The Geek In Review

Welcome to a mini-episode of The Geek In Review. Shot on location in Scottsdale, Arizona. Law School Stress??  No Kidding! This week, we continue our discussion on how law students can have a stressful time in the three years they are in law school. We can't change what happens during law school, but we've asked some experts to tell us what they do to help law students reduce stress as they prep for finals, and what they can do to be successful as summer associates in law firms. We finish our series about how law schools are reducing stress by hearing from the following schools: Howard University University of Hawaii University of Houston University of Wisconsin Georgia State University University of Texas We appreciate these schools (and the ones from last week) taking the time to tell us what all they are doing to help students deal with finals. Hey Summer Associates... Listen Up! We also talk with a number of AmLaw 100 firms about what their expectations are for how summer associates can have a successful tour of duty at their firms. Greg and Marlene were at a conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, and they asked a number of their fellow attendees what they do to help summer associates succeed, or what their expectations are for how law schools should prepare them for this work, and what they allow from outside vendors in regards for training as assistance during the Summers' time at the firm.  We will say this to any law students who is listening...make friends with the law librarian. They will help guide you to success. This Episode brought to you by... Greg's iPhone We recorded this entire episode on Greg's iPhone. Thanks to all of the law schools and law firm librarians who took the time to talk with us as we were traveling in the desert. This has been a fun one, and we hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we did recording it. Listen, Subscribe, download Jerry’s music, and Send Us Tweets and Voicemails, Too!! Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and comment. You can tweet @gebauerm and/or @glambert to reach out. Call the Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270, and let us know if you have ideas on topics we should cover in future episodes. As always, thanks to Jerry David DiCicca for his original music.

David Whelan, the Director of Legal Information & the Great Library Society of Ontario, discusses his recent article "The No Legal Research Provider Landscape," and how lawyers, law librarians, and the legal industry looks at legal information services. Do you need to have multiple resources like Westlaw, LexisNexis, Bloomberg or others, or can you get by with just going with one (AKA "Sole Provider.") Do you even really need to go with one of the big services, or can you survive off of the resources provided by the local bar association? Or are there even fewer options for solo small firm environments? David covers  this, plus when things are "good enough" for some lawyers to feel comfortable in their practice. And, how that usually runs counter to law librarians and other practitioners who would never be satisfied with "good enough."  De-Stressing the Law Students During Finals We skip Information Inspirations this week to have a little fun. Anyone who has gone to law school knows that finals time can be stressful. We reached out to a number of law schools to ask them what they do to help students reduce their stress levels during this time. We get some great answers from: The University of Georgia University of San Diego University of Illinois Tulsa University University of Arkansas Little Rock Villanova Richmond Yale Thanks to all of these schools for sharing. There's some great programs going on at all of these schools. We have a few more who left us messages today, and we'll make sure to get those on the next show. If your school is doing something to reduce the stress levels of law students, call us on the Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a brief (30 seconds or so) voice memo, and we'll get it on next week's show.  One of the things we learned from Yale's Law Library Director, Teresa Miguel-Sterns, is that New Haven apparently does have excellent pizza. Marlene, with her New Jersey skepticism says that she's going to have to try that out first hand. So look out Connecticut...  Government Action on Legal Information Emily Feltren, Director of Government Relations at the American Association of Law Libraries, gives us a monthly update on what the government is doing in regards to advancing access to legal information. Listen, Subscribe, download Jerry’s music, and Send Us Tweets and Voicemails, Too!! Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and comment. You can tweet @gebauerm and/or @glambert to reach out. Call the Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270, and let us know if you have ideas on topics we should cover in future episodes. As always, thanks to Jerry David DiCicca for his original music.

