Blog - 2010

Canadian Law Bloggers Get Meta-Tagged

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I blogged about the outbreak of law-blog mania in the UK (see below "Law-Blog Mania Out Of The UK"). Mania is certainly not the word to use to describe the relaunch and upgrade of another website that makes it easier to find law-blogs. 

www.lawblogs.ca has recently been launched. The site describes itself as “the home of The Canadian Law Blogs list, an open directory of Canadian blogging lawyers, law librarians, marketers, IT professionals and paralegals.”

It is the creation of Stem Legal who specialise in “web marketing for the legal industry”. “Stem Legal was founded in 2007 by Steve Matthews, with a vision to offer an outsourced service for law firms to increase online profile and web-driven business opportunities.”

Similar to www.solicitorsblog.com from the UK, the site is a place to find links to law blogs. It does not publish blogs on the website itself. It is a source of links to external sites.

www.Lawblogs.ca displays blog posts on its home page which include the first few lines of the post. If you want to read more, the link will take you to the website where the blog is hosted.

Unlike www.solicitorsblog.com, Lawblogs.ca provides a convenient directory structure to find blogs - as an alternative to a key-word search.

Who will be the main visitors to www.lawblogs.ca? That's a question I'm still thinking about.

(posted 6 December 2010) Peter Frankl

 Law-Blog Mania Out Of The UK

Solicitorsblog.com was officially launched on 30 September 2010. It is the creation of Netlaw Media - a UK based conferences and events company. At the time, the company announced “our goal is to be the largest provider of legal information on the internet within the next 3 years”.

Lawyers and organisations involved in the legal services industry can upload links to their own blogs and news articles onto the Solicitorsblog website. There is no charge to do this. The website effectively functions as a search engine / information portal for people looking for this type of information.

Netlaw Media’s Managing Director, Frances Anderson said “Solicitorsblog.com is a revolutionary information portal ... The site has been designed with both the user and contributor in mind and will display one of the world’s largest collections of law information, events, services and directories, whilst promoting the fundamentals of freedom of speech, interaction and information sharing”.

On 9 November 2010 Netlaw Media announced that over 13,000 blog posts and news articles were posted in the first month since the launch.

When I saw this announcement on Twitter I simply found it hard to believe. I checked with the company who not only confirmed it but provided more specific details: “Actually it’s a little over 13,000, 6,790 Blog Posts & 6,340 News Articles - a total of 13,130”.

At present, the website has an emphasis on UK-based blogs and news articles. Netlaw Media has plans to target the United States next followed by Australia. 

Solicitorsblog website www.solicitorsblog.com

(posted 21 November 2010) Peter Frankl

 21 October 2010 - The Essence of Professional Services Marketing - Stated in Less than 50 Words

If you have no time to attend seminars, can’t afford high-paid consultants or never quite understood marketing then both you and I are in luck thanks to C.J. Hayden.

C.J. Hayden writes

“There are three things the typical buyer wants to know before choosing professionals to do business with:

1. Do they know what they are doing?

2. Can I trust them to deliver what they have promised?

3. Will working with them be a pleasant experience?”

What answers are you providing through your marketing efforts and interactions with potential clients?

C.J. Hayden has written an article about the ineffectiveness of hype-laden marketing communications. There are insightful points in the article on that topic but also included are the above words which jumped off the page and landed right here.

Thank you CJ

17 October 2010 - My Time as a Medical Doctor

I was travelling down the escalator at Town Hall train station listening to messages on my mobile phone.

Message received 13th October at 4.47pm: “Hello Dr Frankl. Can you call Wendy Burns. I am the chief nurse at the ... surgery. It is regarding a patient of yours Maureen Reed. Our telephone number is 5556 6511”.

I thought - are they performing surgery? Do they need an opinion right now? If I don't call immediately who knows what the consequences might be.

I called. “Hello” I said “this is Peter Frankl”. “Oh hello Dr Frankl ...” I interrupted the nurse. “I think there has been a misunderstanding. “I am not a doctor. I am an accountant. I don’t even have a PhD.” The nurse responded “I’m sorry, thank you so much for calling back”. I told her “I can offer my assistance if there is a financial crisis but that’s about it.” She briefly explained how she might have made a mistake with the telephone number and we said our goodbyes.

