Strafing the Client

April 28, 2005 | Filed Under Technology, General 

Always-engaging Rees Morrison asserts that in-house lawyers woefully underuse computer capabilities:

Lawyers barely scratch the surface of what accomplished users – not experts, just lawyers who have learned how to make the most out of a program such as Word, Excel, or Outlook – can perform.

I’d like some facts to back up the argument that this underutilization of technology is unique to in-house counsel. I once practiced at a law firm that was using mag cards when the rest of lawyerdom had migrated to the word processor.

Then Mr. Morrison bites the hand that feeds him:

Law departments maintain F-16s for the bi-weekly crop dusting of Mom’s tomatoes[.]

Beefsteaks beware!

I think most lawyers underuse technology. While lawyers aren’t blameless if they poorly define their needs, a good deal of the fault lies at the doorstep of the hardware and software vendors. They act like they understand the real needs of the lawyer, but their products are too hard to use and are not well integrated. Heck, the ever-savvy Microsoft is running an ad campaign that depicts its customers as dinosaurs. Rather offensive from a company that delivers a new operating system every five years or so.

I’ll use a digital PDA when one is tangibly better than this one. Until then, its 3 x 5, baby…

Thanks to the ever-vigilant Ron Friedmann for spotting this one.

LawProfs GoBig

April 13, 2005 | Filed Under General 

The Law Professor Blogs Network announced yesterday that they were being “sponsored” by LexisNexis. Details were not disclosed, but the announcement does state that LexisNexis shares the “vision” of expanding the network.

Such as a Privacy Law blog?

Hat tip to Dennis Kennedy at Between Lawyers for the link. My 2 cents is that this is only a “giant step” if LexisNexis is creative in their sponsorship; I doubt that will be the case since they are constrained by a closed-source business model in an open-source world.

But, hey–props to the Profs.

Major Law Firms Reduce Rates

April 1, 2005 | Filed Under General 

Informed sources tell The Wired GC that several major money-center law firms are planning to roll back hourly rates to levels last seen in the 1980’s. “It’s time to take action” one managing partner said, requesting anonymity, “clients told us that they dread opening our monthly statements, so we wanted to send a message and get out ahead of the competition.”

When told of these plans, a Gotham GC remarked, “Great, I’ll buy more and start paying invoices within 3 days by wire. Who needs golf and tickets to U2 when you have this?”

An in-the-know partner was asked how the economics of the rollback would work and quipped, “We’ll see, I think it has something to do with Moore’s Law. Do you have a cite for it?” A follow-up question about a rumor that annual billable hour targets were being raised to 2750 drew a curt “No comment”.

This source did confirm that recently hired first-year associates will be informed today that their base salaries would be reset to $50,000.