MinnLawyer blog

After the Super Bowl (congratulations Saints!), a new showed premiered on CBS called “Undercover Boss.” In the inaugural episode, the head of Waste Management, Larry O’Donnell, worked for a week incognito within his own company, doing the jobs his underlings usually do, from cleaning out port-a-potties to picking up trash. By the end of it, he comes to the stunning realization that the average joes in his company have it pretty tough and vows to make things better (mostly by creating a series of tasks forces). Apparently they are doing this same schtick with the CEOs of a number of major corporations. Next up (I kid you not) will be the CEO of Hooters going undercover in his own operation.

In any case, the show got me wondering what would happen if we could apply that concept to law firms. It would never work in real life, because even the biggest firms are small enough where the managing partner would be recognized by the rank and file. But what if it could be done. Could you picture a managing partner masquerading as an entry-level associate? A recent law school grad applying for a job? A paralegal? A legal secretary?

What would the managing partner learn about the treatment of these various groups within the firm culture? I”d tune in to see that.

Kim Schmid became Bowman & Brooke's managing partner on Feb. 1

A couple of years back, it was proudly proclaimed that women had reached equality in attending law school. In 2001, the American Bar Association reported that 49 percent of entering law students were women. A few years later, it was announced for the first time there would be more women than men entering law school. There is some irony that, at the exact moment in history women have reached parity in becoming lawyers, the bottom has fallen out of the job market for new law grads and entering salaries appear to be on the decline. (Conspiracy theorists, you  may talk among yourselves now.)

Few people would seriously connect these things. New lawyers’ bleak job prospects are a byproduct of the down economy and a saturation of the market rather than a gender equality issue. The upshot is that both men and women now have the equal right to be unemployed with six-figure student debt loads.

Despite the parity in the number of male and female lawyers entering the legal profession these days (or at least trying to), a lot has been written on the unbalanced gender makeups of law firm governance and other leadership committees, which on the whole remain predominantly male. Locally, the Minnesota State Bar Association has pointed this out time and time again in reports looking at gender-equity in the profession.

The top position in a law firm is that of managing partner, and a handful of mid- to large-sized Minnesota firms have now had women as their current or past managing partners. Among this group are Dorsey & Whitney (Marianne Short), Gray Plant Mooty (Tamera Hjelle Olsen) and the Maslon firm (Terri Krivosha). On Feb. 1, a new name was added to this small, but prestigious list: Kim Schmid became the managing parter of Bowman and Brooke. Here’s a statement of Schmid’s bio from the press release making the announcement:

In her 22nd year at Bowman and Brooke, Schmid focuses her practice on defending companies in drug and medical device litigation in courts across the country, serving as national coordinating counsel and regional counsel. She has written articles and presented at national seminars on issues relating to the drug and medical device industry. In addition to her defense litigation practice, she advises her clients on FDA regulatory compliance and reporting requirements.

It’s great to see a well-qualified woman such as Schmid take the helm of a major local firm — and likewise good to see the growing number of women getting the top spot. But, just from the fact that this is still big news, we can glean that a lot more remains to be done. With law firms reassessing their models in light of the current economy, there’s no better time to look at gender differentials in rising through the law firm ranks and what can be done about them. The same old way of doing business just doesn’t cut it anymore.

This morning I attended an interesting continuing legal education seminar sponsored by the MSBA’s General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section. Essentially, it was a live side-by-side comparison of three of the leading law practice management software programs — Time Matters, ProLaw and Client Profiles.

We hear a lot and read a lot about programs like this, but it’s rare to see them actually being demonstrated together. It’d be impossible for me to go into detail on the particular features of the three programs, but suffice it to say that each includes tools that will assist attorneys with, among many other things, client and contact management, calendar and task management, docketing, document management and time and billing. Company representatives discussed their programs, demonstrated how to use many of the key features and talked about pricing options. Costs for the software programs range from $800-$1,000 for one licensed user and from $900-$1,300 for installation and training, or as the reps called it, the “getting started” package. There’s also a yearly maintenance/tech support plan for each program, which varies from a couple hundred dollars to $1,000.

Of the 30-plus attendees, I think only one person indicated that he was currently using an electronic case management system like one of the ones being demonstrated. I have to admit that I walked away from this program thinking that if I was a solo or small-firm practitioner, I know that I’d at least consider utilizing some kind of electronic system, especially if the price is right. It seems to me like an effective way to stay organized and save time, thereby allowing more time for actual billing.

Kudos to section chair Adam Heaton, who spent many months putting this program together. I think the solos and small firm attorneys who attended must have appreciated it — almost everyone stayed to the end!

In the meantime, a man with his finger on the pulse of legal technology, LawMoose founder LaVern Pritchard, was kind enough to share with me his initial thoughts on the product announcement, which (with his permission, of course) I share with you today:  

My initial thoughts:  

Four criteria against which to evaluate this:  

1. Better usability  

2. Lower cost  

3. Broader range of “all the world’s legal knowledge”  

4. Better conceptualization of the underlying domain  

WestlawNext sounds successful on criteria one. One might say usability is what people should expect all along in a premium service?  

