Re: fer Referral Fees--Can and Do

While not every state allows for its attorneys to make and receive referrals where the referring attorney receives a portion of the fee earned (that last part is the critical part), Massachusetts does. (See, this is what I have been telling you all along: Massachusetts loves you, and wants you to be happy. They’re making you pay for health insurance because they want the best for you. (Whoops! I mean "the United States is making you pay for health insurance . . .") And, you can’t afford a house or much food because Massachusetts is just toughening you up. The commuter train is a test of your patience and forbearance. It’s all for the best. Trust us.)

The Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct, at Rule 1.5(e), authorize referral fees passing between attorneys. Comments 4 and 4A to the Rule 1.5 (labeled “Division of Fee”) further flesh out the requirements for payments of referral fees.

But, What are the rules governing referral fees? Well, I’m glad you asked, because I was just about to tell you:

-Fees may be divided following disclosure made to the client and following the receipt of the client’s written consent to the fee split. (It is my belief that the referring attorney has the obligation to disclose; and, this is likely a better marketing posture anyway.)

-The client need not be informed of the specific fee split percentage unless the client asks; if the client asks, you must inform the client.

-The total fee must be reasonable to be enforced.

-There is no requirement that the fee be divided in proportion to the amount of work done by individual attorneys.

-There is no requirement in the Rules that an attorney need have anything like minimum contacts with a potential client prior to referring a client out to another attorney.

The check on the system is that there are client disclosure mechanisms in place and that the fee must be reasonable, in total, to be enforceable. Beyond the Rule and commentary, there is some further information available from the Board of Bar Overseers, at its articles repository, a great resource, that I often refer to, both here at the blog and for my own research. The substantial piece, “The Ethics of Charging and Collecting Fees”, published in April 2006, contains a small section advising on the “Division of Fees”, including further expostulation upon the aforementioned Rule 1.5, and related rules and caselaw.

As long as you apply ethical rigor to your referral-generation, you will likely find that the practice of making, and taking, referrals will become extremely beneficial to your business. Referrals can be the lifeblood of a business; and, many law firms survive nearly solely on the basis of referrals. Once you build a self-perpetuating referral pipeline, the time you spend marketing yourself can be reduced dramatically, without much, or any, effect on your bottom line, because you have created, instead of revolving tasks for yourself, a repeating machine, that does much of the work for you, once you have set it to motion.

When you think of referrals for your practice, you have several lines upon which to draw your car. First, there are those referrals offered by colleagues. How do you get referrals from your colleagues? You market yourself to your fellow attorneys. You create a niche practice, tagging yourself as the expert. You keep the referring attorney seasonably informed on developments within the referred client’s case. You pay the referral fee in a timely manner, delivering it personally, if you can, with a thank you, note or speech. Most importantly, you do a good job. Remember, the referring attorney has put his trust in you, in placing his reputation on the line, by implicitly vouching for the quality of your work. There is no better guarantee of future referrals than quality work resulting in pleased clients. Speaking of those pleased clients, the second sort of referral you need to look after are client-to-client referrals. Now, this is mostly just the development of word of mouth based upon your good practices, and you are not necessarily applying the ethics rules related above in the implicit generation of present or past clients sending you your future clients. However, the application of the better part of general ethics, good legal practices and good business sense, can combine to create those referrals of future clients from existing clients. Keep in contact with your existing clients, even if nothing in particular is happening on their cases. (We’ve written about the importance of keeping in regular contact with clients previously at the LOMAP blog, here.) Work zealously for each of your clients, and don’t take shortcuts. Develop an elevator speech designed for the sorts of clients you want, as you develop and use an elevator speech for attorneys from whom you wish referrals. When you close a case, and you have waited a seasonable period before returning to your client his files, return those files impressively. Use branded folders. Or, use a branded thumbdrive, for the return of electronic documents. Close the deal better, so you can close the deal more easily (with less effort, most effort being generated by those who love you, or who like you enough to tell others so), with potential clients who are referred to you by existing clients. Your mindset should be to make the quality of your work so memorable that those past clients nearly close the deal for you. You won’t win every time; but, you can make your best effort every time.

Don’t, either, forget to push referrals out, too. After all, you don’t want to be the only one doing all the work here. As you’ve developed a pipeline of referring attorneys, likewise develop a pipeline of attorneys to whom you can refer work to. No one’s marketing can be perfectly targeted, if for no other reason than the unpredictably of human nature, as exercised through your human targets, your potential clients. It is a fact of practice that you will encounter potential clients whose cases you can’t, or don’t want to, handle. Instead of being unprepared for the eventuality, and allowing otherwise unfettered clients-to-be to return to the faceless world of lawyer-finding, give them a helping hand: refer them to your colleague who can best help them out. If an engagement is then settled upon, you’re in line for a referral fee, if you can get agreement for one (which you should determine the surety of beforehand). Give and get, something out of the reservation, in the form of a referral fee, and the good will generated, on the parts of the referred client and the referred attorney.

