Tag: lawyers

When Corporate Legal Teams Break

Forward-thinking organizations that refocus their legal teams on the removal of systemic friction and value creation can better detect and forecast risk; however, organizations that have not modernized their legal teams often miss subtleties masking surprisingly deep areas of risk. Recent history shows nothing is too big to fail, but earlier risk detection may have helped avoid some of the most catastrophic losses.

The most recent and notable industry-wide example, of course, was the financial services industry, which triggered the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009.

In the world’s most infamous accounting scandal, Enron imploded in 2001, wiping out $74bn of shareholder funds and the pensions and jobs of thousands of employees. Enron’s auditor also collapsed. The organizations were interconnected and dependent systems. One fell, the other followed. Undetected risk festered and worsened, and the interconnectedness of these organizations and systems created a complex network that made detecting risk more difficult.

As modern society demands more capable systems, they become more interconnected and complex by necessity. As Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It posits, this staggering complexity means that tiny mistakes or simple accidents can lead to devastating catastrophes that often go undetected. The reasons for failure can stem from very different problems, but the underlying causes are similar.

In accounting scandals with nefarious actors, huge debts are obscured and once revealed, lead to corporate failure. In legal departments with good actors – led by a noble General Counsel (GC) who serves as the defender of the enterprise – business risks are obscured and once revealed, can lead to devastating consequences: bet-the-company litigation, core intellectual property battles, merger & acquisition failure, and crippling regulatory fines, to name a few.

Embracing digital helps identify and expose risk, but organizations set the stage for failure when legal, or other critical functions, don’t keep up, fail to embrace the digital evolution, become disconnected, and lack or lose visibility. Those organizations make decisions without a clear view of the legal implications, and they might not even know it because, for now, they operate with blind trust of the Office of the GC.

Corporations in all industries are “going digital” to remain competitive amidst technological disruption. This focus on digital starts with core products and service offerings, and then is pushed throughout the business to align company to product. The result? Faster moving businesses with a wave of demand pummelling the legal department…if not yet, then soon as digital initiatives across the business mature.

Most corporate legal departments simply do not have the systems required to keep up — providing consistent regulatory counsel, detecting and preventing impending litigation, or simply knowing who is doing what in the legal organization is already a challenge Risk is obscured. A “break” like we’ve never experienced is primed.

If we examine the ecosystem, the warning signs are there.

Catching up to other corporate functions

As demands on legal teams continue to grow and CFOs ask GCs to do more with less, quality suffers amid rising law firm rates and unchecked complexity. Corners get cut. Risks emerge while their likelihood to go undetected rises. Of course, when adding headcount is not an option, revamping processes and technology is often the answer.

In finance, accounting, information technology, and human resource departments, among others, advances in technology have enabled self-service, helped control costs, made it easier to compare costs, and increased quality choices. These corporate functions have embraced systems-level restructuring with artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics, cloud computing and “Big Data” to modernize working practices and improve performance.

In their often siloed and conservative world, most GCs and corporate legal departments, on the other hand, make crucial decisions guided as much by gut instinct as by data and industry benchmarks. For decades, they have resisted change or lacked sufficient resources to enable change in technology, working practices, and corporate culture. Now, with the real-time requirement for speed, scale, and transparency — that era is over.

To retain and increase influence, improve their performance and trim costs as recessionary fears grow, GCs would be wise to more fully modernize their legal departments quickly through an open, digitally-savvy, and collaborative working culture.

Collaborate and listen

Building a data-driven, digital, secure and scalable legal system is an ethical and commercial imperative for GCs. Technology is part of the solution but not the place to start.

To more proactively expose, manage and mitigate risk, executives and their boards need GCs to emphasize the imperative for a more analytical, data-based and efficient approach to corporate legal practice with concrete examples to punctuate the “Why.”

You could start with three actions.

  1. Educate yourself and your colleagues about trends in legal digitization, performance improvement and new working practices. A comprehensive source of information is the Digital Legal Exchange, a global institute of leading thinkers from academia, business, government, technology and law.
  2. Become Modern. Be the change. Lead the change. Make tough decisions about your top leaders and whether they are capable of a data and digital-first mindset and way of working. Change leadership is the prime point of failure for legal modernization efforts.
  3. Be ambitious in the scope of your reforms. Small, pilot projects (ie, e-signature or automated NDAs) won’t make much of an impact and won’t convince your board of the need for bold legal change.

Modernizing the legal system and companies’ legal departments can improve affordability and performance for clients, lawyers, company boards, and shareholders.

Absent modern means of detection, legal risk can proliferate unknown and unseen only to all too often reveal triggers of impending corporate failure when it’s already too late.

Article By Anusia Gillespie of UnitedLex

For more corporate law legal news, click here to visit the National Law Review.

© 2022 UnitedLex, All Rights Reserved

How to Unplug From Work During the Holidays

It can be challenging to fully unplug from work during the holidays, especially if you have a lot of responsibilities or if you run your own business.

But taking a break from work during this slower period can be beneficial for your mental health and overall well-being.

It’s really important to not feel guilty about taking some time off or deciding that you don’t necessarily want to take time off, maybe want to spend time building your brand and business and if you do, I have plenty of tips for that as well!

Here are a few tips for unplugging from work during the holidays:

  • Set boundaries: Let your coworkers and clients know that you will be unavailable during specific times, such as during the holidays or on a certain day of the week. This will help prevent you from feeling pressure to respond to work-related messages or calls while you are trying to relax.
  • Create a relaxing routine: Plan activities that will help you relax and unwind, such as exercising, reading or spending time with family and friends. Having a relaxing routine can help you disconnect from work and focus on self-care.
  • Avoid checking work emails or messages too often. Try to resist the temptation to check work emails or messages all the time while you are on vacation. If you must check your email, set a specific time each day to do so and limit the amount of time you spend on it.
  • Take breaks from work-related tasks: If you are working on a project or task during the holidays, take regular breaks to rest and recharge. This will help you avoid burnout and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
  • Plan in advance: This is a great time of year to repurpose your content and utilize social media scheduling tools so that you don’t actually need to be present online to post. That being said, if you post anything you should still check social media so that you can engage with the comments on your posts, because that helps increase visibility. Let what you already have work, harder and smarter for you!

By setting clear boundaries, creating a relaxing routine and taking breaks from work-related tasks, you can help ensure that you fully unplug from work and enjoy your time off during the holidays!

Which of these tips resonate with you and do you have any others to add?

PS – If you’re looking for ways to build your brand during downtime here are a few ideas:

  • Use this time to assess your brand and identify areas for improvement. This could involve updating your website, revamping your social media accounts, or reassessing your target audience.
  • Create valuable content that can be shared during downtimes. This could be blog posts, videos, podcasts or other forms of content that showcase your expertise and add value to your audience.
  • Engage with your audience on social media or through email newsletters. Keep your audience updated on your brand and continue to provide value, even during downtimes.
  • Partner with other brands or influencers to cross-promote your products or services. This can help expose your brand to a new audience and increase your reach.
  • Take advantage of any downtime to learn new skills or attend workshops or conferences. This will help you stay current and improve your expertise, which can benefit your brand in the long run. (Check out my YouTube channel for lots of videos!)
  • Use downtime to reflect on your brand and consider new ways to innovate and stand out in your industry. This could involve launching new products or services, or finding unique ways to differentiate your brand.

Which one of these will you try? Happy holidays!

Article By Stefanie M. Marrone of Stefanie Marrone Consulting

For more business of law legal news, click here to visit the National Law Review.

Copyright © 2022, Stefanie M. Marrone. All Rights Reserved.

Episode 6: Shifting Mindsets: How Client-Focused Approaches Can Improve Law Firm Success with Matt Spiegel, CEO of Lawmatics

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 6 of Legal News Reach!

National Law Review Web Publication Specialist Crissonna Tennison and Matt Spiegel, Co-Founder and CEO of Lawmatics, discuss the mindsets that are necessary for law firm success. Practicing law isn’t just about winning cases—it’s about creating a supportive client experience in and out of the courtroom. How can firms integrate legal technology to center their clients, boosting their business success in the process?

We’ve included a transcript of the conversation below, transcribed by artificial intelligence. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Crissonna Tennison

Thank you for tuning into the Legal News Reach podcast. My name is Crissonna Tennison, Web Publication Specialist for the National Law Review. In this episode, I will be speaking with Matt Spiegel, founder of Lawmatics. Matt, can you tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to start Lawmatics?

Matt Spiegel

Yeah, sure. So first of all, I’m very excited to be here, so thank you guys for having me. But yes, I’m Matt Spiegel, I am the founder and CEO of Lawmatics. I was a practicing lawyer, I don’t actually practice anymore, I haven’t practiced in like 11 years or so, but I still have my bar card. Long story short, I had a problem at my law firm that I wanted to solve with technology, and ended up starting a company called MyCase. So I founded MyCase, back in, like 2010. For those of you that don’t know, MyCase is now one of the biggest practice management software platforms on the market. So I was the original founder of that company, I also ran the company for five years. And then I left, and after a couple years doing some things unrelated to law and legal tech, I decided to come back into the legal tech space. I’m a glutton for punishment, and Lawmatics was what I decided to build. And it was really a product of what we saw when I was at MyCase. We saw the shift in the market, we saw lawyers starting to think about their law firm like a business and not just like a law firm. And when they start to do that, then they need business tools, right? They need the same kind of tools that other companies throughout industries, different genres of companies, tools that they’ve had forever, right? And so there was a little kernel of this idea of lawyers shifting to this mentality, you know, back in 2014. And so fast forward to 2017, we really saw this starting to become an opportunity that we thought was going to be a big one. And so we built Lawmatics to really address the business needs of a law firm and not as much of the practice management needs, right? The practice of law, we felt like that was pretty well taken care of. Our goal was to focus on the business side of it, you know, the lead management, the marketing, the automation, that sort of thing.