One of the best things about the legal industry is that there are multiple pathways to success. We are all trained issue spotters, and our guest on this episode identified an issue and founded a new company to fix that issue. Brian Powers is the CEO and co-founder of PactSafe, a high-velocity contract acceptance platform used by such major companies like Angie's List, UpWork, BMC, TIVO, and others to handle large volumes of clickthrough agreements. We talk with Brian about what motivated him to take on this challenge, and how he sought out to change the way businesses approach these types of contacts, and bring efficiency to the market place, and the legal industry through technology and process improvements. Brian is just one more example of those in the legal field who has found an alternative path through identifying inefficiencies, and finding ways to correct them.  Hat tip to Kristin Hodgins for her tweet this week when she saw that someone said that if law firms are going to us AI, we need ways to collect structured data. Hodgins tweet reply was spot on when she said “Guess who are experts at structured data? Librarians. Google didn’t destroy us; it help us by reducing low-value work like rote retrieval from our duties & allowed us to focus on high-order skills. AI will do the same.” Well said! Information Inspirations: We're doing AI Wrong Zach Warren interviewed Brad Blickstein in a law.com article this week about how law firms are looking at AI the wrong way. When it comes to AI and law firms, Blickstein says that “[AI has] become a top-down thing: What are we doing about AI? It’s like asking, what are we doing about databases? It’s a crazy question. The question should be, what problems do we have, how do we solve them, and is AI or some semblance of AI a potential solution for that?”  Brad's company, Blickstein Group, is producing a Legal AI Efficacy report that is due out this summer.  We're Communicating Wrong This will come as a surprise to no one, but there can often be communications issues between executives and technologists. In a Harvard Business Review article, a scenario is set up between executives and data scientists, and we are walked through some examples on how to improve the communications between the two personalities. The article suggests you have a variety of projects and you build a team based on a variety of skill sets (and goes on to list them-data wrangling, data analysis, project management, subject expertise, storytelling, design)- so that the team can focus on what they do well but you have all the skills needed for a strong data science team. (We have a little fun with the data wrangling job.) We're Podcasting Wrong Check out Jared Corriea's latest episode of the Legal Toolkit podcast. Former law librarian, and podcast enthusiast, Tim Baran, has a number of suggestions for those of you who might be considering starting your own podcast. It turns out that Marlene and Greg are violating a few of the suggestions.  more...

Not many people can make the transition from Ph.D. in Genetics and Genomics, and then to the legal analytics field, but Dr. Carla Rydholm is someone who did just that. For nearly the past decade, Dr. Rydholm has been leading the charge of data analytics at Lex Machina. She is charged with not only acquiring the data large amounts of data but also maintaining that data as it is updated. Dr. Rydholm stopped by Greg's Houston office, along with episode 10's guest, Kyle Doviken to tell us about transitioning from pure scientist, to her current role, and what drives her passion for data analytics, and how the data is used to tell the story, and help attorney's understand what's previously happened, and use that as a guide to better understand where they may be headed. It's a very insightful conversation. Marlene WIns an Award! The Private Law Librarians and Information Professionals (PLL-IP) of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) is giving Blogger of the Year status to our very own Marlene Gebauer for her outstanding work on this podcast. Congrats Marlene!! Speaking of AALL, there is a new State of the Profession Survey publication that is of great value to any organization that has legal information professionals. You can find out more, and order your copy at the AALL website. Information Inspirations:  Marlene points out a recent article called “The Value of Inconvenient Design.” The author uses a case study of assembling IKEA furniture (with that single allen wrench) and how people place value on things where there is a challenge (friction) in producing the end result, versus having something that is just handed to you. There's a need to solve a problem, in order to earn the reward. She ties this back to the theme in many of our shows centering around design thinking--you have to identify what is actually a problem and work backwards from that. Simply making something easier because we can through improved process or tech may actually de-value the experience and make the people involved more unhappy. There's a lot of mergers, acquisitions, and strategic alliances going on recently in the legal information field. The recent acquisition of Justis by vLex creates a powerful international and foreign law database. The combination of vLex's Colin Lachance, and Justis' Masoud Gerami is sure to be a winning combination. Ed Walter's of Fastcase hinted at more things to come for his legal information service when he talked with us a few weeks ago. Fastcase is collaborating with two expert witness platforms, JurisPro and Courtroom Insight. Fastcase is already punching above its weight class against the big players in the industry. With this latest collaboration, it seems to be punching even harder. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and comment. You can tweet @gebauerm and/or @glambert to reach out. Call the Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270, and let us know if you have ideas on topics we should cover in future episodes. As always, thanks to Jerry David DiCicca for his original music.

