The Geek In Review

The past ten years have been what University of Tennessee Law Professor Ben Barton calls "the lost decade" for law schools. In his new book, Fixing Law Schools: From Collapse to the Trump Bump and Beyond, Professor Barton walks us through the issues he sees with the current structure of legal education in the United States, and ways to actually fix it. The book focuses on three areas that need correction: The cost of legal education is simply too high, and cannot be maintained. Technology has to be leveraged within the educational curriculum to help future practicing attorneys to do more work, charge less, and make more money in the end. Regulations have to be focused on the outputs of legal education, and be given teeth so that students are more likely to succeed. While the book title is about the lost decade of the 2010s, the root of the problem goes back well over a hundred years. Professor Barton talks with us about where we've been, where we are, and where we need to go so that we really are Fixing Law Schools. Information Inspirations We keep it short and sweet this week (mostly because neither of us has finished our holiday shopping.) Wireframes are becoming less relevant — and that’s a good thing - In his Medium article, Sean Dexter argues that using wireframes is basically old school now, especially given the rise of Agile product development, and Lean UX processes. Today's visualizations require more on-the-fly modifications which standard wireframes just don't allow. Newer products like Think Sketch, Adobe XD, or Figma are the modern tools you might want to check out. 25+ Legal Tech and Business of Law Predictions for 2020 - Aderant released its third annual predictions and the common theme seems to be centered around the idea that we need less talk about innovation and more actual implementation of innovative ideas and products. Stop with the PR and BS, and get something done. Greg wanted to add one other idea to the 2020 prediction and declare that collaborative software products like Microsoft Teams or the legal industry-focused product Workstorm are going to become must-have products in the team environments in which most of us work. Listen, Subscribe, Comment Our holiday gift wish is that you take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcast. Be generous!! Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. You can email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca.

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org and we take a deep dive into the issues in this matter. Kyle Courtney, Copyright Advisor at Harvard University, and Ed Walters, CEO of Fastcase have strong opinions in this matter, and were both involved in submitting Amicus Briefs on behalf of Public.Resources.Org. Join us for this engaging and informative conversation as we look at what the arguments are from both sides, and how Justices' questions may shape the outcome of this case.  For more information on this case, check out the oral argument transcript [PDF], and a primer with supportive materials from Ed Waters' on Medium. We also catch up with Emily Feltren from the American Association of Law Libraries to hear what else has been going on in Washington, DC in regards to legal information (we skip the impeachment stuff.) Believe it or not, there are things actually getting done in DC despite all the obvious gridlock. Information Inspirations Our very own Toby Brown is the inaugural guest on the new podcast, Pricing Matters. Toby is well known for his contribution to the establishing of pricing professionals within large law firms, and he gives us a peak behind the curtain of what he has accomplished over the past decade and a half. He even gives us a parallel story of how pricing issues resemble actions taken by HGTV's Chip and Joanna Gaines. Check it out! KM Is Dead... Long Live KM. It turns out that if you want to be innovative in law firms, look no further than what your Knowledge Management team has been working on for some time now. There's been a big boost lately in how KM is helping innovative law firms move forward with a 360 degree view of their knowledge, and better understanding their clients. Sometimes we inspire ourselves. Greg recently read about an Australian law firm going through an identity crisis on whether it should see itself as a law firm, or as a professional services consultant on legal issues. The story line fits almost any company, industry, or organization where there is a paradigm shift in what they do. Check out his LinkedIn article where he reworks the story to fit nearly anyone facing change. Is Data Science dying? Marlene says no. However, firms trying to implement data science techniques are finding that dirty data and antiquated ideas are limiting its results and driving data scientists away from working for them.  Listen, Subscribe, Comment Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. You can email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca.  

