Legal Project Management (LPM) has received a major boost downunder with the leading Australian/Asian firm King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) launching a program with the assistance of Edge International. Tony O'Malley, Managing Partner Australia, King & Wood Mallesons and Pam Woldow, Edge International give a convincing 5 minute audio explanation of why it is such a good idea.

If it is true as Shaun Plant says in The New Holy Grail of Legal Practice that “much of the practice of law is not about technical legal detail, but managing projects”, and, as Tony O’Malley has said that “Clients have been telling us this for a while”, why has it taken the legal profession so long to embrace LPM?

It is not as though LPM is a recent invention. As an editor of a newsletter on IT in Law which saw me produce 30+ abstracts each month for over a decade from 1985 on, I can tap into a bit of LPM history. I’ll simply reproduce some of this material. When reflecting on the observations, note the year they were made:

New project management system for lawyers

Project management, when taking on a court case for example, requires lawyers to write down all relevant factors such as meetings, research, availability of key figures and how long each of the stages will take. With a new project management system for lawyers called 'In Control!' they then input these activities onto the microcomputer and play with the information to find the best possible schedule. During the preparation of the case they can input new data as circumstances change so that they always know the completion date. The UK software package costs £49.50.

(COMPUTER LAW & PRACTICE; Nov/Dec 1987; p76)

Computer assisted litigation for bigger, faster mind games

The use of project management software, programs which help plan and manages large projects, should be explored by the profession. At present, it is not common for lawyers to plan in an orderly fashion the conduct of litigation from the commencement of pleadings to judgement. While there are many contingencies which might disrupt such planning, there seems to be no inherent reason why comprehensive planning ought not be undertaken at the start of the litigation and reviewed from time to time as circumstances change. If properly harnessed, this type of software would enable the party using it to control and to some extent direct the course of litigation.

When the profession realises that it is more productive to invest in its lawyers than its administrators, the old attitudes such as a reluctance to use keyboards, will begin to change. This reluctance may arise, in part, from the fact that lawyers are not used to doing things with their hands; the business world distinguishes between manual workers and thinkers.

(Timothy Hancock; LAW SOCIETY JOURNAL [NSW]; September 1988; pp30-36)

Lawyers keep time with KeyPlan

Litigation like other projects needs to be managed from the beginning. Traditionally, lawyers have devised manual systems to assist. In order to properly advise their clients, they have prepared time charts and cost estimates, but as so often occurs in complex litigation, these original predictions are lost in a mass of information and it is then impossible to keep the client informed. Project management software can reduce this problem.

Project management software will allow a lawyer to manage the litigation more effectively and expediently by spotting potential bottle-necks, rescheduling scarce resources, alerting the lawyer to the need for additional resources and to expiring time deadlines, and by providing cost estimates. It is also useful to have some kind of “intelligent” check-list.

To begin, the lawyer lists the tasks to be performed in any order. Each task is assigned an optimum time limit for performance, and the resources necessary to complete the task. Each resource is assigned an hourly rate. Fixed costs and overheads are also entered. For example, assume we have just received instructions to act for the plaintiff in an action against a valuation company who allegedly provided our client with a negligent valuation. We list the activities to be performed following the receipt of instructions from our client. These activities may include sending a brief to counsel to advise generally, drafting a letter of advice to the client, a company search of the defendant, drafting a letter of demand, obtaining an expert valuation etc. Each task is assigned a time frame for performance; for example, the letter of advice to the client may take 1hr 30 mins. A solicitor is needed to draft the letter of advice, and that solicitor is entered as a resource at an hourly rate of say $150.00.

It is then possible to instantly prepare a time chart for the entire litigation or any section of it. For example, the partner in charge may wish to ascertain the tasks being performed by a certain solicitor and their degree of completion. The time chart can be instantly regenerated if the draft pleadings are not received from counsel when expected but several weeks later. You can estimate the costs to date but more importantly you can give your client an estimate of the future costs on a daily or even an hourly basis. In settlement negotiations, you can immediately advise your client on the relative costs position if the case is settled immediately, next week or if it proceeds to a full hearing.

Elizabeth Broderick, COMPULAW DIGEST; Feb. 1989

The above bits of history indicate that Project Management was not unknown in decades past; however, there were greater challenges at the time including just getting lawyers to have a computer on their desk, or use a keyboard.

Interestingly, those firms that did get IT, prospered. A world-leader in this regard was the then Blake Dawson Waldron (now Ashurst), where Elizabeth Broderick became a partner — one of the first in a major firm to achieve partnership based on her contribution via legal IT, rather than client billings.

While visionary lawyers can try to lead their firms into the future, a nudge from a client is guaranteed to get attention. In mid-1990’s we were assisting a law firm with the presentation of an extremely large case. I recall the client of that firm being somewhat dismayed that the firm did not use Project Management tools to keep things on track for the case. The firm did get the hint and embarked on a major effort to educate staff in Project Management efforts. Like too many innovations in law, it takes client-pressure to action improvements taken for granted outside the legal profession.

The message that was continually received by Corrs Pavy Whiting & Byrne from its larger clients was to computerise or they would take their business elsewhere. These clients had learned from their own systems about productivity increases that were possible. They wanted Corrs to hook up with their computers as they required faster turnaround time of documents.
(S. Beer; Pacific Computer Weekly; 11 September 1987; p14)

One of the differences between now and then, is that clients didn’t have alternatives to the traditional firm, “elsewhere”, nor were they confident enough to explore options. The risk with waiting for clients to drive innovation is that the new service benchmarks might have been set by another law firm, but that rarely happened. In the past, law firms only had to compete with like minded colleagues who played by “the rules”.