 On this episode of The Geek in Review Podcast, we have a wonderful conversation with Steve Embry of the TechLaw Crossroads blog. Embry walked away from his AmLaw 200 partnership almost a year ago to follow his passion to become a full time legal blogger. He discusses how there is an art to storytelling, and as a lawyer, there are different ways to present those stories. Storytelling is a skill which needs to be honed, whether that is through legal blogging, or through leveraging technology to present your story in a courtroom environment. Embry's passion in this new phase of his life is palatable throughout this interview and even inspires those of us who have been blogging for years to remember why it is we do it.  Information Inspirations: Ernst and Young is poised to swoop in and acquire Thomson Reuters' managed legal services company, Pangea3. Marlene wonders what this means for the future of both the Big 4 entering the legal market, and what the future objectives of Thomson Reuters in the legal industry. There is an art to a quality April Fool's joke. Greg points out that the Artificial Lawyer's "Post-It Note Shortage" story was an instant masterpiece. Marlene is going with a collaboration theme this episode. First up, Legal Design Lab, in partnership with Stanford Codex’s Jameson Dempsey is proposing a Data Commons for Law to advance access to justice, legal tech and legal design. And, secondly, six Big Law firms have recently signed up to Reynen's Court to collaborate and support development and ultimate launch of its service automation platform. When it comes to the concept of "fail fast," Google seems to be taking that to heart... perhaps, far too often. In the first three months of 2019, Google has shutdown, or announce the discontinuation of multiple platforms. Greg is still feeling the pain of Google shutting down Google Reader some six years ago. Many think that Google's constant failure in projects may eventually harm their brand. Listen, Subscribe, download Jerry’s music, and Send Us Tweets and Voicemails, Too!! Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and comment. You can tweet @gebauerm and/or @glambert to reach out. Call the NEW Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270. Thanks to our first caller, Crawford Appleby of Rulings.law. If you have a product you'd like us to see, or a comment on a topic you'd like us to cover, give us a call, tweet, or even comment below. As always, thanks to Jerry David DiCicca for his original music.

On this episode of The Geek In Review, we talk with Joe Lawson, Deputy Director of the Harris County Law Library in Houston, Texas. With Harris County being the third largest county in the United States, there is a large number of attorneys, judges, and citizens who use the law library for various reasons. In 2018, there were over 24,000 filings of self-represented petitioners. That is a lot. Dallas County, by comparison, had 6,000 in the same time period. Lawson believes that there is a duty of the law library to help train lawyers, not to just be more efficient in their personal practices, but to help them have more capacity to help assist pro se litigants. Lawson's calculation is that a 3% increase in capacity, through advancements in technology usage, could help eliminate a majority of the pro se issues in the county.  Back from South By Southwest (SXSW) Greg returned this week from SXSW and a trip to Northern California. Although the music was great, it was the educational sessions which took up most of his time in Austin. Panels on Gen Z, and the art of Storytelling where two of the topics that caught his attention. INFORMATION INSPIRATIONS Washburn Law School in Kansas allows their 3L students to finish their last year of law school actually working in the industry. In their "Third Year Anywhere" program, students receive first-hand experience working with mentor lawyers in one of six different areas. They complete their educational portion of the curriculum through online courses. Is this an outlier in legal education, or a potential trend for other schools to follow? Marlene likes the recent 3 Geeks' post by Shashi Kara. In addition to discussing how not all flops are failures, Shashi also wins the marketing award for putting "sex" in the title of his post. There are failures, and there are lessons learned which make future projects successes. It's important to know the differences. Matt Homann gives presenters ten tips for impressing their audiences. Number one is having a passion about the topic which you are presenting. If you don't feel that passion, neither will those listening to you. That's just the first tip... there are nine more to help you be a better presenter. The subscription based model is infiltrating the legal industry. Marlene has some suggestions on how lawyers and firms can bring value-added services to improve that model, and keep in line with bar rules as well. Bonus II's: Clippy returns... only to be assassinated. The NY Law Institute is having a National Library Week Peep Diorama Contest. Comic book databases leave a lot to be desired. Perhaps Marlene could head up R&D?? Listen, Subscribe, download Jerry’s music, and Send Us Tweets and Voicemails, Too!! Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and comment. You can tweet @gebauerm and/or @glambert to reach out. Call the NEW Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7272 and let us know, preferably in English, if you want us to start producing video promotions of upcoming episodes, or if you have an idea for the show. As always, thanks to Jerry David DiCicca for his original music. 

