♫ But I won’t look back, gonna keep on walking
For I know what lies ahead…♫
Lyrics, music and record by The Oak Ridge Boys.
In this Part II of the 2016 predictions, we continue our crystal-ball gazing into the near future! In this part we have predictions from:
- Bob Denney
- Joshua Lenon
- Frank Fowlie
- Euan Sinclair
- Russell Alexander
- Nate Russell
- Michael McCubbin
- Rob Walls
- Roger Smith
- Kevin O’Keefe
..and we will have further predictions in Part III!
Bob Denney:
The winds of change that have been buffeting the legal profession, not only in the United States and Canada but also world-wide, will intensify. These will be some of the strongest gusts:
- The number of non-law service providers will continue to increase as will the number of services they provide at less cost than firms can afford to charge.
- Legal departments in corporations and non-profit organizations will continue to grow in size because clients will keep more legal work in-house since it is less costly and can be managed more efficiently.
- The large international firms will continue to grow in size as they merge-in other firms but the total number of practicing lawyers in firms and legal departments will continue to decrease and fewer people will enter the profession.
- Non-lawyers with backgrounds in business, marketing and technology will continue to play a greater role in the management and operations of law firms.
- The Big Four Accounting firms will continue quietly but steadily building their legal services divisions in the countries that have authorized multi-disciplinary practices (MDPs), Britain, Australia and Mexico. However, rather than trying to build full-services practices, they will continue to concentrate on areas of law that complement their existing services such as immigration, which fits with expatriate tax work, labor which fits with human resources consulting and compliance, commercial contracts and due diligence.
About Bob:
For more than 30 years Bob Denney has been regarded as a leading authority on strategy, leadership and management for law firms throughout the United States and parts of Canada. He is a Fellow in the College of Law Practice and was one of the first inductees into the Legal Marketing Association’s Hall of Fame.
Joshua Lenon:
This is the year things open up. We’ve seen firms of all sizes adopting technology on one hand; on the other are firms dragging their feet. This is the year that those that invested in technology and the process breakaway. We’ve already seen foreshadowing of this in various surveys and metrics. By the end of 2016, there will be clear indicators of firms excelling precisely because of their adoption of technology.
About Joshua:
Joshua Lenon is an attorney admitted to the New York Bar. He studied law at St. Louis University School of Law, obtaining a Juris Doctorate and a Certificate in International and Comparative Law.
During this time, Joshua clerked for the Missouri Attorney General, helping prosecute discrimination claims on behalf of Missouri citizens.
Joshua also studied European Union Law at the University of Georgia School of Law’s Brussels Legal Seminar.
Joshua has since helped legal practitioners improve their services, working for Thomson Reuters’ publishing departments in both the United States and Canada.
Joshua currently serves as Lawyer-in-Residence for Clio, providing legal scholarship and research skills to the leading cloud-based practice management platform.
Frank Fowlie:
I think the one prediction I would make is the courts adopting the ‘Right to Be forgotten”. The European Union Court of Justice was the first to make such a ruling, and Japan has done the same. The British Courts have recently held that if something was covered by the EU ruling, it ought to be applied to the whole internet, and not just EU based search engines.
About Frank:
Dr. Frank Fowlie is presently the Ombudsman at the International Organization for Migration in Geneva. He was previously the inaugural CEO of InternetOmbudsman.Biz. In addition, Frank Fowlie was the inaugural Ombudsman at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers(ICANN).
ICANN is the agency which administers the global domain name system which serves as the backbone for the Internet. He served as the Ombudsman from November 2004 to January, 2011.
Euan Sinclair:
Predictions for 2016:
Legal Project Management as a concept is only growing. As I have developed my technology law practice in 2015, it is very apparent to me that clients are increasingly cost sensitive and look for lawyers to actively manage costs. I spend a good portion of my time preparing and updating budgets and Gantt charts for clients. Lawyers increasingly need to develop business skills like these to survive.
The more-for-less philosophy is becoming entrenched with in house counsel. It seems that if law firms won’t innovate, then clients will build innovative in-house teams. The combination of innovative in-house legal teams and automated processes may prove very tricky for law firms who may lose a significant portion of the bread-and-butter routine work they presently carry out for clients.
The rise of the procurement department as the purchaser of legal services and the professional law firm CEO will probably happen towards the end of the decade. A new risk to add to the radar is the incursion of the big four accountancy firms into the legal sphere. This is entirely self-inflicted since lawyers refuse to act on anything other than a narrow mandate. Lawyers with business skills, offering holistic advice, can help to reverse this trend.
About Euan:
Euan Sinclair was an in-house commercial lawyer for a number of years in Scotland before moving to BC in 2011 to become Director, Knowledge Management at Lawson Lundell LLP (all views expressed are his own). He also holds an MBA from Edinburgh University and a LLM in IT law from Strathclyde University, where he was taught by Professor Richard Susskind, amongst others. Euan called at the BC bar in 2014 and specializes in technology law. He is a LLM (Business Law) candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.
Russell Alexander:
And now for something completely different
2016 Prediction (and hope): We will continue to see More Judicious Quips from Superior Court Justice Quinn
Justice Quinn has a reputation for ‘telling it like it is’ when he writes his Judgments. Sitting as a Superior Court Justice in the Province of Ontario, Justice Quinn has adjudicated many cases; some of his notorious quips include the following:
Catherine Bruni v. Larry Bruni
- “Here, a husband and wife have been marinating in a mutual hatred so intense as to surely amount to a personality disorder requiring treatment.”
- This hatred has raged unabated since the date of separation. Consequently, the likelihood of an amicable resolution is laughable (hatred devours reason); and, a satisfactory legal solution is impossible (hatred has no legal remedy).”
- “Catherine and Larry were married on October 7, 1995. If only the wedding guests, who tinkled their wine glasses as encouragement for the traditional bussing of the bride and groom, could see the couple now.” And then later in an endnote “I am prepared to certify a class action for the return of all wedding gifts.”
- The legal system does not have the resources to monitor a schedule of counselling (nor should it do so). The function of Family Court is not to change people, but to dispose of their disputes at a given point in time. I preside over a court, not a church.”
- “I come now to the issue of spousal support, historically the roulette of family law (blindfolds, darts and Ouija boards being optional).”
- “It is likely that, in the period 2004-2006, Larry was having one or more extramarital affairs. Interestingly, Larry’s father was married five times, in addition to going through several relationships. Perhaps there is an infidelity gene.”
- “The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines “dickhead” as “a stupid person.” That would not have been my first guess.”