Crissonna Tennison

That’s awesome, and it sounds like a major change for you. When you were first starting your switch from being a lawyer to starting MyCase, what skill sets did you have already? And what skills did you have to develop along the way?

Matt Spiegel

Yeah, so it’s a good question. I mean, obviously, starting a software company is pretty different than being a lawyer. But I would say that I was probably a bad lawyer. And I just was always, I always had the skill set to be a decent entrepreneur, I guess. But I was probably just a really bad lawyer. It was very different. Well, I should strike that. Because the way I approached law–I was a criminal defense lawyer. And so I was in court all the time, I was doing a lot of trials, you know, it’s a very unique practice area. But I treated my law firm like a business right from the get-go. So I worked at a big law firm for like, four years, and then I started my own practice. And when I started my own practice, I was like, “I need to treat this like a business.” And I think that was the way I thought about it, even more so than being a good lawyer. And I think that was just because I was probably very entrepreneurial, even then. And so I was thinking about my law firm as like a business that I could build, not necessarily, “I’m a lawyer, I’m going to practice law.” So I think I always had that mentality, it was just manifesting itself within the confines of the legal space with starting my law firm. But as soon as I saw this need in the market for a product, which became MyCase, I kind of ran with it. It was like, “Wow, I’m building this business, a law firm, which can be big, but it’s going to have a ceiling, or I can start this, like, software company, which the ceiling is unlimited.” That just felt so much more exciting to me.

Crissonna Tennison

I do think it is very interesting that you brought up the entrepreneurial mindset, because from what I’ve observed there does seem to be a difference between that mindset and a lawyer mindset. It’s really interesting to hear you break that down a little bit.

What are some challenges that you’re most proud of overcoming in starting both MyCase and Lawmatics?

Matt Spiegel

What I’m most proud of, I think, is the legal tech space is not an easy space to enter. You know, there are a lot of companies that get started and not a lot of companies make it through. The fact that I’ve been able to build two companies in legal tech that have both been able to support these teams–like what I’m the most proud of in MyCase and Lawmatics are the teams that we built. They’re the people who made the company go and at MyCase, we just had an incredible team. It was such a great culture and at Lawmatics I think it’s even better, like, you know, we’ve built such an incredible team with with such an incredible culture, and it’s such a fun place to be and to work at. And so that’s a hurdle, right? It’s hard to build good cultures. You know, it’s hard enough to build one company, one startup that becomes successful, let alone two in the same space, especially when the space isn’t the biggest space in the world. So I think for me, you know, that hurdle of coming back into the legal tech space and trying to innovate in it, I’m think I’m most proud of that. And then the fact that we’ve been able to build such great teams. And that has nothing to do with the legal tech space, that’s just, you know, company mindset in general, company building in general. I think if I had to say what I’m most proud of it would be the teams that we’ve built.

Crissonna Tennison

That makes a big difference. And I feel like the teams you’re able to build and the workplace culture you’re able to foster really is everything when it comes to building a company.

You say that you saw some problems that you thought could be solved while you were a practicing defense attorney. So what exactly were you looking for that wasn’t available?

Matt Spiegel

MyCase came as a result of client communication problems. So my first company was a result of actually a State Bar complaint that I got. When I started my first law firm, I got a State Bar complaint pretty much right away. And it had nothing to do with the way I practiced, it was nothing to do with the outcome of the case, it was simply, “Hey, you didn’t call me back quick enough.” Right. And this is a tale as old as time. This is like, the most common complaint at every state bar still, even 12 years later, is attorney-client communication. And so I thought there has to be a better way to communicate than like, just calling me on the phone when I’m in court all day, every day. That cannot be the answer. And so I sought to develop a client communication portal. And that is what MyCase started as. Now it evolved into something so much more powerful and such a more robust piece of software. But the initial version, the initial idea was just simply a client communication portal. And so that’s how MyCase came about. Lawmatics really came about from what I observed talking to thousands and thousands of law firms in my time in MyCase, and what we saw was this shift, this idea that lawyers were starting to think about their law firms as a business, and not just the practice of law. And when I saw that, it’s like these people, if they have that mindset shift, they are going to experience some challenges with how to do that. Right? If they’re going to start doing marketing, if they don’t have a way to measure those marketing efforts, they’re going to be met with challenges, if they don’t have the ability to automate touchpoints, nurture campaigns, newsletters, like all the different things that are kind of marketing 101, if they don’t have that infrastructure in place, they’re going to be met with a lot of challenges. We anticipated that happening. And that’s sort of the problem that we look to solve with Lawmatics. And again, we weren’t reinventing the wheel. Products to solve the problems that Lawmatics solves have been around for decades, products like Salesforce, or HubSpot, they’ve been around for a really, really, really long time, they are not new concepts. What is new is a platform that is specifically built for law firms. And that’s where lawyers are a bit unique. They do and I’m not gonna say they require, but they do significantly better and they adopt more often tools that are designed for them, because they do have some unique requirements. And so that’s ultimately the problem that we look to solve with Lawmatics.

Crissonna Tennison

So as a lawyer, and as a person who’s running a law firm, you want to provide a great client experience, but you actually need to find clients in the first place. So what can law firms do from a marketing and client intake perspective to help this process?

Matt Spiegel

It’s about the client journey, right? A law firm needs to think about, “What is the journey that a client goes through with your law firm?” and we break that journey down into three phases.

Phase one is the intake phase, which is from the moment that they reach out to your law firm, by whatever means, all the way through to the point where they sign a fee agreement, and they pay you your retainer. Then you have phase two, which is an active case, you’re actually handling a case for them that has a definitive start and end time. And then phase three is after the case is over. Now, they are a former client. That is a very important part of the relationship.

So what Lawmatics is designed to do is help you with everything in phase one and everything in phase three, the practice management software like MyCase, they are designed to handle everything in phase two. So that journey starts from the very moment that a client reaches out to your law firm. And you have to understand that from that very moment, you have opportunities to delight your customers, and you need to think about it in terms of customer service: what kinds of service, what level of service are you providing to your client? And this is right from the get-go. So if someone reaches out to you, and they fill out a form on your website because they’re interested in talking to you, and maybe they don’t hear anything from you until the next day, that’s not good customer service. The first impression that they’re going to get is that you don’t respond to things very quickly. And so that initial moment of contact, there’s an opportunity to delight your customer, right, you can immediately engage them and show them that you’re on top of it. And that’s not something that a lot of law firms can do without the help of technology, right? You need technology to help you with those automated touch points. And so that’s just one example. But every step of the journey is an opportunity to delight your customer with customer service, not law. Forget about law. Right now we’re just talking about providing good bedside manner, good customer service. I have a saying that I’d love to repeat, which is that you could be the best lawyer in the world, but if you provide bad customer service, you are going to have a failing law firm. And the vice versa is true. You could be a mediocre or even a bad lawyer, but you could provide really, really excellent customer service, and you could be wildly successful. The outcome of the legal matter is not always the most important part of that relationship.

Crissonna Tennison

That’s something that I never would have thought about. But that makes sense that as a lawyer, of course, obviously, you want to win your case for your client, but you really want them to feel cared for and respected and like they can get in contact with you. And yeah, that is a lot of work to keep that going, especially because being a lawyer and running a law firm is so much work.

Matt Spiegel

Some of it is totally impossible! So here’s another example, let’s say after the case is over, something that would be a pretty nice thing to do would be to just send your former clients a note on their birthday every year, pretty simple. But you’ve got 2000 old clients, how are you going to keep track of all their birthdays and make sure you’re sending an email? It would take you, it would take an army to do that. So if you have a tool that can automate that whole process, all you do is click one button when you first set up the software, and then in perpetuity, every one of your former clients is going to get an email on their birthday every single year. So there’s so much that you can do that you can’t do manual, you have to have technology to help you do it. I think that that’s really important for law firms to understand when they’re looking at, “Well, what does this mean? How do I provide good customer service? Like what role can technology play?” I think it’s just really important to think about things that way.

Crissonna Tennison

The last few years have been a really chaotic time, especially for growing law firms. So what kind of feedback have you gotten from users of Lawmatics during this time?

