Blogs

Blogs

Precedent Collections

By Adam Dedynski
This blog, part of our “Foundations of Knowledge Management” series, outlines best practices for creating and maintaining precedent collections. What are precedents? A collection of template contracts and other documents that can be adapted for use or referred to by lawyers on specific matters (predominantly transactional work). Sometimes they are called model forms, standard forms, or templates – ‘precedents’ is the catch all term used in this blog. Why have a precedent collection? It mainly comes down to efficiency and quality. Having a collection improves consistency, reduces risk, avoids reinventing the wheel, and lowers drafting ...
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Experience More than Pitches and Awards – Part Two

By Rachel Shields Williams
Experience More than Pitches and Awards – Part Two We all know we can use our experience for traditional marketing and business development activities like pitches, submissions, awards, and bios. But how can we take this data further to drive data-based decisions that support the whole client’s life cycle? What other insights can our experience data tell us? Your experience data can help to answer critical questions in a variety of areas that extend well beyond pitches and proposals. The only real limit is our imaginations. To get you started, here are a few ideas related to Client Service and Professional Development. Client Service Client Targeting ...
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Experience More than Pitches and Awards – Part One

By Tara Patterson
Experience More than Pitches and Awards – Part One Who knows whom at this company? What work have we done in this industry? What are the total number of deals with done in this region? Who has experience going before that court? Can we list out our top matters for year? You’ve heard, or even made, these requests before when preparing a proposal or pulling together a directory submission. Why else does the firm put any time and effort in CRMS or Experience Management Systems? Here’s a not-so-secret secret your colleagues managing these systems and process want you to know - the information collected and stored in these tools goes beyond basic marketing ...
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How to Present Data to Lawyers

By Nathan Cemenska
When Presenting Data to Lawyers, Keep Things at a 10th Grade Level They say the New York Times, the most respected news source of all time, is written at an 10 th grade level.  That’s the way legal analytics should be, because you don’t have to be fancy to be highly influential. In fact, being fancy hurts you:  On average, a “no-frills” approach will be more influential.  The more you try to be fancy and show how “advanced” you are with your cool-looking visuals, the less effective they will be. How Simple? Very Simple I didn’t totally understand simplicity when I started out in legal analytics.  Sure, I knew to keep things simple, but I didn’t get ...
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What Data Analysts Do and Why Does My Firm Need One?

By Bárbara Gondim Da Rocha
The job of the future. According to recent forecasts of the World Economic Forum , data analysts are expected to be one of the most in-demand jobs by 2022 in companies worldwide. Long before data science became a buzzword, William Edwards Deming said that “ without data, you’re just another person with an opinion .” As the volume of data generated grows exponentially with each technological advance, more and more companies realize the importance of developing a data-driven culture, where data analysis is at the center of corporate strategies. Because of the rise in the demand for data analytics roles, Harvard University labeled the profession “the ...
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Leading in a VUCA Environment

By Vishal Agnihotri
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste, especially as it is usually an invaluable occasion for leaders to hit the reset button in their organizations. When chaos is reigning, most employees are looking for direction and comfort, and during a global pandemic, they are looking for information as well. For every business on the planet, the COVID pandemic unleashed a sudden VUCA environment.  VUCA , for the uninitiated, is an acronym initially coined by the United States military that stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. Volatility refers to the nature, dynamics, and speed of change and catalysts when the challenge is unexpected or unstable. ...
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Press Release |ILTA Announces Industry Participant Program

By ILTA News
For Immediate Release: (Chicago, IL):  July 1, 2020: The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) announces its Industry Participant program. Effective July 1, 2020, ILTA is pleased   to offer legal technologists a new way to interact with ILTA: Industry Participant Status. Industry Participants will have access to ILTA webinar and podcast recordings, live virtual events, Peer to Peer quarterly magazine, newsletters, White Papers, ILTA Surveys, member discounts, career center resources, and select online communities. “ We are delighted to be implementing the Industry Participant role provided for in ILTA’s Bylaws! The ILTA universe includes ...
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How Firms are Tracking Client Requirements and Managing Changes Over Time

By Daniel Wood
“The bane of our existence.” That is how one law firm general counsel described outside counsel guidelines (OCGs) at last year’s Law Firm General Counsel Forum at the Aon Law Firm Symposium. Bane or boon, if you work in a law firm environment, OCGs are a daily fact of life. Clients use OCGs to communicate expectations regarding the handling of their matters. Ensuring that OCGs make it to the right people is critical. Accuracy in timekeeping along with a proper understanding of correct phase/task/activity codes, narrative requirements, and timing restrictions cannot be overstated. Knowing and doing are two different things, however, which points to an even larger ...
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A Helpful Guide to Finding Mindfulness

By Martha Breil
There is no shortage of information on mindfulness available today. A simple Google search on mindfulness renders "About 206,000,000" results. The sheer magnitude of resources can be overwhelming. Where do I start? I already feel overwhelmed! This blog post attempts to solve the challenge of getting started with a mindfulness practice by providing a much shorter list of resources than our friend Google supplies. Its goal is to help you get started and/or advance your mindfulness practice. The resources included here have been provided by people and/or institutions who have developed expertise in mindfulness practices. They have been vetted by experienced ...
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Operations 101

By Andrés Jara Baader
Please enjoy this co-authored blog written by Jake Hills, Vice President, Legal Operations, Elevate Services and Andrés Jara Baader, CEO, Alster. 1. What is Legal Operations all about?  As the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium defines it, legal operations is a fast-moving, evolving, and varied discipline "Legal Operations" describes a set of business processes, activities, and the professionals that enable legal departments to serve their clients more effectively by applying business and technical practices to the delivery of legal services. Legal Operations provides strategic planning, financial management, project management, and technology ...
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Citrix, Mimecast & Cookies