- “On another occasion in July of 2009, Larry said to Taylor: “You put shit in this hand and shit in this hand, smack it together, what do you get? Taylor.” And the endnote “I gather that this is Larry’s version of the Big Bang Theory.”
Pirbhai Costs Decision
- “Singh was evasive as a witness. He refused to acknowledge simple factual matters. He failed miserably in making reasonably diligent efforts to provide documentary disclosure, rendering it obvious that his objective was to divulge only what he wanted the court to see. Singh lied under oath. He tendered forged documents in evidence with the intention that the court act upon them. He perpetrated a fraud upon the plaintiff and his plan was to do the same upon the court. In this trial, he was a one-man crime wave. “
Thomas v. Thomas
- The parties in this matrimonial litigation, both with a military background, came to learn that marriage “is a field of battle and not a bed of roses.”
A footnote reads:
- It is both sad and remarkable that, prior to the wedding, these highly intelligent people did not discuss if they would have children or what roles each would perform in the marriage or whether the wife would be expected to pursue a career and work outside the home. A marriage licence surely must be the easiest of all licences to obtain.
- Like many families, watching rented videotaped movies was part of their lifestyle. However, they each would rent their own movies and watch them separately. Apart from eating, sleeping and breathing they had nothing in common.
- It is quite amazing that the marriage lasted 14 years. One would have thought that, “The weakest kind of fruit drops earliest to the ground.” (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, scene i, line 115.)
Stirling v. Blake
- In the period 2001-2013, these parties (individually or together) appeared in Family Court 65 times. At the St. Catharines Court House, they are more tenants than litigants.
- [The father] is a 55-year-old, self-employed painter, sometimes likeable, frequently articulate and always passionate. He has been married, divorced and is a grandfather and, like so many of the poor souls who amble into Family Court, he has not learned from his mistakes. He is too busy perfecting them. [The father] dances to the tune of a different drummer.
- In a trial involving self-represented litigants, my expectations are low: all I ask is that they be clothed. If they can fake civility toward each other and pretend to be respectful of the court, that is a merciful bonus.
Szakacs v. Clarke
- For best courtroom adaptation of a work of fiction, the award goes to the applicant, Clarissa Olenka Szakacs, who shamelessly feigned what she thought was necessary to convince the court to circumscribe access by the respondent to their almost-six-year-old daughter.
- One could sit in Family Court for many years and not encounter such a callously conniving and mendaciously manipulative litigant. …
- At several points throughout the trial, Ms. Szakacs emphasized that she was a Christian who practiced Christian values. There must be some key pages missing from her copy of the Bible.
So our prediction (and hope) for the legal community is for Justice Quinn to keep providing insightful and colourful quips of the quirky and often sad litigants that continue to draw the ire of both the Judiciary and the legal community.
About Russell:
Russell obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto and his law Degree from Osgoode Hall Law School. He founded Russell Alexander Family Lawyers in 1998, following his admission to practice law. The firm’s first location was opened in Lindsay, Ontario in 1998, followed by the Brooklin office in 2006 and the Markham office in 2010.
Today, Russell is widely renowned as a speaker at conferences relating to technology and the law. He is a faculty member of the American Bar Association TECHSHOW and has spoken at several conferences in Chicago and Toronto. He has also recently presented at the Ontario Collaborative Law Federation Conference and will Chair the Law Society of Upper Canada’s 2013 Technology and Family Law Conference.
Nate Russell:
My prediction relates to encryption tools, the law of solicitor-client privilege and the increasing risks both will face in an age of fear around terrorism and state security post-Paris attacks.
Encrypted messaging platforms and email services have been on the rise in the last couple years since the Snowden revelations. Snowden helped convinced us of the need for better encryption communications tools when he told us that state surveillance was not the stuff of paranoia—but rather a widespread and credible threat to solicitor-client privilege (among other forms).
Until the Paris attacks, Western government officials were — although vexed by renewed interests in encryption — largely lacking in public support for a crack down on encryption. Now, however, the agenda to force backdoors on secure products and encryption software is renewed.
For lawyers, to live in a world where warrantless surveillance of our clients’ communications to us is a credible threat we must face a moment of truth. What are we willing to do to continue to preserve the existing protections of privilege? And if the encryption tools that could have worked are being undermined by state influence, what are we as a pillar of the Rule of Law, willing to do to craft our own solutions? I think we will see more debate about what role the profession (via individual law societies or perhaps the Federation of Law Societies or even lawyer-membership orgs like CBA) has in providing its own infrastructure , servers and software to support encrypted communications.
We have not seen much need to evolve the privilege in many years. In the 1830s, solicitor-client privilege emerged as a right of the client, versus the barrister. In the 1880s it grew to cover communications outside litigation per se. And in 1979, solicitor-client privilege was elevated from a rule of evidence to a substantive rule of law (the SCC in Solosky). It is now a fundamental civil and legal right in Canada. We are entering a time when lawyers may need to account for positive actions taken to preserve this right, up to and including building our own encryption services, since it has few other champions who can protect it as well as us.
About Nate:
Nate Russell is one of two Liaison Lawyers at Courthouse Libraries BC, and the primary coordinator of lawyer-produced content on www.courthouselibrary.ca and wiki.clicklaw.bc.ca. In addition to posts for the Stream, where Nate blogs on a variety of practical topics relevant to BC lawyers, he is a regular blogger with the national law blog Slaw. Nate’s posts tend to focus on technology and issues relevant to small firms.
Michael McCubbin:
Here’s my prediction: more remote working opportunities that will continue to erode the Cravath business model. Remote working, particularly when coupled with a fee-sharing arrangement, is really a triple win and I do not see how more firms are not taking advantage of it. Firms do not take on the overhead associated with real estate to house a lawyer. Lawyers can work as much, or as little as they want and from where they want (much of the time). Clients get better value by having happier, more responsive lawyers and (one would hope) receive better value from that as well as reduced rates to reflect the cost savings from reduced firm overhead.
Dogwood Law Corp., while not fee-splitting in at least this instance (I have no idea what their business model is for their law firm proper) is offering “e-lawyering” for lawyers who want a different work arrangement. Essentially, the service offers a flat monthly rate for access to support staff, use of office space for client meetings, and marketing.
Anyway – have a happy holiday and I wish you the best for the new year!
About Michael:
Michael draws on a broad variety of life experience that allows him to understand and relate to most clients that walk in the door.
He opened his office with the view that there was a better way to practice law, one that avoids the needless expense of conventional law firms and focusses on client outcomes. Today, his clients value things like not being charged for printing and file storage fees, as well as the responsive, efficient service associated with a digital practice that still has a bricks & mortar office in a Vancouver heritage building.