As with many valuable efficiency upgrades, the question respecting the creation of referral rings is one of how much effort you are willing to put in to get things established, and how very tight the systems you put into place can be made to become.

“Refer” to the LOMAP blog for these and other similar questions of practice management. Hahaha. Sorry. In retrospect, what that was was just really sad.

Liner Notes

In last week’s last blog post, I covered responses, and future preparation options, for disaster, particularly flooding. That was when the weather sucked. Remember when I told you that New England weather was unpredictable . . . well, you already knew that anyway; but, the fact of the matter was that I was right, and, by extension, so were you. Look at the nice weather we have going on now, though. We’re so smart. So . . . bright, even. In light of the sun’s return, and in honor of the one sungod, Ra, let us sing!

. . . Songs about the Sunshine:

“Sunshine” by The Presidents of the United States of America

“Sunshine (Go Away Today)” by Jonathan Edwards

“Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles’ George Harrison

“Sunshine of Your Love” by Cream

“House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals

“Invisible Sun” by The Police

“Tequila Sunrise” by The Eagles

“Sun on the Moon” by James Taylor

“Paper Sun” by Traffic

“Sunday Morning Sunshine” by Harry Chapin

“Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina & The Waves

“Sundown” by Gordon Lightfoot

“Steal My Sunshine” by Len

“Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden

“Blister in the Sun” by Violent Femmes

“Sunshine Superman” by Donovan

“Waterloo Sunset” by The Kinks

“Good Day Sunshine” by The Beatles

“Sun/C-79” by Cat Stevens

“You Are My Sunshine” by Norman Blake

“Keep on the Sunny Side” by The Whites

Hhhmmm. Most of my “sunny” songs are depressing. Don’t know what that says about my disposition. Perhaps irony really is lost on me.

Postscript. When I wrote this, it was sunny. I have no idea what the weather is like now. Your guess is as good as mine. Actually . . . your guess is better than mine. Just look at the window. Was I right?

Casemaker Claims Fastcase May Be Missing 100s of Case Citations; Fastcase Responds; Casemaker Replies

This week, I am doing a little pinch-hitting. Erik Mazzone, the erstwhile (yes, I know that I overuse, and probably incorrectly apply, “erstwhile”) Director of the North Carolina Bar Association’s Center for Practice Management, had intended to post on the above-referenced topic, but is in the midst of a family emergency, and is not able to blog this week. Enter me, with thoughts going out to Erik and his family.

At the beginning of March, I posted on the topic of free and cheap legal research options available to attorneys. The geeks over at 3 Geeks and a Law Blog were kind enough to link out to that post from their own blog. You’ll be pleased to know that the 3 Geeks have stayed on topic for the remainder of the month.

On March 9, Greg Lambert (a geek) posted on associated research options for state bar associations; interactive map and post available here. This is quite a useful resource. Plus, I like color-coded maps.

More recently, on March 19, Toby Brown (another geek) posted that, following his research, he considered Casemaker the “king of content” for non-Lexis/non-Westlaw search engines. That post, complete with fancy-dan graphs, is viewable here.

Further to Greg and Toby’s research, Casemaker began its own explorations, in order to determine the extent of alleged missing case citations in Fastcase; this is what they say they have come up with, as transmitted to me via Casemaker’s Managing Director, Steve Newsom:

“How Far Back in Your State to Miss 50 Case Citations?

‘How many years back do you have to go in your state case law to find 50 missing case citations?’ After seeing the legal research map posted on 3 Geeks, some analysis was made to do a more complete comparison of the various services. A comparison between Casemaker and Fastcase turned up a large number of missing case citations in the Fastcase system. At first, this appeared to be a hit-or-miss, minor quality control sort of issue. Then it became apparent that this was a much bigger issue. It became a very time-consuming comparison between the two providers in order to see how many years you would need to go back before the number of missing case citations hit 50. In the Casemaker 2.2 database there were found very few incorrect citation postings and, in a rare exception, a duplicated case. In Fastcase, there were a host of missing citations and duplicated cases; it became most alarming.

Casemaker has created a state-by-state comparison for 50 missing citations by state, and also says that they had identified over 100,000 missing citations within the Fastcase database between the years 2000 to 2009. Casemaker has declined to provide the complete lists for each state, saying that the complete list would be very valuable to Fastcase. Casemaker was initially going to provide 100 missing citations per state, but pulled back to 50, noting that, once the information is made public, Fastcase will quickly correct the liabilities in their database. Casemaker did state that under a limited nondisclosure agreement, they would provide the next missing 50 and each week following an additional 50 missing cases for the time period 2000 to 2009. Imagine if this analysis covered the longevity of the entire database (100+ plus years), instead of just the 10 years?

