Daniel Kahneman’s new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, synthesizes his life’s work as a psychologist. The book is about the systematic errors that limit human judgment.

The six-chapter section on overconfidence is particularly instructive for lawyers in helping them to assist clients to make better decisions and to make better decisions themselves. It appears that excessive optimism and overconfidence are part of the human condition. In fact, an expert’s subjective degree of confidence in his or her predictions is irrelevant to the performance of the expert.

Research has shown that, while computers are better than humans at solving problems . . . [more]

For more than 17 years I’ve worked in legal marketing, I’ve been keenly listening to clients about how they choose their lawyer, what irritates them and why they leave. I read surveys, attend public and private panel sessions that profile clients and their preferences, and I interview clients at every opportunity.

If you’re in a business, such as law, which centres on attracting and keeping clients, your marketing — and all other business strategies — must be informed and guided by client preferences. If you’re not understanding, responding and anticipating their needs, you will never reach your full potential. Start . . . [more]

When the discussion turned to rebuilding the British House of Commons in 1943 (after its destruction on May 10, 1941) Winston Churchill in a simple but profound way stated, “We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.” He had fixed ideas about what the rebuilt House of Commons should look like – exactly like it was before. He was opposed to the semi-circular chamber which was popular in continental Europe and the U.S. (and Toronto City Hall) and in his view was poorly suited to party politics. His theory, based on his own experience, was that changing political . . . [more]

Lawyers probably work in one of the most stressful environments that exist. If they are in private practice, they have the stress of working to provide their clients the information, advice and services that the client is looking for when the client wants it. If they are in-house counsel or in the public sector, they have employers, bosses who want information, advice and strategy when they need it, not on the lawyers’ schedule. As well, lawyering is such that sometimes there does not seem to be any clocks and everything else can be put aside including family, friends and one’s . . . [more]

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 of why it is such a good idea.

If it is true as Shaun Plant says in 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 . . . [more]

Tectonic plates are shifting in the world of legal information. The sale of the Bureau of National Affairs to Bloomberg surprised me. I worked with BNA a bit back in the pre-Internet days. I was a great fan of U.S. Law Week, a research tool that I felt was much undervalued. I even made a promotional video for them when they began to transition from offering solely a print product into adding a digital platform. Being employee-owned and devoted to high quality editorial content, BNA was easy to like. When Bloomberg came on the scene I saw the shades of . . . [more]

It’s no longer new or innovative for law firms to use Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn as elements of their public web presence. Social media tools have become sufficiently standard that we can probably declare 2012 the year firms finally “buy in.” 

While early-adopter firms continue to fine-tune their offerings, what I’m really noticing these days is the critical mass of firms now playing catch-up. Lawyers who used to ask, “What’s the firm across the street doing?” are now wondering “Why aren’t we doing that?” Social media buttons are sprouting all over law firm websites, all over the web. The tipping . . . [more]

In the black and white world of organized pro bono legal services, something is either pro bono or it’s not. Legal services are provided for zero compensation, or they’re not considered pro bono. This absolutist perspective is crude and fully disconnected from the simple translation of pro bono from Latin as “for the good”, but necessary to give relevance and integrity to pro bono as a functional concept. If the concept is stretched to include contingency fees or unpaid bills or reduced rates, then it ceases to have reliable meaning for lawyers and their clients. So for pro bono . . . [more]

What is behavioral economics?

Behaviorial economics studies the effects of insights from psychology on economic decisions.

Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, was awarded the Nobel prize in economics in 2002, for his work in judgment and decision making. Kahneman’s work is the subject of his 2011 book, titled Thinking, Fast and Slow. He is the only non-economist to receive the Nobel prize in economics.

Kahneman in his book refers to intuition as operating automatically and quickly with little or no effort. In contrast, are effortful mental activities demanding attention, including complex computations. Two plus two requires no effort, but 17 . . . [more]

Innovation… lawyers seldom operate on the cutting edge and certainly not the bleeding edge! That’s a given. It’s likely in your DNA. Risk averse. But how long will you stay in what once was a perfect business model that is now past its prime? That is the question.

Seth Godin points to the music industry…

The music business was perfect. Radio, record chains, Rolling Stone magazine, the senior prom, limited access to recording studios, the replaceable nature of the LP, the baby boomers… it all added up to a business that seemed perfect, one that could run for ever and

In my last post, I promised to explore how the current commercial mediation model might be “tweaked” to unlock the full potential of mediation. There seemed to be a divide between “interest-based” or “facilitative” mediation (which is the focus of most mediation training programs) and the commercial mediation model.

Is there a way to preserve the foundational principles of interest-based negotiation and mediation while venturing into the world of commercial mediation?

Experienced litigators and some mediators have remarked that commercial mediation is really a purely distributive exercise which is only about the money. Is that ever really true? I . . . [more]

Attentive readers of this blog know that the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) has a working group actively considering online dispute resolution (ODR). The working group has met three times and meets again at the end of May. Slaw.ca has had progress reports from time to time, notably here a year ago, and more recently here . It is time for another. I expect that the Canadian delegation, and possibly others, would be interested in your views on the texts that the working group will have before it in May. Comments on this article will come to . . . [more]