Ed Poll wrote an informative article on the subject of cyber insurance appearing in the January 2007 Law Technology News.

 

He explains that if you are interested in cyber insurance, you should first review your current coverage.  You are probably spending too much on traditional insurance plans, such as property, and errors and omissions. Those policies do not cover cyber damages, and most of your value resides in unprotected data. 

 

Where do you go for specialized cyber insurance?  Ed points out that American International Group, Chubb, and Lloyd’s of London have offered coverage since the late 1990s.  The biggest risk involves unauthorized access to confidential information. Insurance coverage should address both direct financial loss as well as liabilities arriving due to damage to clients and other parties.  Ed Poll is the principal of LawBiz Management Co. and Edward Poll & Associates Inc.  He is the author of LawBiz.Blog and his email address is edpoll@lawbiz.com

 

Laptop theft and the resulting exposure of confidential information is an increasing risk to law firms.  A separate article in Law Technology News by Julie Machal-Fulks and Robert Scott (starting on page 46) dealt with security risks associated with portable devices and is well worth a read.  Having recently attended LegalTech and observing some risky behavior involving attendee laptops, it is worth passing on to you as a reminder. “When using your laptop at conferences, keep your eyes on it.”  Laptop theft on Wikipedia is a valuable source of information for protecting the information on your laptop.

 

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc.  For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income, go to www.Juris.com.

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Does anyone really have their finger on the pulse?  JoAnna Forshee at Envision Agency asked a group of media folks for their take on 2007.  The answers were all over the place.  Monica Bay of Law Technology News was so taken by Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth that she now sees green at every turn.  “Green law (use of technology to reduce facilities costs while being environmentally responsible) will screech to the front of the line, as more and more folks realize that we MUST pay attention to global warming — with a lovely byproduct that installing appropriate technology will actually reduce costs,” Monica wishfully explained.  On the other hand, London’s Karen Jones of Citytech explained that firms are suffering from implementation fatigue and 2007 will be a year of small projects.

 

Of course electronic discovery will be important in 2007 as firms continue to figure out this brave new world and the bean counters have their sights on Business Process Management (BPM) systems.

 

My take on 2007 is based on the responses to the Juris® Law Firm Economic Survey and on the feedback I’m getting from face time with managing partners across the county.  They want technology to help them manage the law firm.  Their appetite has been whetted by a growing awareness of emerging alternatives to voluminous reports that are days, weeks, and even months old. In many cases, these new tools do not require disruptive implementation. 

 

On the business intelligence side, managing partners tell me they want less, not more, and they want information about now and the future rather than the past. To put that in terms of buzz words, they want situational awareness—where are we right this minute and, unless we do something about it, where are we headed. They also want targeted information that is relevant to their area of responsibility.  They want it in an instantly digestible form.  It needs to be actionable information.  Its need to be navigable-—you should be able to drill down or explode the information to obtain all you need to take action or make a decision.  What are the technologies that deliver on those requirements?

 

• Automatic information presentation technology that monitors activity and targets who gets what and when

• .Net technology that collects information about activity and transactions occurring well beyond the traditional accounting input points

• Dashboard technology that replaces yesterday’s reports with graphic and visual presentation of information usually against targets or standards

• Drill-down and analytical technologies that provide fast access to underlying information as well as search and manipulation to refine that information.

 

Managing partners and law firm leaders have had a growing feeling of being chased by events rather than leading the firm toward planned targets and goals.  Why? Because of an information glut—an increasing volume of information that has been declining in value, increasing less relevant to current events and the pending future.  In short, they have been knocked out of the driver’s seat by systems that leave them drowning in information.

 

On the competitive intelligence side, automatic peer group benchmarking services like those from Redwood Analytics, Thomson’s PeerMonitor and the Juris Insight service can give managing partners a more timely picture, comparing their own performance metrics against those of relevant peers.  The new services eliminate the duel job of responding to surveys and then trying to match survey results against those of the law firm.  The new services extract law firm metrics directly from the information systems of the participating firms, eliminating the puffery and wishful thinking that contaminates traditional surveys.  Another important advantage of the new automatic services is that they are more timely, giving the manager a current picture of the landscape.  Traditional surveys are often 12 to 18 months behind the curve.