Not so now, as there has been a sudden influx of “elsewhere’s” in the form of what Paul Lippe calls the Non-Firm Firm. One of their main characteristics is that they are process-focused, and so understand LPM. They also are purpose-built, use metrics, have capital and so have a big start when it comes to LPM. So while KWM leads the way among traditional firms with LPM, I suspect others who take a “wait and see” approach don’t have the luxury of even months to respond.

For those wanting to explore this area, at least now, there is a wealth of choice in LPM tools, with the easiest for testing purposes a free trial away on the web. They even run on the new “microcomputer”, the smartphone.

I was relating to a BigLaw colleague how I had recently spent a weekend at a CLE event in rural Australia where it was a 53 year tradition. Again I learnt a lot from my audience some of whom had probably attended each year.

A striking fact was that 85% of the 134 attendees were male. This was to be contrasted with a colleagues recent experience where her legal team and their client met with the other side. It was an all female event. She suggested that the reason there are so few female practising lawyers outside large cities was the lack of support, unlike at her national firm.

IT has many roles in facilitating more flexible working arrangements. Remote desktops and VOIP phones mean that the electronic working file, and your callers, can follow you wherever. The distribution of work which will get even easier with the growing use of project management and unbundling of legal services into discrete tasks. Tasks not needing to be performed in the office at any particular time could be assigned to those needing flexible arrangements.

Although my topic, such as at the CLE rural event was IT, I have found that unless I include the business of law, it risks getting treated as pseudo-entertainment: talking about toys can be more interesting (meaning less dry and challenging) than parallel CLE streams focussing on legal issues. However, by the time I’ve finished each talk, hopefully the attendees realise the two are increasingly co-dependent. The current revolution in legal biz, is fuelled by IT.

Nearly all attendees I spoke with seemed unaware of the extent of legal business changes over the last couple of years. Australia’s, and their own, tyranny of distance seemed to have insulated them from needing to know about Legal Process Outsourcing and off-shoring, the rise of client empowerment (which is not just a corporate thing), and the Law Factory etc.

While it is hailed as an enabler, Australia’s forthcoming Nation Broadband Network (NBN) was seen as a threat. For the really tech-shy lawyers, it meant they might have to actually consider using IT.

The NBN is a double-edged sword. It will bring sophisticated competition to the country, marketed via videos such as these on court appearances. Interestingly, one firm has confronted the video challenge from City firms directly with their own message. Local knowledge alone will struggle unless service levels are at least comparable. Instead of expending their resources defending their turf, maybe they should focus on a niche and extend their reach with their lower overheads and broad experience.

The tools are easily obtained, including video. They can be used to market specialised services via webinars and podcasts, and use skype to provide State, or Country-wide services, depending on the area of law. Such technologies could be the foundation for the rise of large virtual firms of low overhead lawyers. It is not hard, and is now very affordable.

But it does take some vision and requires a personal investment in learning at least the capabilities of the tools available. That is probably the hardest part, and it gives me an opportunity to roll out one of my favourite quotes which is at least 15 years old:

There will be two types of firms in the future. Those firms which look to their clients and try to identify their clients' needs and respond to them, and those firms that do not. Corporations require law firms to provide services in a more cost effective way. Technology will assist forward thinking law firms in accomplishing that goal of customer satisfaction. Those firms that adapt technology, including, and especially a collaborative information sharing utility, should be more successful in the marketplace. Those firms that do not will find themselves with clients who are dissatisfied, who are paying more than they feel they are getting value for, and will find the ability to retain clients, more difficult.
(Donald Cohn, Corporate Counsel, Dupont)

It can be done, as I found out from my audience. They were not all tech-averse. One 69 year old had purchased an IPad for home. He quickly realised that this was a tool to help him be a better lawyer. It now travels with him everywhere including to court where it is handed around when presenting evidence.

I have a theory that this is the ultimate companion device for lawyers. Unlike a notebook, or desktop monitors, the screen is not a barrier to communication, but does the opposite. I could see that this story inspired colleagues, and is a one that has probably been replicated world-wide which is why some believe such tablets will soon dominate for knowledge workers.

Siri will take the iPad even further by shielding the user from having to know much about computers – a huge step beyond icons, mice and even touch into the world of artificial intelligence, but like so many Apple initiatives, you won’t realise the enormity of what has been achieved.

Many older legal practitioners are used to talking to dictation machines, and have been intimidated by keyboards. I suspect that with the touch interface, voice recognition plus Siri, we will see a wave of adoption sweep through their ranks when the iPad 3 is released in March 2012.

IT is not the biggest challenge facing rural lawyers, after all many are looking to slow down, which the New Normal is likely to expedite. The biggest challenge is succession – they end up having to give away their legal practice for virtually nothing because they can’t find someone to buy it.

It is not easy to lure young lawyers to the country. Most don’t want to leave the social life and the career-building work found mainly in the city, particularly while they are young. Fast internet can assist by allowing them to operate from anywhere. While learning the law from experienced rural practitioners, they in turn could contribute greatly to the future of the firm, by teaching their mentors about IT and Social Media. Deloittes call it reverse mentoring.

And while IT is one challenge, a greater one for older lawyers will be Social Media which has evolved to Social Business, and will just become the way we work.

Siri will eventually (l)earn her legal stripes by being asked a lot of legal questions. But you needn’t wait as, today you can ask your iPad complex legal questions and have them answered by a real lawyer, using Skype. You still need your annual weekend CLE events to keep up with each other. But in between, a fast internet will allow you sleep better and impress clients by asking some of your more specialised colleagues hard questions, regardless of their location.

We are just preparing the 2012 Online Legal Services Conference. It seems that in the last year or two the legal, business and technology planets have aligned to produce a surge in interesting web-based projects hitting our legal shores. Far from overnight inspirations, many seem to have been nurtured for years. Often the result of pain experienced by lawyers, or their clients.