Michael holds a Bachelor of Environment, with an economics specialization, from the University of Waterloo. He obtained his juris doctor at the University of British Columbia. He was active in school life at both universities, captaining the varsity rugby team at Waterloo and playing a significant role in the Law Students Legal Advice Program at UBC. During this time, he also worked a variety of jobs ranging from manual labour to working for the Braidwood Inquiry and everything in between.
Beyond that, Michael is an avid sailboat racer, among other things having captained the yacht “Adrenaline” in an offshore race between Norway and Scotland. He is a keen backcountry and resort skier. His rugby days are behind him, but he remains connected to that community and often plays in alumni games when the chance arises.
Michael has acted for clients in such issues as the Occupy Vancouver case, a multimillion dollar tax fraud matter, a variety of human and civil rights cases, and in employment, personal injury, commercial, and environmental litigation.
Michael frequently speaks on legal technology issues and participated in one of the first paperless Court of Appeal hearings in British Columbia. He is an active member of the Trial Lawyers Association of BC and sits on its Legal Aid Action Committee.
Rob Walls:
I’ll give this a shot from a regional law firm IT perspective:
- After a major breach occurs, wearables will be identified as a legitimate threat vector and vendors will scramble to include them in their MDM/MAM/EMM solutions.
- Windows 10 will set new records for rate of adoption in the Enterprise.
- BlackBerry will exit the mobile hardware market.
- Hyperconvergence will become the darling buzzword du jour. The promise will be great but the reality much less so, for many years to come.
- #1 helpdesk response will remain “Have you tried rebooting it yet?”.
About Rob:
Rob’s been a computer enthusiast since the days when the family room TV filled in as computer monitor and programs took 30 minutes to save on audio tapes. He lobbied for, and got, a computer education program started at his high school and in college he focused on low level language programming. Rob then decided to explore his wild side as a CGA student before returning to IT and acquiring MCSE and CNA designations. In 2007, after almost two decades supporting technology in the ocean shipping industry, Rob entered the legal technology field with Boughton Law. He is responsible for the firm’s Information Technology infrastructure and just about everything else that’s plugged in. Rob is also the Technology Subsection co-chair of the BCLMA and Member Liaison of ILTA.
Roger Smith:
Predictions from London:
2016 is the big year and the eyes of the world are on British Columbia. Will the Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT) reveal itself to be a winner in the Online Dispute Resolution stakes? Will MyLawBC show how international collaboration with a team in The Netherlands and a US platform can demonstrate how legal advice on the internet will change for ever?
For some reason – probably the West Coast vibe spreading up from the south – BC finds itself at the apex of developments in online legal provision. Throw in the magnificent work of the Justice Education Society (JES) which has inspired others around the world, not least the Californian courts which have leased some of its online provision and BC finds itself triple blessed in the low cost digital legal world – a rival for your lakes, mountains and snow in the real one.
My prediction is that both the big new projects will be a success. And JES will continue to delight its supporters – among whom I remain a cheerleader. Certainly, I am rooting from abroad for MyLawBC to herald the end of wallpaper advice sites and the beginning of a much more thoughtful and interactive approach. There is no reason why the CRT should not be a world beater. Out here across the Atlantic, we are certainly watching it with care in terms of showing how courts and tribunals may go online. There will, of course, be setbacks. teething problems and initially whingeing doubters. But, hold fast BC. 2016 will show you leading the world. And showing that public provision, sensitively deployed in digital provision, can significantly improve access to justice even in these straightened times.
About Roger:
Roger is a lawyer and legal aid expert who has conducted research on the potential use of digitally delivered legal services to those on low incomes for the Legal Education Foundation. His report is available on their website: www.thelef.org.
Kevin O’Keefe:
The line between networking in the offline world and the online world is going to begin to disappear. Professionals who understand how to press the flesh on the net as well at cocktail parties are the ones who will truly build relationships and a strong word of mouth reputation.
About Kevin:
♫ The sun will come out tomorrow
So you gotta hang on
’til tomorrow, come what may!
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow
You’re always a day away! ♫
Lyrics and music by: Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin, recorded by Anne.
This is the time of the year that I love! The 2016 Predictions – Part I! Our group of thoughtful prognosticators have put their thinking caps on and now we can see what they think lies ahead. In this instalment, we have predictions from:
- Gerry Riskin
- Bill Lipner
- Jordan Furlong
- Terrance Hudson
- Larry Bodine
- Buzz Bruggerman
- Colin Rule
- Ellen Freedman
- Bob Denney
- Sharon Nelson and John Simek
- Joshua Lennon
- Sheila Blackford
- Andre Coetzee
- Ben Stevens
- Brian Mauch
- Nikki Black
- Frank Fowlie
- Russell Alexander
- Michael McCubbin
- Rob Walls
- Rodger Smith
- Kevin O’Keefe
- Yours truly and others…
I hope you have as much fun with these as I do! And you, gentle reader, can send in your predictions for the next instalment!
Gerry Riskin:
In 2016, The legal profession camel will grow a 3rd hump.
Traditional hump number one will be the top firms doing the top work for the top clients. They have their own set of problems but for the most part will survive for at least one more year.
Hump number two will be firms that are sensitive to a major shift in the marketplace and will adapt quickly and imaginatively with sophisticated project management, pricing and labor allocation.
Hump number three are the firms that are holding on to tradition for dear life. One well known hump three firm (that was perceived to be very strong) will surprise the marketplace by disclosing major weakness under their financial hood and rapidly liquidate. This event may be the catalyst that causes other hump three firms to move into hump two with great speed as 2017 approaches.
About Gerry:
“When Gerry speaks, he reaches parts of your mind that have never been used before.”
–Sue Stapely, Solicitor and Media Professional; London, England
Gerry Riskin, B.Com. LLB, P. Admin, is a Canadian lawyer and Business School graduate with a global reputation.Gerry has clients including the most prominent firms in the world. Gerry is also a Visiting Fellow of The College of Law in London and a Visiting Professor to the Gordon Institute of Business Science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management.
Gerald Riskin is a Canadian lawyer and Business School graduate with a global reputation as an author, management consultant and pioneer in the field of professional firm economics and marketing.
After winning two Queen Elizabeth Scholarships, he practiced law from 1973, in 1979 becoming a partner with one hundred-year-old Emery Jamieson and then in 1984 becoming the Managing Partner of Snyder & Company with offices in Canada and Hong Kong. Gerry was consistently a strong rainmaker and quickly began to develop a reputation which led to a demand for his abilities to teach others to attract clients.
In 1983, Gerry co-founded The Edge Group which in January 2001, evolved into Edge International. Edge topped the list in a survey depicting the most popular marketing consultants by major U.S. firms.