We all love our pets and think of them as part of our families. Even though we might love them as much (or more) than we love people, the legal system does not allow them the same protection. That doesn't mean that there are no rights for animals, in fact, there are many specific laws designated to protect them. In this episode of The Geek in Review, we bring on four experts in researching Animal Laws, not just in the US, but worldwide. We talk with the following members of the American Association of Law Libraries' Animal Law Caucus: Alex Zhang - Law Library Director and Professor of Practice at Washington and Lee University School of Law Stacey Gordon Sterling -Law Library Director and Professor of law - Alexander Blewett III School of Law at the University of Montana Katie Ott - Reference Librarian - Robert Crown Law Library at Stanford University Sarah Slinger - Reference Librarian and Lecturer at Law - University of Miami Law Library Whether it is legal issues ranging from which "parent" gets the pet in a divorce, or how an orangutan is granted "personhood" in Argentina, to animal testing on cute beagles (yes... that's still going on in the US), our experts from the Animal Law Caucus cover these issues and more.  Information Inspirations There is a lot of tech opportunities in America, but one of the unrealized places are on Native American Reservations. The Make Me Smart podcast talks with a Native Financial Officer about the upcoming Wiring the Rez conference. One Texas Federal Judge asks if you submit a brief more than 10 pages long, that you make a recording so he can listen to it, rather than read it. Sounds like an opportunity for some talented legal podcasters with better voices than Greg. Despite some of the best efforts to make things better, even allies can come up short when it comes to bias in the workplace. One leader in the Social Justice non-profit area shares her story, and it mirrors some of the same situations we see in the legal industry. To understand Algorithmic Bias, you must first understand the different types of discrimination, and how they apply to the bias. It's very complicated, but here's a primer to get your started. Listen, Subscribe, Comment Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. You can email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca.

We have discussed the concept of the T-Shaped Lawyer on previous episodes, but we jump into a new concept this week called the Delta Model. Alyson Carrel from Northwestern Law School joins returning guest Cat Moon from Vanderbilt Law School’s Program on Law and Innovation to discuss this intriguing idea of helping lawyers understand the pyramid of skills surrounding understanding the law, business & operations, and personal effectiveness. We suggest taking a look at this primer from Carrel, Moon, and other members of the Delta Model working group (Natalie Runyon, Shellie Reid, and Gabe Teninbaum) from Bill Henderson's blog, Legal Evolution. This model of three principles, along with the ability to shift the center of importance for each skill set, helps explain, and guide the overall needs of the legal industry. Carrel and Moon give us an insider's view of the model and explain why this concept will help with the holistic training of law students as well as practicing attorneys. Information Inspirations In the article, Innovation, Disruption, and Impact: Should We All Jump Aboard the Legal Tech Hype Train? by Peter Melicharek and Franziska Lehner, the authors talk about the need to unwind the PR from the actual technology in the legal industry. The primary benefit of technology is to assist in achieving results by eliminating mundane tasks, and assisting in getting to better legal results, faster, and cheaper. Once again... read the Delta Model primer. It's so important, it is inspirational. Can law firms actually create a four-day work week? One smaller firm in Florida says yes. ALM's Dylan Jackson interviews the managing partner of Orlando based Benenati Law about how he has created a four-day work week, and three-day weekends, and the benefits they've discovered of this alternative work model. A recent Microsoft survey found a 40% increase in productivity in some of their four-day work schedules. Perhaps it could do the same at firms?? If you're looking for a great podcast that discusses UX and User Design, then Wireframe has just what you need. Listen, Subscribe, Comment Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. You can email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca, thanks Jerry!