I never followed up how my patient went but I can tell you that for a few unexpected moments I felt a huge responsibility to return that phone message. It gave me a new perspective on the immense responsibility that those in the medical profession have on a day to day basis.

This is going on my resumé: Medical Doctor (3 minutes on 13 October 2010)  

11 October 2010 - Where Good Ideas Come From 

by Steven Johnson http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/ 

TED Talk - Where Good Ideas Come From

12 September 2010 - Elsevier Surreptitiously Publishes Writings of Author

In 1662 Elsevier published the writings of François de La Rochefoucauld without his consent “which brought him both trouble and fame, more of the former than the latter”⁽¹⁾.

The quote: “nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power”⁽²⁾ is usually attributed to Abraham Lincoln. Sources however indicate that it was written by François de La Rochefoucauld approximately 200 years before Abraham Lincoln used it.

Last week I read a book review by an articulate and well known lawyer who derided a particular section of the book he was asked to review. The reviewer did not provide examples of the text that so offended him. Deriding someone’s work in public without providing a detailed explanation reminded me that power comes in many forms.

The La Rochefoucauld quote is usually presented in the context of politicians and political power. The reality is that we all possess power. For example, some people possess physical strength. Some possess physical beauty.

Lawyers are skilled in language and hence possess power in their ability to use words cleverly and persuasively. If you want to test a man's character, give him power and observe how he uses it.

Elsevier must have realised that it discovered a gem and had to publish it no matter what.

Sources:(1) Wikipedia  and (2) Quotes

14 August 2010 - Differentiating Yourself From Your Competitors

Consider that most law firms and individual lawyers market themselves with almost identical marketing messages.

These messages typically involve pronouncements about superior service, an experienced team and achieving excellent results at a reasonable cost.

Such statements may even be true for you and your firm. The problem is that when so many firms are stating the same thing, the message loses its effectiveness in guiding a potential client to choose you rather than someone else.

Testimonials can help but again the same problem arises because so many firms are using them.

Here is an idea explained by Simon Sinek. He says that "people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it .... The goal is not to sell to people what you have. The goal is to sell to people who believe what you believe".

It is a different way of connecting with prospective clients. By sharing why you do what you do, what you truly believe, you have the opportunity to connect with prospective clients in a different way. It is a way that brings to the fore your authentic uniqueness.

Link to a law firm that has been moved by Simon Sinek's exposition

Simon Sinek explains (video below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA

3 August 2010 - The Crisis of Middle-Class America

Distressing economics in America. My questions: How did this happen? Is Australia different? What happened to the promise of technology?

From the Financial Times

"The trend has only been getting stronger. Most economists see the Great Stagnation as a structural problem – meaning it is immune to the business cycle. In the last expansion, which started in January 2002 and ended in December 2007, the median US household income dropped by $2,000 – the first ever instance where most Americans were worse off at the end of a cycle than at the start. Worse is that the long era of stagnating incomes has been accompanied by something profoundly un-American: declining income mobility."

Link to full article

1 August 2010 - Beat It, Eat It and Now Tweet It

(thanks to the late Michael Jackson's Beat It and Weird Al's Eat It)

They told him Twitter’s really big around here
Don’t wanna miss the race, 
Riches will soon appear
Followers in their eyes and
Their words are really clear
So tweet it, just tweet it

This isn’t fun, get followers if you can
Don't follow not one more if you’re a macho man
You wanna be cool, better do what you can
So tweet it, but you wanna be rad

Just tweet it, tweet it, tweet it, tweet it
Find a webpage not repeated
Show them how funny and strong your insight
Shorten the link, then you are right
Just tweet it, tweet it
Just tweet it, tweet it
Just tweet it, tweet it
Just tweet it, tweet it

Scams out to get you, better block while you can
Don't wanna be a boy but a verified man
Ate too much for dinner? Now you’re on the can
So tweet it, just tweet it

You have to show them that you're really not scared
Your tweets are getting rife, this ain't no truth or dare
Now you’ve puked your dinner,
It’s a smelly affair
So tweet it, but you wanna be rad

Just tweet it, tweet it, tweet it, tweet it
Find a webpage not repeated
Show them how funny and strong your insight
Shorten the link, then you are right

Just tweet it, tweet it, tweet it, tweet it
Tweet it, tweet it, tweet it, tweet it
Find a webpage not repeated
Show them how funny and strong your insight
Shorten the link, then you are right

Just tweet it, tweet it, tweet it, tweet it
Find a webpage not repeated
Just tweet it, tweet it, tweet it, tweet it

17 July 2010 - How I Found Out About The Litigation Warriors - Bransgroves Lawyers

Read main article here before reading below

Part of my normal weekend routine has been to take my daughter to The Spot at Randwick for her weekly ballet class. Parents are not allowed to watch the class and each week I have to find something to do that will occupy me for one hour until she is finished.