When such projects ferment for so long, their depth can be surprising. They start out providing solutions to real problems the legal entrepreneur has experienced, but are enriched by feedback from numerous sounding boards.

Another observation is that often the lawyer behind it has not always been a lawyer. Many have done something else before law. It seems to help them appreciate that the status quo might not be cast in stone. Nor do they have such a large investment in the partnership track. There are now many paths to financial success in law, and other fields, thanks to the Web.

The Internet has helped create a world which has become increasingly ‘connected’ in which you know more about more people. But on another level it has become increasingly superficial. The catch is that lawyers, and “the Law” will be competing with web-based “convenience”. It is the marketing and presentation that will get people in.

With are so many apps out there, interest of a potential client might be triggered on their phone. Smart little apps are really the lure to get people in and then involved at a deeper level with whatever system you are a pushing. There will be so much choice for clients you really need to have that point of difference ie, something smart and useful and effective and easy to use….and then get them in for the bigger stuff.

A new Australian-based service called InVaulta is a prime example of a system to complement and extend a legal practice. The system was developed over 5 years by an estate planning lawyer. At its simplest, it lets you know when your client has died. Over time, it has evolved considerably, including as a system for sharing client data with the client’s other business advisors.

I would suggest that in the future, in addition to just being a good lawyer, you would be wise to have some sort of “angle”, like InVaulta, to distinguish your offering. There are going to be so many web-based services, complementing and extending basic legal services, that clients will simply come to expect them.

However, you will need to have something of substance to offer, rather than mere “tokenism”. To date, many lawyers have had a computer on their desk as a paperweight, or had their secretary handle their email. Similiarly, Practice Management Systems are typically used to a small fraction of their potential. Most lawyers have failed to take advantage of empowering technology that could help them be better lawyers.

We are now seeing the same thing with Social Media. However, rather than missed opportunities, Twitter and blogs poorly used can instantly do more harm that good for one’s reputation.

Online legal solutions will go one big step further: they can empower the client. However, before going that far, lawyers need to understand what technology is available to them. Admittedly, it is not easy for older lawyers to become comfortable with the role of digital tools, let alone an understanding of the subtleness of each. I recently attended a small seminar where a Social Media guru spoke about the new Facebook with Timeline capabilities.

Attendees comprised those involved with my old football club, mainly ex-footballers, and no shortage of ex-factor. What was immediately apparent was that for most, including myself, Facebook was not an integral part of their social lives; and the new automatic Timeline in Facebook was a scary feature. They were not at all comfortable with the possible public airing of their past, unlike a younger generation. I suspect some had a past social life that might have been inconsistent with image they now project.

Interestingly, the speaker did marketing at University, and became an expert in Social Media, which went a long way to explaining why he had a full client portfolio within 6 months of leaving university.

After the seminar, I was with him when he ordered a drink from the Bar. The barmaid was not shy about how impressed she was with the speaker, particularly when he revealed that the source of his knowledge was the fact he was a …. Facebook Developer. I didn’t bother to share with her the fact that I was a … Filemaker Developer, and that databases are the foundation of systems such as Facebook.

Could there be a hint of a lesson here for lawyers? Will clients be drawn to the more “likeable” online legal solution and service providers with marketing and social media qualifications, rather than “real lawyers”? Can legal entrepreneurs get by with just enough knowledge of the law to be able to communicate with, and delegate work to “legal technicians”? Will lawyers need to be associated with online legal solutions providers to firstly survive, and secondly have a viable succession strategy?

One thing I am sure is that we will be getting answers much sooner than most lawyers realise. And in the face of app and web-based competition, the challenge will be to avoid becoming like Toad in The Wind in the Willows, an instrument of Fate, sent to punish clients who couldn't tell a real lawyer when they saw one. In the coming era of Siri Esq., it will not get any easier.

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
Andrew Marvell

I was going to discuss the implications of Steve Jobs hypothetically attending Law School, but it became too challenging, especially with deadlines. Besides, when an article concludes with a quote from Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf, like everything to do with Steve, the bar has been raised. The title of The Guardian’s Jean-Louis Gassée article: Steve Jobs: who's going to protect us from cheap and mediocre now? says a lot.

One result of Steve's having gone to Law School is that we might have missed out on benefiting from so many technologies in this one lifetime. Now that Steve has gone, it is not so much their invention, but more who will “sell” it to us.

We certainly need all the help we can get, selling IT to lawyers. Brisbane barrister Kate Greenwood predicted at one of our IT & Innovation conferences in 2006 that smartphones would be the on-ramp for older lawyers needing to embrace technology. She had observed senior tech-shy colleagues engaging in “mine is better than yours” banter about their new phones.

They definitely should have more to discuss since the launch of the iPhone 4S (despite it not being the iPhone 5). I am presuming S stands for Siri, and it certainly deserves to be a capital S. Siri is important as Tim Bajarin so succinctly explained in a recent article.

Steve Jobs didn’t “invent” Siri, Apple bought the technology. Interestingly the developers of Siri might have been inspired by Apple’s vision. However, each has heavily invested it, though Apple obviously has more clout. The world is full of great ideas, but it is the belief and commitment to the ‘great’ idea that matters. In the late 1980’s while at a legal IT conference, I recall a senior Apple Australia person retorted to a suggestion that they did not invent the windows GUI (graphical user interface) and the mouse. His response was “But we bet our whole damn company on it”.

So Apple’s release of the iPhone 4S could be very big news for many lawyers. It is the next big step along the path from punch cards, keyboard, mouse and touch. But it is more than simply voice recognition and navigation, and, dare I say it, artificial intelligence (AI), that works. They seem to have done an outstanding job of protecting us from complexity by deeply integrating the components such as UNIX and AI. So sorry, no tech challenges here for those who thrive on the character building alternatives.

