Lawyers Not Thanking the Ranking
November 30, 2009 | Filed Under Legal Ratings, Law 2.0
The Association of Corporate Counsel is continuing its Value Challenge initiative by asking members to confidentially rank law firms.
Three things have followed:
1. Some law firms don’t like it, and have retained a former ACC board chairman to carry their water. One main public concern is what “disgruntled former law firm associates” might be saying.
2. Predictably, some early information about the rankings has slipped out. This is unfortunately to be expected these days and only fuels some of the concern mentioned in 1., above.
3. Informed commentators are starting to examine closely the concerns of the law firms. One of the first is Paul Lippe, who provides a very nuanced view of where we are and where things are going. It’s required reading from someone who’s leading a team at Legal OnRamp that’s doing something about these things.
But today, fresh off a lot of good food and hopefully a bit of thankful reflection, a few observations about legal ratings from the inside out perspective:
1. Law firms should worry about “disgruntled associates.” But they should not worry that they are now in-house counsel and exacting revenge on their former employers. The news flash is that GCs don’t usually hire disgruntled associates, since they won’t fit in and are rather easy to spot.
2. The second reality law firms should understand is that nearly all better companies rate and rank their employees, including in-house counsel. It is anonymous and it’s taken seriously. It’s also part of the culture, and vital to lawyer development.
3. If law firms don’t like these basic big-picture ratings now, just wait. Everything is rated and ranked, online and elsewhere. It’s part of the information age we are in, where customers are able to get more data and use it faster to make better business decisions. Retaining law firms and selecting lawyers are big business decisions.
Many law firms are understandably nostalgic for the time-honored selection process, which started with a referral that went something like this:
“Good firm; smart lawyers.”
There was a time when that wasn’t a bad starting point. Except that there are a few thousand good firms and tens of thousands of smart lawyers, all charging clients many billions of dollars. The GC can’t reply to the CEO, CFO or the board about outside counsel selection and management using the quote above.
The ACC ratings are a small step, and they are just the beginning. They will undoubtedly be refined and improved over time, and others will enter the picture as well.
And law firms can either (a) fight the trend, or (b) try to get better. We call (a) “nice work if you can get it” and (b) “looking in the mirror honestly every morning.”
The Legal Videoconference of the Future?
November 25, 2009 | Filed Under Video - Wired GC TV, Technology
YouTube has put up one of their first videos in 1080p, High Definition. Appropriately enough, it’s the Muppets performing Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” (rendered safe for the kiddies when Animal mumbles through the start of the second stanza. Mama!).
To watch in in full HD glory, do three things:
(1) click on the white arrow in the center;
(2) then click on HD icon that appears on the control bar at the lower right, and
(3) try the full-screen option by clicking on the next icon to it’s right.
Depending upon your bandwidth and processor speed, prepare to see how a lot of things are going to change. (If you’re on a slow pipe, with an old desktop, you may have to toggle back to regular definition, which isn’t nearly as good on full screen).
And if you watched the entire video, Kermit even gets off a nice jab at the end on the value of some videoconferences. Here’s the direct link at YouTube.
When you see it in full-screen, you see how much better it is than some of the grainy computer video links you’ve seen in the past. This sort of thing is what will drive the need to upgrade computers, and open up more bandwidth. This is also why Cisco is trying to purchase Tandberg and Logitech is buying LifeSize. (Cisco wins in almost any case as more bandwith equals more demand for its routers and other high-tech plumbing for the cyber-pipes).
Some years down the road, lawyers will see this as part of their practice and connecting with clients. The only challenge? You and moi may have to put on makeup before the next virtual meeting with the global team.
(Via Gizmodo and Jordan Furlong on Twitter)
Orrick Fits Levi’s with Made-to-Measure Billing
November 23, 2009 | Filed Under Alt Billing, Law Firm Trends
The ABA Journal reported this morning that Levi Strauss is handing all legal work worldwide (save IP) to Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. For a flat fee. Where Orrick doesn’t have a presence, it will refer the work to other firms, which can be the hardest part of a deal like this to make work in practice.
This arrangement sounds similar to that struck by Tyco and Eversheds a few years ago for international work, which I covered here. Last week, Corporate Counsel magazine described how Tyco’s domestic US product liability work is handled by Shook, Hardy and Bacon.
This shows how a global firm really can differentiate itself with a global client. For all the talk about value pricing, it comes down to a firm taking risk and a client taking a stand.
There’s no information thusfar about how many firms Levi’s is supplanting by converging on Orrick.
(Hat tip to Ron Friedmann via Twitter).
Google Targets Legal Search - Part 2
November 18, 2009 | Filed Under Technology, Legal Resources
Now that the dust is settling a bit on the new legal functionality at Google Scholar, a few things seem clear:
1. This is something Google has been working on for some time. Googler (and attorney) Rick Klau gives some of the background here. This wasn’t coded in a rush and released into the wild for comment. Google offerings typically improve consistently over time. “Iterate” is the mantra, I think.
2. Free doesn’t mean “lacks value.” As Ernie Svenson notes, Google Scholar is already quite good, and we have really already paid for the information; Google just presents it in a highly useful and usable format.
3. There will probably be integration with other Google offerings. It doesn’t take too much imagination to think about a mobile version of Google Scholar with an app on Android, Google’s nascent mobile phone OS. Here’s a link to a case on Google Scholar; I sent it to my BlackBerry, and it’s very readable on the small screen. Heck, the base version at scholar.google.com already works well on my smartphone.
These questions (and more) will likely be covered by Denise Howell in the next This Week in Law (Friday at 11: 00am PST; featuring Google’s Rick Klau).
(Update: Here’s a good review of Google Scholar, via Ernie.)
What will Google Scholar mean to the major incumbents, such as LexisNexis and Westlaw? Probably not much in the short run, in the sense that they have been moving upmarket for years (premium content for premium cost; see some of their reaction here). Smaller firms, solos, and thrifty law departments will undoubtedly give it a hard look and watch for updates.
As for other legal research companies? The jury’s out on that. This option, which hits my Gmail account far too often, might need to reconsider the subject line of yesterday’s message:
Google Targets Legal Search
November 17, 2009 | Filed Under Technology, Legal Resources
Google announced today a long-anticipated move into legal search. From their Official Blog:
Starting today, we’re enabling people everywhere to find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts using Google Scholar. You can find these opinions by searching for cases (like Planned Parenthood v. Casey), or by topics (like desegregation) or other queries that you are interested in. For example, go to Google Scholar, click on the “Legal opinions and journals” radio button, and try the query separate but equal. Your search results will include links to cases familiar to many of us in the U.S. such as Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, which explore the acceptablity of “separate but equal” facilities for citizens at two different points in the history of the U.S. But your results will also include opinions from cases that you might be less familiar with, but which have played an important role.
This new resource is couched in terms of allowing average citizens to access legal information. Some of those citizens may also work in law firms and legal departments.
I thought this would happen about four years ago. Please consider the “Law 2.0″ references therein youthful exuberance.
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