 

For 2007, no single technology emphasis will dominate.

• Litigators will be concerned with litigation-related technology

• Administrators will be interested in technology to improve processes

• Law firm leaders and managing partners want back in the driver’s seat

• Those behind the infrastructure curve will be trying to catch up

• Monica Bay will be trying to get all of us to go green

 

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc.  For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income, go to www.Juris.com.

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Talk about something to write home about—the London based publication Citytech included me on their just released list of the top 100 Global Technology Leaders. As flattering as that is, I am pleased most by the three highlighted words that followed my listing “Outstanding Individual: Visionary”

The list is focused on the legal community and was compiled based on nominations from 2000 worldwide technologists—members of law firms, consultants, vendors and the media. Those on the list are identified by the publication as belonging to the “magic circle”—meaning they are at the top of their profession.

In addition to Juris here are just some of the organizations represented by those in the Top 100: Allen & Overy, Dennis Kennedy, Baker & McKenzie, Baker Robbins & Company, Clifford Chance, Foley & Lardner, Holland & Knight, Latham & Watkins, Law Technology News, Lexis Nexis, Microsoft, Morrison & Foerster, Thomson Elite, Wragge & Co. and Zantaz.

When announcing the Top 100 list, Karen Jones, editor, wrote the following:

“The Global legal tech leaders list act as guardians to law firm achievements. They protect and shape the legal world and add immense competitive advantage.”

A New York awards ceremony will bring this global list together in one place on January 7, 2007. It will be my honor to join them.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income, go to www.Juris.com.

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One of the first things we learned at our mother’s knee is that one should never discuss politics or religion in a social setting. It was not considered polite conversation.

Things have gotten much more serious. In the past, bringing up politics or religion with casual acquaintances might have resulted in fewer invitations. Today, the wrong comment can get you killed or start a riot. The list of things to avoid is also growing. For example, unless you want to derail a conversation, never refer to work/life balance as a gender issue. Use gender and work/life balance in the same paragraph, or even worse, in the same sentence, and you can expect an avalanche of emotional rebuttals. Now, we have learned that discussing Apple® computers must be added to the list of taboo topics. By now I’m sure that everyone in the blogging community is aware of the perils of Larry Bodine after penning an article in Law Technology News relating his not-so-happy experience with an Apple.

Apples are great for Apple-minded people. Creative team members at Juris are Apple folks. They live happily, surrounded by a sea of PCs, all the time producing ads, product sheets, direct mail pieces, and delivering on our advertising and marketing needs with talent and speed. My first encounter with a personal computer was with an early Apple. My wife learned to tolerate the age of technology with an Apple. She has never completely adapted to her later PC replacements.

It is like left-brain and right-brain differences in people or the “Women are from Venus and Men are from Mars” issue. Your brain just gets wired differently depending on which world you operate in—Apple or PC. I know there will be people who say they use both with no problem. There are professional baseball players that bat left-handed and right-handed—but I never could. Most other people can’t.

Frustrated by the “Mac Attack” from Mac fans furious over his LTN article, Larry wrote “…Mac users are just realizing that they have bought orphan technology."

Actually, Apple's strategy has proven to be sound when examined with hindsight. It is a strategy that ambitious midsized law firms would be wise to consider.

As the PC industry developed, Apple chose to be different rather than adopt the "me too" strategy of Compaq and other IBM wannabees. In a "me too" world, only the low cost producer can survive in the long run. IBM's strategy of a “universal” machine with mix and match components cost IBM its market leader role when others were able to operate at lower cost points.

Apple has been able to survive and profit without relying on price or distribution channels for its competitive advantage. The low cost producer is always at risk that someone else will build a device that meets the needs of 80 percent of its market but at a significantly lower cost point. Niche players are less attractive competitive targets and it is much more difficult to one-up their value proposition.

While Apple only holds a 4.8 percent share of the U.S. market, they have 100 percent share of the Mac fan market, and they hold that more securely than Dell holds its market. Besides, 4.8 percent of the U.S market isn’t all that bad.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income, go to www.Juris.com.

