the exam, from both law firms and big corporations. Says ACEDS helps people do a better job, stay out of trouble, reduce risk, helps careers, and network.

The Judge asks O’Connor why, after all the formal education, someone should have to do more. O’Connor says law schools have failed to provide e-discovery training. He and another well-known EDD expert talked to law schools, which respond by saying “we train architects, not carpenters", meaning that law schools view EDD as too much in the trenches and not conceptual enough.

The Judge asks if there is something wrong with law schools that they do not teach e-discovery. Skinner says data she has seen shows that only 5% of law schools teach EDD. Most civil procedures do not cover e-discovery. Skinner says law schools should teach EDD.

The Judge asks how many in room have appeared before judges who did not appear to know anything about EDD. Many hands go up. Participants report a variety of problems from lack of technical know-how to unrealistic sense of how long tasks take.

Nigel Murray comments that the only thing worse than a litigator who knows nothing is one who knows a little. He asks, how can we (writ large) train large numbers of lawyers on EDD. O’Connor’s view is that law schools have a responsibility to teach EDD as part of civil procedure. Some discussion of corporations contributing to education on EDD; Intriago thinks that would create conflicts.

The Judge asks if purely online training suffices. O’Connor says the world is moving that direction and that people learn in different ways. So he sees this as one option.

The Judge comments that some argue that licenses lead to monopoly. Should there be government licensing? Or will that drive up prices? Should courts require that lawyers have passed an exam.

One participant explains how privacy community faced training issues and now CIPP is a widely recognized credential.

Discussion about how generally we should know if someone is competent and the limited number of recognized (by special words) legal expertise. [Editorial commentary: I think this is the key question and the right way to think about the EDD training and certification question. The lack of EDD know-how is painfully apparent today. There is undoubtedly lack of know-how in many aspects of law practice that we just don’t see so easily. This is why I think the market will eventually have to decide.]

The College of Law Practice Management and IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law host the 3rd annual law practice legal Futures Conference later this month. It offers radical new ideas - meaningful to inside and outside counsel and to providers - to address the changes we are now experiencing in the legal market. Please consider joining me Chicago for this always-great event. (Full disclosure: I am a Trustee of COLPM.) 

You can register at www.colpm.org and join the conversation in Chicago, October 28-29. Or click here to view the conference brochure (PDF).

This is a unique venue where you can engage in deep conversation. Unlike most legal conferences, we draw a great cross-section of people by area of expertise and organizational size. We have law firm executives, lawyers, marketers, technology thinkers, financial gurus, coaches, diversity experts, and more.

We will cover topics and ideas to help navigate the rapidly changing legal landscape. Our world-class speakers and Fellows make this a meeting you shouldn’t miss. Highlights of our agenda follow; and read to the end to see a description of the session I co-lead.

What is the Future of Price: Defining Value in Value Billing

The great recession and its law profession aftermath are driving more and more clients to demand fixed fee arrangements to ensure certainty and reduce legal costs. Law firms and their clients struggle to find solid principles that define that value. Hear a diverse panel of clients and firms including Toby Brown, Vinson & Elkins; Lisa Damon, Seyfarth Shaw LLP; Paul Lippe, Legal OnRamp, and Ellen Rosenthal, Pfizer on defining value. The audience will participate to identify whether universal concepts measure value across boundaries and invent the language of value for law practice.

Future View: Do You See What I See?
Where should we focus our attention? What have we already missed? How can we best prepare for “what’s next"? Sally King (SNR Denton) leads this provocative panel that includes Ross Fishman (Ross Fishman Marketing), Dave Hambourger (Seyfarth), Chris Murray (Jones Lang LaSalee Americans) and Chris Petrini-Poli (HBR Consulting). They will offer their perspectives on the law practice landscape.

Law Factories vs. “Bet the Farm” Firms
Will law firms of the future need to segment clients in new ways? Might some firms focus on “industrialized” practices: hyper-efficient work using automation and low cost resources? Might others focus on “bet the farm” cases using mainly top legal talent? Or do we need to focus on the “bread and butter legal work” middle ground? If the market segments, will it do so by practice, by firm, by matter type or along some other dimension?

Toby Brown, Vinson & Elkins; Tim Corcoran, Hubbard One; and Mark Robertson (Robertson & Williams) join me to lead a highly interactive session. Each of us will kick-off the session with a maximum 2-minute intro. We will organize and facilitate break-out discussions around a series of questions, including:

• What does it mean to industrialize law practice
• Can a single firm play both ends of the spectrum (factory and farm)?
• How big is the middle “bread and butter” segment and can this be industrialized?
• What large firm practices have industrial elements
• What consumer practices have industrial elements
• If paradigm is true, what are the implications for marketing. For professional development? For ethical compliance?
• Should law school teach lean six sigma, process mapping, or industrial engineering?
• Alternative service providers - cause or effect?

This conference never disappoints - I hope to see you there.