Casemaker and Fastcase are not a mirrored database, and there are clear and vast quality differences when choosing between the two providers.”

Steve Newsom of Casemaker has also submitted to me a list of the alleged first 50 missing citations per state in Fastcase, as well as sample screen shots of alleged citation errors. That information is accessible via this drop site.

Fastcase, via CEO Ed Walters, responds to Casemaker’s researches as follows:

“Fastcase and Casemaker are both very good services, as Bob Ambrogi has pointed out in an independent, third-party review in Law Technology News. Both have traditionally updated pagination first from regional reporters (such as P.3d) and added parallel citations where necessary from state reporters. It’s an ongoing process for both services, and a process that is nearly complete for both -- although the scope of the process is radically overstated by the above paragraphs from Casemaker.

It would be easy for us to derive the same list of missing citations for Casemaker, tit-for-tat. The errors and omissions in that service are legion. But we won’t. Picking their service apart would be petty, and would demean us both, as well as the bar associations that we both work with. We won’t do it.

Instead, we will let the results speak for themselves. Bar association after bar association that compares both services -- including thorough data quality comparisons -- selects Fastcase as its partner. This recently has included the Oregon State Bar, which switched from Casemaker to Fastcase after an exhaustive evaluation – and they are thrilled with the change. No bar association has ever switched from Fastcase to Casemaker.

Instead of relying on Casemaker’s evaluation of both services (or even Bob Ambrogi’s), we invite state bar associations to conduct their own, independent evaluation. When they do, we’re confident they will conclude that both are valuable services -- and then select Fastcase as their partner.”

In reply to Fastcase’s response, Casemaker offers:

“Steve Newsom’s Response to Ed’s Comments:

The devil is always in the detail and we too recognize that there are two rather good but distinctly different research providers. LegalGeekery says, in a blog post on the FastCase iPhone app, that “Fastcase keeps subscription costs low by not hiring researchers to write summaries or manually cite check.” Casemaker invests heavily in quality review of case law and cites and has recently moved its headquarters to Charlottesville, Virginia to take advantage of the quality talents of employees and attorneys from the past Michie/Lexis Company. Fastcase's Ed Walters mentions tit-for-tat and I so challenge Ed that if he can come up with 100 missing citations within Casemaker for the same time period and scope of coverage, I will give him his missing citation list of over 100,000 so that he can correct the errors in Fastcase. A note on Bob Ambrogi’s article of 8 months ago, which recognizes intuitiveness of the products and in which Bob later states that he did not do a deep dive into the content . . . we believe content dependability and integrity is first and foremost and this will remain our focus as a company.

We agree that bar associations should check for themselves and under a non-disclosure agreement, I am glad to provide the full missing list of Fastcase content for their evaluation. Ed asked the question “How is this evaluation/discussion productive?” My response is that it makes a value statement on the two services . . . Casemaker provides our clients with a high-quality product and traditionally at a higher cost than Fastcase. But make no doubt about it, the content quality and completeness is nowhere equaled.

We welcome competition for it will make both of our companies better . . .
Casemaker added statutes and codes . . . Fastcase followed;
Casemaker added customer support personnel and live training . . . Fastcase followed;
Fastcase added a mobile application for iPhone . . . this time Casemaker followed with a full mobile app for all devices and all data fields;
Casemaker has added quality review staff and editorial services . . . Will Fastcase follow?

Warmest regards to a good friend and competitor, Ed . . . You do make us better, but we are not the same.”

Now, I have not tested Casemaker’s researches or replies, nor have I tested Fastcase’s responsive claims, and I cannot vouch for the veracity of either of these discussion sets. I merely present the foregoing as informational, in what I do hope is a fair and balanced way, for your consideration, especially as Massachusetts is a Casemaker state, Casemaker being offered through the Massachusetts Bar Association. I am the messenger only. You may test these results, to satisfy yourself.

(I’m not even really the messenger, I just wanted to link to a Coldplay song. Yeah, I like Coldplay. Saw them in concert twice last year. Do you have an issue with that?)

In order that a dialogue may develop around this issue, I invite Casemaker and Fastcase, and their respective proponents, to respond further in the “Comments” section of this blog, if they wish. And, certainly, anyone with an opinion on these services can comment, as well.

(You can also feel free to comment even if you think Coldplay sucks, and want to tell me so. Of course, you’d be wrong.)