Matt Spiegel

So the feedback that we get from our customers is pretty profound. So it’s two things, it’s what Lawmatics has enabled them to do. And then, you know, maybe not as sexy of a response is the amount of time that Lawmatics has saved them. So obviously, a product like Lawmatics that does so much around automation is going to save you time that really can’t even be put into words, the true impact can’t just be measured. And you know, some law firms are saving 20 hours a week. And that’s just a crazy amount of time. And the impact that has on a firm as a whole is pretty remarkable. But it’s really what Lawmatics has enabled them to do. Right? I mean, Lawmatics has really enabled growth for its customers. I think that’s the way to look at it. I think law firms before you know, our customers, before they used Lawmatics, it was really difficult to facilitate big growth for them. I’m not saying that law firms couldn’t grow before, that’s not true. But our customers were really struggling with certain aspects of it. They were getting into marketing, they were getting into intake management and thinking about things beyond just practicing law and how to attract more leads, and how to convert more of those leads into customers. But they had no way to manage it all. Maybe some of them knew what best practices were. But they couldn’t actually deploy those practices because they didn’t have the ability. Lawmatics has really enabled them to do the things that they’ve wanted to do on the lead management, the conversion side, the generating leads, it’s really pretty cool to hear the stories from these law firms that were struggling before to execute on growth plans, and now are exceeding what they thought they would be able to achieve.

Crissonna Tennison

I’m curious to hear more about why it’s so essential for those people who are running growing law practices to invest in quality practice management and CRM software. At this point in the game, how much do firms risk falling behind their competitors if they don’t use one?

Matt Spiegel

Personally, I feel like practice management software, right, like the MyCases, the Clios, the Practice Panthers of the world right now, I feel like that’s kind of table stakes, there are definitely still a lot of law firms out there that don’t use a platform like that. And for those firms, there must be some valid views. And but the vast majority of firms out there will have some sort of platform in place to help them with their time and their billing and their case management. I think that that’s table stakes in the industry now for the most part. But if you don’t have that, if you’re like doing your billing manually, that just is a colossal waste of time. And you would be falling behind the rest of the industry significantly, just because of the time that you’re wasting to input billing hours and send out invoices and things like that. But as far as CRM, this actually has the potential to make you fall behind even more. So first of all, we are at the inflection point for like CRM software and law firms. It is starting to become the focus of law firms, their understanding just how valuable it is and what they can do with it. And there’s a massive shift going towards this type of thing. That’s one reason why, you know, if you’re not on that boat, then you just fall behind technologically, but more importantly, it’s the byproduct of using a product like this. It’s the shift in thinking that is happening where you’re really going to fall behind because what it means is that law firms are out there thinking about marketing. They’re thinking about lead generation, they’re thinking about how to get more business and build their law firm. That means they’re going to be going out and taking leads from you if you’re not also thinking about that. So it’s so much more than just a piece of software that you’re talking about adopting, you’re talking about adopting a strategy for your business and your growth. So if you’re not on board with that, you are going to fall behind in ways that you probably haven’t necessarily thought of just yet.

Crissonna Tennison

That definitely makes a lot of sense. When we look at recent years, how have expectations of legal clients evolved, kind of along the lines of what you’re saying, if more and more firms are starting to really reorient their thoughts toward how they run their businesses and interact with their clients? How have their expectations evolved? And what changes have you seen in law firms and their operations since you started practicing?

Matt Spiegel

What we’ve really seen, I think, again, to me, it’s just been the wide adoption of some type of software platform and that software platform being in the cloud. So in starting MyCase, I was one of the people who was at the forefront of this shift to cloud computing in legal. I’ve gotten to observe this whole thing over the last, more than a decade at this point. And it’s really profound. It’s really cool. Right? It’s a mainstay in law firms now, cloud software. And what that’s enabled, operations are just easier. And there’s less operative people at a law firm, I think now, right? It’s just, it requires less, because so much is in software, it’s automated, it’s easy to access, it’s just makes things more streamlined. And so we see less of a need to have operators in a law firm and the ability for lawyers to focus more on actually handling their cases. A lot of this depends on the size firm that you are at. There’s a massive segmentation inside of the law firm industry, right? Like if you have solo and small law firms, they operate very differently than midsize or large law firms.

Crissonna Tennison

That kind of goes along with things that we’ve heard about in the past and prior conversations about CRM systems in general. Do you think that law students will have to start having practical knowledge of CRM systems as they enter the industry?

Matt Spiegel

No. I mean, it can’t hurt. But no, we saw this with practice management, too. I remember at MyCase, I would go down to the law schools, and I would help teach classes on managing a law practice and practice management software and what that meant and what it was. So the concepts we were teaching, but we weren’t giving them familiarity with the actual software themselves. I don’t think it’s difficult to pick up, I don’t think it’s really that critical. What I think is important is understanding the importance of these concepts to the business. But I don’t think it’s critical for people coming into law firms to like, have knowledge of the systems. I mean, that would be a bonus, it would be cool. I don’t think it’s something that is required.

Crissonna Tennison

So along those lines, would you say there’s been a change in law school education, in terms of a focus on how to run a law business? Like is that something that’s showing up a little bit more in legal academia than it was in the past, or maybe when you were in law school?

Matt Spiegel

So when I was in law school, it was really not a focus. Within five or six years after I left law school, it started to become a focus again, I started getting invited into law schools that actually had practice management classes, right, like how to run a law firm. To be honest with you, in the last few years, I haven’t seen it as much. So I don’t know if there was a small shift towards it, like 10 years ago, and now it’s shifted away from it. Maybe people thought that it wasn’t a practical class. I don’t really know. But I don’t think that we’ve seen a massive shift towards it in the last five or six years. I think it’s valuable to be honest with you. I think everyone always says, you go to law school, and the stuff you learn doesn’t necessarily help you as a subject matter. It doesn’t necessarily help you, when you get out of law school. What law school does is teach you how to think like a lawyer. Right? And that’s like the old cliche, but I think it’s relatively true. If law school is focused on the practicalities of running a business and running a law firm. I think that would be incredibly helpful. But unfortunately, I don’t have that much influence over this.

Crissonna Tennison

For our listeners who are interested in checking out Lawmatics, can you kind of take them through the process of getting started using your platform? Where can they find you?

Matt Spiegel

Finding us is very easy, anybody can go to our website, www.lawmatics.com. And from there, what we always have people do is we have them sign up for a demo. And when I say signing up for a “demo,” I use that term a little bit loosely, because what you’re really doing is you’re going to be talking to one of our specialists, who’s really going to spend some time learning about your law firm trying to, first of all make sure that as a law firm, you’re ready for a tool like Lawmatics, like Lawmatics is going to make sense for you as a law firm, and then starting to understand “What do you do currently? What are your processes like?” and then starting to show you how Lawmatics might be able to help. So when we get on this demo, it’s almost like a consultation. We have a lot of best practices that we share with people during this consultation, this demo, to hopefully get these law firms thinking about things a little differently. We really like this process. And that’s the most important thing for people to do is to just come to our website, sign up for that demo, you’re going to learn a little bit about Lawmatics, you might learn a little bit more about your law firm and certain steps you might need to take in order to execute on some of the initiatives that you’re looking to execute on at your law firm. And then we will show you how Lawmatics hopefully can help you do that.

Crissonna Tennison

That’s awesome. It sounds like the Lawmatics experience can be tailored to a variety of different law firm types.

Matt Spiegel

Lawmatics is really for everyone and anyone. We see it all across the spectrum. Sometimes brand new firms that are just trying to set up their tech stack and Lawmatics is the foundation of it or law firms with several hundred lawyers who have been around for a long time, but they need to update their tech stack and they see a lot of value in it.

Crissonna Tennison

Our time is coming to a close, so are there some points you would like to showcase that align with your organization’s experience?

Matt Spiegel

Lawmatics is Lawmatics, it’s great if people want to check it out, I encourage them to do that. But what I encourage all lawyers to do, regardless of the software platform, is to just start thinking about your law firm a bit differently and start thinking about your law firm as, you’ve got to be good at customer service. You have to think about satisfying your customers outside of their case, you cannot think, “if I get them a great outcome, if I’m a criminal defense lawyer, and I just defended my client out of prison,” you can’t just assume that that’s going to be enough, that that’s going to make them really happy. What you need to do–and this is a point that I was thinking about earlier that I want to bring up now–is this is what you need to remember. And if you remember this, I think it gives you a different lens to look through almost all practice areas, right? Almost all of them fit into this mold, where it is the most important thing happening in their life. If it’s a criminal offense case, if it’s a personal injury case, if it’s a bankruptcy case, if it’s a family law case, immigration, all these practice areas, like the vast majority of practice areas out there, the case that you are handling for your client, it is the most important thing that they have going on in their life. For you it’s just another client, right? And so sometimes it’s hard to have that perspective. But if you think about it like that, if you think “Hey, wait a second, this is the most important thing happening in their life. If I had the most important thing happening in my life right now, how would I want to be treated?” If you shift to that line of thinking I guarantee you will provide incredible customer service, and that’s going to benefit your firm.

Crissonna Tennison

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, especially because if they’re dealing with something that is the most important thing in their life, and you’re the person guiding them through that, then that relationship is pretty important. So thank you for kind of expanding on that a little bit more.

Thank you to Matt Spiegel for taking the time to join us on the podcast to talk about Lawmatics and the different mindsets that can help a law firm be more successful. We really appreciate you joining us today.

Matt Spiegel

Yeah, thank you guys so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Conclusion

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Global Dispute Resolution: The Future of Virtual Legal Proceedings Is Shaped by Soaring Travel Costs

While we may have passed through the worst of the global pandemic, it has unquestionably left a deep and lasting impact on our personal and professional lives. Restrictions that left everyone housebound for months on end resulted in adaptations to daily behaviors and how we do business—some of which are here to stay.