Gerry authored ABA best seller The Successful Lawyer available as a book and a CD audio program. Gerry co-authored, at Butterworths’ request, a text on the marketing of legal services called Practice Development: Creating the Marketing Mindset, and, for The Institute for Best Practices, two works for those in firms with management responsibilities: Herding Cats and beyond KNOWING, both of which have become management best-sellers (Herding Cats has remained on the “Canadian Management Bestsellers “list for several years).
A popular facilitator, teacher and retreat speaker, Gerry is a widely recognized expert on managing professional service firms, described by The Financial Post as “Canada’s professional firm management and marketing guru, with a client base stretching from Britain to the United States.” Professional marketing pioneer, Bruce Marcus, said of him in Competing for Clients, “Light years ahead of almost everybody else, his clientele is indeed worldwide.” Recently, the head of a national conference said of Gerry’s session, “As far as I’m concerned, that was the best practice-related seminar I’d ever attended!” His highly interactive approach mixed with energy and humour keeps attendees engaged and eager for more.
Bill Lipner:
I’ll bite (no pun):
- With corporate resources at hand, law departments will deploy technology which (significantly) further reduces the role of outside counsel.
- A key technology in law will be artificial intelligence which will be used to replace human powered work with machine powered work. AI is starting with routine tasks like document review but will be applied to higher level tasks like contract review and facts analysis.
- The “innovative few” law firms will deploy emerging technologies to reinvent their business, making it easier for them to take larger slices of the services pie at the expense of their peer firms.
- Non-lawyer ownership will be permitted in the USA by 2018.
About Bill:
Bill Lipner is a consultant and marketing executive with over 20 years of experience in content management and how unstructured data is created, managed, shared, and leveraged for bottom line benefits. Bill’s experience includes work with document management systems in document-intensive organizations, collaboration solutions, and how to move organizations to the paperless office.
Special focus on legal practice and special interest in teaching information consumers in any organization how to best leverage the technology they are using to manage and predict risk, meet compliance obligations, and drive operational efficiency and effectiveness.
Bill holds an MBA from Florida State University,is a Certified Document Imaging Architect (CDIA), and an Adobe ACE (Acrobat 10.1).
EMAIL Bill at bill.lipner@discoverypartners.us
LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/lipner
Jordan Furlong
Thanks very much for the invitation, Dave! Here’s my best shot:
We’ll look back at 2016 as a turning point for legal regulation in Canada. “Non-lawyer” ownership of law firms was stymied in 2015, but this year will bring us something profoundly more important: proactive, principle-based, entity regulation of legal services. Starting with Nova Scotia and the Prairie provinces, law societies will shift the regulatory focus away from rules of conduct and lawyer misbehaviour and towards “ethical infrastructure” and enterprise-level responsibility for maintaining and improving a regulatory culture. This will have an enormous influence on how lawyers practice, how law firms manage, how law schools teach and how law societies regulate. ABS would have affected maybe 1 lawyer in 100; entity-based regulation will affect every single lawyer in private practice.
About Jordan:
Jordan Furlong is a leading legal industry analyst who forecasts the impact of the changing legal market on lawyers, clients, and legal organizations. Jordan has addressed dozens of law firms, state bars, law societies, bar executives, law schools, and judges throughout the United States and Canada on the evolution of the legal services market.
Terrance Hudson:
My predictions for family law are as follows:
The Courts will continue to be viewed as a resource of last-resort for those experiencing family law issues; and, mediation, arbitration and other forms of dispute resolution will continue to increase in demand by the public as they are far less destructive to the family and are more economical.
While families may break up, the family dynamic must be maintained. The courts are not set up to handle these types of things as they are based on confrontation principles such as the Rule in Brown v. Dunn. The Courts will continue to be overburdened by those that cannot afford private alternative dispute resolution services and by those who do not want to do the work necessary to help people work out solutions.
In my view, the Legal Services Society should expand its funding of alternative dispute resolution services by increasing funding to mediation, and adding arbitration and parenting coordination services. This would expand the access to these services that are desperately need to reduce the burden on the Courts, to expand access to justice, and provide a more wholistic process for the resolution of disputes. Training needs to continue to be at the high end for those wishing to practice these areas.
The reality is that families are irreparably harmed by trials. While they are necessary in about 5-10% of cases where there is abuse, in most cases they are not required. Lawyers need to be increasingly creative, use alternative dispute resolution methods and avoid trials that can needlessly destroy families.
About Terry:
My interest in family law includes representing clients in the provincial and supreme Court, acting as a mediator and arbitrator, writing articles and doing my best to provide information to the public that is of general interest in a manner that is readily accessible.
The Courts processes are often difficult to understand and navigate and thus, I do my best to provide information to assist those who are unrepresented to seek Justice for themselves. www.hudsonlawyers.ca
Larry Bodine:
Here are my marketing predictions for 2016.
- SEO officially becomes obsolete in 2016, killed off by repeated Google artificial intelligence and algorithm updates.
More blogs = more business. Law firms that don’t adopt content marketing with a frequently-updated blog will gradually fade away, as other web-savvy law firms nip away 2-3 good files per month — like being nibbled to death by ducks. Smart law firms already know that more frequent blogging equals more leads and clients, according to Hubspot. - Social media goes legal. Troglodyte law firms will start to get active in social media, because the more engagement their posts get, particularly on Facebook and Google+, the higher the authority that Google will assign to the website.
- Law firms will start to create non-promotional, single-topic informational sites — like Drugwatch.com (sponsored by the Peterson Firm) or BrainandSpinalCord.org (sponsored by Newsome Melton) — to capture clients early in the decision-making process when they are researching their injury.
- Law firm marketing will be shaped by the way consumers search for an attorney. For example, the top directories for personal injury attorneys are:
- FindLaw.com
- Avvo.com
- Yelp.com – surprise!
- Lawyers.com
- Thumbtack.com – surprise!
- Review sites. Law firms will assign staff and develop systems to methodically get good reviews on imporant sites like Google, Yelp and Lawyers.com. Approximately 83 percent of people check lawyer reviews as the first step to finding an attorney.
About Larry:
Larry Bodine is a marketer, journalist and attorney who knows how to turn website visitors into clients for trial law firms. His team has drafted law firm blog posts for many websites including The National Trial Lawyers, PersonalInjury.com, Martindale-Hubbell, Lawyers.com and LexisNexis. Results include:
He was inducted into the PILMMA Hall of Fame in July 2015.
4 Million consumers read the latest legal news on Lawyers.com over a 12-month period, producing more than 7 Million page views.
