If you’re gonna be in the Portland area on Thursday February 8, I’d love to see you at our Legal Innovation & Technology Meetup. (We’re a division of Legal Hackers, but we have a complicated history with the name 😉 ) We’ll be hearing from at least a couple of the Three Matts behind Tali, a voice-assistant-powered time-tracking tool that integrates with Clio and a growing number of other tools. Think “Alexa, tell Tali to log .8 hours on the Jones matter.” Bob Ambrogi has a good write-up of the product at his Law Sites Blog, as does Malia Spencer over at the Portland Business Journal. According to Rick Turoczy ... (Keep reading)
The Agile Attorney Blog
Return visitors will notice that this site is substantially stripped down from its previous version. The old version had become something of a Frankenstein’s monster, (or maybe more of a Winchester Mystery House), full of partially implemented features based on incomplete ideas. Turns out I was violating two of my own maxims: Eschew supererogatory complexification Start less to finish more Instead, I’ve gone back to a Minimum Viable Product approach: What is the most basic thing I can do to accomplish my goals and lay the groundwork for a feedback loop of continuous improvement? My goals for this site are to: Validate that I exist. Provide a way to contact ... (Keep reading)
I joined Tom Martin on his podcast to talk about the agile and lean approach to the practice of law. Just a few of the topics covered during the 45 minutes interview include: • Defining the agile and lean business management methodologies• Tactics and strategies for implementing agile and lean in your practice• Examples of using agile and lean approach to optimize your effectiveness• Resources for further development and learning You can listen to the episode on LawDroid's Podcast Page, or at any of the links below: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts ... (Keep reading)
I’ve been honored to serve as Chair of the Innovations Committee of the Oregon Bar’s Futures Task Force for the past several months. Convened in two parts, a Regulatory Committee and an Innovation Committee, the Bar’s Board of Governors commissioned the Task Force to “Examine how the Oregon State Bar can best protect the public and support lawyers’ professional development in the face of the rapid evolution of the manner in which legal services are obtained and delivered.” After much work and careful deliberation, the Task Force’s findings and recommendations are in. They call for the Bar to take bold action, both through regulatory reform and improved business practices, to embrace ... (Keep reading)
Back in my software industry days, our company president (the wonderful Sally Von Bargen) was ahead of her time when it came to a relentless focus on customer experience. Her term: Outrageous Customer Service. She was also fond of pithy management one-liners that, despite their folksy wisdom (or maybe because of it), were highly effective in driving the right kinds of behaviors among her teams. One that pops into my head quite a bit lately (given my recent experiences with BigLaw) is an elegant little rhyme: Measure what you Treasure. ... (Keep reading)
I know things have been quiet on this site for awhile, and I have a simple explanation—I took a job. And not just any job: in early 2016 I was asked to head up the legal project management and process improvement function for an AmLaw 150 law firm. For a guy who bills himself as an expert in LPM and process improvement, this would probably seem like too good an opportunity to pass up. And it was, although I wasn’t without reservations when I finally said yes. You see, I have intentionally avoided BigLaw for as long as I’ve been a lawyer. ... (Keep reading)
I occasionally browse r/lawyers on Reddit for various Legal Ops questions, and the other day I answered this one: For the past few years, I’ve been an associate at a small 4-attorney firm, my first out of law school. No support staff beyond a receptionist and a bookkeeper, and so I’m very used to doing my own everything. I’ll be starting at a new firm in a couple weeks, that does actually have support staff–paralegals, an office manager, I’ll actually have a legal assistant to share. The responses in that other thread have made it very clear to me that an enormous amount of the work that I’ve been doing is ... (Keep reading)
Lately I’ve been thinking about what I see as one of the great shortcomings of the way we lawyers approach problem solving, i.e. our proud tradition of following the Case Method and tenets like stare decisis and adherence to precedent. These tools all have their benefits, especially in the context of maintaining a consistent set of legal rules for society to govern itself. But for finding solutions outside the context of the courtroom—the kinds of problems we face every day in running a business or developing a practice—the traditional lawyer’s tools are deeply flawed. ... (Keep reading)
//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js The following is a post I made on Facebook shortly after the November 2016 election. It is something of a quick-take, but I think the ideas below—especially: The correlation between the Access to Justice/Access to Legal Services gap and the general sense that the country is on the wrong track, and The idea that Access to Justice is an Accessibility Problem, and Accessibility is a Design Problem— are worth setting forth. I welcome any and all comments and criticisms to these thoughts, and you can see what others have said at the original Facebook link (which I’ve made public). I also hit on some of these topics at the ... (Keep reading)
I did an interview last month for the Relativity Blog from the folks at eDiscovery software provider kCura. If you’ve been following this blog you probably won’t find much that’s new, but it is still nice to see Agile gaining more mainstream traction. And, if you’re a Relativity user, you might be interested in this cool little app from NSerio, a software development agency that helps law firms customize their Relativity instances. It allows you to build a custom Kanban interface to manage your eDiscovery efforts within the tool. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icyXjaMsI0s] ... (Keep reading)
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