Editor’s note: Click here for video of this event.
Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers, Blink, The Tipping Point and his newest book What the Dog Saw, headlined the closing LegalTech keynote on Wednesday. The session was titled “I3: The New Convergence of Intelligence, Intuition and Information,” and was sponsored by Thomson Reuters. Gladwell also has been a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine since 1996.
Also speaking on the panel was Dr. Lisa Sanders, internist, columnist for The New York Times and author of Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis, and medical advisor to the Fox television series House. Sanders also is an assistant clinical professor at the Yale University School of Medicine and a clinician educator in Yale’s Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency program.
David Craig, chief strategy officer for Thomson Reuters, opened the discussion and moderated the event.
The ballroom at the New York Hilton was packed as Craig set the tone by describing the “tsunami of information” inundating professionals across the globe.
“Everyone here knows from personal experience how the amount of information has exploded in the last twenty years,” said Craig. “But not only are we creating more information, we are also storing and sharing it. Corporations and organizations are responsible for a third of this information – banking records, personal medical records, research reports, news. And the expectation is that there is an answer online for every question. Legal professionals ran two billion searches against the Westlaw databases in 2009. This was an increase of 45% percent from the year before.”
Gladwell reflected that it wasn’t the lack of information that left the United States unprepared for the Pearl Harbor attack on Dec. 7, 1941 – the United States had broken the Japanese code; it was the U.S. military’s over-abundance of information that left it unable to “see the forest for the trees.”
As part of her comments, Sanders further defined the information explosion as she recreated how doctors bombard themselves with information to solve difficult problems. She described a real-life House experience as a medical team tried to diagnose a dying woman. Despite 20 pages of test results and information, the primary doctor still couldn’t determine why the patient was jaundiced and why her vital organs were shutting down. What saved the woman was a doctor who reviewed the results and stepped back from the information to look for the connections.
Gladwell remarked that intuition is rooted in the unconscious, “drawing from the reserves of knowledge,” he said. Unaided expert decision-making is fragile, easily infected by biases. Gladwell pointed to a Kasparov chess challenge in which both opponents used a computer throughout the match. Kasparov saw that the computer’s quick analysis of every possible move enabled these grandmasters to let their experience, creativity and knowledge come through.
Portions of the event will be available soon on video, here on Legal Current.
John Bringardner recaps the session here on Law.com and Jason Wilson offers up “Gladwell, Sanders & Craig: LTNY 2010 Last Keynote in Tweets” on his blog.
After the presentation, we asked Monica Bay, editor-in-chief of Law Technology News, for her impressions of the discussion in this video clip:
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Editor’s note: This article was written by Gary Hornseth for West, for publication in the December 2009 issue of Metropolitan Corporate Counsel
Think about the world’s key business markets, and New York and London probably come to mind. But as the globalization of business continues to accelerate, you also need to include the explosively growing financial centers in other regions of the Americas, Asia and elsewhere.
Consider what is happening in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), both Mainland and Hong Kong, for example. Combined, they represented one of the highest-volume mergers and acquisitions (M&A) markets in the world for most of 2009. This is a dramatic shift from a few years ago. Moreover, in the second and third quarters of 2009, China and Hong Kong assumed a leading role in helping the global M&A market emerge from the recession. (more…)
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Westlaw Business and the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) have announced their agreement to provide global business law professionals with IFSB’s unique direction on Sharia law within the Westlaw Business Islamic Finance Centre.
The Islamic Finance Centre on Westlaw Business is the first of its kind in the legal community and provides insight into Islamic finance deals and industry standards for lawyers and product-structuring teams.
The IFSB is an international standard-setting organization that promotes and enhances the soundness and stability of the Islamic financial services industry.
In the news release announcing the agreement, Mazen Zein, product manager for Westlaw Business said, “Structuring capital transactions to be compliant with Sharia law requires current and authoritative information. Our agreement with IFSB enables us to provide their invaluable insights on Islamic Sharia law and regulations to our customers worldwide. Business law practitioners need to understand the developments and issues within the Islamic finance industry. Together, Westlaw Business and IFSB will further the availability and understanding of this information, ultimately increasing the transparency of the Islamic finance industry.”
To learn more about Islamic finance and the IFSB, listen to Zein in this Westcast podcast, the second in a two-part series.
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Recent news relating to Islamic finance has raised interest across the globe about the way it is structured and operates.
Westlaw Business and the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) this week announced their agreement to provide current standards and other Islamic finance industry information for global business law professionals within the Westlaw Business Islamic Finance Centre.
“AAOIFI is a thought leader in the development of international standards applicable to Islamic financial institutions,” said Kevin Ritchey, senior vice president, Westlaw Business. “We are pleased to provide this exclusive information within the Islamic Finance Centre of Westlaw Business, ensuring business lawyers are confident they have the background and guidance they need for structuring Sharia-compliant transactions.”
AAOIFI standards are developed in consultation with leading Sharia scholars and experts in the field of banking, insurance, economics, law and asset management, thereby contributing to the professional development of the industry.
To get a sense of the history of Islamic finance and AAOIFI, listen to this Westcast podcast with Mazen Zein, product manager for Westlaw Business.
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Who is a responsible citizen? What is a hero? An Eagan, Minn. convenience store clerk would say that Jochen Leidner, a research scientist at Thomson Reuters, is both.
On November 15, after filling his car with gasoline, Leidner entered a convenience store to scout for a snack and report an odd smell from the pump. Minutes later he was wrestling a robber to the ground.