The LawMarketing Blog gets 400 visits per day — more than 1 million visits over the last 10 years.
Larry is followed by 23,000 people on Twitter followers, he is in 2,000 Google+ circles, and participates in dozens of LinkedIn groups.
He writes for websites like the Huffington Post, the LexisNexis Business of Law Blog, state bar association websites, LawFuel, and trial law firms.
He is the Editor in Chief of PersonalInjury.com, the leading news site about verdicts and settlements.
Larry updates The National Trial Lawyers website every day with legal news for lawyers.
To get a content review of your website, call Larry today at 520.577.9759.
For Business Development Training for Your Firm, visit bit.ly/BodineTraining.
Buzz Bruggerman:
Given the anti-immigrant hysteria here in parts of America, coupled with the madness around gun control, here’s my prediction vis a vis American politics…
I fully expect Hilary Clinton to get the Dem. Nomination, and at the end of the day I expect the Reps to rally around someone like John Kasich. In November 2016, I expect the R’s to win by a hair, and for our country to be plunged into 4 or more years of darkness.
Very depressing prospects, but America is becoming very polarized, and I see nothing that is going to reverse that process in the near term.
About Buzz:
Trying to change the world, and helping to connect great people.
ActiveWords Co-Founder, Tech Evangelist, connector, small town Minnesota boy, Duke grad, and serious Duke basketball fan.
Colin Rule:
2016 will be the year of ODR and Consumer Protection. Some folks might remember the conference held in Vancouver in 2010 focused on ODR and Consumers. 2016 will be the year many of the ideas hatched there finally come to fruition. The EU ODR regulation will come live early in the year. The UNCITRAL ODR Working Group will wrap up over the Summer, issuing a position paper from all the delegates calling for high quality cross-border consumer ODR. The OECD Council on Consumer Protection in eCommerce will finalize recommendations calling for quality ODR. Amy Schmitz and I will also publish our book on ODR and Consumer Protection through the American Bar Association. The need for fast and fair redress for consumers is finally coming a head, and the consensus is that ODR is the only path forward. 2016 will be the breakthrough year.
About Colin:
Colin Rule is Co-Founder and COO of Modria.com, an ODR provider based in Silicon Valley. From 2003 to 2011 he was Director of Online Dispute Resolution for eBay and PayPal. He has worked in the dispute resolution field for more than a decade as a mediator, trainer, and consultant. He is currently Co-Chair of the Advisory Board of the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution at UMass-Amherst and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Gould Center for Conflict Resolution at Stanford Law School.
Colin co-founded Online Resolution, one of the first online dispute resolution (ODR) providers, in 1999 and served as its CEO (2000) and President. In 2002 Colin co-founded the Online Public Disputes Project (now eDeliberation.com) which applies ODR to multiparty, public disputes. Previously, Colin was General Manager of Mediate.com, the largest online resource for the dispute resolution field. Colin also worked for several years with the National Institute for Dispute Resolution (now ACR) in Washington, D.C. and the Consensus Building Institute in Cambridge, MA.
Colin has presented and trained throughout Europe and North America for organizations including the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the Department of State, the International Chamber of Commerce, and the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution. He has also lectured and taught at UMass-Amherst, Stanford, MIT, Pepperdine University, Creighton University, Southern Methodist University, the University of Ottawa, and Brandeis University.
Colin is the author of Online Dispute Resolution for Business, published by Jossey-Bass in September 2002. He has contributed more than 50 articles to prestigious ADR publications such as Consensus, The Fourth R, ACResolution Magazine, and Peace Review. He serves on the boards of the Consensus Building Institute and the PeaceTech Lab at the United States Institute of Peace. He holds a Master’s degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in conflict resolution and technology, a graduate certificate in dispute resolution from UMass-Boston, a B.A. from Haverford College, and he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Eritrea from 1995-1997.
Ellen Freedman:
The perfect storm has arrived. I (and other PMAs – Practice Management Advisors) predicated it’s arrival long before the recession hit. Thanks to the layoffs and freezes on hiring during the recession, the storm was temporarily delayed in arriving. Now that the legal industry sluggishly pulls out of the pit many firms fell into, the storm effects are clearly being felt.
The perfect storm I am referring to is the shortage of available law firm personnel suited to the positions open. Primarily we are hearing the first desperate pleas for help from firms located in rural and suburban areas. Whether the opening involves a legal assistant, legal secretary, bookkeeper, paralegal or courthouse runner, or any other administrative position, firms are struggling harder than ever to find suitable candidates.
The perfect storm has been created by a convergence of many factors:
- Accelerating rate of retirement of the “old guard” of experienced legal secretaries, estate administrators, and so forth.
- Lowered quality of available entry level candidates – many of whom lack the most basic skills in reading, writing, spelling, grammar and proofreading.
- Law firm’s inability and unwillingness to train, accompanied by increasing complexity of even the simplest positions.
- Increasing move of candidates entering the workforce toward higher positions than before, which in turn tends to increase demand for administrative support even further.
- Diminished regard for administrative positions by potential employment candidates.
- Increased competition with other industries which provide advancement opportunities not available in the legal industry
- A smaller workforce demographically, despite dual-career households as the new normal.
Professionals are included. As firms seek to start regrowing their firm’s associate ranks from the bottom, the average law firm struggles to find the combination of work ethic and abilities necessary to join what is essentially still a mostly sink-or-swim environment. Firms with brand names or profitable boutique practices continue to entice the best and brightest candidates. The rest of the firms scramble over the remaining candidates. General practices in rural areas risk dying due to lack of talent for succession purposes, rather than lack of demand for services.
About Ellen:
Ellen serves as the Law Practice Management Coordinator for the Pennsylvania Bar Association. In that capacity she assists PBA’s members with management issues and decisions on the business side of their practice, including areas like technology, financial management and profitability, human resources, marketing, risk management, setting up a practice and so forth. PBA members are encouraged to contact Ellen through the 800 “Hot Line” at PBA headquarters, (800-932-0311 x2228) or through email (lawpractice@pabar.org).
Ellen is founder and President of Freedman Consulting, which assists PA law firms with a full range of issues and projects on the business side of the practice. More information about Ellen and her law practice management services may be obtained at http:www.FreedmanLPM.com. Ellen also publishes the Law Practice Management blog at www.PA-LawPracticeManagement.com.
Ellen holds the designation of Certified Legal Manager through the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA), the credentialing body for the CLM degree. Of the 11,000+ members of the ALA, approximately 260 are certified legal managers. Ellen was one of the first 20 in the nation to have achieved this designation. She holds a Certification in Computer Programming from Maxwell Institute, and a Certification in Web Site Design and a B.A. from Temple University.