Progress in the Form of Virtual Proceedings

During the pandemic, keeping businesses afloat was challenging across the board in all industries. Videoconferencing was often the only option to connect with colleagues or to participate in a meeting of any kind, and the use of platforms like Zoom skyrocketed. Like most other businesses and professional organizations, legal forums around the world were closed for a time. When they began to reopen, they discovered a new (virtual) operational environment that arose out of necessity.

International arbitration centers and courts across the globe followed suit, reopening with a mandate to conduct business remotely. While they had already developed protocols for using technology to increase accessibility and efficiency before 2020, the use of videoconferencing in international arbitration centers and courtrooms took off rapidly and pervasively once the pandemic hit. The ramped-up schedule of online proceedings continues in international arbitration centers and courts now that they are increasingly comfortable with the virtual format, and protocols have been developed and vetted.

 

 

 

Many believe that these recent technological developments were long overdue. The pandemic essentially propelled the justice system to modernize its administrative and operational policies. Remote Courts Worldwide (a website created during the pandemic to encourage the global community of justice workers to exchange ideas related to remote alternatives to traditional court proceedings) documents that virtual hearings, arbitrations, and court proceedings are embraced by stakeholders in many countries.1 The consensus is that smart, efficient, industry-disrupting change has brought the international justice system into the twenty-first century. Virtual proceedings are a welcome change for many reasons, not the least of which is the prohibitively high cost of in-person attendance.

International Travel Costs & Virtual Legal Proceedings

The cost of air travel has increased markedly in 2022. Demand issues, inflation, and high fuel costs have driven up per-person airfares. According to the 2022 Global Business Travel Association’s Business Travel Index Outlook – Annual Global Report and Forecast, total international business travel spending is downby 50% from pre-pandemic levels, but individual airfares are on track to rise nearly 50% this year over 2021 and are predicted to continue to rise in 2023.2

An intercontinental long-haul business class ticket from the United States will usually average between $3,000 and $5,000 roundtrip onboard major national carriers. Fares are often the highest on flights longer than twelve hours (i.e., to the Middle East, Australia, or Southeast Asia) and may range from $5,000 to $12,000.3

COMPARING COSTS FOR IN-PERSON ATTENDANCE

The following is an example of a business travel cost profile for an international arbitration hearing taking place in London and involving three US attorneys, two Paris attorneys, two local witnesses, and three litigation support personnel. The average business trip to London is 5.8 days4, during which these travelers will require accommodations for five nights, food for six days, and ground transportation for six days.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TRAVEL EXPENSES & TRAVEL TIME TO LONDON FOR ONE LEGAL PROCEEDING

 

 

Person Traveling Number Originating City Airfare Travel Time Hotel Food Ground Total
US Lawyers 3 Chicago $3,079 $5,850 $2,200 $750 $400 $36,837
Paris Lawyers 2 Paris $325 $1,950 $2,200 $750 $400 $11,250
Witnesses 2 London $0 $0 $1,500 $350 $250 $4,200
Trial Consultant 1 New York $2,325 $2,400 $2,200 $750 $400 $8,075
Trial Presenter 1 Los Angeles $3,944 $3,300 $2,200 $750 $400 $10,594
Graphic Designer 1 Dallas $3,079 $3,000 $2,200 $750 $400 $9,429
Total In-Person Attendance               $80,385

 

Notes: Airfares based on Delta business class in November 2022. Travel time based on Chicago to London 9hr. x 2(RT) @$325/hr.; Paris to London 3hr. x 2(RT) @$325/hr.; NY to London 8hr. x 2(RT) @$150/hr.; LA to London 11hr. x 2(RT) @$150/hr.; Dallas to London 10hr. x 2(RT) @$150/hr. 

As demonstrated in the chart above, the cost of travel time can be as much or more than the cost of flights to attend an international arbitration or other legal hearing. Spending many hours traveling to and returning from the various steps of an international proceeding is not only an expense for a client, but productivity is also lost for the legal professionals involved.

If time is money, there could not be a more direct equivalency than the legal industry’s billable hour, and often lawyers apply the same hourly rate for travel hours as for work hours. When complex matters demand a legal team, these costs are multiplied. Then there is the issue of witnesses who would need to travel and perhaps wait around to testify, not to mention the time commitment and expenses related to other on-site billers and support staff. Add in the unpredictability of airline delays, and costs will continue to mount.

VIRTUAL HEARINGS SAVE MONEY (AND THEY’RE HERE TO STAY)

 

 

 

With the cost of international air travel rising sharply, remote hearings are a practical alternative to in-person proceedings. International travel is expensive, and the virtual option means that it is no longer necessary to count travel as a “cost of doing business” when pursuing an international dispute. The widespread use of technology in global dispute resolution proceedings gives attorneys and their clients the option to participate remotely, which is a compelling cost saver for all parties.

Industry news reports tell the story:

Technology has become ubiquitous in international arbitration.5 Japan expedites court proceedings with Microsoft Teams.6 Beijing’s “Internet Court” enables people to file lawsuits online.7 In India, 19.2 million cases have been heard virtually in the High Court and district courts.8

Such reports are convincing evidence of the commitment to the continuation of virtual proceedings in legal forums around the globe. Remote and hybrid proceedings in the international legal setting appear to have a very secure future.

Put Your Best Foot Forward in Virtual Legal Proceedings

Technology in the courtroom is not particularly a new concept, and international arbitration centers were working in the direction of modernizing when they had to fast-track guidelines to convert to primarily virtual hearings.9 The wholesale adoption of online proceedings may have caught some firms unprepared from a technical production standpoint.

References:

  1. See www.remotecourts.org.
  2. See gbta.org.
  3. Keyes, Scott. The Complete Guide to Business Class Flights. Scott’s Cheap Flights. April 28, 2022.
  4. Johnson, Georgia-Rose. Business Travel Statistics. Finder.com. February 18, 2021.
  5. Vishnyakov, Mikhail. CIArb Guidelines on the Use of Technology, The Law Society Gazette. March 18, 2021.
  6. Yates-Roberts, Elly. Japan expedites court proceedings with Microsoft Teams. Technology Record. February 4, 2020.
  7. China: Beijing’s ‘Internet Court’ enables people to file lawsuits online. Remote Courts Worldwide. September 20, 2022.
  8. Harris, Joanne. Access to justice: India leads post-Covid shift in courts’ use of technology. International Bar Association. October 12, 2022.
  9. Caroni, Barnardo. Fast Track Arbitration and Virtual Protocols in the COVID-19 ERA: Some Suggestions from Asia. October 20, 2022.

Article By IMS Consulting & Expert Services

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Top Legal Industry Highlights for November 2022: Law Office Hiring and Expansion, Industry Awards and Recognition, and the Latest Updates in Diversity and Inclusion

Happy Holidays from the National Law Review! We hope you are remaining safe and healthy as Thanksgiving rolls around. Read more below for the latest in law firm hiring and expansion, noteworthy industry awards and recognitions, and the latest news in law firm diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

Additionally, please be sure to check out the latest Legal News Reach podcast episode from the NLR: “What’s New In Law Firm Thought Leadership? with Alistair Bone, Vice President for Passle.”

Law Firm Hiring and Expansion

Oblon, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, LLP has added attorney Mark Nagumo as Of Counsel in the firm’s Chemical Patent Practice Group. Mr. Nagumo, who is a former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office administrative patent judge, has a great deal of experience in chemical research, particularly with regard to biomolecules, materials, and a wide range of other analytical techniques.

“We are thrilled to welcome Mark to our firm,” said Oblon Managing Partner Philippe Signore. “Mark is an extremely knowledgeable and respected chemical patent attorney whose many years of experience at the USPTO offers tremendous value and benefits to our clients. He is a great addition to our team.”

Polsinelli PC has appointed two new co-chairs of the firm’s Business Department: Jane Arnold and Kolin Holladay. Ms. Arnold, an experienced attorney in mergers and acquisitions, is based in the St. Louis office, where she currently serves as Office Managing Partner. Mr. Holladay, who also focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions, is a Shareholder in the firm’s Nashville office.

“The selection of Arnold and Holladay as Business Department Co-Chairs reflects the firm’s long-standing commitment to inclusion, representation, and geographic diversity at every level,” said Chase Simmons, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Polsinelli. “Both are leaders who are highly respected within our firm and the industries in which they practice. Under their leadership, the Business Department will continue to create meaningful opportunities for our lawyers and clients, all consistent with our strategic priorities.”

James M. Tartaglia has rejoined Steptoe & Johnson PLLC as Of Counsel in the firm’s Charleston office. With a background in mineral title opinions and due diligence, Mr. Tartaglia joins the firm’s Energy Group , where he will focus his practice on energy contract law.

“We’re looking forward to having Jim back at the firm,” said Steptoe & Johnson CEO Christopher L. Slaughter. “His skill set and knowledge of the oil and gas industry strengthens our energy contracts practice and will be an asset to our clients.”

As of November 1st, 2022, Proskauer Rose LLP has promoted 33 of its attorneys – 25 to partner, and 8 to senior counsel. This class of promotions is the firm’s largest to date, and it includes attorneys from nine different offices around the world.

