TechnoLawyer

Originally published on May 17, 2011 in our free BigLaw newsletter. Instead of reading BigLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

While Exterro's April Fool's spoof on robots replacing lawyers by "eliminating up to 99.9 percent of all inefficient cerebral functions currently performed by highly paid attorneys, paralegals and technologists" proved humorous, those of you who work in litigation may have found it hit too close to home.

The buzz surrounding Predictive Coding has steadily increased. This eDiscovery technology, which essentially uses machine learning to automate part of the review process, is causing a lot of head-scratching in large law firms. I remember pitching an article to a legal technology editor ten years ago themed "auto-coding is here." The first question that came back to me was, "Is it really here?" I feel like many of you are about to ask same question about predictive coding.

My former colleague John Corey who is now Regional Manager at Recommind told me about how large law firms are responding to their predictive coding product.

"We are seeing the early law firm adopters put predictive coding through its paces and validate the time and expense savings," said Corey. "They also found, sometimes to their surprise, more accurate results. Once litigation departments realize that predictive coding optimizes rather than completely replaces human review, any concerns about defensibility evaporate. We're now seeing a broader adoption as firms realize that they'd rather benefit from predictive coding than compete with it."

Corey also told me that after working directly with large firm lawyers for many years, he has a very strong hunch that the early adopters most likely ran data through the traditional review process as well as the predictive coding process. Once they realized that predictive coding could be trusted, they converted 100 percent.

If you missed the link last year in BlawgWorld, Monica Bay interviewed two eDiscovery experts about predictive coding on her October 2010 Law Technology Now podcast entitled Crash or Soar? Predictive Coding.

A Court Docketing David Challenges the Goliaths

While the "big boys" are battling it out in eDiscovery, let's not forget about the small and nimble players in the legal technology industry. I've noticed a recent trend in which the "little guys" are landing the big deals. Why? Are law firms finally realizing they can get a better product, better customer service, and a better price by going with a less known company? Maybe so.

It seems to be true for American LegalNet (disclosure — a client of Edge Legal Marketing). The company has landed some noticeably big deals for its eDockets rules-based docketing and calendar system from McKenna Long & Aldridge, Baker & Daniels, and Fenwick & West — and these are just the firms willing to talk. Why have firms such as these spurned giants such as CompuLaw and Elite Calendar Manager for American LegalNet?

I caught up with Connie Moser, senior marketing director of American LegalNet (she previously worked at Elite), to get her perspective. "Having a cost-effective product in place to help with critical date management is essential for law firms that want to enhance workflow and minimize malpractice risk," she told me.

ALM Media Switches Teams

ALM Media, the parent company of American Lawyer, National Law Journal, and many other legal publications, announced last month that it has "reunited" with LexisNexis. ALM Media will shift its exclusive legal news content licensing from Westlaw to rival Lexis.com. ALM Media CEO Bill Pollak has the best take on the deal — not surprising since he's the ultimate insider. "West has been a solid partner for the past five years and this decision was not one that was made lightly," writes Bill.

Where will Thomson Reuters' West obtain its legal news for Westlaw going forward? Publisher Neil Squillante got the scoop and reported that Reuters and West have teamed up to deliver their own legal news and analysis.

In the Meantime, Plug in Your BioPorts

With corporate clients pressuring law firms to cut costs, the only path for doing so increasingly lies in technology. Exterro's "easy-to-install and hard to remove BioPorts (certified to be 85 percent pain-free)" might sound silly, but don't laugh too hard. Yesterday's technology pipe dream sometimes becomes tomorrow's reality (smartphones anyone?). As Michael Lewis once wrote, the future just happened.

Written by Amy Juers of Edge Legal Marketing.

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Today's issue of Fat Friday contains these articles:

Wallace Berry, Review: IPhone; A Rant About Lawyers Who Review Products

Theo Rand, Paperless Office Not Elusive Plus Foolproof Document Management And Naming Conventions

John Upton, Tip: How The Windows Key Can Save You Clicks And Time

Andrew Schleicher, Word Styles Standardization In A Law Office

Stephen Chakwin, Is The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 An IPad 2 Killer Of A Dud?

