The Geek In Review

Sometimes when you drop by Greg's office, he will ask if you'll sit down for an interview for the Geek In Review Podcast. This week, Scott Mozarsky, Managing Directory for North American at Vannin Capital fell into that trap, and even Marlene jumped in on Skype and joined the conversation. Scott was the former President of Bloomberg Law and has been in the legal media industry for decades. During the discussion, Mazarsky talks about how the Knowledge Management skills found in law firms can be applied to some of the same analytics and processes found in Litigation Finance. He also walks us through how Litigation Finance is changing, and that a lot of business is being driven by the needs of large law firms... not just plaintiff work. In the segment that Marlene and Greg are now calling Information Inspiration, Greg discusses how, even after multiple years of security training, it took a episode of the Reply All podcast to finally scare him straight and up his security game. Hackers are no joke, and using strong passwords, encryption, and password managers are a must in today's scary... scary world.  Marlene and Greg also listen to the new AI newscaster that China's media just launched. Neither of them were all that impressed, but perhaps this is the wave of the future for disseminating information.  Marlene discusses the gig economy in law that wast covered in the latest Think Like a Lawyer podcast. Joe Patrice interviewed two leaders from the new Lawclerk company which provides on-demand lawyers for projects. It's much more complex than you're probably thinking it is. Is it the future of lawyers? It's probably part of the future. Thanks again to Jerry David DeCicca for allowing us to use his original music. Go check out Jerry's songs on Spotify, iTune, or at his website. Let us know what you think about the show. You can tweet us at  @gebauerm or @glambert. Find links at www.geeklawblog.com

On this episode of The Geek In Review, we talk with the new Executive Director of the American Association of Law Libraries, Vani Ungapen. Vani discusses her initiation into AALL and having to learn all of the different acronyms that Law Librarians like to use.  Greg was inducted into the College of Law Practice Management as a Fellow. While at the CoLPM meeting, former Harvard Law School President, Martha Minnow discussed her mission as the Vice-Chair of the Legal Services Corporation, and the need to help those who cannot afford legal services to not fall through the cracks.  To dovetail with Martha Minnow's topic, check out the work that is going on with The Bail Project, which created a rotating bail fund to help those who are sitting in jail, primarily because they cannot post bail. Greg ponders if there is something that legal associations could do to support these types of projects in support of access to justice issues. Marlene went to the latest Ark Group KM meeting (apparently there was a Fortnight dance involved?) While she was there, she asked Vivian Liu-Somers, Ron Friedmann, Phil Rosenthal, Phil Bryce, and Meredith Williams-Range about how does Knowledge Management impact innovation.  Perhaps the most exciting change this week is that we have new music from Jerry David DeCicca. Jerry is a well-known Americana musician and former lead singer of The Black Swans. There is a law library link in this music in that AALL member, Eve Searls, sings back up, and plays keyboard and Wurlitzer on Jerry's latest album, Burning Daylight. We are very excited that Jerry is letting us use his fabulous music on the Podcast. Check out his Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/artist/2zK20J4miKH4eF6LW1HyGq?nd=1), and iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/jerry-david-decicca/874638238) channels.  If you have comments or suggestions, please tweet us at @gebauerm or @glambert.

Brandi Hester, Applications Development Manager for Hunton Andrews Kurth, discusses how the modern Applications Development team focuses less on actually developing applications from scratch to providing a services, security, access, and connecting the dots on all that data. She walks us through the plethora of “AAS” (as a service) options which law firm IT departments use, and she talks about “Shadow IT” groups found in law firm departments and practice areas. Brandi also shares some great insights on being a woman in a field that historically has favored men in app dev roles. Marlene (@gebauerm) and Greg (@glambert) enjoyed their week off from the podcast and discuss their individual travels to Chicago, and across Texas. Greg also got to present (virtually) at the University of Oklahoma and discovered that many other law firms are struggling to promote their professional development programs due to the issue of “if it ain’t on the final, or the bar exam… students won’t make the effort to attend.” This was an issue discussed recently in an Above the Law article. Professional Development For Law Students: How can students best take advantage of their school’s professional development programming? https://abovethelaw.com/2018/10/professional-development-for-law-students/ Marlene found a new podcast called Women in Law, On the Record, from Greenberg Traurig’s Allison Stewart. Stewart was featured in a recent Law.com article. https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2018/10/19/greenberg-traurig-associate-launches-podcast-for-women-in-law/ Women in Law, On the Record (iTunes) https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/women-in-law-on-the-record/id1437819781?mt=2 Filed under the topic of “did it, or didn’t happen??” is the recent Bloomberg report on China’s alleged hacking of Apple, Amazon, as well as US Military and other government computers through a computer hardware chip smaller than a “small grain” size of rice. Everyone is denying that it happened, but Marlene and Greg wonder how this is going to affect cloud-based projects within law firms?

On this episode we will talk with Jeff Marple, Director of Innovation, Corporate Legal at Liberty Mutual Insurance company. Plus, we have our monthly update on government action in legal information from AALL’s Director of Government Relations, Emily Feltren. So, it’s an action packed episode, so grab a drink of your choice and settle in for a good one. 15:13 - Jeff Marple, Director of Innovation, within Corporate Legal at Liberty Mutual discusses what it is like to be the innovations guru within a large corporate legal environment. The key is incremental change, lots of communications, having the customer in the room, and publicly executing poor performing processes or projects in the town square. 07:22 - Emily Feltren, Director of Government Relations at American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), gives us her monthly update on happenings in the legal information field in regards to government actions. There are a number of bills at the federal level focusing on opening up access to PACER (the backbone of the federal court docket system.) Is free access to PACER on the horizon? Seem that there are a number of politicians looking to do just that. 00:45 - Marlene (@gebauerm) walks us through how "Thinking Like a Lawyer" might be exactly what we need in this highly polarized environment we live in. https://www.law360.com/articles/1089175/ 03:00 - Greg (@glambert) discusses his "book report" from Kim Cameron's leadership book, "Positive Leadership: Strategies for Extraordinary Performance," on Positive Communications and how high performance teams interact and communicate. https://amzn.to/2BZHKBq Please feel free to Tweet us at @gebauerm or @glambert with any comments you have about this episode of The Geek In Review. Please take a moment to subscribe, comment, and rate us so that others can find us.

