The Geek In Review

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.

 "All Problems Are Communications Problems." This is Greg's go-to phrase when it comes to working with and leading others. Marlene actually beats Greg to the punch this week when they talk with this week's guest, Heather Ritchie. Heather is the Chief Knowledge and Business Development Officer at Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP in Toronto, and as her title suggests, she wears multiple leadership hats at her firm. In her recent ILTA KM article, "12 Ways Marketing & Business Development Can Leverage Library & Knowledge Management Teams," Ritchie walks us through the value of collaborating between the Marketing/Business Development, Knowledge Management, and Library operations of a law firm. Knowing who brings what talent to the table is key to creating stable and successful environment which results in wins for the law firm.  How Is Your Business Changing the Legal Industry? In part two of our three part series, we hear from four more providers of legal industry products on how they are changing the industry. This week we hear from: Ben Shelley - Intelligent Voice Rick Merrill  - Gavelytics Serena Wellen - LexisNexis Context Matt Spiegel - Lawmatics  Information Inspirations: Warning: Greg goes to a bit of a dark place this week after a dreadful morning of social media experiences. Whether it was reviewing "memories" in Facebook, or the Twitter arguments of how LegalWeek and alt.legal are echo chambers for the elites (or are they?), or how racists Tweets from well known political leaders caused one of Greg's favorite podcast hosts to break down in a recent episode.... It's been interesting. Will Greg leave Twitter? (Vegas says "not likely.") Marlene goes total "Geek" this week with her inspiration of "Conversations with Robots: Voice, Smart Agents & the Case for Structured Content." She explains where we are with our current web interactions, where we were supposed to be by now, and where we are going. If you are a fan of understanding how information is structured, searched, accessed, and enhanced on the web... this geektacular explanation is for you.  Greg and Marlene, as well as Toby Brown and other 3 Geeks' members will be at the ARK Library conference in New York next week. Ron Friedmann wrote a preview of his talk on "Information is Power + Profit" on how the old adage of "Information is Power" also brings about profit. We hope to see you there on the 21st! Registration and information is located here. see more...

  Vanderbilt Law School Professor, Cat Moon, doesn't just have one of the coolest names in the legal industry, she also brings insights and a perspective on the human element of legal project management. Human centered design thinking is a core function of her teaching. It all goes back to the fact that you can teach law students, lawyers, and legal managers all the concepts in the world, but it's all for naught if you leave out the human element. Professor Moon also gives a brutally honest view of why women in the legal field tend to leave law firms in order to pursue their creative and life passions outside the firms.  Marlene and Greg are recently back from Legalweek in New York. While there, they went around to a number of vendors to ask a simple, but relevant question, "what are you doing to change the legal industry?" This week, we get the perspective of four vendors: Christina Rosas - Reorg Research Shmuli Goldberg - Lawgeex Matt Kroll and Andrew Moeller - PwC David Kamien - Mind Alliance It is a fairly easy question, but one company that had a hard time answering? Thomson Reuters.  Information Inspirations James Goodnow interviews American Lawyer Editor Gina Passarella Fennemore Craig, PC Managing Partner, James Goodnow asks AmLaw Editor Gina Passerella what she observed from the panels at Legalweek. Passerella notes that clients are craving data analytics, but that law firms are not producing them. Perhaps because it is not in the firm's best interest to do so??  Legalweek had a KM Managers' Day Legalweek isn't just for e-discovery (although, there's a lot of that!) There was an entire day, and multiple discussions on the value of knowledge management in the legal industry.  SALI Releases Version 1 of Legal Matters Standards The mission of SALI (Standards Advancement for the Legal Industry) is to help define exactly what services the legal industry provides by creating a standard language surrounding legal matter types. It's an ambitious, but important step in helping law firms and clients to have a common language to speak so that they understand each other.  Alternative Legal Service Providers have a distinct advantage over law firms... Capital investment in tech. Marlene listened to a recent episode of Legal Speak called "Move Over Big Law. It's Time for an Alternative." Once again, Jae Um discusses how lawyer's value isn't defined in six-minute increments. . Even the New York Times wants Free PACER - but what would that mean for the courts?  The call for FREE PACER even reaches the pages of the New York Times. We all want it to be free, but Greg puts on his Devil's Advocate hat (complete with horns) and takes a view from the unpopular side of what does FREE PACER mean for the courts and its technology? Who is actually benefiting from FREE PACER?  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.