The Spot is overflowing with cafes but none of them are internet cafes so I am not able to resort to the time killer of all time killers – the internet.  I’ve read books, magazines, had plenty of high cholesterol breakfasts and even used the time to check a whole week’s Twitter stream on my Blackberry.

On this occasion I purchased a copy of the weekend edition of the Australian Financial Review newspaper. It was the weekend following the famous negotiations between Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the mining companies. The war between the mining companies and the Government over the mining tax was turning into a destructive fight to the end. Along came the new Prime Minister in the role of negotiator, conciliator and peacemaker.

The theme running through the many pages of articles in the newspaper that day was about how negotiation and compromise had succeeded whereas confrontation and hostilities had failed.

I thought it was very unfortunate timing and positioning, in the midst of all of these articles about negotiation and compromise, that there was an advertisement for a small law firm promoting itself as “The Litigation Warrior”.

Apart from the juxtaposition, which brought a smile to my face, I was puzzled about why a small law firm was advertising in a major print-newspaper? Didn’t they know that print advertising in newspapers was a waste of money for law firms? It’s too expensive and isn’t print a dying medium anyway?

The content of the advertisement was intriguing as well. It pointed out the benefits of dealing with a small firm versus a mega-firm “(after all why pay for a view)”. There was a statement in the advertisement about the firm having an advantage from its “Advanced information technology systems”.

I was disconcerted about the use of the word “litigation” in the advertisement. Didn’t potential clients want to avoid litigation? Thinking about it further I realised that it is probably a lot better to have a warrior negotiating on your behalf than a pushover.

The best thing of all about the advertisement was that it did not have a phone number or an address. It only had the name of the firm and its website.

Back home I looked them up on the internet. On the surface it looked like a pretty standard law firm website but it didn't take me long to find a couple of interesting items. The website stated “We operate a paperless office”.  For the previous couple of months I had been talking to people about the idea of a paperless office. All I kept hearing was that it’s a nice idea in theory but it just can’t work for a law firm.

I suspended disbelief about their paperless office and kept looking through the website. Then I read “Bransgroves Lawyers use a custom-built Sequel database in order to track all our clients matters”. It is very rare for any law firm, large or small, to develop its own software.

A few days later I contacted Mr Bransgrove to request an interview. I mentioned that I was interested in his paperless office and his in-house developed practice management software.

On the day of the interview I did some further last minute research. I went back to his website and found a section called Mortgage Case Notes. The website stated “As part of maintaining our expertise we review all mortgage cases handed down in NSW. Click on a link below to review our case notes.” It was impressive. Every case was concisely summarised in plain English. Could this be his take on blogging? Mr Bransgrove also co-authored the book “The Essential Guide to Mortgage Law in New South Wales”.

It took me no more than 3 minutes to fill up a page with questions for the interview that was to take place later that day. Rushed as always, I didn’t have much time to contemplate what I was going to find at Bransgroves Lawyers.

I have reported elsewhere on the practice management and technology aspects. On the marketing front, I learned that one of Bransgroves Lawyers favoured marketing activities is print advertising. Their advertising in the Australian Financial Review was part of a well thought-out print-media advertising program. I can’t resist pointing out the irony in their use of print advertising when internally they are hardliners about being paperless.

Matthew Bransgrove provides proof to all of us that it is possible to have a business that is an extension of our self, our values and our creativity.

Where do we start if we want to create such a business for ourselves? Perhaps the first step is to declare independence from the conventional wisdoms on how things must be done. 

19 June 2010 - The Paperless Office: A Two Step Implementation Plan - Saving Money From Day One 

A paperless office couldn’t be easier to implement once you realise that the paper overwhelming your office could only have come from one of two sources. It was either produced from inside your office or was brought in from the outside. Once you have closed off these two sources, you have achieved a true paperless office.  Here are the steps in more detail.