Siri seems to be a serious attempt at Apple’s Knowledge Navigator vision where the computer became a helpful assistant, on a very very early iPad.

Following the release of the video in 1987, I played it at “Hands-on” seminars I conducted on how lawyers themselves, could use computers. With over 2,000 Australian lawyers participating in my seminars over a decade, it seems to have helped spawn the not inconsiderable legal-IT innovation “down-under”.

I suggest you check out the official Apple video as well as less slick, but possibly more impressive, Stuff TV video of a real world review of Siri. Like so many of Apple’s products: impressive when introduced; bleedingly obvious in hindsight.

I have an iPhone. It is the “best” camera as it is the most convenient for me, having a 6 year old. However, let Jordan Furlong forever change the significance of the word “convenience” via his article: “The new battlefield: convenience”. You must read it if interested in law as a business, rather than a hobby. Remember, that it is not just you, but also your clients who should be the focus of your convenience-efforts. Steve Jobs didn’t just make all those toys for himself.

A better camera in the iPhone 4S is therefore, important news for some. But for lawyers, it might also mean that with apps such as JotNot it becomes a better hand-held document scanner, which is yet another use for this wonderful appliance.

You don’t need to use a lot of the features from Apple appliances to make them a worthwhile investment. Five years ago I got an iPod. Mine had photos, and audio instead of music. The audio was of thousands of articles on legal IT read in an elegant English accent by Audrey, an AT&T voice. I was able to reclaim many hours of “reading” time, otherwise lost to queues, bus stops, domestic chores and other time-stealers. I suspect Audrey could again become an important person in my life as the voice of Siri and open up all sorts of possibilities.

Compared to many, I am an unsophisticated user of my iPhone. I understand the iPhone can do other things apart from making calls, reading and taking photos. It’s not that I couldn’t master more, but with “time’s winged chariot hurrying near” and Steve’s Stanford University address on connecting dots, love, loss, and death ringing in my ears, I have other priorities. Fortunately, thanks to Audrey and Siri, I might not need to know much about the tools to benefit. They will “think different”, and “just do it”.

It is almost trite to say that you don’t computerise a mess, it simply makes it happen faster. The problem is the legal system, particularly litigation; and it is something we are stuck with, though changes are afoot. 

A leading Australian judge has recently sounded the death knell for the traditional system for litigating civil disputes and urged the legal profession to abandon it.

“There is no point in tinkering with the present system and its problems. It is time for a fresh start.”

US-based e-discovery guru, Ralph Losey has long advocated that the system is broken, and that most litigators are not up to the task of dealing with evidence in this electronic age.

The legal IT industry has responded by making huge investments and considerable progress in analysing the information mountains that face the modern litigator. Sizeable industries revolve around the need to review, too often, millions of documents. And although, it is possible, with the right IT and sufficient staffing resources, some believe it shouldn’t be necessary. The problem is that those mountains could/should be closer to the tiny molehills actually needed in most hearings.

Unfortunately, most lawyers seem too enmeshed in the problem to see any alternative. For too long “The Law” has been cloaked in mystery; a craft thought beyond the discipline of systematisation. I recall the IT partner at a leading Australian firm confiding in an audience of like minded colleagues how frustrating it was that while every partner thought most other areas of law could be systematised in part, it certainly didn’t apply to their area of practice.

Admittedly, it was before the GFC, and the rise of greater client-choice over the last couple of years. Project management is the current buzzword for larger matters, while process automation and workflow abound for more routine work.

While lawyers will not be abandoning current litigation processes immediately, clients might lead the way. The imminent coming into force of the requirement that the parties take “genuine/reasonable steps” to narrow the issues prior to commencing proceedings in Australian Federal and some State jurisdictions might be a tipping point. Together with society’s growing displeasure with current practices has led to an environment ideal for a system such as the Enright Method to take off. The Method involves a structured listing of the issues, and forces the parties to confront each other head on, as this US judge sought: 

If I could get your argument outlined, and then make the other side respond to it as outlined, and then have some facility to compare the two, I could actually force lawyers to do what they hate to do, which is to directly confront one another's arguments.

The best thing about the Enright Method is its simplicity, as one GC for a large Australian internet company found when using it in a recent case:

I love it. It is elegant. I wanted to spoon feed (our) lawyer with the case outline for them to use as the screenplay for the hearing. The … method was incredibly useful for me to do this in an organised and efficient way. … (It was) particularly useful for making sure that we … were on the same page as our litigation team.
General Counsel for a large Australian Web company

I am a big fan of the Enright Method. It works well with my toolkit of a database and/or an outliner and visuals for presenting the results. 

The method is based on a simple and naturally occurring set of relationships. Elements of a legal rule define the types of fact to which the rule applies. Each legal element is a category of fact. When a fact in a case falls within that category it ‘satisfies’ the element. 

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Or stated more simply, Legal Element 1, is supported by Fact 1.1, which is supported by Evidence 1.1.1. And an additional Fact supporting Legal Element 1 would be Fact 1.2. When all elements are made out the plaintiff has established their case. 

Because this model is based on a simple set of relationships it is ideal for organising tasks related to litigation. These include taking a statement of facts from a witness, pleading a case, organising a case for trial and writing a judgment.