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Workflow is one of the hot new buzz words driving technology investments in the AML 200 circles and among the global 100. In a recent article in The National Law Journal, Kevin Berry wrote “One of the fastest-growing trends in the legal technology is the business-process management. Known in wider technology circles as BPM, this approach is more commonly called ‘workflow’ in the legal market.”

Unfortunately in many cases workflow investments are in reality little more than jerry-rigging to make legacy or poorly designed functions work in harmony with the flow of work. I was talking with a Juris specialist the other day who was telling me about her recent visit with a 100+ attorney law firm. The law firm had paid their existing business software vendor (a Juris competitor) for an automated client input form. Why? It turns out that setting up a new client or a new matter in the software was so cumbersome and required so many different steps that it interfered with the logical flow of work.

Before you invest in workflow software, broaden your view and look at replacing your business system. Workflow investments that are overcoming weaknesses of your exiting system can be the wrong move—one that prevents you from taking advantages to current and future advances in technology. You are likely to find that updating your business system will eliminate the need for the layering on an additional workflow system and, while you are at it, gaining important performance increasing benefits that have become available through newer technology.

The value of that new technology came home when I read the comments of the Juris CEO in a recent e-mail to Monica Bay. Monica is the editor-in-chief of Law Technology News and had requested his comments regarding an article appearing soon.

Why move to a newer business system rather than pour money into projects that keep the firm dependent on its older systems? That question is partially answered by some of Stephen Collins’ e-mailed comments:

“With today’s advances in software and communications capability, managing partner and working attorneys can take advantage of dashboard technology for continuous situational awareness over their area of responsibility. Today’s systems can track activity and events automatically alerting the appropriate individual when their attention is required. Rather than digging through traditional reports, busy attorneys can now receive just the actionable information they need in instantly digestible forms. Today’s mobile attorney has a lot more capability than just e-mail, contacts and time entries. Ipsos-Reid, one of the top 10 research firms in the world, reported that surveyed firms averaged 53 minutes per day of recovered productive time using mobile devices like the BlackBerry™—almost an hour per day per fee earner! For an attorney that is billable time—previous downtime that is recovered because of the anytime/anywhere convenience of going mobile with calls, e-mails, appointments, time tracking, etc. Fifty-three minutes, almost an hour, per day is big money.”

The message is clear. Taking advantage of current technology business systems can increase partner income and client satisfaction. Look carefully at workflow investment proposals. If its purpose is to overcome weaknesses in you current system, look first at moving to a more modern business system. Making a move can put money in partner pockets rather than take it out.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income, go to www.Juris.com.
 

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CRM, customer relationship management, is a concept and a discipline; don’t confuse the need for CRM with the need for software.

 

CRM software can increase the efficiency of a law firm’s customer relationship management program—but it can’t create one.  CRM and CRM software are not one in the same.

 

It is clear that the most important and largest potential source of future revenue for a law firm is its existing clients.  Capitalizing on that potential requires the law firm to actively engage in revenue-increasing relationship building with the existing clients of the law firm.  It is that activity that constitutes a firm's CRM or customer relationship management program.  CRM software arrived on the scene to increase a firm’s efficiency in carrying out that vital function.  It promised to help us track our activity with the client.  It promised data mining capabilities that would facilitate cross selling.  It was a big step up from 3 by 5 cards and Rolodex systems.  Some law firms are good at customer relationships, some are “so-so” at it, and others are just plain bad at it.

 

Unfortunately, the “so-so” and bad firms outnumber the good ones.  CRM software has gotten a bad rap because most of the buyers have been law firms who were not good at customer relations to start with. The problem with most CRM system implementations is that they have violated Einstein’s law of simplicity.  Einstein said, “Everything should be as simple as possible but no simpler”—or something close to that.

 

Consider the comments of Ellis Mirsky with The Network of Trial Law Firms, Inc. of New York as reported by Law Technology News in their September 2005 issue.  Ellis reportably said, “CRM should more appropriately be called CRAP.  It’s just another example of a simple idea gone haywire because techno geeks can’t resist creating a nuclear power plant when a simple campfire will do.”