“We are delighted to promote this talented group of lawyers, whose values, entrepreneurial spirit and drive represent the best of the Firm,’” said Steven M. Ellis, Chairman of Proskauer. “We congratulate each of these new partners and senior counsel on this milestone and wish them continued success as they support our clients, secure historic victories, set precedents and serve as strategic partners.”

The following attorneys have been promoted to partner: Michelle Annese, Kimberly Braun, Ryan Carpenter, Aliza Cinamon, Grant Darwin, Christopher Elson, Nolan Goldberg, Laura Goldsmith, Oliver Howley, John Ingrassia, Philip Kaminski, Christine Lazatin, Shawn Ledingham, Matthew Levy, Stéphanie Martinier, Richard Miller, Bharat Moudgil, Adam Nelson, Caroline Robbins, Cameron Roper, Bradley Schecter, Adam Scoll, Sean Spence, Scott Patrick Thurman, and Harriet West.

The following attorneys have been promoted to senior counsel: Stephen Chuk, Pinchos Goldberg, Allison Lynn Martin, Jennifer Rigterink, Jurate Schwartz, Jennifer Yang, Edward Young, and Oleg Zakatov.

Frost Brown Todd has combined with California-based law firm Alvarado Smith, effective January 1, 2023. The combined firm will have more than 575 attorneys in 17 offices across nine states and Washington, D.C, with AlvaradoSmith’s addition providing strategic expansion into the Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Francisco markets.

“AlvaradoSmith is known for successfully taking on matters and clients often associated with big firms, while FBT has the resources of a large firm with the culture of a boutique shop,” said AlvaradoSmith Managing Shareholder Ruben Smith. “That’s why we’re confident this combination will be an excellent fit, allowing us to grow our capacity and resources while still retaining our deep connection to clients and community. We look forward to a very productive future with Frost Brown Todd.”

“This merger is a natural next step and tremendous growth opportunity for both Frost Brown Todd and AlvaradoSmith,” said FBT Chief Executive Officer Adam Hall. “As one of the largest and most influential economies in the world, California intersects with every one of Frost Brown Todd’s practice groups and many of our offices. We know our clients will benefit greatly from the extensive knowledge and relationships that AlvaradoSmith attorneys have cultivated throughout the state for decades. We look forward to working with them as we significantly expand our presence in California and strengthen Frost Brown Todd’s preeminent industry teams.”

Legal Industry Awards and Recognition

Ballard Spahr has received 26 National Tier 1 rankings in the 2023 Best Law Firms and a total of 160 rankings across all Best Law Firms categories. Best Law Firms rankings are gathered based on surveys from clients and professional references. To qualify, a law firm must have one attorney who is recognized in the current edition of Best Lawyers in a Best Law Firms-ranked practice area or metro area.

Ballard Spahr received National Tier 1 rankings in the following categories:

  • Banking and Finance Law
  • Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights / Insolvency and Reorganization Law
  • Commercial Litigation
  • Copyright Law
  • Corporate Law
  • Criminal Defense: White-Collar
  • Employment Law – Management
  • Environmental Law
  • Labor Law – Management
  • Land Use & Zoning Law
  • Litigation – Banking & Finance
  • Litigation – Bankruptcy
  • Litigation – First Amendment
  • Litigation – Intellectual Property
  • Litigation – Labor & Employment
  • Litigation – Patent
  • Litigation – Real Estate
  • Media Law
  • Mergers & Acquisitions Law
  • Patent Law
  • Public Finance Law
  • Real Estate Law
  • Securities / Capital Markets Law
  • Securities Regulation
  • Trademark Law
  • Trusts & Estates Law

Lauren Wachtler, partner at Barclay Damon’s New York office, will be honored with the prestigious Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin Award for Excellence in the Courtroom by the New York State Bar Association’s Commercial & Federal Litigation Section. Ms. Watchler’s practice focuses on commercial and business litigation matters, and she advocates for women’s equality in the legal profession as well as mentoring and educating young attorneys.

The Scheindlin Award is presented annually on or around November 6, the date women were granted the right to vote in 1917 in New York state. “It is a true honor to receive the Scheindlin Award,” said Ms. Wachtler. “Judge Scheindlin was a gifted jurist and continues to be a role model for women in our profession.”

The award honors its namesake Shira A. Scheindlin, the Commercial & Federal Litigation Section’s former chair and former district judge for the Southern District of New York. Scheindlin said, “I extend my sincerest congratulations to Lauren for being selected to receive the Scheindlin Award. Her commitment to the legal profession and mentoring young women attorneys is truly inspiring and continues to grow year after year. Women litigators still face adversity in the courtroom; however, Lauren’s work will hopefully pave the way for future generations of women litigators.”

Foley & Lardner LLP has received the Corporate Citizen Award from the Three Harbors Boys Scouts of America Council, which seeks to honor a particular organization that exemplifies the Scout Law through community service and upstanding business practices. The award will be presented at the Distinguished Citizen Award Dinner in Milwaukee on November 17, 2022.

Foley was selected for its long-standing support of Scouting, as well as the firm’s significant pro bono support through Partner Peter Fetzer to Three Harbors Council. Mr. Fetzer is a partner in the firm’s Milwaukee office, where he focuses his practice on securities regulation, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and general corporate counseling to mutual funds, exchange traded funds, publicly traded investment advisers and public companies.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Legal Profession

Womble Bond Dickinson attorneys Britt Biles and Stephanie Yarbrough have been selected for inclusion on Women We Admire’s 2022 Top 50 Women Leaders in the Law list, which celebrates influential and successful women in the legal field.

Ms. Biles is a Litigation Group Partner who played a key role in the federal government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. After her time as Associate White House Counsel and SEC senior enforcer, Biles became Senior Counsel of the Small Business Administration, where she was principal legal advisor to the CARES Act Administrator and an active participant in drafting guidance for the Paycheck Protection Program. At Womble Bond Dickinson, she focuses her practice on business litigation and government investigations.

Ms. Yarbrough is a Womble Bond Dickinson Global Board Member and Economic Development Team Co-Chair who has spent her two-decade legal career aiding economic development in the southeastern United States by helping domestic and international companies expand their operations to Charleston and surrounding regions. Yarbrough’s role in creating thousands of new jobs and billions in investments has led her to become an industry thought leader, speaking at local and national events and appearing in a 2017 New York Times article about Charleston’s economy.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP Partner Gary L. Howard has been selected to serve a one-year term as Vice Chair of the Defense Research Institute’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. The Birmingham, Alabama attorney has been active with DRI for many years, previously serving as Diversity Expo Chair, Diversity for Success Seminar & Corporate Expo Program Chair, and Annual Meeting Steering Committee Member. Howard’s appointment comes on the heels of his 2021 Albert H. Parnell Outstanding Program Chair Award, which he received for creating engaging educational programming for DRI.

Mr. Howard’s 25-year legal career has seen him managing commercial litigation related to class actions, mass torts, contract disputes, insurance cases, and related matters. He has argued in state and federal courtrooms and is admitted to practice in more than ten states.

Moore & Van Allen have announced the creation of a new Civil Rights & Racial Equity Assessments Practice within their White Collar, Regulatory Defense & Investigation Practice. Fifteen of MVA’s most experienced investigative attorneys will harness the firm’s ESG, internal and cross-border probe, and human trafficking prevention expertise to conduct public-facing racial equity and civil rights audits. These reviews will assist businesses interested in improving their internal and external diversity practices.

Valecia M. McDowell, who will be leading the new practice, commented, “Our Civil Rights & Racial Equity Assessments Practice brings together our deep experience and bench strength in key areas to help our clients strategically assess their internal and external practices, programs, and policies to more thoroughly and thoughtfully address diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).”

Article By Chandler Ford, Shelby Garrett, and Crissonna Tennison of The National Law Review / The National Law Forum LLC

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Copyright ©2022 National Law Forum, LLC

Attorney Mindfulness When Addressing Emails and Texts: ABA Formal Opinion Provides Ethical Guidance to Lawyers on Electronic Communications

In their roles as advisors, advocates, counselors, negotiators, and client representatives, lawyers communicate extensively though electronic means, particularly email and increasingly text messages. However, the fact that use of these electronic communication tools is commonplace in legal practice doesn’t mean that attorneys shouldn’t exercise caution when crafting their communications. The American Bar Association (“ABA”) Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility published a formal opinion this month that advises lawyers to refrain generally from including their clients on emails and texts sent to opposing counsel.

ABA Formal Opinion 503 focuses on ABA Model Rule 4.2, often referred to as the “no-contact” rule. Under this model rule, a lawyer who is representing a client may not communicate about the subject of the representation with a represented person absent the consent of that person’s lawyer unless the law or court order authorizes such as communication. Most states’ codes of professional legal ethics draw heavily upon the ABA Model Rules, so many states have similar “no-contact” rules for lawyers.

The new formal opinion states that lawyers would not be deemed to violate ABA Model Rule 4.2 if they send a “reply all” response to a group email or text sent by an opposing counsel, even if that communication includes the opposing counsel’s client. The opinion states that, “[a]bsent special circumstances, lawyers who copy their clients on emails or other forms of electronic communication to counsel representing another person in the matter impliedly consent to a ‘reply all’ response from the receiving counsel,” the opinion said. “Accordingly, the reply all communication would not violate Model Rule 4.2.”