A systematic approach to litigation, and dedicated software can become a secret weapon in litigation, as indicated by a New York lawyer’s comment to me:

What it does is make me be honest and complete. To go through (an) analysis of an incoming or outgoing argument I can't skip any steps or glide over anything. I can't fool myself by inattentiveness or be fooled by a smooth argument that slides over an issue. It makes me articulate my arguments and then show why each of them is valid. And that means that my arguments can be very powerful and economically expressed and that I can get right to the point in taking on an adversary's position because I know what's weak in what (s)he has advanced. … (It) is like the scientific method. It keeps you honest. Despite yourself.

Interestingly, here is a lawyer referring to Scientific Method as it seems there has been too little attention given to Legal Method.

A favourite quote of mine is by Fred Bartlit at the 1994 ABA Techshow

We experiment with software. We buy, we try, we fail. The key to making it all pay off is in the re-engineering process — that is starting off with a blank slate and working from there.

With evaluation periods becoming commonplace, maybe Fred would now say, “we try, we buy, we fail”. Regardless, desktop and smartphone apps are now so abundant and relatively inexpensive that it is all too easy to head down a path of dependance on a program without realising it.

While your main selection criteria for software is likely to be how it personally empowers you as a lawyer, also consider before investing too much of your time, as to how it fits into the future plans for your practice and this new age of “sharing”. At the July, 2010, Innovation+IT Conference for Inhouse Lawyers, Sean Simmons, GC for Oz internet intermediator Wotif.com, suggested that the problem with social media for lawyers, is that we are anti-social. He said that the idea of being social is sharing. Lawyers are bad at sharing

With that in mind, and if you wish to grow, or to eventually sell your practice, you might be wise to invest in tools that facilitate sharing of both the workload and the output with your colleagues and clients.

The problem might then become that you are too far ahead of everyone else. It’s all very well using IT to help you build up your legal business when it is just you, but if you are not careful it can lead you into a dead end. This might be as soon as you need an assistant, another lawyer or to operate collaboratively with colleagues and clients, assuming that cloning-yourself is not an option, just yet.

Technology-based concepts such as “cloud computing”, “electronic lodgement” and the “paperless office” sound easy, but implementing them is another thing. But you might be at an advantage if you are small and starting from scratch.

Consider a large Oz bank who argued that it would take them 5 years to implement electronic lodgement of property title information. For them, it would involve:

• acquiring scanners to replace photocopiers;
• developing workflow procedures;
• dealing with new issues such as image resolution, image format and image viewers;
• developing file naming and saving conventions etc.; and
• re-training staff on new procedures, tools and raw materials.

Fax machines still persists in law firms long after they should because it is a similar, but far simpler technology. Those of us who have been using IT for years forget that we have absorbed a lot of IT-knowhow over time. In my case, a long time. It is not yet possible to pass it on in one digestible tablet. These things can take years, it seems, especially if you are a large organisation.

Finding staff that can effortlessly keep up with you, and your toolset, may be a challenge. So it is not going to help if your tools don’t scale beyond single-user, or deal with data in a way that doesn’t allow it to be shared.

Worse news might be ahead if you then try to sell your practice. A few years ago, the former BigLaw partner who had turned solo and was a heavy user of IT, confided that when it came time for him to retire, he would simply turn out the lights, and close the door behind him. While all his matters were on his computer, and his computer alone, and no one else could easily step into his place and drive it. It was ironical that his use of IT was so great that it presented a barrier to succession, and to a rewarding sale of his practice. I.e. someone with little IT, lots of paper files, and a secretary would have a better chance of selling the practice. While less profitable, in this case, the old style of legal practice was more tangible to sell. The “system” was not totally dependent on him.

If, instead he had used a complete Practice Management System (PMS) to its fullest, one that incorporates the capture and re-use of processes and other knowhow such as research he would have found it much easy to pass on the baton.

Like artisans, solos can gather a suite of their favourite tools which greatly empower them. Traps can include:

1. Data not easily shared among the tools so there is re-keying which leads to errors,
2. Data not in a format that is easily shared with other staff, or clients,
3. Only one person at a time can use the tool to work on the data.

Like operating system developers such as Apple who must relish all those App developers who show the way for future system enhancements, PMS developers have no shortage of proven enhancements they can add to the more traditional feature sets. While their features might not be as glamourous, they should aim to make up for it by making the feature more “shareable”, and “systematisable”. Using such PMS tools will result in a practice that scales and can be passed on.

Striking that happy balance between the “Law Factory” and the craftsman’s workshop will be the challenge, particularly as you will be competing increasingly with some highly capitalised, well managed and cleverly marketed legal service providers, along with other law firms.

In the mid-nineties, I was asked to demonstrate in court our evidence display system for a major prosecution. Instead of my usual script and demonstration, Senior Counsel for the Defence asked that I demonstrate by editing a document ID on our interactive system on the fly. While the system was not built to do that, particularly in court, I thought I could do it, though not quickly. Then he asked for another document to be changed, and before I had finished, another, and then half a dozen in rapid succession. In my efforts to impress the Court, I had fallen for his “cunning plan”.

“How are we going Mr Lewis?”

“Not too well” was my reply.

A smarter move on my part would have been to acknowledge the limitations of the technology, and use a pen and paper to note the requested changes to be done later with better tools.

I was reminded of this when I read the recent comment by Chris Dale, which he intends to explore further in a future article.

The theme extracted from the many comments about the recent New York Times article is one of skills, including the skill to know what tools and methods are available for use in appropriate cases, and to accept or reject them on an informed basis.

In Chris’ area of ediscovery/edisclosure, that can be a large number of programs as what is needed is a toolkit. Some firms have 30+ software tools for use in litigation. It takes a rare type of person to know when each is appropriate; and an even rarer type of lawyer. 

The most successful lawyers in the future could be those whose skills are extended by such tools. The real masters of those tools will know when not to use them.

While it is tempting to go totally IT, I have only recently started the process of retiring my paper-based Filofax. I had resisted the Palm for years, but the iPhone has finally won me over, and this week has been the first I have not carried the Filofax as a security blanket.