Postdiluvian and the Baling Out: Flood Recovery Resources for Lawyers

Given Massachusetts (and New England’s generally) unpredictable weather patterns, it’s true that you never quite know what you’re going to get. Over the weekend, and earlier this week, what we got was some serious flooding, resulting in property damage, road closures and much other inconvenience. Fortunately for us, flooding is a rather rare occurrence in these here parts. Nevertheless, if you have not prepared for the possibility of flood damage, your mood can become just as waterlogged as your stuff. Water damage can be severe, both in its immediate and long-term impacts. With flood damage, as well as with other potential disasters and business interruptions, it only takes one time to bring the point of preparedness home. (Incidentally, I have a great (or, probably, really, not-so-great) flood damage story. Unfortunately, it is far too off-color for a family blog, like this one. Suffice it to say that it was a pretty “crappy” situation.)

But, more to the point, as the sunshine returns to us . . . you’re likely in one or two spots: you’re either thinking of sump pumping or otherwise clearing off your aquatically-situated property (recovery) and/or you’re thinking about what to do to prevent water damage for the future (preparedness). Let us answer, in a bit, for both.

After conversing with God, Noah chose to take with him on his ark male and female sets of creatures of every description to repopulate the Earth. I might be a bit smarter about it: You see, I’d take all my office files, in sturdy cabinets, locked and fire- and water-proofed, and I’d take with me practice management advisors of every description, and load up my boat, if I had a boat. Then, when the waters receded, I’d reestablish my law practice, with all my files and templates, and with the best advice around. Of course, all my clients would be dead, and there would be no new clients available. And, I wouldn’t really do that anyway: If I had a world to make anew, I would certainly not open a law practice. But, that being left aside, even in this middle diluvian period, I don’t have the ark, and I don’t have the files, and I don’t know what the hell a cubit is; but, I do have access to the law practice management advisors. And, those folks have been kind enough to share with me, so that I can share with you, some tremendous resources on disaster planning and recovery, both generally and with respect to flooding, being that this a problem that we do not often come across in Massachusetts, but that becomes an issue, from time to time, in other areas of the country, areas of the country that other practice management advisors populate.

Without further blathering on my part, then, I present “the resources”:

The American Bar Association provides a substantial Disaster Law Resources page. For flood-related resources, review the materials respecting Hurricane Katrina especially. (Per the ever-generous Catherine Sanders Reach.)

The Law Office Management Assistance Program of the State Bar of Wisconsin offers some great resources through Practice Management Advisor Nerino Petro’s blog: see here, here, here and here. Wisconsin also provides a disaster resources page, and has established a bulletin board for flood-related updates, for when flooding occurs in the state.

Dan Pinnington, Director of practicePRO at the Lawyers’ Professional Indemnity Company (LAWPRO) in Toronto offers much information for managing practice interruptions, including flooding and flood damage.

Laura Calloway, Director of the Practice Management Assistance Program at the Alabama State Bar points to Alabama’s P-MAP Disaster Recovery Kit.

Beverly Michaelis, Practice Management Advisor at the Professional Liability Fund of the Oregon State Bar (and guest on the next episode of the “Legal Toolkit” podcast!) checks in with a post-disaster checklist and an article respecting methods for protecting your firm from disaster.

The Oregon resources, as well as a more generic listing of resources, including some of the above-mentioned, but more, are available at this drop site.

Preach What You Practice II: LOMAP Gets Second Podcast, the "Legal Toolkit"

Late last year, I wrote about Rodney Dowell’s “UnBillable Hour” podcast, sponsored by the good people at AbacusLaw. You can revisit that post here. And, you’ll be pleased to know that the UnBillable Hour still goes strong. You can check out the full collection of programs at the UnBillable Hour’s homepage.

However, in our continuing quest to take over all legal media (with my apologies for paraphrasing Howard Stern, and for trying to steal Bob Ambrogi’s gig), we here at LOMAP have decided that just one podcast is not enough.

Two podcasts? That’s more like it.

I have recently taken over hosting duties for Catuogno Court Reporting’s the “Legal Toolkit” podcast. The Legal Toolkit had previously focused exclusively on Massachusetts data privacy issues; but, the programming will now shift toward coverage of other issues of interest to attorneys. (Not that we’re pointing fingers . . . we have been all over Massachusetts data privacy like white on rice on a paper plate on a polar bear’s back in a snowstorm in the arctic. Witness.) From here on out, at every monthly turn, we’ll address topics that all attorneys should acquire a substantial basis in before attempting to move their practices forward. Each program will represent information about another tool for your lawyer’s toolbelt.

