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28 Nov 09

Does Web 2.0 Point Us Toward Law 2.0? A Roundtable Discussion, Law Practice Today, Jan 2006

Participants: Dennis Kennedy, Tom Mighell, John Tredennick, Stephen M. Nipper, and Frederick L. Faulkner IV

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17 Nov 09

FBI says hackers targeting law firms, PR companies | AP, Nov 17, 2009 (via FindLaw)

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29 Sep 09

Sorry Westlaw and Lexis - The Days of Passing Charges to Clients Are Numbered | 3 Geeks and a Law Blog, Sep 23, 2009

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Over the past 25+ years, the model of passing through the expense of online legal research to the client created a system where operating profits for the vendor were over 30%, and law firms felt immune to the total costs of using online research. Clients were paying the majority of the costs of online research, but had no voice in setting the price negotiated between firms and the vendors.
At one time, it was common for firms to charge clients more than they were paying the vendor for the online research product, and were able to make an additional profit. When the Model Rules of Professional Conduct prohibited these charges with Rule 1.5, many firms implemented a 100% recovery model where online resources could only be used if the charge could be passed to the client.
4 more annotations...
- ost say that over the past 10 years, the percentage that the firm is paying out of pocket has steadily increased from under 10% out of pocket costs, to now almost 50% out of pocket cost.
- Firms are now scrambling to cut costs of online resources by either cutting subscriptions, or going back to models requiring that online resource tools only be used when that cost can be passed through to the client. With firms now considering alternative fee arrangements with clients, the model of passing online research costs to clients will come under even more scrutiny.
- Alternative fee agreements and the general move away from the generic hourly-billing rate will mean that firms will need to have a different negotiating strategy with the online legal research vendor. No longer will online research be seen as a pass-through cost to the client. Because the client will not be paying the attorney by the hour, they will not buy the idea that online charges are saving them money because it saves the attorney time. Clients will say that firms will need to bear the burden of the online research because, if it truly saves them time, then that means they should be able to spend less time on the client’s matter, thus the savings is really a benefit to the firm.
- Those 30% profit margins are not sustainable as alternative fees become a larger percentage of how law firms generate revenue.

20 Sep 09

Top US Law Firms | Google CSE by Ron Friedmann

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15 Sep 09

Are Law Firms Ready for Transparency? | V. Mary Abraham, LLRX.com, Sep 12, 2009

Presentation of Mallesons Connect, Mallesons' new client service tool

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13 Sep 09

Reevaluating BigLaw Library Services - Two Views | 3 Geeks and a Law Blog, Sep 11, 2009

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Slashing BigLaw Libraries | Prism Legal - Strategic Legal Technology, Sep 9, 2009

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Law Librarians: 'No More Sacred Cows' | by Alan Cohen, The American Lawyer, Sep 3, 2009 (via Law.com)