It only took us 31 episodes, but Marlene decided that what the show lacked was a phone number for listeners to call in. So, we now have one, and we have a question for you to vote on.  "Should The Geek In Review create a video promo for upcoming episodes?" (Greg says he has the face for radio, so vote no... Marlene says it's a great idea, so vote yes. Call 713-487-7270 and leave your voicemail of "YES" or "NO" and what other ideas you may have for the show. This week we have a great guest, Vishal Agnihotri, who recently returned from a world wide Legal Hackathon session, and she and her team (called the Femme LeGALs) created over 180 ideas and concepts. Besides idea generation at a phenomenal pace, Vishal is also the Chief Knowledge Officer at Hinshaw Culbertson in New York. She walks us through her journey through Knowledge Management and where she sees opportunities in law firm KM through data security. Greg is spending the week in Austin at SXSW, and is live-blogging as much as he can here. Wish him luck, as he's taken to riding those electric scooters through the streets of Austin. INFORMATION INSPIRATIONS: Marlene asks if you'd rather have a Good Boss in a Bad Work Environment... or a Bad Boss in a Good Work Environment? Sounds like a lose/lose, but Marlene does have her preference if she were in that bad situation. The American Association of Law Libraries has a complimentary snapshot of the brand new State of the Profession.report. Check it out and share it with a friend. Caroline Hill sat down and talked with six women across a variety of roles in legal technology to discuss how far (or not far) the industry has come when it comes to gender roles. Our Data Scientist (with a cape), Jennifer Robert, had a recent article out called "It's Time for Law Firms to Place Bolder Bets on Their Data." Okay firms... ante up! Listen, Subscribe, Download Jerry's music, and Send Us Tweets and Voicemails, Too!! Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and comment. You can tweet @gebauerm and/or @glambert to reach out. Call the NEW Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and let us know if you want us to start producing video promotions of upcoming episodes, or if you have an idea for the show. As always, thanks to Jerry David DiCicca for his awesome music.

On the 30th episode of The Geek In Review, we talk with Debbie Ginsberg, Educational Technology Librarian at the Chicago-Kent Law Library. Debbie was recently quoted in law.com's "Where Are All the Women in Legal Tech?" So we cut right to the chase and ask that question to Debbie. She says that there are lots of women in legal tech, but that those putting on tech conferences need to take more action toward actively recruiting women for speaker and presenter opportunities. One profession where women are a majority, and are heavily involved in legal tech, is law librarians. The American Association of Law Libraries is approximately 75% women, and with the push toward knowledge management, analytics, competitive intelligence, and advancing the legal research and information tools, law librarians are an excellent resource when it comes to professionals in the legal tech market. Ginsberg also talks about the Women in Legal Tech Summit, held right before TechShow in Chicago. She mentions that there is an effort to expand the boundaries of women in legal tech beyond just women lawyers who are working in legal tech, and begin looking for other opportunities. Dovetailing nicely with that effort is Janders Dean, who is putting out a list of 180 highly qualified women speakers for legal tech on their Twitter page. And, Sarah Glassmeyer's crowdsourcing list of underrepresented people in legal tech and innovation.  INFORMATION INSPIRATIONS Self-care isn’t selfish and can actually help your performance - Author Jenna Cho interviews one of Jackson Walker's partners, Stephanie Sparks, who discusses how she was always waiting until the right time to take care of herself, and eventually realized that there was never a "right time" and she understood that she just had to make that time.  Cho's article reminds us that we all need to take some time to listen to your body and mind, and remember that you can't take care of others if you don't first take care of yourself.  Jason Barnwell gets a shout out from Marlene this week on his interview of Kate Ross. This Business of Law Podcast hits all the right buttons on the need for attorneys to collaborate and be transparent, not just with the good things, but how we need to show the warts and all.  Greg points out Jason's comment that when it comes to culture in a legal environment, people shouldn't feel that they have "inherited someone else's shoes." This is a must listen for those looking at collaboration and better experiences for your organization. Marlene talks about how Zena Applebaum reminds us Humans are the Decision Makers… Data Isn't. And finally, Greg (and most librarians, historians, and researchers) aren't too happy with the Obama Presidential Library's plan to be an all-digital library.  Subscribe Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and comment. You can tweet @gebauerm and/or @glambert to reach out. Thanks to Jerry David DiCicca for his original music.

