A post on the Hildebrandt Baker Robbins LawVision blog explores the trepid relationship between law firm leaders and innovation.
In “The Innovation Paradox,” Lisa Rohrer explains that law firm leaders are apprehensive about innovation because of potential risks, despite their belief that innovation is extremely important to a firm’s strategic goals.
Rohrer asserts that this caution is quite common in law firms, due to the fundamental nature of the profession:
“I hear all the time from our law firm clients: ‘We do not tolerate mistakes.’ And that’s probably the right attitude when it comes to client work. Add to this that lawyers are trained to minimize legal risks and it’s understandable that law firms are more risk averse.”
She also considers whether the solution to apprehension is embracing mistakes:
“People trying new approaches to solving difficult problems are going to make mistakes. If they’re not making some mistakes, they’re probably either not being honest with themselves or they’re not trying hard enough. The prevailing view there is that you learn a lot more from failure than you do from success.”
Lisa Rohrer leads research on the changing management models and structures in law firms as Hildebrandt Baker Robbins’ director of research and is based in Washington, D.C.
You can read her full post on the LawVision blog.
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We wanted to highlight the latest Lawyer2Lawyer podcast, hosted by Bob Ambrogi and Craig Williams on the Legal Talk Network, as it marks its 5th year, making it the longest continually running legal podcast.
Congratulations on the milestone, Bob and Craig.
They’ve got a good discussion in their latest episode, where they interviewed renowned criminal defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey – known for his defense in cases such as O.J. Simpson, Patti Hearst and the Boston Strangler.
Bailey, along with New York Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt, gave some perspective on the case of former major league baseball pitcher Roger Clemens, who was recently indicted on charges for allegedly lying to Congress in 2008 when he testified he never used steroids. (more…)
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It’s clear that law firm clients are exercising more control in their demands for types of legal technology that offer better ways to interact with the firm they choose to do business with.
It’s about communication and taking action on types of technologies that address the varied needs of clients.
Tim Corcoran, vice president of Global Sales for Hubbard One, talks about that trend in this video interview that we did with him at the 2010 ILTA Conference:
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We met up with Mark Schiff, named the president of Hubbard One in June, at the 2010 ILTA Conference.
He told us why the conference is important to him, and to Hubbard One.
“This is a phenomenal opportunity for me to attend one of the premier legal technology events,” said Schiff. “It’s a great opportunity for the team here at Hubbard One to meet with our clients.”
In this video clip, Schiff talks about what he is hearing from customers at the show:
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Journalist and attorney Manny Medrano spoke to ILTA Conference attendees this morning at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
His very personal speech touched on his heritage, his upbringing, his work as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney’s Office and as a legal affairs journalist and commentator.
Legal Current talked with Medrano after his speech, and given his experience as the Supreme Court correspondent for ABC News, we chose to ask him about the outlook for the current bench, in this video interview:
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Editor’s note: Guest blogger Joe Raczynski, an applications integrator for Thomson Reuters, Legal, also is a technology evangelist who specializes in social media and portal technology. In addition, he has been a consultant in Web and wireless development.
As social media has ballooned in popularity and use, law firms have had to wrestle with the myriad of implications on the organization. Staff and attorneys who increasingly use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube can cause serious issues for the firm. This session at the 2010 ILTA Conference focused around the various aspects of a firm developing a social media policy.
Here are some important points to consider when crafting your social media policy: (more…)
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Editor’s note: Guest blogger Joe Raczynski, an Applications Integrator for Thomson Reuters, Legal, also is a technology evangelist who specializes in social media and portal technology. In addition, he has been a consultant in Web and wireless development.
Massive collections of information are inundating law firms. With multiple points of integration, interfaces, and varying disciplines this further muddies the waters. This session at ILTA answered questions relating the issues of organizing and managing content across all firm repositories to reduce silos, improve data quality, facilitate KM and ensure full and accurate firm records.
The goal of most firms now is to devise an ECM (Enterprise Content Management) system which includes connecting all of the following silos of information: email, DMS, KM system, records management system and others. (more…)
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Business author and speaker Jason Jennings opened the 2010 ILTA Conference this morning in Las Vegas with a keynote speech titled “Five Secrets to Put Strategic Unity on the Fast Track.”
One of the things he addressed concerned how businesses and organizations – including law firms – should forget about having a mission statement for their work and instead focus on a noble purpose.
“The fastest companies in the world, the most productive organizations in the world, the ones that do the best job growing organically, seem all to have a shared noble purpose,” Jennings said. “It’s not a mission. It’s not a vision. They have a shared noble purpose that gives people a pride in being involved in working for the organization.”
In a video interview with Legal Current after his speech, Jennings told us what he heard from several ILTA members, as he took time to talk with them to help him prepare for his presentation:
A longer excerpt of our interview with Jennings is featured in this Legal Current podcast.
Jennings’ latest book is Think BIG – Act Small, which profiles the leadership of the only ten companies in the world to have grown both revenues and profits by double digits every year for ten consecutive years. Earlier this year, he released Hit the Ground Running, A Manual for New Leaders, that profiles and reveals the tactics and strategies of the ten American CEO’s who’ve created the greatest amount of economic value since the year 2000.
His previous books include It’s Not The Big That Eat The Small – It’s The Fast That Eat The Slow and Less is More.
You can learn more about Jason Jennings at http://jennings-solutions.com.
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With literally thousands and thousands of choices on the Web to find compelling editorial content, it’s worth noting that one of FindLaw’s longest-running online resources emerged at the top of a recent survey regarding the law review and court citation of blogs.
The Concurring Opinions blog found that Findlaw’s Writ ranks first in law review citations since 2006. The post says the Writ has been cited 618 times. The Volokh Conspiracy ranks second with 402 and the SCOTUSBlog is third at 305 citations. The Concurring Opinions post also contains some interesting analysis of the findings. The Writ ranks second in court citations.
The study results highlight the impact of FindLaw’s legal commentary on legal scholars, future practitioners and academic institutions.
The Writ has published daily legal commentary by top legal minds for more than a decade.
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Tort reform can be a contentious issue. So, teaching tort reform in law schools is bound to be a difficult task.
“This is a big issue and people have a right to know all points of view,” said professor Andy Popper, American University, Washington College of Law. “I think it’s impossible to teach in this area to not have a point of view. By the same token, I think it’s critical that students in this field get – at a minimum – both the pro and con views on tort reform.”
Popper shared his thoughts in a new interview edition of our Legal Current podcast. He talks about how he structured his latest book, Materials on Tort Reform, to address tort reform with essays from leading experts. The book is published by Thomson Reuters.
You can listen to the interview with Popper in the player here:
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Popper also was a guest in our podcast that we posted on Monday, Aug. 9, where he talked about his testimony before the United States House on a bill regarding the manufacture of products outside the U.S. (We also talked with him for a Westcast podcast, about his novel Rediscovering Lone Pine, last year).
You can access all our podcasts on iTunes (just enter Legal Current in the search box), or by visiting our podcast page or you can subscribe via RSS.
Got a suggestion for who we should interview for an upcoming edition? Comment on this post or e-mail us at contact@legalcurrent.com. You also can follow us on Twitter, we are @legalcurrent.
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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.
A discussion about online privacy and “The End of Forgetting,” with law professor Jeffrey Rosen.