By Michael Tkach
Hi, Wondering if anyone has figured out a way to redirect cookies in Citrix for Mimecast. Currently, we are not redirecting cookies because of profile bloat, and users need to register their device every single time. Thank you, Mike
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Different sides of the same coin? How IT and Innovation departments can work together

By Alisher Yuldashev
Lately, I found myself working at the busy intersection of established legal IT department and recently created KM Innovation group in the law firm I am in. Both departments have their similarities and differences: IT is the powerhouse of technical expertise while Innovation looks better positioned to be closer to business for their legal acumen. At the same time, I witnessed both groups worked “Together, As One” on a number of technology initiatives while sharing scarce project resources and budgets.  It got me thinking whether these departments were different sides of the same coin and how IT and Innovation departments could work together as one. With ...
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Matter Naming Standards

By Sara Cutcher
​We are curious to know how you handle the dilemma of conforming to internal compliance relating to matter name standards yet meeting clients’ needs and wants? We find at times that we have a hard time reconciling the two and find ourselves having to make exceptions to our policies, which is not advisable. For example, a client insists (according to the submitting attorney) that their new matter must be named “Contract Review.” This goes against our no-general-matter policy and we would request that separate matters be opened for each contract. We are trying to use the system to create a workaround and are wondering if any of you have solved this predicament. ...
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How Do You Safely Phase People Back to the Office?

By Patrice Fatig
Life is full of ups and downs, especially now.  As we continue returning to work, we are changing directions again – up for some, down for others.  Numerous articles discuss what it may be like when we return.  The communal coffee pot and water fountain will probably be closed along with communal gathering spaces.  Hand sanitizer dispensers will dot the landscape.  Proper hand-washing will continue while access to bathroom facilities will be limited with social distancing requirements.  People will be wearing masks, keeping their social distance.  New physical barriers may separate workspaces. Temperatures may be checked.  Employees will be asked to self-assess ...
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The Future Ready Lawyer: Legal Innovation in the Age of COVID-19

By Dean Sonderegger
Please enjoy this blog post by Dean Sonderegger, SVP & General Manager of Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.  In looking at the impact of the pandemic on each of our lives, the general sense that I get is that we are seeing an acceleration of trends that have already been in place. A quick look at the packages waiting on doorsteps in any neighborhood illustrates this point: there was already a trend towards online ordering and delivery – COVID-19 has just accelerated that trend. When looking at the legal industry, most would say that the industry was already experiencing disruption due to technology, and the question was how and to what extent ...
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The Rise of Enterprise Social: Talking with Your Colleagues When They’re Across Town, Not Across the Hall

By Holly Hanna
The lack of ability to engage socially with coworkers that you might not interact with face-to-face has not traditionally been seen as a problem to be solved for many law firms and law departments. While firms may have deployed applications like Yammer or Jabber, the purpose behind such tools isn’t primarily seen as facilitating social interaction between employees; rather, social interaction happens as a byproduct of using the tool for work. Think of distribution lists created for employees to share pictures of their cats, or Slack channels devoted to Crossfit. Such employee-created groups happen organically, with little or no organizational support. Such use ...
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It Takes a Village: An all-new Security blog series

By ILTA Publication
ILTA is pleased to announce the creation of an all-new security series:  It takes a Village . Please find below five individual posts aimed at improving security for the entire industry. Thanks to the LegalSEC Steering Committee for your efforts in this series, and a special call out to Jeff Franchetti for driving the series:  It takes a Villa ge. With the ever increasing interoperability of today’s technology, it is more important than ever to standardize architecture designs on protocols that are proven to support best practices for security. In this series, we have identified five legacy protocols or technologies that represent security ...
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Work From Home Policies & Considerations After COVID-19

By Deborah Panella
Until COVID-19, U.S. law firms and corporate legal departments rarely permitted associates and employees to work from home, even on an occasional basis.  Almost overnight, many people found that they could communicate, collaborate and work productively and effectively from their homes.  Some like it, some do not, but most manage to put in a solid day’s work, even if they have had to acquire new technology skills, juggle family obligations, and put up with makeshift workstations.  As the nation starts to reopen, organizations and individuals are examining when people will return to offices, what that experience will look like, and indeed whether they should ...
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What Were My Struggles During COVID-19 and What Are My Solutions to Implement Moving Forward

By Oscar Montezuma
Please enjoy this blog authored by Oscar Montezuma, Director at Niubox. According to Clio’s COVID-19 Impact Research 2020, new legal matters dropped by almost 40% upon the COVID-19 crisis. MyCase survey records that 48% of law offices in the US are operating remotely. These two reports provide us with powerful insights on the global impact this crisis is having in terms of revenue in the legal practice, technology adoption and flexible work policies. However the biggest challenge is how to change culture and introduce a purpose oriented and client-centric mindset in the legal industry in the rise of this extraordinary situation. In our case, our culture ...
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Virtual Discussion Summary: Creating Exceptional Learning Experiences: Onboarding Remote Employees in a Virtual World!

By Sean McGinty
Creating Exceptional Learning Experiences: Onboarding Remote Employees in a Virtual World! Event Summary If there is a silver lining to the #COVID-19 pandemic, it is that the world now knows most people can be highly productive from any location. So, when it's time to roll out the red carpet, how do we create an exceptional experience to welcome our newest remote team members? It's all about creative operations! We've had to get creative and transform procedures for on-boarding new employees, given they are not physically coming into the office. Our panel of experienced L&D professionals talked about Pre-boarding, Onboarding, and how to transform employee ...
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