The first showpiece for the reformatted Toolkit was our “IOLTA Accounting: Part I” episode, featuring James S. Bolan of Brecher, Wyner, Simons, Fox & Bolan, LLP and Terrence D. Pricher of the Office of Bar Counsel. Jim and Terry combined to provide a substantial and impressive review of IOLTA accounting, for your listening pleasure. In fact, I ended up liking the IOLTA topic so much, I have decided to do “IOLTA Accounting: Part II”, which will release in early April (April 1 record date; no foolin’); literally: I just thought of that title now . . . What a stroke of good luck that I called the first episode “IOLTA Accounting: Part I”! Part II will focus on the mechanics of trust accounting and the software by which accounting may be more easily rendered. Already booked to appear is Beverly Michaelis, Practice Management Advisor with the Oregon State Bar Professional Liability Fund. Beverly will discuss software options for trust accounting.

If you still can’t get enough IOLTA accounting chatter, check out our prior blog post, covering available IOLTA resources; that post is available here. (What? You thought that I was going to forget all about the LOMAP Blog just because of my burgeoning career in internet radio for lawyers? Think again.) And, you can review Part I of the Legal Toolkit’s coverage of IOLTA accounting, as well as all prior and all future Toolkit shows, at the Legal Toolkit homepage, on Legal Talk Network.

(And, since my brother just had a birthday, I’ll mention his bon mot, delivered over email the other day, that it might perhaps be that the biggest tool of all on the Legal Toolkit, is me. Well-played, sir. Well-played.)

LOMAP’s "Start-Up Kit" Proffers Main Considerations for the Establishment of a Law Practice

Whether you’re starting a law practice or running a marathon, it is essential to prepare (train; or, “run a train on”, as it were) and to get off the blocks quickly. (How should I know whether there are blocks at marathon starts . . . I’ve never actually run a marathon. That’s insane.)

Here at the LOMAP home office, and about this great commonwealth, in the making of our appointed rounds, we see two sorts of attorney-clients: (1) those who have already established their practices, and who are seeking the light of whether their practices comport with best practices, and to what extent; and, (2) those attorneys who are starting their own practices for the first time, from whencever they have come.

Those establishing their practices range in pedigree, experience, ideals and imagination. However, there are general considerations of which they all must be made aware in order to start up successfully. To that end, we have generally made available to attorneys contacting us wishing to start their own practices what we have labeled our “Start-Up Kit”, which consists of a document addressing the main considerations for establishing a practice (as alluded to above--see, I meet my promises), our general start-up Powerpoint (long version) and a self-audit checklist (perhaps better suited for distribution to those attorneys who are already practicing, but which is also likely useful for new attorneys, as they guesstimate from the questions asked what may or may not be the right and wrong ways to do things), all of which combine to create a useful electronic packet of sorts for the start-up solo attorney, or start-up firm. In the spirit, then, of publishing most all of our useful resources to our blog, I have created a drop site, at which I have sheltered the referenced “Start-Up Kit” documents, as well as another version of our start-up Powerpoint. You can now, then, access these multiple documents here, without benefit of our emailing them to you.

(The dirty little secret here, of course, is that the collection of information described above can oft-times be as useful to attorneys seeking to refresh their practice systems as it can be for starting attorneys. Ssshhh.)

In combination with the depositing of these resources to the wide web, LOMAP has established a group meeting for start-up attorneys and start-up firms, which meeting takes place at the end of each month, here at our offices in downtown Boston. For the meetings, Rodney and I make a fulsome presentation based on our start-up Powerpoints, and address questions. The genesis of these meetings was the fact that we tended to get the same general questions over and over again from firm- and solo-starters. Practically speaking, it was better to address the same sets of questions within a group setting. The group setting also provides the advantage of creating for attendees something of a built-from-the-ground-up support system. For attorneys starting their own practices, it can be tremendously helpful just to know that they are not alone, and that others are in the same boat, with the same sorts of questions to bale out from.

Of course, being a company that loves to establish small administrative hoops for the jumping (c’mon, you can fill out a couple simple forms in order to talk to us, right?--we don’t charge anything), you’ll need to become a LOMAP client before you can attend a group meeting. If you want our forms, and to see about upcoming meeting dates, just shoot me an email at jared@masslomap.org . . .

Just not over the next few days, as I’ll be otherwise occupied.

Guest Post: Cowabunga, Dude! Catch the Google Wave

We are pleased to have received an excellent post from Kate O’Toole, a former colleague of mine at the Massachusetts Bar Association. Kate has written on Google Wave, and her take on the system appears below. Kate has also been kind enough to agree (and cannot back out now) to provide us with another post, that one covering Google Buzz, which post, to be the second in this short series, should release sometime in April, as the weather, hopefully, continues to warm.