Laurent Wiesel, Founder and CEO of Justly, talks with us about leaving his BigLaw partnership to create a startup focused on litigation analytics. Wiesel discusses how he saw that there was a growing gap between what clients were asking on issues of pricing and process, and what law firms were able to deliver. (https://justly.com) Greg (@glambert) talks about his ability to post an actual written blog post this week about who is the customer (https://bit.ly/2OXZIIc) If you haven't checked out Jason Barnwell's podcast "The Business of Law" yet (https://bit.ly/2xXDCOO), Marlene (@gebauerm) suggests that you do. Jason has an extended interview our episode 11 guest, Jae Um. Marlene also suggests checking out Gimlet Media's "Casting Call" (https://castingcallshow.com/). Casting Call is a reality audio series that chronicles the search for the next great podcast host. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review!

On this episode, we interview Alameda County Law Library Director, Mark Estes, and get his insights on how modern county law libraries support their communities, and how their communities support them. Marlene and Greg were interviewed for The Digital Edge Podcast (https://is.gd/VtMVi5) Marlene (@gebauerm) discusses the creepy ideas behind Augmented Eternity (https://is.gd/YlI7uS), as well as the proper methods behind YouTube apology videos (https://is.gd/9f4q9z). Greg (@glambert) recommends listening the CBC's new podcast, Undercover: Escaping NXVIM (https://is.gd/nkPHFw), and the ideas behind a manipulation process called "Engineered Epiphanies." Plus, why you shouldn't name buildings after people who are still alive. (https://is.gd/cOHopa) Added feature … Marlene struggles with pronouncing Alameda.

Marlene (@gebauerm) and Greg (@glambert) talk with Legal Rebel, Jae Um (@jaesunum), Founder & Executive Director at Six Parsecs, about her unique writing style (it involves the use of emojis), and her ideas behind her series on Legal Innovation Woes. Greg breaks down a conversation which amplified the idea of why it's important to be seen as a driver for the firm's bottom line, and how he deleted Facebook and twitters apps from his phone, as well as how didn't melt while in Arizona over the weekend. Marlene talks about CIVIL, a new cryptocurrency model helping to rebuild trust and integrity in journalism. Marlene also needs some suggestions on multi-player mobile games. Ones in which she can win. Links: Jae Um's Legal Innovation Woes: https://bit.ly/2wQbddH CIVIL: https://bit.ly/2NbcpCw

This episode has it all. We talk with Kyle Doviken, Senior Director at Lex Machina about their analytics tool, and about Kyle’s passion for helping out in the Austin community through substantial Pro Bono efforts. Greg disturbs a recent third-time father, Noah Waisberg, CEO of Kira Systems to see how the acquisition of $50 million in minority funding will help Kira expand its reach into the legal market and, according to Waisberg, well beyond the legal market. We are adding a new (hopefully) installment of updates on government actions, public policy, and other actions affecting the legal information profession. Emily Feltren, Director of Government Relations at the American Association of Law Libraries fills us in on potential actions coming before the midterm elections, and AALL’s push to fill the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Marlene recommends a Netflix movie called American Animals —warning for librarians… rare books are stolen! And, Greg discusses buy vs build.

Marlene (@gebauerm) and Greg (@glambert) talk with the University of Oklahoma School of Law’s Director of Technology Innovation, Kenton Brice. Kenton discusses how OU is leveraging the advances in technology to expand upon the university’s commitment to not only teach students how to think like a lawyer, but to also have a grasp of some of the skills needed to practice law efficiently. The Geek In Review also received a nod from The Legaler Blog (bit.ly/2wvelLg) as one of the best legal podcasts right now. Of course, #ILTACon18 was a smashing success for those who attended. Checkout the tweets for some of the ideas shared at the conference. Also, congrats to David Hobbie for pulling together a great show. Just when you thought you figured out the Millennial Generation… get ready for Gen Z. This new generation is now old enough to start law school. The more you know, the better prepared you’ll be in adjusting to this well connected, vocal, and empowered generation. bit.ly/2wsiu2s

On this episode of The Geek In Review, Marlene (@gebauerm) and Greg (@glambert) talk with long time friend and colleague Emily Rushing, Competitive Intelligence Director at Haynes and Boone in Dallas, Texas. In Emily's decade at Haynes and Boone, she has implemented a stellar competitive intelligence process and has found a method of encouraging partners to share information and to build trust among throughout the firm. In addition to traditional CI tools, Emily has leveraged her firm's CRM tool in ways that would make most of us in other firms envious. Once again, Marlene and Greg get to record this week's podcast together while Marlene is visiting Texas. Greg also "triple-dog dared" Marlene to reach out to one of their podcasting heroes, "Make Me Smart's" Molly Wood while Marlene was in Austin. With ILTACon wrapping up this week, they also cover a couple of items they saw on social media about law firm websites, as well as teaching law firm management skills to law students.