“While I was standing in queue, a man with a black T-shirt over his head pushed the woman in front of me,” Leidner said. “The man then turned to the clerk and said ‘Give me the cash, I’m not kidding you.’” He appeared to have a gun, hidden.
Leidner, with previous experience as a paramedic, quickly tried to assess if a plastic bag the man was holding really contained a gun, but he was unsure.
Leidner said, “The clerk looked shocked and wasn’t responding to the robber’s request. I was worried he might shoot her, or shoot others in the store.” So within seconds Leidner slipped behind the robber and took the risk.
(Image from security video provided to Eagan, Minn. police)
The store surveillance cameras show Leidner taking the robber to the ground, and two other men in the store then jumping in to help hold the robber until police arrived. (See the video in this WCCO-TV report)
Why did he take this risk?
Leidner in a quiet voice said, “I was concerned for the clerk.” And he is still concerned and hopes she will recover from the shock. Was he scared, or does he feel scared about it today? He didn’t think about it, but hopes his mother in Germany never hears about it. “I think she would be freaked out,” he said.
In Jochen Leidner’s eyes, the real triumph of this story is that nobody was hurt.
Heroes are everyday people, making a difference. Jochen Leidner is definitely a hero, although he prefers to think of himself as simply a responsible citizen.
Either way, I think his mother would be very proud of him.
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Thomson IP Management Services, a business of Thomson Reuters, today announced the acquisition of IS Information Service GmbH, a leading provider of IP portfolio management offerings in Europe. The acquisition solidifies the company’s presence in the region and reinforces its commitment to this market.
“The acquisition of IS Information Service is a critical step to us achieving our goal of providing superior support and service to European clients on a long-term basis,” said Cynthia Murphy, vice president and general manager of Thomson IP Management Services. “IS Information Service has been our partner for more than a quarter of a century. We look forward to continuing its tradition of excellence in delivering localized software implementation and training support, as well as to expanding the breadth of our IP management offerings to corporations and law firms in this region.”
IS Information Service GmbH has served the European IP community since 1983 and is recognized as a leading provider of software implementation, configuration and consulting services for aligning IP strategy with business strategy. The company has developed several intellectual property management utilities that will be incorporated into Thomson IP Management Services’ solution suite, including local forms and an inventor compensation tracking tool.
”Today marks a key milestone in the expansion of IP management solutions throughout Europe,” said Dr. Reinhard Reck, owner and co-founder of IS Information Service. “With the direct support and resources of Thomson Reuters, we will be able to better serve the needs of existing clients, provide enhanced IP portfolio management offerings, and extend our footprint into new areas. We are very pleased to be part of Thomson IP Management Services.”
For more information on the IS Information Service GmbH acquisition, visit thomsonipmanagement.com.
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Now more than ever, law firms are looking for ways to be more effective and efficient – especially in how they communicate, share information, collaborate with clients and ultimately grow.
For most firms, technology – and Microsoft SharePoint in particular – has helped achieve this goal.
We’re pleased to announce that XMLAW is now part of Thomson Reuters. The business will be aligned with Hubbard One.
The combination of Hubbard One and XMLAW benefits lawyers and marketing professionals by bringing together leading law firm information management and client development technologies and services.
We talked to Preston McKenzie, vice president and general manager of Hubbard One, about the SharePoint trend.
“SharePoint is an increasingly important part of the law firm strategy moving forward,” he said. “At the recent ILTA annual conference, more than 70 percent of firms had, or are planning to execute, a SharePoint strategy. XMLAW is a great complement to our information and custom design solutions – it brings a software discipline and knowledge of the SharePoint space that we think will be really valuable to our customers.”
To read Hubbard One’s announcement and to watch a video interview with McKenzie about XMLAW, go to the Hubbard One blog.
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Whether you’re researching the patent on safety edging on skateboards or protecting your company’s legacy products, take a moment to learn a bit more about best practices in patent research and the new combined offering of Westlaw Patents + Thomson Innovation in the U.S. market.
These Westlaw Patents + Thomson Innovation videos take a lighter approach to discussing patents research.
Plus, they’re entertaining.
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David Brown, president of Thomson Reuters IP Solutions, took a few moments out on his recent trip to Beijing to share his thoughts on global growth in the patent and trademark industry.
In this podcast, he discusses how law firms are capitalizing on these growth opportunities, especially in China and Korea, to develop new clients and retain market share, and how Thomson Reuters is supporting their patent research needs through the new combined offering of Westlaw Patents + Thomson Innovation.
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This weekend, the Honorable Shelvin Louise Marie Hall was recognized as the 2009 Liberty Achievement Award recipient given by the American Bar Association’s Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section. The award, sponsored by Thomson Reuters, was established in 2008 to honor those lawyers and judges who take a leadership role in promoting diversity in the legal profession.
Legal Current was at the Liberty Achievement Award celebration in Chicago, where Thomson Reuters, Legal President and CEO Peter Warwick addressed attendees and congratulated Hall. View Warwick’s coments in this video:
And later during the event, we spoke to Hall:
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Thomson Reuters, Legal, President & CEO Peter Warwick offered his perspective on the company’s approach to the current economic reality in a panel discussion, “Adapting and Thriving in a Challenging Economy”, at the Minnesota Venture & Finance Conference.
The launch of WestlawNext brings a significant advancement in the way professional legal research is done.
Andrew F. Popper, a professor at American University, Washington College of Law, talks about his award-winning novel “Rediscovering Lone Pine.”