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Last year only 9 percent of respondents said their budgets had shrunk. This year it was a whopping 46 percent. Staff reductions have also become the norm, with 57 percent of firms paring their library payroll, up from 18 percent in 2008.
are being asked to become detectives of a sort, tracking, graphing, and reporting on their firm's use of every research tool.
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- Perhaps it's no wonder, then, that we noticed an uptick in librarian dissatisfaction.
- Last year just 7 percent of librarians mostly or totally disagreed with recent decisions made regarding the library. This year the figure was 16 percent. Similarly, in 2008, a mere 3 percent were dissatisfied with their job. In 2009, 8 percent were unhappy.
- One might think that the library's continued work in assisting marketing efforts -- 62 percent of respondents said the library is their firm's main source for marketing research -- might upset librarians trained to research statutes and legal issues. But the problem isn't the work, say several library chiefs; it's the recognition that comes with it. Or more often, doesn't come.
- Still, librarians have become tougher, more successful negotiators when it comes to renewing contracts with publishers -- thanks in no small part to the metrics they get from new tracking software.
- now there's commercially available tracking software -- like Onelog, from the U.K.-based company Info Technology Supply Ltd., and Advanced Productivity Software LookUp Precision.
- A third package mentioned by some library chiefs was Research Monitor from Priory Solutions.
- costs for electronic resources other than LexisNexis and Westlaw rose in 2008, with the average firm spending just over $1 million, compared to some $929,000 in 2007. (Lexis and Westlaw spending decreased slightly.)
- it's no shock that more firms are starting to ask a question that, up until now, seemed almost blasphemous: Lexis or Westlaw? Last year just 12 percent of firms said they intended to move to a single-vendor strategy. This year, 31 percent did.
- Multimillion-dollar knowledge management systems were something that more than a few firms invested in. Newer platforms, such as Microsoft SharePoint -- which five library chiefs praised as a tool that made their work easier and three more planned to launch in 2010 -- just do it better. "SharePoint lets us splice and dice pieces of information, creating all these little repositories without going through IT or ten years of programming," says one library head. "You want to create a database full of Madoff stuff? There, it's done. And anyone can access it through a Web browser."
- Five other firms gave a shout-out to Ozmosys' eponymous service, which helps them provide personalized news delivery to users.
- Debevoise started using Ozmosys last September. Since then, some 500 of the firm's 750 attorneys have signed up for the service.
- The Full Survey:
  
  The Librarian's Expanding Role
  
  Electronic Resources
  
  Staffing
  
  Finances

04 Jul 09

PublicLegal - A Product of the Internet Legal Research Group (ILRG)

"A categorized index of more than 4000 select web sites in 238 nations, islands, and territories, as well as thousands of locally stored web pages, legal forms, and downloadable files, this site was established in 1995 to serve as a comprehensive resource of the information available on the Internet concerning law and the legal profession, with an emphasis on the United States of America. Designed for everyone, lay persons and legal scholars alike, it is quality controlled to include only the most substantive legal resources online."

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If Technology is the Answer, What’s the Question? | Above and Beyond KM

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they discovered that the real question to be answered was not the one the client had identified and that the right answer had very little to do with technology.
Livio’s advice was to take the time to analyze properly what was really going on in your firm from a process, behavior and cultural perspective. Next, identify a range of possible solutions and see if there aren’t grassroots, low-key, tiny spend ways of testing some of these solutions in a variety of safe-fail pilots. Then, finally, make your choice.
2 more annotations...
- After all, we rarely need to find and reuse every item in the DMS. We’re usually just looking for “something good” and would be glad to accept a document recommended by a trusted source in our network.
- So, before you leap to the conclusion that a particular big ticket technology “solution” is the answer, make sure you really understand the question.

02 Jul 09

LAW LIBRARIES: Climb Mountains | Law Technology News, July 2009 issue

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01 Jul 09

Typography for Lawyers

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29 Jun 09

Recent Developments in Swiss Law in the Field of the Protection of Depositors | Schellenberg Wittmer Newsletter April 2009

"Following the marked aggravation of the financial crisis in autumn 2008, the Federal Council, the Swiss National Bank and the FINMA decided that certain provisions of the Federal Law on Banks and Savings Banks applicable in case of bank insolvency should be amended. The Federal Council chose to act in two stages. It decided that certain amendments had to be passed quickly and it simultaneously instructed the Federal Department of Finance to elaborate a project with deeper amendments to the system of deposit guarantee. The content of this project is not yet public."

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myCorporateResource.com - Empowering the Corporate Community

"myCorporateResource.com is designed to empower corporate professionals with the latest in legal and commercial information from the world's top law firms and industry insiders. Every year the top 100 American law firms produce more than 10,000 Client Alerts addressing the key commercial and legal issues faced by their clients. We aggregate, review, sort and summarize this content -for free- to give you a really useful corporate resource."

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Linex Legal

"Linex Legal is the leading online information portal for everyone who needs to be informed about the latest developments in law and the impact of new legislation on business. We save you time and effort by keeping you up to date on a weekly basis with the most recent legal publications in areas of interest to you. You also have access to a comprehensive archive of legal articles and reviews published in the last 4 years from around the world."

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