All posts by Jason

General IT

Working 9 to 5………why?

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I got an unexpected call from work yesterday (Sunday) which ended up with me doing about an hour and a half’s work. I got phone calls and emails on my BlackBerry, returned a couple of phone calls, went online on my home PC and connected to my work network, realised I needed some specific client software, booted up my work laptop and connected through to work…..

Basically wherever I am (and whenever) I can be contacted and gain connection to work. So this got me thinking on why firms (and law firms in particular) are so tied to working in the office, from Monday to Friday and from 9 to 5 (well that’s the supposed hours for support staff anyway). It makes no sense!

In IT specifically there is such a need to work outside the norm to avoid interrupting the business when doing system maintenance etc, isn’t it time we shifted to shift work or a more flexible working schedule? I’m sure for secretaries and other support staff a wider coverage in hours would be a big bonus for the lawyers.

Work has encroached so much into your private life (and as a consequence private life has encroached on work life, as you now sort out your private life on work time!), isn’t time to accept the fact and allow people to conduct their work whenever and from wherever?

Certainly there are some functions that do need to cover the 9 to 5, but ideally we’d love these to cover 7 to 8 or more. Anyway it’s as simple as managing your staff and ensuring a core set of hours are always covered adequately, isn’t it?

There’s plenty of evidence that suggests flexible/home working :

  • reduces sick leave
  • reduces commuting time
  • saves money for the employer (power saved, overtime saved etc) and the employee (lunchtime sandwiches, coffees, cost of commute etc)
  • gets more out of employees for the same time

I’d love to hear if your firm (especially law firms) have a widespread policy for home working or flexible working. Let me know in the comments.

 

If you’re interested in mobile working, have a look at moof.mobi. It’s a great blog on the subject (although Mr Moof has gone a little quiet of late).

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General Legal IT, Technical

WorkSite workspaces – do they work?

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If you use WorkSite in a matter centric way you will know that you can create an electronic filing cabinet of you matters in an area called My Files (or My Workspaces/My Matters).  Held in this “My Files” are all your matter files (known as workspaces).

I had a query today about another area in WorkSite called Recent Workspaces, this stores the last n matters you’ve worked on. The query went :

X said when they create a new document and save it the workspace it will be added to her recent workspaces but if they save a document that has already been created after making amendments it doesn’t show in their recent workspaces. Is this correct or is it a fault?

Now it’s not a fault, this is what it should do. But the thought I had was why would a lawyer work in recent workspaces and not My Files? After all the purpose of My Files is to create your shortcuts to your matters meaning they’re always to hand.

So why use recent workspaces?

My guess is because it’s automatic, it logs your matters for you. You amend the document and the matter file is there for future use. More akin to the lawyer working with the paper file (the automatic bit here is the secretary!)

So if the system is the secretary it should probably:

  1. ask if you want to add the matter to your My Files for future use when you create or amend a document in a file, say yes and it’s done
  2. better still just know you’re working on that matter and place it in your My Files

If you’re a lawyer, how would you want it to work?

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General Legal IT, Technical

LexisWeb

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I noticed a flurry of twitter posts over the last few days about LexisWeb beta and didn’t really take much notice, but it was a post from Doug Cornelious’ blog “KM Space” in my RSS reader this morning that got me to look at this site.

Their blurb says:

The Lexis Web product includes important, legal-oriented Web content selected and validated by the LexisNexis editorial staff. You can trust that all content has met LexisNexis criteria for being authoritative and accurate. The current beta version combines content from thousands of Web sites and millions of Web pages, with more being added each day

I suggest you read Doug’s blog for more info on the site itself. But the thing that interests me is whether or not it is actually built on IUS (Interwoven Universal Search) or at least whether on the Velocity engine underneath? 

From an IT point of view if it is based on the velocity engine,  I would love to hear feedback from lawyers and support staff on the LexisWeb site indicating whether it’s results are “good” (by good I mean “Google”, i.e. you get back what you were after!). It would give a good indication on whether IUS could be the answer to the law firm enterprise search.

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General Legal IT

Efficiency and productivity cont.

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Following on from my post yesterday I caught this post from Thoughtful Legal Management. Overall I think David’s and my sentiments are similar, we are both looking at how IT can help efficiency or productivity.

I can’t help pull up on the point within the post though “ Their IT technicians, I suspect, have set up their system in a matter that does not fully meet the business needs of the law firm and the staff and lawyers working there.”

This is where we (the collective we, IT and the lawyers) are going wrong, the lawyers think IT need to see the world through the same lens as them and IT wish that the level of IT knowledge in the lawyers were higher. For IT to work we need both sides to understand each other.

Much as the media would like to portray the geek in the basement advocating it should be “turned off and on again” we’re not all like that. I like to think that although I’m in IT I do know a bit about how lawyers work just like when I worked in the utility industry I took time to understand the requirements of that business. But I know I’ve still plenty to learn, but I see it as my responsibility to do so.

Back to David’s post though, I’d like to see “Microsoft to focus on productivity from the ground-up; by paying more attention to the smaller business user rather than the consumer market” too and in my opinion they should start to learn the mantra “less is more”!

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General Legal IT

Alternative Billing – What Does It Mean For IT Staff?

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There has been quite a bit of activity on blogs and twitter recently about the billable hour, questioning its validity in the current economic climate (see this story on law.com), however it’s this article on 3 geeks and a law blog that caught my eye (in fact I hope they don’t mind as I’ve kind of plagiarised their blog post title!). You might also want to take a look at The Client Revolutions posting on the subject which in turn references this post by Adam Smith.