  On our 25th episode of The Geek In Review, Marlene Gebauer and Greg Lambert sit down and talk with Ivy Grey, Director of Business Strategy for WordRake. Ivy's recent Above the Law article, “Curiosity Is The Foundation For Innovation” discusses the disconnect between employers who think they promote creativity in their employees, versus employees who think that their bosses actually stifle creativity in the workplace. Ivy breaks down the nuances between creativity and innovation.  Ivy points to law firms like Reed Smith, who are actually giving their attorneys and others (approved) time to come up with creative processes, and letting the employees build upon these ideas. The key is to allow people to think and be creative, and imagine possibilities that don't even exist. On that note, we'd like to point out that Baker McKenzie announced the hiring of a couple of creative and curious rock stars, fellow geek, Casey Flaherty as their new Director of Legal Project Management, and Geek in Review interviewee Jae Um, as their Director of Pricing Strategy. Hope they are ready for long memos filled with emojis! Greg flew through Dallas Love Field this week during a Herb Kelleher celebration. Southwest's original CEO was well known for creative marketing, and Greg was a little disappointed that he didn't get a free bottle of Chivas when we got off the plane. For a great story of how Southwest got its start, check out the Business War's Podcast on Clearing the Runway. Information Inspirations Microsoft Assistant General Counsel, Jason Barnwell, wrote a timely piece called "Bricklayers and Architects." His own experiences on being able to come up with a creative process to streamline and M&A deal back when he was an associate at a BigLaw firm, dovetails nicely with Ivy Grey's discussion. That great idea which would have saved a lot of time in creating the closing binders???  Stifled. Why? The billable hour. We are all way too familiar with the phrase Fake News, but what do you know about Deepfakes? Pew Research discusses how well fake videos, created with artificial intelligence, are causing issues with understanding what is real, and what is fake.  Check out more at "Looks Can Be Deceiving: Deepfakes" on the Pew podcast. Marlene likes gamification ideas, so the collaboration between Stanford and Suffolk law schools on the Learned Hand game is right up her alley. It's not just a game, however, it is used to train the Natural Language Processor of machine learning algorithms. Read more at the Pew Research website, or at the Lawyerist. Don’t forget to subscribeto The Geek in Review on your favorite podcast platform. If you comments, compliments, or suggestions, you can tweet @gebauerm and/or @glambert. Thanks to Jerry David DiCicca for his original music.

With the partial government shutdown approaching one month, Marlene and Greg attempt to make some sense of what this means for those of us who rely upon the information produced by the US Government. On this episode, we have an extended talk with Emily Feltren, to uncover what's working and what's shutdown. While the federal courts are still functioning, they are running on borrowed time, and are scheduled to run out of funds on January 25th. The Pew Research Center has listed a number of data sources which are not being updated during the shutdown. The OMB also has a list of agency shuddered at this time, and assume that the libraries are also closed. If you're hoping to submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request... good luck. Agencies my accept them, but they may not have anyone to process them. Basically, it's a cluster-fudge right now in D.C. Joel Lytle, Director of Information Security at Jackson Walker, talks with Greg about the issue of .gov sites which are unable to renew their security certificates during the shutdown. It may not be all that bad... for now.  Information Inspirations: The law library world lost a legend this month with the passing of Eileen Searls. In addition to being an influencer in the law library world, she is also the aunt of Eve Searls, who along with Jerry David DiCicca, performs the music you hear on The Geek In Review. It's been six years since the information world lost Aaron Swartz to suicide.  Check out the documentary, The Internet's Own Boy, to learn more. Do you have $29 and a grudge? A recent Forbes article talks about the dirty world of social media influencing and how individuals are using The Spinner to make people quit their jobs, have sex, and even convince spouses how playing video games is a good thing. It's National Pizza Week. Kudos to recent Florida Attorney, Haley Moss, for passing the bar. That might not sound like something that would warrant congratulations, but when you learn that Moss was diagnosed with autism early in life. Not only did she pass... she's also already employed. And finally, Marlene covers BOTS and the automation of client-facing, and back-office operations. Tweet @gebauerm and/or @glambert to reach out. Thanks to Jerry David DiCicca for his original music. 

On this mini-episode of The Geek In Review, Greg talks about three eerie/interesting/scary instances where the technology seems to be ahead of us humans. Can Amazon be tracking us in a craft store? Are automated computer game players AI? Should guidance apps like WAZE, create a dangerous situation? Well, all three happened. Is it purely happenstance, or is it the technology going beyond our understanding. Probably happenstance... but still eerie. Marlene explored a number of unique holiday drinks, music, and customs. So, if you're still in the holiday mood... check out ¿Donde Esta Santa Claus? by the Gusters, Bloodshot Records 13 Days of XMas, particularly, The Pagans Had it Right, by Devil in a Woodpile, and How to Make Gravy by All Our Exes Live in Texas. If you need a drink, try the Puerto Rican holiday drink of Coquito. Speaking of how to make gravy... Greg discussed the Southern delicacy of Chocolate Gravy over your breakfast biscuits. It's not for everyone. Information Inspirations Must listen to podcast from This American Life called The Room of Requirements. The second of three stories covers the tale of The Brautigan Library, a fictional place where unpublished manuscripts went to live forever. Based on the book, The Abortion: An Historical Romance a 1966 novel by Richard Brautigan. Someone decided to make that place a reality, and it was fascinating to listen as the librarian makes it happen, watches it collapse, and then reborn. Librarians, and lovers of librarians should listen to all three stories. Librarians really do create magical places to fit the needs of their communities. Greg thinks the Brautigan Library stories parallels the Knowledge Management world. Where information goes... waiting until someone needs it. Marlene discusses a number of year-end podcasts which discuss design theory, innovation, project management, CI, and many of the other concepts and practices that we live with everyday while trying to administer large law firms. Whether it is the design process behind drawstring trash bags, in spite of all the naysayers, how the first draft is always bad, or the sage advice of "things want to be bad. Your job is to keep trying to make them good." Comments, Compliments, and Thank You's As we prepare for more episodes and interviews for 2019, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and comment to The Geek in Review on your favorite podcast platform. We are even on Amazon's Alexia... which might explain one of Greg's eerie stories. 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. Law Librarians should make an effort to check out his latest album, as a fellow member of the American Association of Law Libraries, Eve Searls, is the backup singer, and piano/organ player on the album. Support your fellow law librarian!  We also wish fellow law librarian, David Whelan, a safe return of his brother who was detained in Russia over the holida