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Today's issue of Answers to Questions contains these articles:

Joel Tantalo, A Modest Proposal: Don't Use Cloud
Applications, Email, A Desk — Nothing

Daniel Fennick, Review: Pathagoras For Document Assembly In A Legal Department

Stephen C. Carpenter, GPS PNDs Versus Paper Maps Versus Smartphones

Shelia Youngblood, Review: Olympus DS5000 Digital
Dictation Recorder

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Today's issue of Answers to Questions contains these articles:

Frank Marciano, Review: Pathagoras For Document Assembly

Tim Tierney, Review: Express Dictate Digital Dictation Software

Kerry Hubick, Review: PCmover For Upgrading From Windows XP To Windows 7

Stephen Hayes, Review: DYMO Stamps, DYMO TwinTurbo Printer, Digiweigh USB Scale

John Hall, Review: Affiniscape For Law Firm Credit Card Processing

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Do you believe in the wisdom of crowds? In Answers to Questions, TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers. This newsletter's popularity stems from the relevance of the questions and answers to virtually everyone in the legal profession. The Answers to Questions newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published in our free TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter. Instead of reading TechnoLawyer NewsWire here, sign up now to receive future issues via email.

A New Search and Collect Pricing Model for eDiscovery

A litigator recently suggested that lawyers should treat electronic documents like conversations and thus eliminate their production during discovery. His joke served as a poignant commentary on the spiraling costs of reviewing increasing volumes of data, some of which such as Facebook Posts didn't even exist a decade ago when the famous Enron email messages first put eDiscovery on the map. To make matters worse, litigators not only face an ever-growing number of products to choose from, but a bewildering array of pricing models that are difficult to compare. Last week, a new product emerged designed to save litigants boatloads of money on eDiscovery.

PowerSearch … in One Sentence
DATAssimilate's PowerSearch is a desktop eDiscovery application with a unique pricing model that enables you to identify and collect relevant electronically stored information.

The Killer Feature
PowerSearch has something rare in the litigation software industry — a clever and memorable slogan: Cull before you collect. Its slogan underscores its unique pricing model.

You can download as many copies of PowerSearch as you want free of charge. So you can give everyone in your legal department or law firm a copy without having to crunch any numbers.

To use PowerSearch, you point it at a collection of electronic files such as an Outlook PST file, and then conduct searches to find relevant documents. Once you identify the documents you ultimately want to collect, you pay DATAssimilate only for those documents.

Thus, instead of paying to collect all of a custodian's documents even though you know that most will prove irrelevant, you instead pay after your review for only the relevant documents. Cull before you collect.

PowerSearch uses a token system. Each document you want costs one token. Pricing ranges from .05 cents to .001 cents per token (document) depending on how many tokens you purchase. The minimum purchase is 1,000 tokens (documents) for $50. By creating a business account in the token bank, you can share tokens among multiple computers. According to the company, PowerSearch can reduce your collection costs by 80% or more over traditional pricing models.

"We designed PowerSearch to give the legal industry an easy and affordable way to access data," DATAssimilate CEO Girts Jansons told us. "There is no cost to deploy or use the robust features of PowerSearch, and users pay only fractions of a cent for files they ultimately decide to save. We have received very positive responses from beta testers."

Other Notable Features
PowerSearch doesn't just search files, it indexes and searches through them fast. For example, Jansons told us that PowerSearch performed a complex search on those famous Enron email messages in less than two seconds. Before you can search, you must of course index. PowerSearch indexes across a 100 MB network at a speed of 500 files per minute. As an added bonus, the optional OCR technology converts document images to searchable text at a rate of 45 pages per minute.

DATAssimilate claims that PowerSearch requires minimal training. You just follow the navigation tabs through the workflow to select, index, analyze, search, and then save relevant files. Context-sensitive help provides best practices as you move through each step.

PowerSearch handles a wide variety of file types in their native format as well as file bundles such as NSF, PST, and ZIP. Other features include the ability to search within search results and filter your search results, generate reports, export using various options such as retaining email attachments and folder structures, and produce a defensible audit trail.

What Else Should You Know?
PowerSearch runs on Windows PCs. As noted above, it costs nothing to download and use. You pay only when you want to pull relevant documents from a data source. Learn more about PowerSearch.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on May 2, 2011 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

Watch the Video

TechnoScore: 1.0
1 = Lowest Possible Score; 5 = Highest Possible Score

Wayne County, Michigan lawyer Gene Ferguson refers to himself as "your Downriver divorce attorney" (Downriver is a colloquial name for Wayne County). In this video, Ferguson mimics many other lawyers on YouTube (and TV) by standing in front of a well-worn legal bookcase. Why do lawyers think that bookcases give them greater credibility? They don't.

