Today Thomson Reuters is announcing the release of a major new workflow and pricing solution called Panoramic. The product merges features of Practical Law their knowledge management platform with their cloud based accounting solution 3E.

Several years ago I had an opportunity to see an early version of Panoramic when it was known as Project

We kicked off Wednesday’s webinar with each of the panelists sharing  a quote which describes their approach to innovation or which  was inspired by an innovation challenge in their career. Here are the panelists quotes:

Competence is the enemy of change, look to the incompetent for innovation – Martin Korn

  • An expert can be blind

I will be doing a presentation with colleague Stacy Pangilinan entitled: Why Are We Paying for That? Reinventing the Budget Process with Project Management and KM Principles.”

The conference has assembled a roster of well known legal KM experts. who will focus on the intersection of KM with AI, Blockchain, cybersecurity, gamification,

Today Courtroom Insight, Daubert Tracker and Expert Witness Profiler  are releasing the  results of a new survey which was “developed to better understand commonly used expert witness research and retention techniques among litigation professionals.” Every law firm with a litigation practice is aware of the pain points associated with identifying, researching and validating experts.

The nationwide survey was conducted by email in late 2017 and early 2018.  Thousands of litigation professionals, including attorneys, law librarians and paralegals, were invited to complete the survey, with 580 actual respondents.  Although advanced technology solutions have been developed for legal research, ediscovery and case management; expert witness research is still a feral and largely untamed workflow. There is no shortage of vendors hawking a “magic bullet” solution – but the survey below indicates that the market is
Continue Reading Surprise -Your Expert Witness Has a Rapsheet – New Survey Examines the Sorry State of Expert Research Workflow in Law Firms

The results of the 2017 Start Stop Survey are in. Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey. My apologies for the delay in compiling the results – let me blame a series of unexpected events starting in December and continuing through the spring.

Can it Be? The Best New Legal Information Product is FREE!  Although AALL’s daily newsletter launched in late 2016 it really gained traction in 2017. I am also a daily reader. Know It AALL aggregates legal knowledge and technology stories from around the web ranging from academic publications to popular blogs and news sites. It is like a fresh cup of news serendipity to drink in along with your morning coffee. (Full disclosure: I am currently on the Board of the American Association of Law Libraries which publishes the newsletter..) The Know it AALL is available for free to anyone who wishes to subscribe at this link.

What is the best NEW PRODUCT you became aware of in 2017?
Continue Reading Start Stop Survey Results AALL’s — “The Know it AALL” Is Voted Best New Product and Bloomberg Law’s “Docket Key” Best New Feature

I recently authored the following article which appeared in the October issue of Thomson Reuter’s Practice Innovations.

Knowing Value: The Rise of the Law Firm Chief Knowledge Officer

This past July the American Lawyer published its first rebranded annual Survey of Law Firm Knowledge Management, Library, and Research Professionals and focused on the rise of

The October issue of Thomson Reuters’ Practice Innovations has been released. Practice Innovations is a quarterly publication which focuses on best practices and innovations in law firm information and knowledge management for legal professionals.

Here is a  list of the latest articles:

Blockchain, Bitcoin, and Law: A Distributed Disruption, By Rohit Talwar, CEO, Fast

Starting this fall, information professionals will have a new and unique opportunity prepare for leadership roles in libraries and knowledge-centric organizations– such as law firms. St. John’s University’s Division of Library and Information Science is accepting applications for a new online program for  an Advanced Certificate in Management for Information Professionals. Information about enrollment

Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. continues to release new products and features with astonishing regularity.

M&A Clause Analytics Home Page

On July 24th, they released M&A Clause Analytics, a new workflow tool which combines machine learning and human expert curation to streamline the M&A drafting process. The product is designed to help lawyers quickly locate the best model documents and clauses. Wolters Kluwer Partnered with Kingsly Martin of KM Standards to develop a statistical analysis of 17000 documents from WK’s RB Source database of SEC Filings. According to the press release the product is designed in response to a legal market focused on enhancing “quality, efficiency, and ease of preparing merger and acquisition agreements.” M&A Analytics which covers 13 document types. will be a central component of the Transactional Law Suite for Securities.Continue Reading Wolters Kluwer Partners with KM Standards and Launches AI Workflow Tool: M&A Clause Analytics

The recent AALL Annual Conference in Austin was “hands down,”  the most exciting AALL Program I have ever attended. The programs were great – it was often hard to decide which panel to attend. I found my own panels  (Moneyball Analytics and Hits and Misses in New Products) up against programs that I hated to miss (the Innovation Tournament and an “all star”  CEO panel ( Fastcase – Walters, Casetext – Heller, Ross – Aruda,  Ravel – Lewis ) on AI and analytics prodded and provoked  by moderator Prof, Susan Nevelow Mart.

Legal Bloggers O’Keefe and Ambrogi Join Me in The AALL Exhibit Hall

Legal Tech thought leaders Bob Ambrogi and Kevin O’Keefe were a familiar sight at the panets, events, exhibits (and the nightly Fastcase after party). Earlier this week Ambrogi lauded AALL as one of the best conferences for those interested in legal tech. Is the market finally getting what information professionals have known all along? The legal profession requires content experts to navigate the burgeoning market of AI and analytics offerings. AALL: The Other Legal Tech Conference

The Second Oldest Legal Profession I spent time in the exhibit hall with Lexblog’s Kevin O’Keefe who commented on  the quality and variety of  panels and programs at the conference.

O’Keefe was surprised to learn that AALL had been around since 1906. In fact, in the legal community,  only the American Bar Association has an earlier founding …1878. AALL predates every other law related association by decades. It was 65 years before the Association of Legal Administrators was founded in 1971, 74 years before ILTA was founded in 1980, 79 years before the Legal Marketing Association was founded in 1985.

O’Keefe also commented on the importance of information professionals by comparison to other law firm administrative functions. “Lawyers could still practice law without technology, or marketing or administrative help, but legal information always was and remains core to the practice of law.”

O’Keefe has a point which goes beyond the core practice of law. Law firms have become complex, regional, national and multi-national organizations. Business intelligence and legal knowledge has never been more critical to the current high stakes competitive market, no one else in the firm is better qualified to assess the potential value of research products offering AI and analytics… and yet…information professionals occupy relatively few seats in the legal C-Suite compared to the technologists and marketing professionals. The person who understand the quality of information should be at the table and not down the organization chart out of ear shot.

But this may be about to change…
Continue Reading The Second Oldest Legal Profession: Law Librarians: The Analytics and Algorithms of Change in the Legal C-Suite