Ian Nelson is no stranger to introducing the legal industry to as-needed training on legal topics. He was one of the first US employees of Practical Law Company (PLC). After PLC was acquired by Thomson Reuters, Ian stayed on for a while as PLC transitioned into the Thomson Reuters portfolio of legal resources, but his days of finding better ways of presenting and teaching legal concepts were not behind him. Recently, he and his co-founder Chris Wedgeworth (anther PLC alum) created Hotshot. Hotshot is an online Professional Development resource which uses short videos, quizzes, and more to train lawyers, and even law students, across a growing list of legal, business, and technology skills. Essentially, they’ve brought digital learning to the legal industry. Ian joins us to talk about Hotshot's short video training concepts work with adult learners ranging from attorneys, to law firm staffers, and even helping law students quickly understand complex legal topics. Congratulations to the newly elected board members for the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL)! In other AALL news, time is running out for members to sign up for the Leadership Academy to be held in Chicago next March. Registration ends on November 11th. Information Inspirations We have some new, and new to you podcasts to suggest this week. First up is the new Law360 Explores: Legalization which investigates all of the legal hurdles of marijuana between the states which legalized it, and the federal government which still sees it as illegal drug dealing. Hustle and Flow Chart is one of Marlene's favorite digital marketing podcasts which has tips and tricks for your daily work routine. Junior Economist is a brand new podcast that gives the Millennial perspective on pop culture and current affairs, but through an economic lens. Beyond the podcast inspirations... if you're looking for a speaker on generational diversity within law firms (there's a 60+ year span between your youngest associates and your oldest senior partners), Greg suggests looking at Chris De Santis. The methods of achieving work goals differ between Boomers, Xers, and Millennials. The more we understand how each generation works, the better we work together. And finally, Greg is still slightly depressed about the Houston Astros losing in the World Series to the Washington Nationals, but Marlene finds the silver lining by geeking out over sports and graphical data representation. Whether it is the amazing SkyCam view of Cordarrelle Patterson's kickoff return, or strike zone view in baseball, there's a lot of opportunity to add graphics and data to sports, especially baseball. Listen, Subscribe, Comment Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca, thanks Jerry!

Wouldn't it be cool if a law school and a business school could collaborate on issues of legal analytics, entrepreneurial opportunities in the law, and collaboration between the university and the local business and law firm industries? We talk with a couple of professors at Georgia Statue University (GSU) who are turning this 'cool idea' and making it a reality. Anne Tucker, Professor of Law, Legal Analytics & Innovation Initiative, and Ben Chapman, Executive Director, Legal Analytics and Innovation Initiative join us to discuss the details behind The Institute for Insight at GSU. The Institute brings together professors from different backgrounds of Engineering, Computer Science, and Statistics and with this type of cross-pollination with business and law, the professors are looking at applied analytics questions and bringing in their own unique skill sets to understand and solve these issues.  This mashup of law, business, data science, risk management, statistics and more isn't a purely academic endeavor for the Institute. Following in the tradition of GSU being an urban school, the Institute works with well known players in the Atlanta business and legal community to put the ideas into real-world situations. This gives the Institute's professors and students the opportunity to work side-by-side with the business and legal leaders to help identify, study, analyze, and potentially solve issues facing the business and legal industry. This is one of the many values which Tucker and Chapman see for not just preparing students for the practice of law, but also for the business of law. Information Inspirations While Greg was busy playing guitar in his law firm's band, Marlene was speaking at the DLaw Summit in NYC last week. Competitive Intelligence guru, Kevin Miles from Norton Rose Fulbright gives us some nice checklists on different CI topics along with some templates designed in MS Word to help start you on the CI path at your law firm. The Financial Times came out with a 15 article report on the legal industry ranging from top legal business technologists, to the Big-Four's advancement in the legal industry, to both the promise, and the overwhelming nature of understanding legal tech processes. We hope that Google still follows the "Don't Be Evil" rule because they are now touting success in the Quantum Computing area. Google recently announce that its new Quantum Computer can computerate complex data in less than 3 minutes what it would take current supercomputers 10,000 years to do. We guess it's not a good or bad thing, but the future is definitely upon us.  Northwestern Law's Daniel Rodriguez, and Legal Mosaic's Mark Cohen have a lengthy discussion on how to advance today's law school's teaching into the 21st Century. It's a great conversation. Listen, Subscribe, Comment Subscribe, rate, and comment on The Geek In Review on your favorite podcast platform.