Also, Ferguson makes a promise we see in many lawyer TV commercials — "I promise to get you all that you are entitled to." This phrase is troubling for two reasons: (1) Lawyers should not make any promises in a video, and (2) If the client is not entitled to anything, then Ferguson is promising to get the client nothing in exchange for a fee.

Throughout the 1:20 video Ferguson repeats the slogan "Your Children, Your Divorce" as if it's meaningful. I understand the purpose of repetition when speaking, but I fail to see how such a slogan will help define him in a way that showcases his expertise.

Ferguson also uses a logo that appears to be either a crest or a seal at the beginning and end of his video. The crest appears to be a mix of a Cadillac seal combined with some sort of state agency emblem. It has three words on the bottom — "Dedicated, Devoted, Determined." How does this logo help Ferguson stand out from the crowd?

Tip #1: Skip the Promises, Slogan, and Logo — Focus on Content

Ferguson's video would have been much more powerful if he actually discussed how to protect children in a divorce case. His slogan and logo don't help viewers answer the basic question: "Why should I hire you for my divorce?"

If a someone is choosing between you and countless other lawyers, don't blow your opportunity to have that person contact you by failing to provide meaningful content in your video.

Tip #2: Learn Video Technique or Hire a Video Company to Shoot Your Video

The camera angle is slightly lower than Ferguson, giving the appearance that he is looking down at you. That's not ideal. The color needs to be corrected and I'm not sure whether he set his white balance before starting his camera. The sound could be improved, and it does not appear he is using a wireless or even wired lapel microphone. On the second run through the video, I noticed he was reading part of his message.

Your video technique should be entirely transparent if done correctly. Viewers should be focused only on the message. When your technique is not technically proficient, the message gets lost and your viewer gets sidetracked, often never to return.

Shooting video in your office is not as easy as some people make it out to be. The technical requirements can be substantial. Poor technique can ruin your video. Your goal of creating video is to educate. By educating prospects, you give them useful content and information that will set you apart from your competitors.

If you have the time, desire and inclination to learn how to shoot video in a professional, high-quality manner, I applaud you. However, most attorneys simply want to practice law and leave the technical stuff to people who have significant experience creating attorney video.

Tip #3: Know Your SEO

Ferguson lists 39 keywords on YouTube below his video — way more than YouTube recommends. Overuse of keywords can hurt your video instead of help. It appears that Ferguson has tried to identify every town in Downriver. I understand the importance of targeting a video to a geographic location, but using 39 keywords is not the way to accomplish that objective.

Conclusion

In a compelling video, your video technique must be seamless and transparent, and you must provide interesting content that your viewer wants and needs to hear. Before pressing the record button, ask yourself "Does my ideal client need the information I'm about to give them?" If not, rewrite your script and ask the question again before pressing the record button.

Till next time, see you on video!

The Back Bench

Certified Family Law Specialist and online video producer Kelly Chang Rickert says: "Mr. Ferguson does a great job emphasizing his specialty by inserting the phrase "Your Divorce. Your Children" throughout his soliloquy. Though a little frilly, I thought he had great stage presence, and I would probably hire him by seeing this video. Quick tip: The floating words at the bottom are kinda random — and a bit distracting. It takes away from his stage presence. I would probably leave them out. But he did a great job — I will remember him as the "Your Divorce, Your Children" guy — so his marketing video worked."

TechnoLawyer publisher and online video producer Neil Squillante says: "Advertising should convey a simple message. Repetition is also important. But Gene Ferguson takes this advice a little too far. His message is too simplistic and too repetitive. All the same, overly simplistic is better than overly complex."

Written by Gerry Oginski of The Lawyers' Video Studio.

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Originally published in our free TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter. Instead of reading TechnoLawyer NewsWire here, sign up now to receive future issues via email.

The Legal Information You Need Is Now at Your Fingertips

Before the Internet, you could count on your adversaries knowing just as little as you. But with the explosion of information now available, blissful ignorance is no longer an option — especially for New York lawyers who want to succeed. Like Mulder in an X Files episode, you know that critically important information is out there, but where? And can you trust what you find? Mulder believed everything. But you're smarter than that. One of the most trusted brands in the legal industry just launched a professional news Web site and mobile app that offer everything you need to know about your jurisdiction and practice areas.

Thomson Reuters News & Insight Legal/NY … in One Sentence
Thomson Reuters News & Insight Legal/NY is a new Web site and mobile app that offers New York-focused legal news from Reuters integrated with primary and secondary legal materials from Westlaw.