The reason I pointed out the 3 geek’s post though was that it addressed the question on what it means for support staff. It got me thinking on how the legal IT department would change if there was a sudden shift to flat-rate billing.

I think Greg is when he talks about the one word that gets mentioned when alternative billing is put about “efficiency”.  Now when IT is done right one thing it can be very good at is creating “efficiency” (conversely it can also be great at making things inefficient if it’s not done right).

Take a look back a few years to the Woolf reforms in the UK and in particular the effect on the personal injury market. Insurance departments started to use technology to make things more efficient. In particular Case Management software enabled some of the work lawyers did to be pushed to paralegals or even secretaries simply by following the workflow of the system.

Similarly Knowledge Management systems can enable firms to draw on a wealth of previously created precedent documents, meaning a reduction in time taken to draft new documents.

These systems have been used in the past and are used now, but I imagine that more and more there will be a demand to use technology to drive down costs. However I think before this happens there will be the usual approach to cutting costs, downsizing and budget cuts! So for 2009 I think (as with most industries) we will see IT departments shrink, but as the push for more efficiency takes hold I think the firms that step up and embrace technology to achieve efficiencies will be the winners. 

The challenge for IT is to help lead this “revolution”!

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General Legal IT, Technical

Microsoft Tag – perfect for the paper file?

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Thanks to the Mr Mobile Blog for alerting me to this Microsoft beta technology. The technology is called Microsoft Tag.

Microsoft Tag

Basically you install an application onto your BlackBerry, Windows Mobile device or iPhone. You can then just photo the tag with your phone and it’ll redirect you to a web page or any other online application.

It got me thinking. Imagine if you had a tag on every paper file in a law firm you could photo it with your BlackBerry and get instant access to the electronic details for that file. The WorkSite matter workspace, the InterAction client contact details or the financial information for that matter. Now if you had some way of opening all that information on your desktop PC by simply snapping the tag with your BlackBerry that might be the killer app!

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Legal

“All this new technology has meant more work for private practice media lawyers”

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Read a post on Iain Dale’s blog this morning regarding defamation.

I was interested more from a law firm perspective rather than from that of a blogger. Although thinking about it I suppose my comment on Clifford Chance’s London office yesterday could be considered as such and maybe I need to think more from a bloggers point of view?!? (Let me say any implication on CC’s London office is not to be taken seriously!)

It just reminded me of the Davenport Lyons saga (if the name itself doesn’t explain, Google their name for stories like this), the law firm blunderbus approach to new media. To be fair once I’d read the article from the Law Gazette I realised it came across as fair and a sensible approach to the law (dealing in the most part by negotiation rather than taking the case to court).

But Iain’s right, bloggers need to be aware of the legal aspect. The days where bloggers could say what they wanted about anyone have probably past. There was a great example of why in yesterday’s Metro!

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General Legal IT

New Media get together at DLA Piper to discuss web 2.0

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No really!

I  use a tool called TweetDeck which amongst other things allows me a constant view on all the twitter posts from around the world on a specific search. One I have set up is for DLA Piper. Well today I find a number of posts for the “SiliconValley NewTech Meetup” which meets at DLA Piper’s Palo Alto office. It’s a “Meet with other tech enthusiasts to discuss and show-and-tell new web technologies.” For start-ups, investors, developers, and anybody else who’s interested.

Best of all Beer, wine, and pizza is provided. According to one twitter post “90 peeps, 14 pizza’s”!

My surprise at this finding is not that it’s happening, it’s an absolutely cracking idea from the Palo Alto office. But the smile I had thinking of it happening in any London law firm office 🙂 Can you imagine a developer walking into a meet up hosted by Clifford Chance for example? No nor could I.

I shall have to speak to some of my US colleagues to find out more!

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General Legal IT

Law firms aren’t immune

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Post on The Lawyer today : Legal Job Watch: UK 200 TOTAL REDUNDANCIES: 2199

The interesting thing about The Lawyer’s reporting (and LegalWeek for that matter) is that the figures are just for the lawyers! There is no figure for support staff in consultancy or redundant in any of the firms?

Can you read anything into this? I mean todays news on the job losses at Nissan didn’t just total the managers or engineers, but all staff. Why are the numbers from KM, facilities, the secretarial teams or IT not of any interest to readers of The Lawyer?

After all it’s not as if it’s because there has been zero job losses in these areas is it.

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General IT, Technical

2009 – the year we’ll be always online?

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Will this year be the year we are able to be always online? Fire up your laptop and you’re connected wherever you are?

I remember have a conversation with our CIO about 18 months or so ago, discussing why for document management we shouldn’t invest too heavily in enabling people to “go offline” when they’re out of the office. The simple reason I put forward was that we’d soon be always online.

The reason behind my comment wasn’t due to that current fad in the UK – 3G dongles from Vodafone, Orange etc but a technology that was on the horizon. WiMAX. This technology is effectively like WiFi but over much greater distances.

I just got a twitter tweet from a friend in the US about such a service that has started in his city. It looks like these services are starting to rollout in earnest. Personally I think this will kill WiFi hotspots and (hopefully) mean we soon won’t have to think about online or offline, if your laptop is on it’ll be connected to the internet or via VPN to your work network and email.

There is one cavaet to this and that is if you do business globally. It may take a while to see even WiMAX hotspots when you’re in the middle of say Dubai for example (for those that work in the UAE they know the difficulties and cost of telecoms/networks in that region!)

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