This week, we bring on Kevin Clem, Chief Commercial Officer for HBR Consulting. Kevin discusses the HBR Law Department Survey which has become a staple in the industry over the past 16 years. There is still a bit of a Family Feud between the in-house and the outside counsel ranks, but the survey is showing that there are lots of opportunities for the two sides to communicate and collaborate, rather than keep the status quo in the relationship. GC's are wanting their outside firms to help them beyond their legal issues, and really get to understand their business needs and pressures. Whether it is laying out strategy and pricing, or assisting the law department with their understanding of legal tools or knowledge collection, there are needs which law firms need to help with, or someone else may fill that void.  Clem has used the platform of the TV game show, The Family Feud to show his audiences of corporate counsels how they see their relationships. And the survey says... it's not great.  Some 87% of GC's he had surveyed found the relationship to be either okay, or needing help. It's a great conversation, and we cover a number of topics, and the one thing that we all agreed with, is that Richard Dawson was our favorite host.  Information Inspirations: Pepperdine's online course makes a PR push for "nons." Greg thinks maybe they should find another term. After all, hospital administration is not referred to as non-doctors. There's some inspirational tweets out there ranging from why it's okay to talk about your projects at conferences, to how great a brother (and customer service provider) Levi is. Marlene is speaking at the Disrupt Law conference in NYC on Oct. 22-23. She is also on the ILTA Practice Management Content team, so if you have ideas for presentation, white papers, or other topics, tweet her! The Relativity, FTI Technology, Kaplan survey of in-house counsel points out that 97% of the GC's surveyed are considered business strategy leaders in their companies. And once again, it's important for their law firms to have solid knowledge of their businesses beyond their legal needs. This is a golden opportunity for CI/BI legal information professionals to step up and help law firm lawyers gain that knowledge. While the Trump tax returns may seem ever elusive, one researcher from ProPublica used FOIA requests to find individual parts and then piece them together.  Listen, Subscribe, Comment Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. We’d love to hear any ideas you’d like us to cover in future episodes. Also, subscribe, rate, and comment on The Geek In Review on your favorite podcast platform. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca, thanks Jerry!

Three law school innovators, three law firm innovators, a law student, and a biglaw Partner meet on a podcast... this podcast... and share thoughts on how to improve law students' tech skills before they arrive at the firm. That is the setting for this episode of The Geek in Review.  Nikki Shaver, Director of Innovation and Knowledge from Paul Hastings got this conversation started on Twitter when she discovered that most of the New Fall Associates (NFAs) did not take any technology or innovation courses while in law school. This is not an uncommon story. There seems to be little incentive, either on the law school, or law firm side of recruiting which stresses tech competencies. But just because that's the way it has always been, that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. There is definitely room for improvement! So we wanted to get a group together and do just that. We asked Vanderbilt Law School's Cat Moon, Vermont Law School's Jeannette Eicks, and University of Oklahoma Law School's Kenton Brice to cover the law school innovation perspective.  Nikki Shaver, Marlene, and Greg cover the law firm innovation perspective. We also asked Jackson Walker Partner Matt Acosta, and Michigan State University Law School student, Kanza Khan to jump in and share their experiences with the expectations for legal technology skills.  We take a deep dive into the topic ranging from what law schools are actually offering students, what are law firms expectations for tech skills, and are law firm recruiting, and law school placement incentivizing students to be more proficient with tech before they arrive as NFAs? Update on Government Actions on Legal Information It's been a few months since we last talked with Emily Feltren, Director of Government Relations with the American Association of Law Libraries. While the country may be focused on the impeachment inquiry, Emily catches us up on legislation that has passed the US House (and is sitting in the US Senate.) There's a potential Thanksgiving budget crisis... yeah, we hadn't heard that either. And, there were hearings last week on FREE PACER (and how some US Judges are not on board for that.) So Jam Packed, We Had To Postpone Information Inspirations We skipped the Information Inspirations portion this week. We promise it will be back in the next episode!! Listen, Subscribe, Comment Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. We’d love to hear any ideas you’d like us to cover in future episodes. Also, subscribe, rate, and comment on The Geek In Review on your favorite podcast platform. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca, thanks Jerry!