The Killer Feature
In 2008, Reuters was acquired by the Thomson Corporation (owner of Westlaw), marrying one of the world's leading news organizations with legal research (among other services). Launched in May, Thomson Reuters News & Insight Legal/NY demonstrates the synergies of this merger.

In addition to major legal-related news, the site and mobile app offer specialized legal news geared to New York practitioners. New York case law and jury verdicts also figure prominently into the coverage. Plans are underway to add more jurisdictions and practice areas, eventually offering a daily starting point for everyone in the legal profession.

Leading the expansion of news for legal customers at Reuters are Amy Stevens, formerly deputy page one editor and legal columnist at The Wall Street Journal and deputy editor at Conde Nast Portfolio, and Eric Effron, former executive editor of The Week magazine and editor and publisher of Legal Times. Additional journalists and lawyers on the team previously worked at Bloomberg, American Lawyer, Businessweek, Law360, The New York Observer, The New York Law Journal and The National Law Journal.

"We've created a new approach to professional news," Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler told us. "We're delivering value by offering our customers world-class journalism combined with the necessary tools to stitch together the common threads of isolated events, so they can identify opportunities that will drive their success."

Other Notable Features
Each jurisdiction and the securities practice area pages highlight just-released germane lawsuit filings via the Web site's Court Wire feature, and court opinions of note, as well as news and analysis. To delve deeper into the offerings, you'll find three navigation links at the top of the page — News, Insight, and Legal Materials.

Thomson Reuters told us that Court Wire sometimes lists new cases even faster than the courts where they're filed, potentially giving you a leg up on contacting unrepresented defendants. Court Wire may also enable you to break the news of a lawsuit to a client before the process server does.

In addition to what you would expect from news, you'll also find reporting on your peers in the New York legal scene, including you, perhaps — lateral moves, winners and losers at trial, and more.

Among the Insights columnists is acclaimed legal journalist Alison Frankel, whose "On the Case" column will offer a daily take on the most important lawsuits and litigators in the United States.

What Else Should You Know?
While you can, of course, bookmark Thomson Reuters News & Insight Legal/NY, the company offers several other methods of access — email newsletters, RSS feeds and an iPhone app. Learn more about Thomson Reuters News & Insight Legal/NY.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
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Coming today to TechnoFeature: Now that you've got a shiny new iPad, how best to deduct it from your tax return? Use it for documents! Draft contracts. Write letters. Review discovery documents. And tell the IRS to stick it because your iPad is no toy notwithstanding all those Angry Birds apps. There's just one problem — how can you move documents from your Mac or PC to your iPad and back again? In today's TechnoFeature newsletter, iPad and Mac consultant Brett Burney discusses four iPad document management methods, including recommended apps. He also hints at a fifth possible method that may surface next week. Bonus points if you read this issue of TechnoFeature on your iPad.

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Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers new features of a popular legal research service (see article below), a new E Ink eBook reader, software for reviewing prebills electronically, an application that creates a Facebook-style social network within your law firm, and an iPad app for converting and saving online videos. Don't miss the next issue.

Legal News on the Move

Those of you with a touch of gray might remember a time when conducting online legal research required a dedicated computer in a red housing. Back then, the ability to search through court opinions seemed like magic. Today, it's just business as usual — and that red computer has since given way to your Web browser on any computer. But the brand behind that red computer has remained a force in legal research through both refinement of its offerings as well as new breakthroughs. Today we report on some of the latter.

Lexis.com … in One Sentence
LexisNexis' lexis.com is an online information service for legal research, legal news, legal treatises, public records, and more.

The Killer Feature
With trusted brands like American Lawyer, National Law Journal, Legal Intelligencer (not to mention our frenemy Law Technology News), ALM Media is a legal news powerhouse. However, the company also curates legal research materials such as practice-area treatises and forms, and a comprehensive collection of jury verdicts and settlements for use in early case assessment.

As of this month, lexis.com became the exclusive licensee of ALM Media's content. So if you want to search through all that helpful material while also conducting legal research, lexis.com is now the place to go.

Other Notable Features
In recent months, LexisNexis has added other new content to lexis.com and also improved its functionality. For example, SmartLinx enables you to search through billions of public records. As its name suggests, the summary report links to the underlying records and portrays the data graphically, enabling to identify connections that may have otherwise eluded you.