As a practical matter, Formal Opinion 503 provides a number of options to lawyers who wish to avoid creating an implied presumption of consent to such “reply all” communications from opposing counsel to their clients. These options include:

  • forwarding the electronic communication separately to the client without including opposing counsel as an addressee,
  • informing receiving counsel expressly and in advance that including the client on the electronic communication does not constitute a consent to a “reply all” response, or
  • sending the communication through other means (such as a mailed hard copy letter) where different norms are in place regarding responding to all addressees.

The full text of ABA Formal Opinion 503 is available here.

Article By Electronic Discovery at K&L Gates

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Lawyer Career Change: Everything to Know

Burnout, stress, or the curiosity of exploring a new career path are some of the most common reasons lawyers change careers. After all, for some, the idea of being a lawyer might have turned out to be pretty different than the reality of working at a firm.

Before making any immediate changes, be as clear as possible about why you’re looking for a career shift and what you’re looking for in your next role. With these insights at hand, you’ll be better positioned to strategically move forward — and even keep one foot in the door behind you as you go.

Find out everything you should know about making a career change as a lawyer.

When to Change Careers as a Lawyer

Being a lawyer can consume much of your time and energy. Maybe you’re facing a big life change and looking for more work/life balance or you’re tired of big law and considering solo practice. Alternatively, your talents and personality may be better suited for another field entirely.

When considering your need for a change, ask yourself these questions:

  • What do I enjoy about my work in law?

  • What depletes my energy as a lawyer? What do I enjoy least?

  • What are my passions? When do I feel most fulfilled or energized?

  • What is my ideal work culture? Management style? Company culture?

Then, comb through your skillset. Reflect on your strengths as a lawyer. You might excel at analysis and research, or you could also be an expert persuasive communicator.

This way, you can start thinking about other careers that might match well, or even better, with those in-demand skills. A strong negotiator could be well suited for a sales career or even running a company. Skilled researchers could become regulatory investigators or corporate analysts. Practicing law develops a host of skills that can readily transfer to many careers in the public and private sectors.

Alternative Careers for Lawyers

The list goes on and on for viable alternative careers for lawyers. As you shift away from legal practice, here are a few career paths to consider:

  • Legal consulting: This path lets you continue working on your lawyer skill set at a distance from the courtroom. You could be a consultant for a company or private individuals, advising clients on tricky legal issues and offering recommendations.

  • Legal project management: Legal project managers get to be involved with legal cases, but from the higher level of a practice manager. They ensure that the firm stays on top of all legal tasks, monitoring the firm’s processes for inefficiencies, and implementing strategies to improve client satisfaction and drive revenue.

  • Legal writing: As a legal writer, you could work anywhere from a law firm to a government agency to a marketing company or even a newspaper. If you like uncovering stories and informing the public, journalism could make a good fit. If you don’t want to walk out of a law practice entirely, you could focus on case research and write legal documents.

  • Legal billing specialist: If numbers are your sweet spot, consider legal billing. You’ll research any issues related to billing, prepare invoices and proformas, and ensure a firm gets paid for its services.

Pro Tip: No matter the legal profession track, having a working knowledge of law practice management software can give you a competitive edge in the market.

How to Change Careers as a Lawyer

Changing careers is about more than figuring out your dream job, of course. Once you have a better sense of your transferable skills and what you enjoy doing most, it’s time to tap into your network.

If you have professional relationships and friendships outside of the law, it’s time to leverage them. These relationships will not only give you a fresh perspective on life outside of a law career, but they could also provide valuable insight and leads on your next career move. Be prepared to let your network know that you’re shifting gears and what you’re looking for next. To ensure that you don’t lose your connection to legal practice entirely, consider working pro bono as you figure out your next options or after you change careers. This way, you can do fulfilling work and keep your legal skills fresh.

Article By Nina Lee of PracticePanther

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© Copyright 2022 PracticePanther

Fall 2022 Legal Industry News Highlights: Law Firm Hiring and Expansion, Notable Awards and Recognition, and the Latest in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Happy November! As the holiday season approaches, we hope you and yours are remaining safe, happy, and healthy. Please read on below for the latest in legal industry updates, including notable law firm hirings and expansions, legal awards and recognition, and diversity, equity, and inclusion news.

Law Firm Hiring and Updates

Ropes & Gray has named 21 new partners as of November 1st, 2022. They have been selected for their roles as outstanding advisors to the firm’s clients across the globe, representing practices and specialties across sectors such as healthcare, life sciences, technology, labor and employment, and more.

“We are pleased to welcome this new group of partners, who are uniquely positioned to help our clients thrive in today’s uncertain economic environment,” said Chair Julie Jones. “These lawyers are problem solvers and big-picture thinkers, guided by a commercial approach and a deep understanding of the law.”

The firm’s newest partners are as follows: Samantha Barrett Badlam, Stephanie Bruce, Drew Clary, Dan Coyne, Sally Davis, William T. Davison, Gabrielle DiBernardi, Shona Ha, Laura Hirst, Yoni Levy, Nichole Lopez-Tackett, Jessica Marlin, Pascal Mayer, Anthony Mongone, Jessica Reece, Ben Rhode, Scott Rolnik, Alexander Simkin, Annie Sipe, PJ Sullivan, and Dan Zuckerman.

Baker Donelson has added Jill Walters to its Corporate Restructuring & Bankruptcy Group. Located in the firm’s Raleigh/Research Triangle office, Ms. Walters joins as a shareholder, providing more than fifteen years of experience counseling clients in restructuring, bankruptcy, insolvency, and complex Chapter 11 cases. Her work spans many industries and sectors, such as healthcare, manufacturing, real estate, and construction.

“I am thrilled to welcome Jill to the Firm. She is an excellent addition to our team and further deepens our bankruptcy and restructuring bench,” said Eric L. Pruitt, leader of Baker Donelson’s Corporate Restructuring & Bankruptcy Group. “Jill joins a dedicated team that has extensive litigation and transactional experience, and is advising clients in highly complex financial restructuring and bankruptcy cases.”

Morgen A. Mueller has joined Goldberg Segalla as an associate in the firm’s Chicago office. Now a part of the Workers’ Compensation practice group, Ms. Mueller focuses her practices on representing and defending insurers, administrators, and employers in all aspects of employment law, managing claims at all stages, including discovery, hearings, depositions, arbitrations, mediations, and trials.

Previously, Ms. Mueller served as legal counsel at Liberty Mutual Insurance, where she handled workers’ compensation defense cases and personal injury cases.

Davis|Kuelthau s.c. and SmithAmundsen LLC have announced that they will formally merge on November 1st, 2022, to form Amundsen Davis, LLC. The firm will offer services in a wide variety of areas, including labor and employment, intellectual property, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, real estate, and more. Comprised of twelve offices across the US, Amundsen Davis will serve clients both nationally and internationally.

“SmithAmundsen has grown steadily and strategically over the last 25 years to add service areas and expand our geographic reach to truly benefit our clients,” said Managing Partner Larry A. Schechtman. “The opportunity to combine with a firm that is so like-minded is one we are very excited about. What will set Amundsen Davis apart from its large law firm competition is our ability to maintain a boutique firm feeling in terms of client service while providing the resources and infrastructure of a large national firm.”

Legal Industry Awards and Recognition

Julia Perkins, partner at Varnum LLP, was named Class of 2022 Leaders in the Law by Michigan Lawyers Weekly. This honor goes to lawyers who have had outstanding accomplishments, exhibited leadership in improving the justice system in Michigan, and have made improvements to the legal community.

Ms. Perkins is the leader of Varnum’s Family Law Practice Group. Her contributions go beyond the legal field as she has served on the advisory committee for Kids Talk Children’s Advocacy Center since 2005. Using her legal experience, she volunteers as a mediator for Lakeshore Legal Aid. Lakeshore Legal Aid provides legal services to low-income families, seniors, and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

LMG Life Sciences recognized five ArentFox Schiff lawyers’ outstanding work in the life sciences industry. The organization specifically recognizes key North American law firms and lawyers that work in the field of life sciences, taking into account case evidence, peer feedback, and client feedback for rankings.

The ArentFox Schiff attorneys that were selected, as well as their practice groups, are as follows:

  • Partner Imron Aly – Hatch-Waxman Patent Litigation
  • Partner Richard J Berman – General Patent Litigation, Patent Prosecution, Patent Strategy & Management, Hatch-Waxman Patent Litigation
  • Partner Kevin Nelson – Hatch-Waxman Patent Litigation
  • Partner Sailesh Patel – Hatch-Waxman Patent Litigation
  • Partner Stephanie Trunk – Healthcare Pricing & Reimbursement

Rhonda Tobin of Robinson & Cole LLP was one of five women recognized for Managing Partner of the Year in Corporate Counsel’s 2022 Women, Influence and Power in Law (WIPL) Awards. The WIPL Awards are meant to honor general counsel, in-house attorneys, and other law firm leaders who have demonstrated ongoing efforts to empower women in the legal profession, and who have overall made a substantial impact on the field.