2, 3, and 4 are not mentioned.  

2 is actually higher cost for a service many lawyers in the real world can’t afford already.  

Apparently 3 and 4 are unchanged.  

But what do I know, except what I’ve read about it.  

With all of the excitement of Steve Jobs going to the podium to unveil a new Apple product (well, OK, maybe not that much excitement), Thomson Reuters (or West as it will always be to me) earlier this week and unveiled WestlawNext, the new iteration of legal-research stalwart Westlaw, at the LegalTech show in New York City.

The new Westlaw will apparently (at least according to early reports) provide a more Google-like experience for searching West’s vast legal databases.

At first blush this might not seem like much. The company that practically invented computer-assisted legal research spends many years and many millions for its great minds to come up with … ta-da! … a product that has a search functionality similar to the one a couple of college-age kids came up with 14 years ago. OK, OK, Google swept the planet in the decade and a half or so since that date — but it seems a little funny that it took West this long to determine there might be something to this whole Google search thing.

Not that the change won’t be welcome. I recall thinking back in law school learning the various refining hoops that you had to click through to get to the search you wanted created a flow chart of branches that looked something like the heredity chart of the royal family that science teachers use to teach genetics. (Can you figure out which descendents of Queen Victoria would get hemophilia?)

But unlike the dreaded new Coke experiment (or was it marketing genius?), West is not jettisoning the old product in introducing the new one. WestlawOld (my term, not theirs) will still be available, so there will presumably be no angry cries from those addicted to WestlawOld to “bring it back!”

I haven’t had the chance to try the new Westlaw yet, so I can’t tell you how good it is. Those who have really seem to like it.

My one piece of feedback for West so far is that I don’t like the name. WestlawNext reminds me of its archrival, Lexis/Nexis. Of course, that is not nearly as bad as the name problem experienced by Apple, with the name of the new iPad reportedly leaving a lot of folks thinking it sounds like a feminine hygiene product.

Minnesota Lawyer has never really considered Law & Politics to be competition, even though some people get us confused. Each of our publications served different functions.

Thus is it with genuine regret that we announced that Law & Politics is no more, according to publisher Bill White. After 20 years, the magazine’s fun ride and labor of love is over, White announced today. The decision follows the sale of the Super Lawyers franchise to Thomson Reuters. White explained that Law and Politics was not part of the sale and the decision to discontinue publishing was made by owner Key Professional Media.

The magazine has been important for its irreverence, its Turkeys of the Year, its great covers, White’s charming column and its fabulous Hearsay column written by my friend, Carol Connelly. It had the good taste several years ago to print an article about two local lawyer/poets, Tim Nolan and me. I’ve always felt very lucky and grateful about that, and now even more so.

“We’ve always tried to create a magazine that lived up to its slogan, ’Only our name is boring.’ For us, this job has been more fun than work,” White said in an e- mail. He said that he and editor Steve Kaplan will remain with Key during the transition and Executive Editor Adam Walhberg will move over to Thomson Reuters as editor of Super Lawyers. White will also serve on an advisory board for Thomson.

Maybe they’ll be back. “In the meantime, we’re talking to people, weighing our options, and dreaming up the next venture,” White wrote.

Thomson Reuters today announced that it has acquired the lucrative Super Lawyers Franchise from Minneapolis-based Key Professional Media, headed by Minneapolis attorney Vance Opperman. Terms of the Super Lawyers deal were not disclosed.

UPDATE: Key is discontinuing Law & Politics, the irreverent magazine that has served the state’s legal and political communities since the early 1990s.

Jacqueline Regis, assistant vice president for legal services at St. Paul Fire & Marine and former president of Minnesota Women Lawyers, is also the author of a new memoir, “The Daughter of L’Arsenal,” a memoir of growing up and leaving Haiti. Her book is the April selection for the new book club started by The Advocates for Human Rights, which will meet every other month over the lunch hour at The Advocates’ offices. Regis, a member of the board of The Advocates, will attend the discussion. Call 612-341-3302 for more information.

The February selection is “Reading Lolita in Tehran” by Azar Nafisi. Nafisi will join The Advocates in May as the keynote speaker at the organization’s annual Human Rights Award Dinner.

Minnesota Lawyer’s Patrick Thornton is at today’s all-day motion hearings for the RNC 8 case at the Ramsey County Courthouse and will be providing periodic updates on the Minnesota Lawyer Twitter feed.

If you haven’t signed up for our Twitter feed already, you can find it here.

We’ve received a lot of interesting comments to our various posts about the job situation facing law students and newly minted law grads. A case in point is this response we recently received from Lakeville attorney John Murphy in response to our post “NYT: Recent law grads feeling like they are drowning.”

Just an update for those of you wishing to further pick at this scab:

I had lunch this weekend with a colleague from an unnamed southern metro county who is an assistant county attorney. This county has recently added two bar-admitted attorneys as “special county attorneys” on a contract basis at $11.00 per hour without benefits.

On the upside, they are free to take time to interview for other positions, and are at least earning something. On the downside, my son was making $8.00 per hour starting wage at Target in 10th grade a couple years ago.

Feel free to discuss.