Kate works as a law clerk for Rawson, Merrigan & Litner LLP in Boston, having previously worked in communications for the Massachusetts Bar Association and Shawmut Design and Construction. She is a third year evening student at Suffolk University Law School, and is a bit of a tech geek, who loves learning about creative ways to market using Web 2.0 technology, like Twitter.

. . .

Launched last fall, Google Wave generated a ton of buzz before its release. Technology bloggers published "first looks" and initial reviews, hailing it as "a compelling and potent collaboration tool that promises to boost productivity, help increase levels of integration with existing IT systems and capture/share greater amounts of institutional knowledge."

But, What is Google Wave? In a nutshell, it's like a love child of e-mail and Twitter and AOL Instant Messenger. Instead of zipping someone a quick e-mail, you start a "wave", which is like a thread that includes every attachment, message and chat conversation you have with someone relative to whatever subject you choose. A wave is more versatile than a regular e-mail. With a wave, you can: insert unique, interactive gadgets, such as maps and polls; drag and drop files from your desktop and plop them into ongoing conversations; and, even export an entire wave and embed it into a blog. For a solid introduction to what Google Wave is all about, and some insights on the lingo, I suggest reading this guide, from the social media gurus at Mashable.

For now, the technology is still in preview, and requires an invitation to register. To get an invite, you can try signing up through Google; although, I signed up about a month before Wave was launched, and still haven't received anything from Google. In the days immediately following the product's release, people were so desperate for invitations that they even bid on them on eBay! Personally, I had better luck searching on Twitter for "google wave invite" and stumbled upon a woman who was giving some away. I recommend this method, and there should be plenty of invitations floating out there in cyberspace. (In fact, if you’re interested in trying Google Wave, Jared and Rodney have invites to spare.)

When I was finally able to snag an invitation and to log on, I was disappointed, though not very surprised, to discover that only about two people on my GMail contact list also had access to Google Wave. I was impressed that Wave automatically pulled in my GMail information and contact list, and also liked how the interface closely mirrors Google's other applications (GMail, Docs, etc.). However, three months later, while I have about 200 contacts in my GMail account, only about 12 of them have popped up on my Google Wave list. I imagine that someday, if Google's dreams come true, all e-mail will phase into the Google Wave format. For now, Google Wave just feels like another account that I have to monitor, or at least to check on. But, I never check on it--because very few people I know use it.

But things have to start somewhere, right? While this tool is obviously a work in progress, it does seem to have plenty of promise as a communication mode of the future. Hypothetically, if it becomes mainstream, like regular e-mail, here are some ways that lawyers could benefit from it:

Client Communication

Jay Fleischman, at “The Untethered Lawyer”, offers a scenario where Google Wave helps to improve the lines of communication between attorneys and new clients. Through a single wave, an attorney can start talking to a client and discuss some potential issues. The client can easily drag and drop documents, maps, and photographs into the wave. Once you determine that there is a potential claim, you can drag your paralegal or associate into the thread to add more information or insights. Whenever you need to communicate with your client moving forward, you simply add to the original wave, and the entire record of your communications is in a single place.

Attorney blogger Dan Friedlander of "Law on my Phone” also envisions Google Wave as an easy way to work on interrogatories with clients. Having an ongoing, working draft of a set of interrogatory answers would eliminate saving a string of documents ranging from "ints - client", "ints - revised", "ints - revised 2," and "ints - revised 2, final v.3", etc.

While these scenarios would be remarkable timesavers, there are still many clients who don't even use e-mail. Clients who are on board with the Wave would likely be few and far between, at least for the foreseeable future. But, Twitter grew 1382% in the course of a year, so you never know!

Group Collaboration

This is where Google Wave can really shine. Google Wave features real time collaboration using technology it acquired from EtherPad. EtherPad had established a neat website that created a public notepad where multiple authors could collaborate on the same document in real time, with different contributors highlighted in different colors of text.

Imagine pasting a draft of an assented to motion into a wave, where opposing counsel can make suggested edits as necessary, either at their leisure, or while working on it with you in real time, rather than collaborating through the exchange of phone calls and multiple e-mails with a million different attachments. After the completion of revisions, you can play back the wave like a video, so you can see the sequencing of edits and comments. You can apply this same process to contract drafting and negotiation, as well as to memos, to research, or to any sort of project management within your firm.

So, where do we go from here? Unfortunately, the only option is really to start slowly, because the technology is still in its early stages. I suggest that you scrounge up an invitation and at least get your account set up, and find a friend or colleague who is interested in using it with you. Start a wave, and see what it’s like. Try doing some online collaboration, play with the gadgets and test out the real-time chatting/editing.