Step 1. Stop the paper production from inside your office

Any device in your office that prints paper should be sold, destroyed or donated to a museum. Once you’ve done this, you no longer have the ability to generate paper from within your office. That’s all there is to Step 1. You are halfway there. Any questions? No. Then let’s move on.

Step 2. Stop paper coming into your office from outside

Step 2 is not much more complicated than Step 1. How does paper find its way into your office? It either arrives in the mail and/or a human being brings it through the front door.

All you need to do is cancel your Document Exchange subscription, close your post office box and refuse entry into the office to anyone carrying the stuff. That includes the postman, couriers, employees and clients, i.e. everyone.

Getting support from clients and colleagues

Don’t worry, you won’t lose clients. On the contrary, once you explain why you are doing it, they will think that you are a genius and give you full cooperation. However, be aware that the standard explanations for going paperless are not going to get anyone very excited about supporting you.

If you tell them that you’re doing it for the environment, they’ll probably think that you are lying. If you tell them that you are doing it to save money on office space, they’ll think that you are going broke. If you tell them that you are doing it to reduce clutter, they'll think that you are a disorganised mess.

Here’s why you have gone paperless. Paper is the number one cause of workplace accidents. You have gone paperless in order to avoid being sued.  This is something that everyone will readily understand and you will be seen as a legal genius for pointing it out.

It is a well known fact that paper represents danger. We’re all familiar with gushing blood from wounds caused by paper cuts; fingers stapled; heavy files dropped on feet; falling off chairs trying to reach paper up high; damaged backs from carrying the stuff and the list goes on and on. Paper is also a fire hazard. Paper is the number one hazard causing substance in any office.

If that's not enough to get your clients’ support, explain that handling paper is an inherently inefficient activity and that its cost has to be passed on to someone. Clients getting a whiff of lower fees will support your efforts immediately.

For clients who find this topic fascinating and want to know more, you can explain that no matter how much technology advances, there is no chance that a printing device will ever be invented that does not jam. Paper jams are the number one productivity killer in any office. Here are a couple of typical scenarios.

When faced with a paper jam, there are people who would rather spend the next hour of their day trying to fix it themselves than seek more experienced assistance. They will examine every orifice of the machine to locate the jam and hold up the rest of the office in the meantime. The usual outcome will be a service call to a technician because their opening and shutting frenzy has resulted in damage to a critical component.

At the other extreme is the person who claims to be hopeless with these problems.  For any minor technical hiccup, this person will annoy the first sucker who dares to look up when the paper-jam siren starts whirring.

If you carefully explain that it is a matter of avoiding a lawsuit plus potentially lower fees for your clients, you can see that it won’t be difficult getting support for your paperless endeavour.

Software and systems

You might consider some new software and systems to make it all work even better. Now that you are truly paperless, you couldn’t be in a better position to be able to make the best choices for new software.

The conventional wisdom has been to spend up big on software and systems before going paperless. But the paperless part never seems to happen. The real world experience is that those firms who buy the software first don’t end up using it to anywhere near its full potential. Why does this happen? It is because they are not truly committed to becoming paperless in the first place, unlike you and me.

5 June 2010 - Where to Look for a New Wave of Software Development for Law Firms

Every now and then opportunities open up in the software market and people step forward to take advantage of them.

A new platform can create opportunities. The iphone and ipad are examples of new platforms. Crowds of software developers stepped forward to create applications for these devices.

Another example of an opportunity for new market entrants has been the cloud platform.  In the United States, more than anywhere else, many new companies have sprung up offering practice management applications via the cloud. 

New market entrants also appear as a result of new development tools. Such tools enable programmers to speed up the development of applications while the established players are still tied to their older, less productive tools.

Another traditional source of new software applications is from users themselves. Instead of utilising an existing software product, they develop their own. Why would they engage in such madness? Your guess is as good as mine but the better ones sometimes end up in the general market place.

When Integreon recently released a major new update to its eView Document Review platform, it made me think: if they can create cutting edge document review software why not also cutting edge practice management software?

Integreon and other legal outsource companies are sharply focused on the process side of legal practice, probably more so than your average software company. Combined with the fact that many of these outsource providers are located in parts of the world where they have access to a highly skilled and cost competitive labour force, they seem to be perfectly positioned to become a new source of software innovation for the legal industry.