Ms. Tobin is a partner at Robinson+Cole and has spent 32 years working on high-profile insurance coverage litigation. She has served as Managing Committee for 12 years and as a chair of the firm’s Litigation Section for 13 years before becoming the firm’s first woman managing partner. This year, she was also listed in the Hartford Business Journal’s 2022 Power Players Section, and she has also been recognized on the Insurance Law Trailblazers list from the National Law Journal.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Global law firm Kennedys and U.S. law firm Miller Canfield have achieved Mansfield Plus Certification from Diversity Lab, a DEI incubator. Diversity Lab adopted the Mansfield Rule, a 12-month program for law firms to boost underrepresented groups in firm leadership, in 2017. The 2021-2022 Mansfield 5.0 program required firms to consider at least 30% historically marginalized groups for at least 70% of senior promotions and enrichment roles, track and document job candidate demographics, submit three-month, six-month, and annual surveys and data collections, and build professional community with other firms.

Kennedys achieved U.S and U.K. certification as a first-time participant in the program. “Kennedys has always been committed to D&I but participating in Mansfield provided both a structure and a mechanism for accountability that allowed us to move beyond words to concrete action. It was a turning point for all of us and has allowed us to continue to identify concrete goals for the future,” says Meg Catalano, US Regional Managing Partner and Global Board Member.

Miller Canfield is a veteran of the Mansfield Program. The firm was the first in Michigan to adopt the rule, one of 27 firms to achieve certification in the program’s first year, and one of 39 to be certified five years in a row.

“When we first adopted the Mansfield Rule, we didn’t know how or if this small, but influential, group would have an impact on the profession and on law firms nationwide,” said Miller Canfield CEO Megan Norris. “We didn’t know whether law firms would be ready to adopt this level of transparency and accountability. We’re pleased to see that the movement is growing and maintaining momentum to create an opportunity for equity in law firms.”

The American Association for Access, Equity And Diversity presented Jackson Lewis P.C. with their 2022 President’s Award at a virtual award ceremony on October 13th, 2022. The award is intended to recognize organizations that have demonstrated ongoing commitment to the AAAED and their mission of expanding access, equity, and diversity.

Jackson Lewis’ Affirmative Action, OFCCP and Government Contract Compliance practice group works with clients and partners to foster a strong DEI culture within a wide range of powerful organizations and industries. The firm has collaborated with AAAED on a number of initiatives, from providing faculty for the AAAED Professional Training Institute to participating on an AAAED amicus brief team to submit two briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina.

“We are thrilled to be recognized for the President’s Award,” says Matthew J. Camardella, co-leader of the firm’s Affirmative Action, OFCCP and Government Contract Compliance group. “I would like to thank Firm Chair Kevin G. Lauri and Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer and Principal Kimya S.P. Johnson for continuing to invest in our partnership with AAAED and its mission to promote and protect policies that ensure equity and inclusion in all spheres of opportunity.”

Article By Chandler Ford, Crissonna Tennison, and Shelby Garrett of The National Law Review / The National Law Forum LLC

For more business of law legal news, click here to visit the National Law Review.

Copyright ©2022 National Law Forum, LLC

The Do’s and Don’ts of Data Cleaning – Don’t Drown in Bad Data

Bad CRM data can compound exponentially, impacting marketing and business development. It’s essential to understand the scope of  your data problems and follow a plan for regular data cleaning.  

Have you ever heard the saying, “No man ever steps into the same river twice”? Because a river’s water is constantly flowing and changing, the water you step in today will be different from yesterday. The same is true for the data in your CRM system: people are constantly changing roles, relocating, retiring; companies are opening, closing, moving and merging.

On top of that, new data isn’t always entered correctly. As a result, a database with clean, correct information today will not necessarily be accurate tomorrow. Over time, this bad data can compound exponentially, resulting in ineffective marketing, events and communication campaigns because as your data degrades, you reach fewer members of your target audience.

For professional services firms, poor data quality in your CRM system can also translate into a decline in system adoption. Once your professionals see bad data, they won’t trust the system as a whole and ultimately may outright refuse to use it. This is why we stress the importance of ongoing data cleaning.

Data Cleaning Do’s and Don’ts

Simply put, data cleaning involves identifying incorrect, incomplete and/or dated data in your systems and correcting and enhancing it. If you have a large database with thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of records, the data quality process can seem daunting and overwhelming.

While there’s no magic bullet or quick fix for poor data quality, ignoring data problems until there’s a crisis is not a strategy. Good data quality requires ongoing effort that never ends. The good news is that this means you have forever to get better at it. So, start now. Begin by assessing the scope of your data quality issues. Then, because it’s not always cost-effective or even possible to clean all your data, start by focusing on the highest priority projects.

Identify and Prioritize Your Most Important Data

All contact records are not created equal. For instance, client data is typically more important than non-client data. Additionally, individuals who have recently subscribed to your communications or attended an event are more important than those who last interacted with your firm years ago. Whatever segmenting scenario you select, it’s important to find ways to divide your contact data into manageable pieces because it makes the process more manageable and allows you to better measure progress.

Eliminate Stagnant Records

Related to prioritizing your data, don’t be hesitant about removing records that have been inactive for an extended period. Search your system for contacts that have not been updated for a few years, are not related to or known by any of your professionals, are not clients or alumni, and have not opened a communication or invitation in two to three years. Chances are good these records are not only outdated but also may not be worth the resources it would take to update them. Identify these records and consider removing them from the system. Less mess in your database makes cleanup a bit more manageable.

Your Plan Is Your Life Preserver

Once you’ve prioritized subsets or segments of contacts, identifying and prioritizing your most common data errors can help you decide on the best way to tackle ongoing data cleaning. For example, if you have an important email that needs to be sent to clients, you need to focus on email addresses. Identify records that don’t have an email address, have incorrectly formatted email addresses or have bounced recently.

In addition, if there are contacts you haven’t sent a communication or invitation to for an extended period of time, it’s entirely likely that their email may no longer be valid. It’s important to regularly test emails on your lists because not doing so can cause you to be blacklisted by anti-spam entities or have your account blocked by your eMarketing provider.

Initial Cleaning Cycle

The best place to start your data cleaning cycle is with a contact and list verification and cleansing service such as TrueDQ. This service will evaluate your list data, identify potentially harmful “honeypot” email addresses and even automatically update many of your contacts with current, complete contact information. The data can then also be enhanced with additional missing information, such as industries and locations, to help with targeting and segmenting.

Rinse and Repeat

When one segment or list has been cleaned, move on to the next one – bearing in mind that what’s important on the next list may be different from the last one. For example, maybe you need to send a hard copy postal mailing, so it will be important to ensure the accuracy of physical mailing addresses rather than email addresses.

Bounces and Returns

One of the most common data quality failures at law and other professional services firms is ignoring bounced emails and returned hard copy mailings. Bounces and returns are real-time indicators that can help you keep on top of your data quality. Researching and correcting them is important because sometimes they involve important former clients who could potentially hire the firm again at their new company.

Returned hard mail will often include the forwarding address of the recipient, which should be corrected in your CRM. For emails, use a central email address to collect automatic email replies, since these frequently tell you when a recipient no longer works at an organization.

Ideally, data stewards should regularly review all bounces to take the onus off the professionals. However, it can also be helpful to generate reports on bounced communications and circulate them to professionals or their assistants who may be able to provide updated information – or will at least appreciate knowing which of their contacts have moved on or changed roles.

Finally, if your eMarketing and/or CRM system has a process for automatically isolating bounced records, be sure you have a reciprocal process that automatically reinstates bounced records when the email field is updated.

Prevent Invalid Data

There are multiple ways to encourage good data habits, depending on your system and method of contact entry. If your firm relies on manual data entry, implement a firmwide Data Standards Guide to inform users how data should be entered (e.g., does your firm spell out or abbreviate job titles?). It can also be helpful to use system validation rules wherever possible to require certain information in new records such as last name, city and email address to ensure your contacts are relevant.

Finally, regularly review newly added records for consistency and completeness. This process can reveal issues such as users who may require additional training on contact input best practices. It can also help to catch spam or other potentially dangerous entries that can sometimes flow into your database from online forms that are filled out by bots.

Never, Ever Stop

Just as rivers keep flowing, so does the data in your CRM system – and the data will always need cleaning to ensure that it is fresh. While this may feel like a relentless and burdensome task, never stop – just go with the flow –  because when you’re not regularly cleaning the data, your CRM “river” can become stagnant, and the more polluted it becomes, the longer the eventual cleanup will take.

Article By Christina R. Fritsch JD and Rachel Fields of CLIENTSFirst Consulting

For more business of law legal news, click here to visit the National Law Review.

© Copyright 2022 CLIENTSFirst Consulting

ADA Compliance for Law Firm Websites in 2022

Legal reasoning involves applying the law to the facts to determine the rights and duties of those involved in a situation. Lawyers frequently take the position that the application of rules should settle disputes and that policies will be considered, if at all, only when there is a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the applicability of the rule. The lawyer might take the position that it is always preferable to seek the result that would further the underlying policies, even if that result would be contrary to the clear language of the rules.

But what if no explicit rules currently exist?

That is the issue with website compliance under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The Act does not offer specific guidelines to follow; however, websites are expected to be easily accessible to everyone, including those who are disabled. The failure to create an ADA-compliant website could expose an organization to discrimination lawsuits, financial liabilities, and severe damage to its reputation.

What is the ADA?