My only disclaimer is that, since the product is still in beta release, the security and stability may not be perfect. I do not suggest starting waves that include sensitive, privileged information, just to be safe. Internet security is certainly not my area of expertise; but, if you are concerned about the security of your communications, here is some suggested reading:

http://googlewavesecurity.com/

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=2748

http://theharmonyguy.com/2009/10/19/first-impressions-on-security-in-google-wave/

Still haven't had your fill of Google Wave? The blog community has a plethora of insights, tips and information to offer about this new tool. A quick search will yield many, many hits. Good luck, and happy surfing!

Freesearch Trails: Breadcrumbs for Recovering (the) Most of Your Research Buck

Remember law school. Oh, man, was law school great. The keg parties, sleeping until 2 pm, free food and lodging (as far as you knew then), girls who stayed the same age while you kept getting older, your pirate radio station, Scorpion Bowls . . . Oh, sorry. That was college. Law school actually sucked.

Well, now, on second thought, I guess there was one thing about law school that didn’t suck, and that was that, if you had to be there anyway, they at least gave you free Lexis and Westlaw access. (Did you follow my links to the Westlaw and Lexis law school sites? P’wned! You can’t get in there anymore, try as you might.) But, shortly after you left the hallowed halls of your law school, access to the world’s premier legal research engines flitted away, from you. (Well, more like they took away your law school email so you couldn’t log in anymore; but, you catch my draft.) And, unless you’re working at a large firm (and if you are you’re likely not reading this blog (yet), because law practice management is all that stuff that other people take care of for you), are independently wealthy or your parents are and choose to share, after you get your JD, you ain’t seein’ Lexis or Westlaw no more. Don’t worry: it’s not you, it’s them.

Confronted with the situation, there are a number of alternative courses of action: You could write a stern letter to Lexis or Westlaw (your preference), demanding, in no uncertain terms, that they return to you free access to their service based on some convoluted adoption of a theory of promissory estoppal. (That’s bound to work.) You could rob a bank, to (1) pay off your student loans; (2) pay for Lexis or Westlaw (your choice). You could take the cellphone picture you snapped of your last free Lexis or Westlaw (your call) search screen from law school, blow it up, monitor-size, and paste it to your computer, to (1) stare at all day; (2) impress clients with.

Or, you could suck it up, realize that your days of sharing levels of responsibility with infant sea otters are over, and determine a true course of action.

The first thing to remember is that, if you choose to get access to Lexis or Westlaw, you don’t have to get full access. You won’t be able to do searches in obscure law reviews from Idaho(?) anymore . . . but, I think you’ll get by alright. Buy just the federal and your state package, and that may be an agreeable pricepoint for you. Learn improved search techniques, and spend less time researching, so that you can reduce, rather than rack up, minutes. Negotiate your contract. Neither Lexis nor Westlaw is selling one-size-fits-all packages. Because there is room for maneuver, there is room for negotiation, especially if you can get competing prices from adverse salesmen. Play Lexis and Westlaw offers against each other, to get the best price. This is how I finagled a full boat to college. I’m telling you: Negotiation. It’s not just for when a bear has trapped you in a tree and with god anymore. If you’re willing to travel to, you may be able to get your Lexis or Westlaw for free, or for the price of a law library subscription, and your time. Check with your alumni law library, Social Law Library, or your nearest trial court law library locations, to see what kinds of offerings they might have in the way of Lexis and/or Westlaw access.

As alluded to above, one of the best methods for reducing a Lexis or Westlaw bill is to reduce the amount of time you use the product. But, that does not necessarily mean that you are thereby reducing the total amount of time you spend researching. People like Lexis and Westlaw because they have the bells and whistles, i.e.--they are easier to use. (Nobody wants to try hard if they don’t have to; it’s part and parcel of the human condition: as baggage carriers.) But, you can access Lexis/Westlaw-type functionality through other services, if you’re willing to do a little, additional virtual legwork. For a local example, you should know that, if you’re a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association, you get the Casemaker Massachusetts research engine (which is almost a misnomer, because with access, you’ll get caselaw and statutes from the other fifty states and the federal system, too) for free. What’s that? For free? That’s right. Now, is Casemaker Lexis? No. Is Casemaker Westlaw? No. (It’s more like Eastlaw.) But, you’ll be able to find cases and statutes on it. You’ll even be able to check for sessions law changes to the Massachusetts General Laws using Casemaker’s SuperCode system. And, you can also utilize Casemaker’s version of shepardizing (called CaseCheck), through which you can link to later citing references directly. Sure, there aren’t any flags. And, there are so many attorneys who scoff at the fact that there aren’t flags, apparently feeling that the function is then useless. But, c’mon, you can’t read the sentence and determine treatment? Really? Personally, I come close to feeling better that I am flagging for myself than trusting the judgment of some snot-nosed kid who gets paid to tell me what’s up while he’s GChatting. If you like the bells and whistles and flags--you really love parades, don’t you--you can still use your Lexis or Westlaw. Just use the big boys for shepardizing or for some of the other bells and whistles that you like, and that are unavailable through Casemaker. You’re still reducing your pay time, and reducing your overall bill. (Incidentally, you ain’t got no research bill whatever if you’re using Casemaker and researching more robustly on Lexis or Westlaw at one of the trial court law libraries. Just sayin’.)