Ellen managed inside law firms for twenty years. Most of that time was spent in a mid-size (35+ attorney) firm environment. She launched her consulting practice in 1998, and joined the Pennsylvania Bar Association in 1999.
Ellen is an associate member of the American Bar Association, and its Law Practice Management and General Practice & Small Firm sections. She was a member of the Association of Legal Administrators for over 20 years, and founded the Independence Chapter. She is a frequent author and speaker on law firm management issues on a national level.
That is it for Part I – stay tuned for Parts II and III – So you gotta hang on ’til tomorrow, come what may…!!!
♫ Get a leg up
What’s the matter
Are you shy, shy, shy? ♫
Lyrics, music and recorded by: John Mellencamp.
In an article entitled: 5 Rules for When to Listen to Advice (And When Not To) in Inc. Magazine, Matthew Swyers, the Founder of The Trademark Company
stated (here I am just going to summarize) the rules as to determine if advice is worth anything:
- Context: Determine the weight to be given to advice from the context in which it is given.
- Unsolicited Advice: Determine why someone is giving you advice.
- Motivation: What is the person seeking who is giving you advice? Matthew says, “What is their end game?”
- Knowledge: How reliable is the advice that you have been given?
- Experience: What experience does this person have relative to the advice that they are giving?
All this is to put the following advice in context. Peter Legge, O.B.C, CSP, CPAE, HoF, LLD (Hon)
is an author, a very successful businessman, a community leader and an incredible presenter. I went to one of his presentations years ago and just rediscovered his handout: a publication entitled “97 Tips: Doing Business in Tough Times, Proven Strategies that Work“. Since the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates slightly on Wednesday, which I understand is bad news for the Canadian dollar and economy, I thought it was appropriate to post some of his 97 tips here that deal with leadership and personal conviction. Full disclosure: I went up to Peter after his presentation and asked if I could republish, with attribution, some of his tips and he agreed. I assume that this approval and consent has not expired with the passage of time. After all, Peter’s advice is timeless:
- Be positive. You become what you think about. If you refuse to accept failure and if you think like a winner, you will be one.
- Be decisive. Take action. Nothing kills a good idea or an opportunity faster than procrastination. Survey the options, make the call, move on it, and never 2nd-guess yourself. There’s nothing to be gained from regret.
- Achieve. Do not try hard, do not make excuses. Do what needs to be done. “Sometimes you have to do your best, but sometimes you have to do what is required,” said Winston Churchill. This is the time to execute with conviction.
- Know what’s important. No matter what kind of challenge you find yourself up against, always face it with absolute clarity. Be specific about what you want to accomplish and be sure you are perfectly clear on what’s most important.
- Don’t be afraid. Remember, everyone around you has fears, phobias and doubts. Rise above your worries. Think about the example set by New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on September 11. The people around you are losing their cool, show them that you are not afraid. Face your fear and do it anyway.
- Stay true. These may be tough times indeed, but when it comes down to it, nothing has really changed. It still all about doing business the best that you can. So, stay focused on your organization’s mission, stick to your core values and don’t waver from your goals. Stick to your knitting.
- Be unforgettable. When clients are looking for a product or service, make sure they think of you first. Be appreciative, considerate, courageous, positive-thinking and excited.
- Small can be beautiful. Don’t let yourself get too big for your britches. Successful small business is infinitely preferable to a big business that has been marginalized by undisciplined growth. Grow when you’re ready.
- Handwrite thank-you cards. Write 5 thank you notes daily. Don’t think people via email. Handwritten notes have become a rarity. Send personal greetings for important occasions as well as lesser ones.
- Take time to think. Slow down. Don’t be rushed or pushed into making the wrong decision. Look out the window and take 30 minutes a day to think about your challenges. Your decisions will be much better in the long-run.
- Be thoughtful and courteous. Courtesy is a hallmark of a distinctive approach to business. People are drawn to doing business with the people they like and who treat them well.
- Be kind. People will forget what you said. The will forget what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel. Learn how to listen. Be sensitive to the needs and expectations of people.
- Make yourself heard. Marketing costs are often the 1st expenditure to be cut when money gets tight. But this is the time when you actually need to increase your marketing efforts, not cut them. After all, if your competitors stop advertising while you continue to trumpet your own business, guess who’s message customers will notice?
Thank you Peter in helping all of us keep a clear head, set our compass and take your advice on how to get a leg up and not be shy!
(p.s. If you want to get the rest of Peter’s tips, you should be able to order them from Peter Legge Management Co. Ltd at 604 299 9188.)
(jointly published on tips.slaw.ca)
♫ I can see clearly now the rain is gone.
I can see all obstacles in my way.
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind.
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
bright (bright) sunshiny day…♫
Lyrics and music by Johnny Nash, recorded by Jimmy Cliff.
This is the time of the year when I call for our gentle readers to submit their ideas for what 2016 will hold for the legal community.
Whether it is a bright future or perhaps a guarded cloudy one, I would love to hear from you. Whether it is on legal software, access to justice, online dispute resolution, alternative business structures, changes in legal regulations, business development, legal marketing change management, firm governance, moving to paperless or moving to Mac (or back to Windows), quality of life, tips and trends …all these topics and more are on the table.
Results will be posted in a series of articles near the end of December.
So put your thinking cap on and let’s see what we can to together to write the future!
♫ The wheels on the bus go round and round,
round and round,
round and round.
The wheels on the bus go round and round,
all through the town…♫
Lyrics and music by: Lydia Ulsaker, sung by teachers, parents and children everywhere.
(image by: LaurMG, used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)
James C. Collins wrote the best seller: “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Other’s Don’t.” It has stood the test of time and sold over 4 million copies according to Wikipedia.
Jim has some very good advice that is contained in his seven characteristics of companies that went from good to great. For this column I am only going to deal with the first:
First Who, Then What: Get the right people on the bus, then figure out where to go. This is all about finding the right people and trying them out in different positions.
Of course to get the right people on the bus, you have to find out who may be the wrong people on the bus that perhaps have to get off.
Well that is all well and good if you are in a management role and have the authority to ask someone to politely get off the bus. What if you are a fellow rider and have to work with someone who should have been asked to get off a long time ago but for one reason or another, is still on the bus. Now what?
Forbes.com published Kevin Kruse’s article “Dealing with Difficult People”. The full article can be found here, but I am just going to summarize his excellent advice:
- Don’t get dragged down. Don’t get sucked into their world of negativity.
- Listen. Use good listening techniques. They think no one is listening to them.
- Use a time for venting. Let the Downer vent for 5 minutes. Then move on.