I had possibly been influenced by my IT-resistant brother whose habit of keeping a paper-based version of his diary was vindicated each time the firm’s practice management system was out of action. But I think it was mainly the convenience of being able to have an “instant on” platform for quickly taking notes, and checking phone numbers without the “pretentiousness” of whipping out my beloved 13” MacBook Pro. While it lives in permanent sleep mode, and is therefore readily accessible, the very act of opening the screen detracts from the conversation one is having. It also hints at a form of tech-elitism, a status easily achieved when dealing with lawyers.

However, what really convinced me to get the iPhone was the fact that Filemaker Pro runs on it, as well as the iPad. Templates I have developed over the last 20 years run on it without alteration, subject of course to making adjustments for screen size. 

The ability to find or analyse millions of items in a pocket-sized device is empowering. Filemaker is my personal secret weapon. It extends my capabilities enormously.

I can now carry that “personal enhancer” conveniently in my pocket. I am aware of it limitations such as it is not best for reading longer documents due to the screen size. For that, paper still works, along with large monitors. 

Filemaker Go is why I got the iPhone, but what surprised me is just how good the iPhone is for so many other things, such as a camera, and how clever some app developers are at taking advantage of it. Consider the impressive app that translates foreign language signs and restaurant menus etc while traveling. You use it like a debabelising magnifying glass. I could imagine it also being used to instantly translate foreign language documents you come across unexpectedly.

I now still use paper to unobtrusively and quickly take notes, then discard them after I scan it with the iPhone app JotNot Pro which uses the camera. It even corrects distortion caused by the curved pages in thick books, or scans taken at an angle. Very handy if you ever need a copy of a document or a few pages from a book James Bond-style. Not even the boffins behind Agent 86 thought to add a camera to Max’s shoe phone.

The iPhone has an advantage over the shoe phone: convenience. It is something Jordan Furlong argues “ … is the battleground where our innovative competitors are massing their troops” . Good enough, but convenient legal services will win clients.

The iPhone is “good enough” for me as a camera. 600+ photos and videos in 3 months use attest to it’s “handiness” – I have a 5 year old. Like many law firm clients, I don’t have the ability, or will, to distinguish the results from “better”, but less convenient alternatives.

I still have a “normal” video camera which was used at a recent wedding. But apart from that, it’s “inconvenience” has relegated it to special occasions.

Besides, a normal video camera is more intrusive more when it comes to personal interaction.

This negative aspect of technology was highlighted by Queensland lawyer, Robert Garvey who has become a regular speaker on multiple monitors at our conferences. It seemed that each year the number of monitors he used increased, and finally decreased in search of the optimum configuration, which BTW is 3 (a good one for your main work in the middle, and other for parking supporting applications and documents). Last year his big message was about when NOT to use a computer when conferring with clients. 

Some problems:

 1. It is a barrier to client communication, even if not a physical barrier between you and the client such as if the monitors are against a wall, you still risk appearing to interact with the computer, rather than the client.

2. Constant reference to the computer detracts from your stature as a lawyer who exudes confidence and depth of legal knowledge.

3. Constant checking of electronic devices detracts from your performance. Regardless of gender, recent studies indicate that multi-tasking is a myth.

Robert’s approach is to see clients in a meeting room away from his serious IT-centric office. 

What to do to access information and remain in touch with the world?: consider the iPad – convenient without being as “intrusive” as a notebook PC screen in client meetings. While it still risks being a personal distraction, the potential to share it with clients, witnesses and judges etc by handing it around, is worth exploring. The key word is “share”. It nicely complements “collaboration” which you should be doing with clients anyway, and extends the client’s “convenience experience”.

And you can even use a pen with it, though for now its strength remains as a casual consumption device rather than for serious work. That is best left to a desktop/laptop with large extra monitor(s). 

The iPad is a new platform whose strengths in certain areas can only mean weaknesses in others. The experience of the early adopters indicates that the platform has earned it place in most lawyers’ hardware toolkits. It joins pen and paper whose usefulness has now been extended by the iPhone’s camera.

All we need now is an app to tell us which tool and app to use, and when to use it.

With the amount of information available to lawyers increasing alarmingly, anything that can unclutter our lives, and relieve the info-burden deserves attention. 

Adrian Dayton explored one aspect in his article “How Social Media Can Prevent Information Overload “. He pointed out that “… it isn't about consuming more content, it is about consuming more relevant content.“ While on the one hand, presenting us with a ridiculous amount of information, what tools such as Google, and hypertext/the web also do is protect us, to some extent, from this information burden and complexity, at least with respect to navigation.

We know of hypertext via the web, typically as a means to link from text to more text or images etc. In this way, our viewing of information is revealed to us in stages, we are not confronted by all the information at once, and we are able to focus on the information relevant to the task, as we need it.

I was introduced to some of the power of hypertext by Peter C Hart with his Compleat Desktop software in 1990. It was on the Mac with a graphical Hypercard interface sitting on top of an Oracle database. One outstanding feature was the audit trail in his system, particularly his electronic books. The software allowed you to roam through a library of books, cases and legislation etc, all with a clickable Table of Contents, Indexes and other links. Users automatically left a Trail while conducting research. This Trail could be edited, annotated and saved as a Tour. Others could then stand on the shoulders of the “information pioneer”. 

While Peter’s Desktop was too “complete” for most lawyers to appreciate …. he did say it would take 20 years to be accepted by the legal profession. One of the many things I am grateful to him for sharing, was the method he used to demonstrate his software.