 

CRM systems are wonderful tools in the hands of people who are good at client relationship management.  CRM systems are blank sheets of paper.  They are what you make them.  If your reach is too far beyond your grasp, you will destroy its value.

 

So the lesson is become good at customer relationship building.  When you are, you will also be a candidate for a CRM system.

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The ABA’s 2004-2005 legal technology survey is now available. You can purchase individual volumes or the complete five-volume set at www.lawtechnology.org/survstat. An executive summary can be purchased for immediate download. Volumes include:

• Law Office Technology
• Litigation and Courtroom Technology
• Web and Communications Technology
• Online Research
• Mobile Lawyers

Laura Ikens, research specialist at the ABA’s Legal Technology Research Center, noted in Law Technology News that the survey disclosed a disconnect between availability and use of legal-specific software. Software is sitting on the shelves unused. Software loaded on computers and workstations is underused.

Try as they have, software companies haven’t been able to eliminate the need of the user to invest a little "learning time" to save a lot of future time. Too many features and capabilities are hidden behind menus and icons. Users don’t know to look for them. And even if they did, the old saying "out of sight, out of mind" applies.

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There is a lot of hype about outsourcing, but what are law firms really doing?

Andrew Adkins III, Adkins@law.ufl.edu, is director of the Legal Technology Institute at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law. In his article appearing in the June 2005 issue of Law Technology News, Andy gives us a dose of reality. He points out that according to the 2004 ILTA survey on Legal Technology, “outsourcing is not ‘in’. The use of outsourcing for performing IT functions is wide but not very deep.’’ It appears that less than 2% of law firms outsource as much as half of their IT work. 

 

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The futurist, Alvin Toffler, as early as 1970, began to write about rising consumer power in a new age where consumers had unlimited choices that were all the same. All the same except for price, associated services, accessibility and ease of use.

The front page of The Economist this month declared "Power at last" and proclaimed that the Internet has made the buyer king and queen. Businesses not only sell products and services that should be adapted to this new world, they consume products and services. With the Internet, they are now in control of the price they pay for the goods and services they consume.

Is your firm still purchasing general office supplies from your local brick and mortar vendor? Your local supplier may be giving you a competitive price but, even so, the chances are that a quick Google search will produce a better deal. It is easy. It is fast and it is usually less expensive. Yesterday, I wanted to purchase a large number of Avery Lay Flat Report Covers, product number #47781. They were available locally but the local supplier had only a limited quantity on hand and there was no volume discount. A quick product search on Google identified 13 sources, each with a different price including case prices. I selected the lowest price and several cases will arrive in 3 to 5 days.

I hope your firm is not still using a travel agent. It is less expensive and more convenient to book travel on-line. The convenience of the Internet and the ease by which you can compare prices between suppliers, including airlines, means that shopping by the Internet will lower your firm’s operating cost and overhead.

The advantages of the Internet are not limited to one time or periodic purchases. The most recent issue of Law Technology News included an article by David Whelan titled "Automating Benefits and Payroll". The author explains what led him to go with a paperless payroll service over the Internet. ADP and Paychex are the two firms mentioned in the article. He noted that they may save 15% annually. Juris, Inc. uses ADP online services with direct deposit, and we use Concur for processing employee expenses. Employees are issued American Express cards for which they, not the firm, are responsible. However, the expenses are automatically accumulated by Concur online. The employee adds cash expenses and other required information; then with the click of the mouse, submits the expenses for reimbursement. When approved, the reimbursement is automatically transferred to ADP and is included in the next direct deposit so that the employee’s deposit includes both payroll and expense reimbursement. Overhead is reduced. Fee earner time to prepare and submit an expense report is reduced. That frees time that becomes available for billable work.

You can put more money in the pockets of partners, by making Internet shopping the norm rather than an exception.
 

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I read an article well worth your attention. The article was by Ross Kodner, a Milwaukee attorney and frequent author (rkodner@microlaw.com), titled Generating Profit from Tech that appeared in the March 2005 Law Technology News.

• Leveraging work product
• Maximizing profitability
• Providing a competitive advantage

 

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