- Don’t agree. Appeasing them only adds fuel to the fire.
- Don’t stay silent. Silence will be interpreted as agreement.
- Do switch extremes into facts. Switch them to fact-based statements.
- Move to problem solving. Help them move to a problem-solving mode.
- Cut them off. Nothing worked? Then politely shut them down.
You want to enjoy the company of those with whom you work while the wheels on the bus go round and round.
(published concurrently on slaw.tips.ca)
♫ I got something that will sure ’nuff set your stuff on fire
…
Tell me something good (tell me, tell me, tell me)…♫
Lyrics and music by Stevie Wonder, recorded by Rufus and Chaka Khan,
Lawyers are sensitive souls. No lawyer wants to receive a complaint from a client. However, what you don’t know can, in this case, actually hurt you. The failure to complain by a dissatisfied client may result in the client leaving quietly but then causing maximal damage to the law firm’s reputation by talking to others about their bad experience.
When given a rational choice between hearing from a dissatisfied client 1-1 or having that client go out and speak to many others about their negative experience with a firm or lawyer, virtually everyone would choose to speak to the client and at least try to remedy their feelings. Yet how many lawyers and law firms seek to find those unhappy clients and find out what went wrong before they cause damage? We all know that word of mouth endorsements are worth their weight in gold; similarly negative word of mouth experiences can sink a firm’s reputation.
Yet few lawyers conduct client feedback surveys. According to Joel Rose, a management consultant to law offices:
Information obtained from client surveys may be the most important marketing activity a law firm can undertake. Most firms that initiate client surveys have found their clients to be impressed that the firm cares about their opinions. Also, as the result of surveys, law firms may detect certain misunderstandings which, if not clarified, could fester and result in dissatisfied clients.
There are many ways to conduct a survey. It can be a Word or PDF document mailed or emailed to clients; it can be conducted using an online tool such as SurveyMonkey. It can be a telephone interview with the client by a firm member. It could be done by inviting a small select group of clients one evening to come and talk confidentially with a few of the partners.
The approach used can be reflective of the resources of the firm, the number of clients to be surveyed, the ability of the clients to navigate an online survey, the desire to meet with people face to face and the like. However done, it does have the ability to learn more about how the firm and its services are perceived and more importantly, how you can change to better meet your desired client’s needs.
I once read (unfortunately I can’t find the reference) that there are three essential questions to ask your clients. These are:
- What did we do right?
- What did we do wrong?
- How can we do it better next time?
You can nuance these how you wish but the essence is to find out what clients liked about your services, what didn’t they like and how you can improve on the client experience.
There are many other possible questions such as “How likely is it that you would recommend our services to others?” and “How do you compare the value we provide against other law firms you may have used?” and “How did you find out about our services?”
In terms of general design, I believe a shorter survey is better and more respecting of your client’s time. Many writers state that providing a reward for completing the survey could be useful (but ensure that the cost doesn’t balloon out of control).
However you do it, you are sure to get some very valuable feedback and information. If you can manage it, inviting clients to provide feedback immediately after closing a matter allows you to also repair any possible dissatisfaction before it is too late.
Once you get that information and feedback, the onus then shifts to you to do something with it. Asking clients for feedback and failing to implement change is only going to create an impression that you are going thru the motions without really desiring change.
In fact the survey is an underused tool in most law firms. According to Quantisoft, there are many surveys that law firms can use to identify their strengths, weaknesses and opportunities such as:
- Partner Evaluation Feedback Survey (Associate Attorneys evaluate Partners)
- Associate Attorney Evaluation Feedback Survey (Partners evaluate Associate Attorneys)
- Associate Attorney Development Survey (Associates provide feedback on their career goals and development, and workplace issues)
- Administrative Staff Feedback Surveys (Providing feedback to Administrative Staff)
- Opinion/Engagement/Satisfaction Surveys
- Risk Assessment Surveys
- IT customer satisfaction surveys
- Other surveys designed to meet your Firm’s special needs.
Whether you do surveys of clients or of people internal to the firm, you are sure to learn something that will sure ’nuff set your stuff on fire.
♫ I need to hear from You
Before this night is through
I need to hear from You
So I’m waiting, waiting just to hear from you…♫
Lyrics and music by: Robert Hartman, recorded by Petra.
This week, Garry Wise and I chatted about the possible topics that we could cover in this column (posted at slawtips.ca and on this site) over the next while. Without being exhaustive, I pulled together the following list from our discussions. Now it is up to you. In the comments section, please indicate which topic(s) are of greatest interest to you! We really want to hear from you and to write on the topics that you most wish to hear about.
Here is the (incomplete) list of possible topics:
New ways of working:
- Virtual office examples
- Virtual assistants
- Virtual contract lawyers
- Using Skype and other communication methods to reach out
- Portals
- Collaboration tools/applications/websites
- Dragon Dictate and VR on the Mac
- IBM’s Watson and AI: What are the implications?
New Software/web tools:
- Emerging Canadian software
- Apps, Apps Apps!
- Websites: Are they relevant anymore?
- Blogs: Are they relevant anymore?
- Vlogs: Are they the way to go?
- Smartphones
- Tablets
- Sony paper
- Microsoft’s Matter Center
- Why use Twitter? Facebook? LinkedIn? Other SM ?
- Windows 10
- OS X El Capitan
- Do Process Software
Capturing, Organizing and Using Information
- Evernote and OneNote
- Don’t Forget the Milk
- Wunderlist
- IFTTT recipes
- Wikis and law firms
- CanLII Connect
- SurveyMonkey and lawyers/law firms
- MindMapping: The New Way of Legal Thinking?
Security and Privacy
- Portals
- Encryption
- Cryptolocker and other ransomware
- Ethical Hacking?
- How do you handle a security breach?
- Canadian Backup and Storage Services
- Canadian Hosted and Managed Services
Practice Management Software Reviews
- CLIO
- Amicus Attorney
- MyCase
- RocketMatter
- PracticePanther
- HoudiniESQ
- LegalFiles
- PCLaw
- ProLaw
- TimeSolv Legal
- Synergy Legal Suite
Legal Accounting Software and lawyers
- PCLaw
- ESILAW
- Brief Legal Software
- Quickbooks
- Sage50
- XERO
- BillQuick
- CosmoLex
Stages in a Lawyer’s Life
- Entering law school
- Finding Articles
- Life as an Associate
- Life as a junior partner
- Life as a senior partner
- Life as a managing partner
- Life as ‘of counsel’
- Going out on Your own
- Moving Firms
- Finding an Associate
- Office Sharing
- Easing into Retirement
- Moving an Office
- Closing an Office
Using Consultants and Service Providers
- Bookkeepers
- IT providers
- In house IT
- Managed IT services
- Hosted services
- Working with Security professionals
- How to use IT Consultants to Max Advantage
- Apple vs Mac vs Does it Matter Anymore?