The ADA compels certain businesses, including banks, hotels, restaurants, public transit, law firms, and others to make accommodations for people with disabilities. According to the National Law Review, the Act is divided into three parts:

  • Title I prohibits employers from discriminating against employees based on disability and requires them to provide reasonable accommodation to certain employees under specific circumstances.
  • Title II covers state and local governments.
  • Title III covers “places of public accommodation,” which the ADA does not define, but are generally private businesses or organizations that provide goods, services, facilities, privileges, or accommodations to the public. These places commonly include schools, restaurants, health care providers, social service agencies, law firms, and more.

The ADA is commonly associated with physical locations and the accommodations that certain businesses must make for people with disabilities, which include wheelchair accessibility, reserved parking, and service animals. Companies that fall under ADA Title I and operate 20 or more weeks per year with at least 15 full-time employees, or Title III – those that fall under the category of public accommodation – must be ADA-compliant.

Although physical “brick-and-mortar” locations are nearly always considered places of public accommodation, the debate is ongoing as to whether a business’s website is a place of accommodation. If so, the digital content must be accessible to all users.

A law firm website must be designed so that those who are disabled can access it easily to comply with ADA requirements. While there are no well-defined regulations that describe precisely what an ADA-compliant website should include, businesses that fall under ADA Title I or ADA Title III are required to develop a website that offers “reasonable accessibility” to people with disabilities.

Compliance Tools & Plugins

Because the ADA doesn’t offer specific guidelines for website compliance, many organizations follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG), updated to 2.1 in 2018. While WCAG isn’t a legal requirement, its requirements have been followed in the European Union and other nations since 1999 and still serves as a reference for businesses that want to improve accessibility to their website.

Under WCAG 2.1, website accessibility concerns generally fall into four groups. These include issues that are:

  • Perceivable – issues that affect users’ ability to locate and process the information on a website, e.g., many visually-impaired individuals use screen readers to distinguish between the text and the background to help them navigate online content.
  • Operable – challenges that impair users’ ability to navigate a site, e.g., functions and navigations such as online forms should be accessible via keyboard-only commands, and users who need additional time to complete them should be allowed to do so.
  • Understandable – users should be able to comprehend the information on the site, e.g., error messages that provide an explanation and directions for correcting an error should be offered.
  • Robust – can be interpreted by various devices and platforms according to the varying needs and abilities of users, e.g., the alt text that should pop up to let users know what it is when read by assistive technology when they hover over an image.

Here are more suggestions regarding what to include to help ensure ADA website compliance:

  • “Alt” tags for every media file and map
  • Descriptive HTML tags for online forms
  • Hyperlinks with descriptive anchor text
  • “Skip navigation” links on all website pages
  • Heading tags to organize text
  • Accessible PDF files
  • Subtitles, transcripts, and audio descriptions for videos
  • Accessible fonts for all applications
  • HTML tables with column headers, row IDs, and cell information
  • Captions written in English for audio files
  • Call-to-action buttons with easily accessible names and ARIA labels
  • A website accessibility policy
  • Easy to find contact information

Meeting these guidelines will make a firm’s website more accessible to those with vision or hearing impairments, as well as cognitive, language, or learning disabilities.

Court Rulings Regarding Website ADA Compliance

According to the American Bar Association (ABA), the number of accessibility-related lawsuits filed against websites has increased dramatically in recent years. Plaintiffs are basing these lawsuits on two legal theories:

  1. Title IIIs “equal access and general nondiscrimination mandate
  2. A requirement that places of public accommodation must provide auxiliary aids and services as necessary (for no extra charge)

Although neither Title III nor its regulations mention websites and mobile applications, the phase “auxiliary aids and services” includes “accessible electronic and information technology,” which covers websites and mobile apps.

ADA Title III Lawsuits Filed Each Year Graph
Image by Seyfarth via adatitleiii.com

A recent ABA analysis of court filings related to ADA website compliance found:

  • Federal courts across the country were inundated with more than 8,000 website accessibility lawsuits between 2017 and 2020.
  • In 2020, three states – New York, Florida, and California – brought more than 85 percent of all the ADA website compliance lawsuits.
  • Since 2018, website and mobile app accessibility disputes have accounted for approximately 20 percent of all ADA Title III cases initiated in federal courts, which now regularly exceed 10,000 suits each year.

These statistics do not consider a significant number of website and mobile app cases pursued in state courts, cases settled before filing in court, and DOJ enforcement proceedings that are resolved prior to court filing.

Here are some examples of court rulings related to ADA compliance and websites:

Gil v. Winn-Dixie Stores Inc.

In June 2107, a Florida court ruled in favor of a blind plaintiff who brought an ADA violation lawsuit against Winn-Dixie. The man claimed that aspects of the supermarket chain’s site weren’t compatible with screen readers, leaving him unable to order his medications online or download rewards cards. The trial court agreed that the website was inaccessible to those with impaired vision and ordered that it be brought into compliance with the WCAG 2.0 Level AA.

Although Winn-Dixie complied with the court order, in April 2021, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the trial court’s decision, finding that Winn-Dixie was not in violation of the ADA because it did not need accessibility aids to conduct business. After that, however, Winn-Dixie posted an accessibility statement on its website that commits to adhere to WCAG 2.0 AA by using testers from the disability community to check the accessibility of their website periodically.

Robles v. Domino’s Pizza

Domino’s Pizza lost a website accessibility lawsuit in 2019 after years of exhaustive litigation when a federal district court in California granted the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment after it determined that the website was indeed not fully accessible. The court ordered Domino’s to make its website compliant with the WCAG 2.0 to connect customers to the goods and services of Domino’s physical restaurants.

The court held that the ADA applied to Domino’s website and app because the Act requires places of public accommodation, like Domino’s, to offer auxiliary aids and services to make visual materials available to blind individuals. Although customers primarily access the Domino’s website and app outside its physical restaurants, the court found that the Act pertains to the services of public accommodation, not services in a place of public accommodation.

Andrews v. Blick Art Materials

In 2017, Victor Andrews, who is blind, filed a lawsuit against Blick Art Materials for website inaccessibility. Andrews alleged that because Blick’s website was inaccessible, he could not navigate and purchase items on the defendant’s website independently. When Blick made a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Judge Jack Weisenstein denied it and made this statement:

Today, internet technology enables individuals to participate actively in their community and engage in commerce from the comfort and convenience of their home. It would be a cruel irony to adopt the interpretation of the ADA espoused by Blick, which would render the legislation intended to emancipate the disabled from the bonds of isolation and segregation obsolete when its objective is increasingly within reach.

The ruling in this case and others illustrates that businesses need to consider their websites equivalent to a place of public accommodation, which puts them at risk of being sued, even without explicit web accessibility regulations.

Latest DOJ Guidelines

In 2010, the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched a rulemaking process to address ADA requirements for website accessibility, including technical standards for accessible websites. However, that effort stalled for seven years during the Obama administration (even though the administration continued to pursue investigations and enforcement actions against businesses with inaccessible websites).

The Trump administration abandoned the process to interpret the ADA entirely in 2017. In 2018, the DOJ revealed that it would not give official guidance regarding website accessibility under the Act, releasing this statement:

The Department is evaluating whether promulgating regulations about the accessibility of Web information and services is necessary and appropriate. Such an evaluation will be informed by additional review of data and further analysis. The Department will continue to assess whether specific technical standards are necessary and appropriate to assist covered entities with complying with the ADA.

Since the DOJ’s withdrawal, the number of lawsuits involving website accessibility increased dramatically, raising awareness regarding website accessibility among businesses but also causing confusion surrounding what features an ADA-compliant website should include. As a result, numerous website accessibility consulting companies emerged promising inexpensive solutions. However, some have been challenged in court.

In June 2018, some bipartisan members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions encouraging the DOJ to release clear website accessibility regulations to diminish the unclear nature of current legislation. On September 25, 2018, the DOJ responded by stating that, at this time, the DOJ would not be issuing web accessibility regulations under the ADA: “The Department has consistently taken the position that the absence of a specific regulation does not serve as a basis for noncompliance with a statute’s requirements.”

In March 2022, the DOJ issued further web accessibility guidance under the ADA. The “new” guidance references both the WCAG – which are voluntary – and Section 508 standards, which set standards for federal websites, and indicates that the DOJ supports the notion that sites of public accommodation must be accessible, and in the absence of explicit regulations, websites can be flexible in how they choose to comply with the ADA’s requirements. However, the guidance does not clarify what such flexibility or choice entails and– not necessarily the direction regulation-seekers are looking for, since it provides no substantially new information regarding the vagueness of website accessibility requirements under the ADA.

Final Thoughts

As accessibility regulations for websites remain unclear, it can be easy for organizations to assume that they cannot be sued for noncompliance. However, with no specific standards to follow, law firms and other businesses must do their best to interpret the ADA, practice website accessibility as they see fit, and try to avoid website accessibility-related lawsuits.

One more thing to consider: ambiguity runs both ways, and even though an organization might think its website is accessible, a disabled person might think otherwise, providing the grounds for a lawsuit. Organizations aren’t granted immunity simply because of a lack of clarity in legislation. Instead, uncertainty allows for interpretation by anyone, including the courts.

This article was authored by Jan Hill of Lawmatics.

For more business of law legal news, click here to visit the National Law Review.

©2022 — Lawmatics