He used electronic “Sticky Notes” to hide, then gradually reveal the full story. His ideas led to me developing a very effective method to present evidence in some large Australian prosecutions in the early 1990’s. The approach is explained in an ancient article here, with the results of our first effort demonstrated here – done completely in a Hypercard-clone. 

Despite my subliminal “guilty” messages in the graphics for our first prosecution (/joke), we had some stiff competition – one juror was getting messages from “God” in her tea leaves that the defendants were innocent and so had put cotton wool in her ears (true). As a result, the jury was discharged. Subsequent systems we developed were far more sophisticated bringing together a structured database, full text retrieval and imaging supporting a hypertext environment. 

The practical result was that defendants could not easily hide behind complexity. The defendant in a large money laundering prosecution, saw how simply we were able to reveal the case one digestible piece at a time, when demonstrating to the court the proposed system. As a result, “her eyes rolled heavenward, and she decided to plead guilty,” according to one of her defence team.

Better her eyes “roll” than the eyes of a jury – they were spared an eight day opening address. It is cases like that, that prompt statements such as those by South Australia's Chief Justice Doyle:

By the end of the century I believe that, at least to a significant degree, the virtual court room will be the norm. Another thing that underpins our system of advocacy — orality — will have gone.

Where the system we developed became much more flexible than trying to do it all in the Hypercard-clone was the integration of FileMaker Pro, a structured database which is very empowering as it enables non-technical types to manage huge amounts of information. Amazingly these systems can now run on the web, or directly on an iPhone or iPad.

A database such as FileMaker should be in every lawyers toolkit, which today can often just be an iPhone. Databases allow you to filter the information, accessing only what you need, when you need it.

On the other hand, Sticky Notes can help your audience “digest” the filtered results. Just as the answer to the elephant-eating challenge was “chunking”, what you want to avoid is having it all dropped on your plate at once.

The “secret” to the Sticky Notes approach is to be able to reveal the information only when needed. Outliners can do a good job of this. They were once only standalone applications, but are now also modules/features of many programs. While their main application is to allow your creativity to avoid being hampered by distracting formatting and other issues, they can be very good at protecting authors from the complexity of their work.

In the “early days” a program called MORE on the Mac was considered the Rolls Royce of outliners. It allowed you to create content, and present it effortlessly, but impressively. It was so “perfect” that Symantec said they would not be developing it further, something I never quite understood. I suspect it was another example of software that was too far ahead of its time. The problem is that those who eventually copy the main features created by a brilliant pioneer often miss out on the subtle sophistication of the original product that made it really great.

IT-visionary and keeper of Outliners.com, Dave Winer said:

There were ideas in those early programs that are still unique, are not commonly available in the current-day counterparts.

The same could be said of Peter Hart’s software.

Interestingly, I might be the conduit between two geniuses. Part of Peter Hart’s approach to presenting information has been applied to the structure of Microsoft Word documents themselves. Though they were two decades apart, both had brief involvement with law, and both have created jaw-dropping software whose only problem was that, once again, the legal profession on the whole was not ready for it.

Dr Tim van Gelder of Austhink Consulting, like Peter Hart, has created software that only his children’s generation of lawyers might come to appreciate. Very recently he created a simple program called MORE Add-in. 

More Add-in makes it simple to hide and show stuff in Word documents. Just select any part of a Word document, and with one click, add a button to the page to collapse or expand that part. So obvious… so easy… this is the hide/show ability that Word has been missing!

While Peter Hart’s approach to hide/show was to cover information with an electronic sticky note, like outliners, MORE Add-in takes a “collapsible” approach. Unlike a diagram, a Word document with parts blanked out wouldn’t work. The results are similar in the sense that rather than a linear approach to presenting information, such as with PowerPoint, you can jump around a document as the circumstances require.

Peter Hart’s brilliance has been directed at interests other than the legal profession for almost 20 years. While we have had the benefit of his insights as keynote speaker at our previous events, he has declined involvement in next month’s Online Legal Services Conference. He is retiring from the relentless task of keeping up with IT, as he has other priorities that keep him “hopping”.

We should work hard to not miss out on 20 years of Tim’s brilliance as we did with Peter. The legal profession needs to support pioneers who make the effort to provide empowering tools for lawyers – which is what I am doing with this blog, and our conferences. Over to you … And if we do the right thing, one day I will tell you about the really powerful stuff Tim has done, and hope he does even more.

A speaker at one of our conferences a few years ago, announced that he advised young lawyers not to admit to knowing anything about IT, otherwise they would damage their career prospects at most firms. In other words … they’d get dismissed as geeks. 

That comment prompted at least two attendees to no longer bother with lawyers as a market. One of them was the developer of a reasonably popular document assembly program. He now describes himself as a marketer of legal services, and puts his development skills into building better tools for his new business rather than tools for lawyers in general. Within 12 months of a low-profile launch and few resources, he had captured 1% of the Australian legal market in the niche area he chose. 

Paul Lippe in his “The New Normal” column in the ABA Journal, has noted that law has entered the Age of Legal Entrepreneurship. Things have certainly changed in the last year or two; more so than in the previous decade. But are lawyers ready for these rapidly unfolding dramatic changes? Maybe not …

Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From, suggests that for innovation, you need to be working and mixing with a diverse range of people. Unfortunately, lawyers tend to partner with lawyers. The term Partner evokes high standards, and would in theory seem to qualify lawyers to be ideal candidates for collaboration and other attributes becoming increasingly useful. 

But now that Facebook is touted as the new IBM/Microsoft/Google, and Social Media, iPads and smartphones have started to supplant the mainframe, PC and even the Web as the dominant platform, where do lawyers fit in? Who wants to be a friend of lawyers? 