- Finding and working with an Office Administrator
Setting up in Practice
- Finding the right location
- Finding the right staff
- Working with staff
- Balancing life and work
- Hiring, firing and managing staff
New Ways of Handling Legal Matters
- ADR
- ODR
- Virtual courts and trials
- Setting up a virtual practice/services
- Taking Technology to Court/Mediations/Arbitrations
- Taking Technology to clients
Other Legal Software
- Optinet Systems
- Emergent Solutions
- Tracument
- Triage Data Solutions
- Dye & Durham
- Thomson Reuters
- Lexis Nexis
- Econveyance
- Esentire
- Worldox
- Primafact
- SAI Systems Auditing
- LexBox
- WordRake
- SimplyFile
Innovative ways of Practising:
- Cognition LLP
- Axess Law
- ABS across the world
New Ways of Thinking about Legal Practice
Whatever we have missed.
Please indicate in the Comments (below) the topic(s) that are most important. Or drop me a line at slawtips1@gmail.com. We hope to hear from you!
♫ I just want the simple things..♫
Lyrics, music and recorded by Miguel.
This post continues the theme of innovative technology for lawyers. John Heckman, a legal technology consultant for whom I have a great deal of respect recently wrote in his blog “Does it Compute” a piece entitled:
Technophobe and Proud Of It — the Consequences. He states that there are “attorneys whose willful refusal to become conversant with their firm’s technology will drag down its productivity and ability to respond to client needs.” John then quotes Sharon Nelson, another good friend and legal technologist who is a co-author of the annual American Bar Association’s Solo and Small Firm Technology Guide (for which the write is a contributing author) put it bluntly: “The raw choice is that lawyers must choose between adaption and extinction.”
Well, fortunately there are technologies that are simple, effective and easy to use even for technophobes. SimplyFile is one of them.
This application which is a toolbar add-on for MS Outlook on the PC (not Mac..sigh!). It does one thing very very well. It is an adaptive program that learns from you where you like to file emails in your Outlook folders.
If you set up your Outlook folders to match your client files, then SimplyFile will help you quickly and easily move both incoming and outgoing emails into their proper file in Outlook. It learns from you and correctly guesses the correct folder 80-90% of the time. Moving the email to the right folder once Simplyfile guesses the folder is just a mouse click.
No longer will you end up with all your outgoing emails in the ‘Sent’ folder in Outlook.
No longer do you ‘drag and drop’ emails to organize them.
I have been using SimplyFile for years now and love it. There are companion applications that speed up other tasks and for those I refer you to Techhit’s web page.
If you use a Document Management System (we use OpenText) Simplyfile helps you move your emails into your profiled folders in Outlook and from there they are indexed into the DMS system. I understand it is equally effective with Worldox and other DMS platforms that work with MS Outlook (but you should check with your DMS provider first).
When it comes to legal technology there is no question that for maximum adoption by lawyers on all points on the legal technology spectrum, the applications should keep it simple.
(cross-posted to tips.slaw.ca)
♫ wheeeeeeeeeefit
whoafit
holy$#*!fit
findyourfit..♫
Lyrics and music by Seth Olinsky (Akron/Family).
Who knew that keeping track of your fitness could be addictive – and fun? Welcome to the world of wearable technology and in particular, the Fitbit.
The FitBit Flex is a wearable fitness wristband that helps you track your daily activity in terms of steps, distance, calories burned and active minutes.
It tracks how long you slept and the quality of your sleep. It buzzes when you have achieved 10,000 steps in a day (the first time mine did this I almost jumped out of my skin!).
It synchs wirelessly to your computer and smartphones. You can log additional activities such as biking, skiing, running and more.
As you achieve your fitness goals, you get email reminders and badges that reinforce your progress. You can also track drinks of water and calories eaten in the food log section.
If what gets measured gets done, the FitBit is a fun and novel way to keep on top of your fitness goals and see how you are doing.
There are different devices ranging from the Flex (above) to the Surge that incorporates a heart monitor and is classified as a ‘Fitness Super Watch’ with GPS, notifications, music, Auto Sleep monitoring and alarms.
Since keeping fit is something that all of us need to do more of, it is good to know that the Fitbit can be a great little way to get that little bit of motivation to achieve your goals with a tiny bit of wheeeeeeeeee….
(cross-posted to tips.slaw.ca)
♫ To boldly go where no one has gone before…♫
Narration to the music by Alexander Courage.
In Chicago for ABA TECHSHOW I heard a presentation to my fellow Practice Management Advisors from Daniel Martin Katz on the future of law and legal eduction. Daniel’s thesis, as I understood it, is that law schools should no longer be liberal arts oriented. Rather they should be Polytechnic Law Schools. The reason for this change is that the future of lawyers is to combine analytics (i.e. computer reasoning) with a lawyer to produce better outcomes. And you can’t apply something that you really don’t understand. Lawyers need to have a solid grounding in legal technology, analytics and computer modelling to be better lawyers.
For example:
According to Daniel Katz, an associate professor of law at Michigan State University, computer modeling has proven “able to predict 70 to 75 percent of the cases correctly” in a given year. That compares to a 60 percent rating for legal experts who also predict outcomes.
We all know that IBM is working on Watson, which is “a cognitive system that enables a new partnership between people and computers that enhances and scales human expertise.”
But what you may not know is that IBM’s Watson is not alone. Microsoft and Amazon are undertaking similar research. Pretty soon every Tom, Bill and Jeff will have their own in-house cognitive learning system.
Furthering these ideas will be an exciting event held in conjunction with ABA TECHSHOW:
There will be a Legal Technology and Innovation Meet-up at Sadden Arps being held concurrently during TECHSHOW week. I expect to hear mind-expanding ideas from such speakers as:
- Jeffrey Carr, former GC at FMC Technologies (and one of the innovators in alternative billing systems for lawyers),
- Casey Flaherty, former in-house counsel (Kia Motors America) and creator of the Legal Technology Audit who will be speaking on: A Piece in the Metrics Puzzle: How Well do we Utilize Technology to Deliver Value and Quality?
- Ron Dolin, of the Stanford Center on the Legal Profession, legal technology consultant and investor and legal technology and informatics instructor speaking on The Importance of Measuring Quality
and many others.
Daniel is not alone in thinking that information technology is changing the face of law. Human enterprise and machine learning is taking the legal profession where no one has gone before.