The rumor that "print is dead" may have been a bit premature. In this episode we talk with Fastcase CEO and co-founder, Ed Walters about his vision of why print titles are a vital component of a legal publishers arsenal and how Fastcase is using its new Full Court Press imprint to make his company even more competitive. Walters also reveals that Fastcase 7 will soon be making its journey through space, and move from its beta "Mercury" release, and progress to the beta "Venus", and is making its way toward the fulling functioning "Earth" release this summer. And if your were curious… Pluto is a planet. Fastcase is also looking to leverage its 2018 acquisitions of Docket Alarm and Law Street Media to push the company into the future of legal analytics and advancing legal news reporting. If geeky and nerdy are the new sexy… Walters and his group at Fastcase are bringing it back. We also talk with American Association of Law Libraries Director of Government Relations, Emily Feltren, about the status of making PACER free to all users. The bills are filed in the US Congress, and the amici briefs are filed (including one by Fastcase and Ed Walters) to bring down the price of PACER, or make it completely free. Feltren teaches us more on that topic. Information Inspirations Greg had traveling difficulties last week and couldn't make it to the ARK conference on law libraries. Well, he couldn't make it physically. He did, however, get to use zoom to make his presentation to the roughly 100 attendees. And, of course, it couldn't be just any old video presentation. Greg found a way to bring in some green screen action through zoom's background features. Not sure if that counts a sexy, but it was definitely geeky. Without Fail Podcast - Alex Blumberg, who recently sold Gimlet Media to Spotify for $200M, has a podcast where he interviews entrepreneurs not only about their successes, but also about their failures. On a recent interview with brand revitalizer, Sharon Price John, the CEO and President of Build-A-Bear Workshops, she discusses the vision that change agents need to bring brands back to life. If you're going to turn things around, you have to accept the problems that come with it. You need to embrace that "it might not not be your fault, but it is now your problem." Herbert Smith Freehills gives its employees ten days which they may focus entirely on innovation. Marlene discusses what that means, and that while this is a great concept, it is important that the employees be given the flexibility to be creative everyday. Perhaps that should also mean more flexibility in when and where they work, and that they be encouraged and supported in traveling more often. Gen Z's are in college, in law schools, and are entering the workforce. We've talked about them before, but we're not sure that previous generations are really ready to work side-by-side with this "brutally" honest generation. Are Lawyers Ready to be Managed by Metrics? (American Lawyer) - If you think that legal work is so unique that it cannot be measured, analyzed, predicted, and have a value metric placed upon it… then your days may be numbered. (more…)

Not all Data Scientists wear lab coats to work. Intapp's Jennifer Roberts wears a cape! On the latest episode of The Geek in Review, Marlene and Greg dive into the wonderfully geeky world of data science and its application within law firms and the legal industry. Jennifer Roberts, Manager, Strategic Research at Intapp, discusses exactly what it means to be a data scientist, and why law firms are leveraging them to help run their legal operations. When it comes to "the business of law," Roberts says this is where the results of data science steps in and shows its value. Data science can help answer questions like, "how can we predict the price of legal services?" "How can we predict the scope of a matter?" "How can we help with legal project management?" And even "how can we predict what a client's needs are?" Or, "what will these clients buy from us in the future?" Data science and analytics help uncover the facts that not all lawyers and not all legal matters are totally unique. Roberts also helps us answer those naysayers who claim that they do not have enough data, or that they have Filthy Data™.  We finish our LegalWeek question of "how are you changing the legal industry" with our final four responses. This week we hear from: Michael Boggia - Lookup Damian Jeal - Hubshare Kevin O’Keefe - LexBlog Martin Goulet - Wolters Kluwer Information Inspirations For anyone following the happenings (and large fines resulting from) the EU's GDPR, Marlene thinks perhaps this is something that may make its way across the pond. In a recent Corporate Counsel magazine article entitled, "Cisco's Chief Legal Officer Expresses Support for American Version of GDPR" (subscription needed), Mark Chandler of Cisco supports the need for more regulation on privacy.  Greg talks with Emily Feltren of the American Association of Law Libraries, about recent legislation submitted that might finally move PACER from behind a paywall. Marlene's second information inspiration is about "Why People Still Don’t Buy Groceries Online." Americans buy almost everything online these days, so why hasn't online grocery shopping taken off? Is this one of the last "tactile" experiences that we are holding on to, or have we just not had the "aha!" moment yet with online grocery shopping experiences?  The final information inspirations talks about what it really means to have access to justice. In the New York Times opinion piece, "Everyone Needs Legal Help. That Doesn’t Mean Everyone Needs a Lawyer," . Look for us at the ARK Library Conference in NYC this week. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and comment to The Geek in Review on your favorite podcast platform. If you comments, compliments, or suggestions, you can tweet @gebauerm and/or @glambert to reach out. Thanks to Jerry David DiCicca for his original music.