Related Content is another relatively new offering that incorporates materials from Matthew Bender, ALR, BNA, newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, and briefs, pleadings, motions, and court dockets. Lexis.com's Related Content feature lists these secondary sources automatically when you search for case law or statutes.

What Else Should You Know?
Lexis.com offers a number of ways to search its growing collection of materials, including the two standbys — Boolean and Natural Language. A number of subscription options exist. Learn more about lexis.com.

How to Receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The "In One Sentence" section describes each product in one sentence, and the "Killer Feature" section describes each product's most compelling feature. The TechnoLawyer NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on April 26, 2011 in our free BigLaw newsletter. Instead of reading BigLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

A few months back I wrote an article for the legal tabloid Above the Law entitled Email Marketing and the Power of Permission. The article resulted in a backlash from lawyer bloggers, which I didn't understand at the time. Upon reflection, I now have a clear understanding of the problem. First, many lawyer bloggers publish for fun as a hobby. Second, they don't understand the power of email marketing. Since you receive BigLaw, you have a better appreciation for email's strengths, but even you may underestimate its potential to help your firm achieve its marketing goals.

The Marketing Funnel

Lets start with the easy part first. Is your law blog just a hobby? If so, that's fine, but don't have any illusions about its ability to help you build a book of business. It may bring you occasional exposure, but it requires a true publishing strategy to build a meaningful blog that will help you attract clients, speaking invitations, press, etc. The biggest weakness of a law blog is that it is often the first exposure for a potential client, but it doesn't provide the follow-up that is essential to what marketers call "conversion."

Let's think about the classic marketing funnel. At the top of the cone you have first exposure, at the bottom you have general counsel that are hiring you. New blog posts can get new prospects into your funnel, but it requires a strategy to keep them there and eventually contact you.

Now some of you may be thinking: What if they come back to the blog multiple times? What if they add the RSS feed to Google Reader and read my blog until they are convinced I'm awesome and hire me? That could happen, but it would require that your readers use blogs and social media like you do. They don't. Most general counsel and even associate counsel are Baby Boomers and Gen Xers who spend most of their day staring at email.

The Bottom Line: Email Is Still Essential

Now before you get upset and start shouting, "we get way too much email" and "how dare you encourage us to flood prospective clients with more email" please pause for a moment and think about the email newsletters that you receive.

Could you live without most newsletters? I can. If I notice a newsletter that I don't open for a couple of months in a row, I unsubscribe.

But can you live without all newsletters? I can't. I read several email newsletters faithfully (including this one) because they provide helpful content unavailable elsewhere.

The cure for boring and unhelpful email and newsletters is not NO EMAIL, but instead better, more targeted email. In fact, because you're sending content to people, an email newsletter has an even higher bar for quality than your law blog. Think concise, well-edited material that is extremely specific, timely, and relevant.

It isn't easy to create this type of content, but once you have people on your email list you have moved them further down the funnel en route to becoming clients. If they unsubscribe from your list, that's okay. Those who remain — and remain engaged, which you can measure in various ways — are finding value in what you have to share.

Pay Attention to Your Analytics

As intimated above, you need to measure engagement. Marketing geeks like me use the term "analytics."

Who is opening your email newsletters? Who is forwarding them? Who is clicking on links in your newsletters? Email is an extremely valuable communications tool, but only when you optimize based on the data you obtain. You don't know who is reading your blog (unless they contact you or comment), but you can tell exactly who is reading your email.

If you want to get started using email marketing in a large firm environment, there are some great tools out there. The best I have come across is a program called Campaigner. A product called Tikit eMarketing is also popular.

Those of you in smaller firms who happen to subscribe to BigLaw can use very inexpensive products like AWeber (which I personally used to get my lists started) and Constant Contact (which also works well).

Press Send Now

If email marketing is not currently part of your marketing program, its time to fix that. It's not a lolly-pop solution though. It requires a new process and execution. It will be worth your time and effort. You don't need to take my word for it though. The analytics will tell the story. You will see who is and who isn't reading what you send out. Email will keep your prospects engaged until they die (opt-out) or buy.

Written by Adrian Dayton of Marketing Strategy and the Law.

How to Receive BigLaw
Many large firms have good reputations for their work and bad reputations as places to work. Why? Answering this question requires digging up some dirt, but we do with the best of intentions. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, BigLaw analyzes the business practices, marketing strategies, and technologies used by the country's biggest law firms in an effort to unearth best and worst practices. The BigLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.