The fact is that social media might not be a natural fit for lawyers. One of the speakers at the 2010 Innovation+IT Conference for Inhouse Lawyers, Sean Simmons, GC for Australian internet intermediator Wotif.com, suggested that the problem with social media for lawyers, is that we are anti-social. He said that the idea of being social is sharing, and we are bad at that. 

A lawyer’s training and experience typically nurtures adversarialism. Fuelled by time-based billing pressures, issues arise such as unnecessary competition, overconfidence bias, and hoarding, rather than sharing knowledge assets. These things do not help most lawyers operate under the new social rules. 

For some, it seems they cannot even handle their relationships with clients. How’s this for a confronting quote from April 29, 2010 Times Online by Edward Fennell:

“A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Georgetown University was holding its Corporate Counsel Institute-Europe conference in London. What I omitted was the level of revenge that in-house legal advisers now intend to exact on their external advisers. After years of being exploited and patronised, in-house lawyers are relishing the opportunity to demonstrate who has the whip-hand now.”

With client collaboration platforms such as Legal OnRamp, and lawyer rating systems such as Avvo and the ACC’s Value Index, how do the lawyers that engendered the strong emotions above expect to go unnoticed. It seems conspicuously incongruous in the era of flaunting one’s social capital. Terms such as “payback” and “revenge” don’t sit happily with “Friending” and “Like”.

If their own clients, in-house colleagues who distribute work to outside firms have these feelings, how do others, such as IT suppliers to lawyers find working with lawyers? 

Recently, I was speaking to a document assembly programmer who has worked with lawyers for years. He has had four enquiries from lawyers in the last month and passed them onto someone else as he has discovered … non-lawyers. Real business people who appreciate the value he adds, treat him with courtesy, are happy to pay, and then actually use what he develops.

I recall in the late 1980’s a barrister curing me of any desire to work as a legal technology consultant with him when he quietly confided, “At $3,000 per day, I prefer to use this pen”. 

Around the same time, the developer of a program for barristers withdrew from our Australasian Legal Software Directory, as she did not find working with barristers pleasant – adversarialism at work again.

In several ‘unpleasant’ experiences, she found that lawyers too easily resort to threats of legal action. It’s like having one of your dinner guests pull a gun on you for some perceived transgression. You might not say much at the time, but you certainly revise your guest list. 

So it is not just clients who notice as I am also seeing a trend among smaller IT-related suppliers who ask – why bother? Too few lawyers are interested in IT, while some go on the attack too quickly rather that working together to resolve issues. 

The loss of some of those suppliers is not the end of the world – there have been 50+ legal-focussed document assembly programs that have come and gone over the last 25 years. 

However, the legal profession has certainly missed out on the ongoing benefit of some, such as the genius of Peter C Hart, a Canadian lawyer and legal IT innovator. His Document Modeler, Project Modeler, and his subsequent hypertext Compleat Desktops environment were 20+ years ahead of their time, though they did spawn Amicus Attorney and other lawyer-centric systems. Peter accepted his products’ ambivalent reception from the legal world gracefully as ever with quips such as “Document Assembly for lawyers is like heaven; where they want to be, but not just yet”. 

Possibly frustrated by apathy, he did “encourage” one large Toronto law firm to take on his products by suggesting that if they would not use them, then his LegalWare team would set up their own law firm and use the tools themselves. The firm’s response was that he couldn’t do that. “Why not? Most of our team are lawyers”. “Well”, came the reply, “It wouldn’t be fair!”

Interestingly, although Peter moved on from law in the early 1990’s looking for easier challenges such as world peace, he has returned, at least in part, by taking out patents in the legal services domain.

It’s not easy providing IT solutions. Problems can arise from the computing environment, the product itself, or the people using it, or a unique combination of all three. Faced with these challenges, as a lawyer myself, I find moving from the role of supplier of IT to legal service provider is very tempting, and I am not alone: it enables you to solve those three problems, and more I didn’t mention, such a reluctance to pay, or use IT properly. For most matters, the legal “technician” (known as a lawyer) is often only needed for a relatively small part of the service.

 I know of at least half a dozen legal entrepreneurs who are former suppliers of software or services to the legal profession. Some are lawyers, although that is not essential here because just about anyone can own an incorporated legal practice, provided they have a practising lawyer involved. 

We have seen that attempted by one of Australia’s largest banks with eCommLegal, an insurance company (Guild Legal) and even the Salvation Army.

So the Age of Legal Entrepreneurship has been upon us here in Australia for some time, and, like all entrepreneurial efforts, has had mixed results.

Nevertheless, the seismic implications of the Thomson Reuters takeover of Pangea3, were even felt here. As a conglomerate, Thomson Reuters is unlikely to stop selling its products to the legal profession. However, like all suppliers who now compete with law firms, they will get the most out of their own tools.

If lawyers don’t want to work with their suppliers, they might find down the track that one of their options is to work for them, or in what Ron Friedman refers to as the Law Factory. Ironically, Ron now works for another competitor/supplier, Integreon, a legal process outsourcer (LPO). They appreciated his outstanding legal IT and business vision; which was in many ways, another loss for the legal profession. The smart firms will learn how to work with LPO’s to their great advantage.

If entrance to Heaven relied on client rating systems, it is understandable why some lawyers are adjourning Judgment Day. However, like all bad press for lawyers this presents a great opportunity for better lawyers to prove to clients that you are the exception and they are actually very lucky to have you. Relationships with suppliers might be similar, though with a difference being that in extreme cases the supplier might be lost to the legal profession as a resource and become a new competitor. The more likely outcome is that we will increasingly see the supplier partner with the better lawyers to compete with the luddites.

Nevertheless, while all this is confronting, the opportunities the new Age(s) in legal services present for lawyers, clients and suppliers are astonishing. And having more real friends in each group will certainly help.