It turns out that the West Coast doesn't have a lock on law and tech innovation. On this episode, we talk with four guests who are involved in the upcoming NYU Law and Tech: Impact on Innovation, coming up on October 15, 2019.  Our guests today are Felicity Conrad is a NYU grad and CoFounder and CEO of Paladin. Michael Weinberg is the Executive Director at the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at NYU. Christian Lang, Head of Strategy at Reynen Court. And, Anna McGrane is also an NYU Law alum, and is the Co-founder and COO of PacerPro. Each discuss their individual experiences with legal tech innovation, and how the NYU campus has become an launching point for many of its grads toward the legal technology and innovation community. From start-ups to meet-ups, our guests believe that NYU is showing that innovation can have a definite East Coast flavor.  Information Inspirations The Return of FREE PACER!! Northwestern University’s Interdisciplinary team, which includes seven law faculty, including our previous guest, Tom Gaylord, was awarded a National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator Grant this month. The $1 Million grant will be used to advance Northwestern’s AI-Powered data platform which interfaces with the federal PACER system. The Northwestern Open Access to Court Records Initiative (NOACRI) Team includes lawyers, journalists, economists, and policy makers across the different schools at Northwestern, and they are working to create tools needed to make the data locked in PACER available, and then link that data to public information about the litigants, judges, lawyers, and the courts. We wish them luck!! Can Congress Regulate Algorithms used in judicial processes? California Representative, Mark Takano has introduced the “Justice in Forensic Algorithms Act of 2019.” The idea is to create a standards for these algorithms that make them more transparent, especially to the defense teams, not just for the results, but for the entire process. Algorithms used in the courts will also not be able to hide behind trade secrets to prevent those affected by the algorithms from understanding how these results were produced. Can the government actually pull this off? It'll be interesting to see how this progresses.  Plus, a bonus inspiration on what law firms should be doing to encourage 1L's and 2L's to learn more about technology while still at the law schools. Listen, Subscribe, Comment Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. We’d love to hear any ideas you’d like us to cover in future episodes. Also, subscribe, rate, and comment on The Geek In Review on your favorite podcast platform. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca, thanks Jerry!

Makerspaces are becoming very popular in libraries, and today we talk with two librarians who are ready to bring the collaborative thinking and working spaces into the law school library environment. Ashley Matthews is at George Mason's Antonin Scalia Law School, and Sharon Bradley is at the University of Georgia School of Law. Both believe there is a great benefit in carving out spaces within the law school library to allow students and faculty the ability to tinker and experiment with their creative sides, and potentially come up with the next big idea in the legal market. Matthews recently wrote an article on makerspaces entitled "Teaching Students to 'Tech Like a Lawyer'." While some of us may see 'tech like a lawyer' as a way to stop technology, Matthews thinks that the law school library environment can be the perfect place to teach law students the analytical skills they'll need in their practice to truly understand how a legal issue can benefit from technology, and how to issue spot, reason, analyze, and resolve legal issues more effectively with technology. Information Inspirations The Dangers of Categorical Thinking The human mind is build to categorize the things we see and do in the world. It just helps us make sense of the world, whether it's the fight or flight between seeing a stick and a snake, or the business decisions we make in selecting the perfect candidate out of a pool of ten qualified applicants. We group the hard skills and the soft skills. In this Harvard Business Review article, the authors warns not to be so caught up in the larger categorical picture, and lose sight of the details and nuances that really make the difference in the end. Four Firms are Moving the Needle on Diversity… and looking for a Fifth Eversheds Sutherland (US) announced this week that they are joining Goodwin, Orrick, and Stoel Rives in participating in a project called "Move the Needle Fund." These four firms have committed to meet the goal of having 33% women partners, and increasing the overall representation of racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+, lawyers with disabilities, and veterans to at least 15% of their ranks within five years. The Move the Needle Fund is looking for a fifth law firm to join this group. Listen, Subscribe, Comment Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. We’d love to hear any ideas you’d like us to cover in future episodes. Also, subscribe, rate, and comment on The Geek In Review on your favorite podcast platform. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca, thanks Jerry!