Following Integreon’s takeover of the back and middle office functions of large UK law firm CMS Cameron McKenna, perhaps we might one day see a new practice management application called Cameron V1.0.

Related news from The Onion "America's finest news source":

Computer Company Started In Garage 30 Years Ago Now In Smaller Garage

"CAMBRIDGE, MA—In the summer of 1980, MIT graduates Donald Faber and Peter Haberle moved into an empty two-car garage and started work building their first ever personal home computer. Almost 30 years later, what began as a humble two-man operation has since grown into an even more humble, even more cramped computer company, based out of an even smaller single-car garage." Read More

29 May 2010 - Stop Interrupting Me - I Really Need to Read the Draft Law

Over the last two weeks, every time I have tried to sit down with a cup of tea to read the 200 pages of draft law on national legal profession reform, I have been interrupted by a state Chief Justice howling about “independence”.

According to those Chief Justices, the legislation in its current form (which I haven’t read) will lead to the end of an independent legal profession.

My priority has really been to read the draft law but instead I have been distracted by having to consider this issue of independence. Just so I can move on and finally examine the law, I have needed to establish an interim view about their concerns. This is what I have established for myself so far.

When the Chief Justices talk about independence of the profession, they are really only talking about themselves and not about the broader legal profession. It is not even about independence but about taking away some of the functions that they have inherited. These functions have very little to do with their real job of being a judge.

In my view, Chief Justices are not even part of the mainstream legal profession. They are appointed from the ranks of the profession and given a different job, that of being a judge.

One of the greatest ironies in their argument is that they trust the judgment of the government (via a Governor-General) to appoint them as judges, but they don’t trust the Government when it comes to appointing members of a national legal profession board.

Do Chief Justices have the same job description as practising lawyers? Has anyone ever sat next to a Chief Justice at a CLE/CPD seminar? Do Chief Justices have to take out financially crippling professional indemnity insurance? Judges are not part of the mainstream legal profession. Therefore they should not be speaking on behalf of practising lawyers. Isn’t that the role of law societies/institutes and bar associations?

So it seems to me that the government wants to change their job description a little bit. This happens to everyone. Why should Chief Justices be exempt? What are they really going to do about it? Take industrial action? I doubt it. They get paid a massive amount of money, have perks galore and the government is suggesting that that they can do even less work and concentrate on their real job. Most employees would be cheering about such a plan.

I’m hoping that they will quieten down so I can get on with reading the draft law and figure out what these changes are really about.

24 May 2010 - Advance Australia Fair (Taxpayer Version)
by Peter Frankl (I've done a few versions of this and I'm going to try really hard to leave it alone now)

Australians all let us invoice
Every mining company
They've golden soil and wealth for toil
Our Super can be had for free
Our land abounds in public gifts
From taxes new and rare
In history's page let every stage
Experts to check all's fair

In taxing strains then let us sing
Advance Australia fair

14 May 2010 Saskatchewan's Up and Coming Investment Analyst Plans to be Long in Slater & Gordon Shares

Ryan Skene has published a 4,000 word analysis on the merits of investing in S&G shares. 

Ryan writes "I don’t need to tell you that lawyers make a lot of money. You all know that. Obscene money. So much money my boss thinks there’s an unspoken conspiracy among law firms that keeps prices artificially inflated. So much money I once kidded a lawyer friend that the only math he knew how to do was '$300/hour times 8 hours'. He responded, 'that’s the family rate'."

Ryan continues "So much money you’d think law offices would sprout up on every corner just to get a piece of the action. But they don’t. Know why? Because becoming a lawyer is pretty hard. Let me be clear: I don’t mean being a lawyer. Being a lawyer has to be the easiest gig on planet Earth. You work 6 hour days, spend your time mainly yacking on the phone while your 1 or 2 assistants complete all your tedious tasks. You never have to write anything yourself because there is a template and precedent for damn near every document you may have to prepare. You have almost zero legal responsibility for anything you do because every document you do prepare has enough qualifications, stipulations, and obfuscations to entirely absolve you of any wrongdoing of any kind. And for that you make $300/hour. You know, if it’s family."

There's a lot of serious sounding analysis as well in his report. I just don't know whether any of it is valid or not however I rate his report as a definite must read - find it here.

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