I’m pickin’ on Casemaker. (Has the MBA paid me? Not for a while.) But, that’s because it’s a no-brainer; it’s remarkably robust for a free service. If you are licensed in Massachusetts, and a member of the MBA, you’d be foolish not to use it. There are, however, other free and cheap services available. Fastcase is Casemaker’s competitor, and similar sort of product; it’s free in some states, where it has been adopted as a bar association member benefit--just not in Massachusetts, and the other states where Casemaker has locked in the bar association relationship. You can find cases and codes on FindLaw and at the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School. You can find legal opinions and citation information through Google Scholar, and you can often find full text cases through a generic Google search.

And, there’s a lot more than that. I could likely write a whole book on it. Fortunately, I don’t have to. (God, I would hope I could pick a better topic.) Somebody else already has.

When you’re attempting the lay of the land for legal research options, your primary source should be Kendall Svengalis’ “Legal Information Buyer’s Guide & Reference Manual”. This book is a godsend for the legal research researcher, which titled person should be every attorney trying to establish, or reestablish, his or her research posture. Most every legal research option is outlined in the pages of the Buyer’s Guide, including pricing information and handy charts. The latest edition, 2009, is currently in release. I feel like this is the time that the Svengalis children would have an overwhelming desire to raise up, and kill me; but, I have to say that I wouldn’t buy this book if I were you. The dang things costs $150. You’re only going to use it for a limited time and purpose. Cozy up to it at the library instead: borrow it from reference and find a comfortable chair. You may not get the most updated copy, but you will have something close to it. The beauty of easy-to-follow charts and guides is that, if you get that library drowse, you can copy sets of pages that you need, and take them home for review. This be the good book of legal research; use it to make your research platform more affordable, and, hell, I’ll say it, probably better.

To too many solo attorneys and firms, the research burden becomes a sunken cost; but, you can make some of that money back to the future. It’s just a matter of taking the time to research and to test out your options, and to actualize your plan for cost reduction in relation to your research.

Search and ye shall research.

. . .

Liner Notes

One of my new favorite websites is LaLa.com. (“La La” . . . like “fa la la la la”, like singing. You know. . . . You get it.) LaLa has a pretty durn extensive collection of music for listening. Here’s the catch: After you sign up (that’s not the catch--just tell them you don’t want any emails), you can listen to full songs for free one time. Upon second and future listenings, you only get a 30 second sample, unless you buy the song. You can buy songs for the formerly universal iTunes price of about 99 cents apiece. But, if you buy web albums, you can get entire albums for less than a dollar, at least as far as I can tell. And, if that's the case, that’s pretty ill (I'm not submitting credit card information to find out for sure). Of course, you have to listen to web albums on the web, I would suppose. But, at least the sound is good, better than I expected. Maybe this is the future of music, I don’t know.

I’m still not paying for it, though. If anything about the previous paragraphs have brought home to you a facet of my personality, it should have been that I game the system so I don’t have to pay for things. Unless they’re really good things. What are really good things? Jeeps and jewelry. That’s about it. Thanks for coming. Please tip your waitress on the way out.

So, I don’t want to pay a lot for that LaLa, and the system encourages you to focus on albums rather than songs (which is an interesting dynamic in this culture of immediate need fulfillment) . . . Whatever shall I do? Let me tell you: Listening Parties! Holla!! This whole thing is gonna make House Party look like House Party 2. Or House Party 3.

Over two days last week, I listened to all of James Taylor’s albums in reverse chronological order. Then Cat Stevens’ and Yusuf Islam’s. Then I found out that the site had roughly 3,600 songs from the “Pickin’ On” series. Now I’m set until about 2013. Roughly. You see, the fact of LaLa’s deep catalogue represents the seed of its downfall. I don’t like to be bored when I listen to music. With LaLa I can listen to new music everyday (in fact, I have to listen to new music every time, if I want full songs, which I do), as long as I can find it/come up with it. And, I never have to pay for anything. That’s a circumvention if I’ve ever seen one. Dave Trumble is laughing fiendishly somewhere right now.

But, geez, I mean, it would be asking too much for you to have a breadth of musical knowledge that is coextensive with mine, right? Of course it would be. So, let me give you some suggested albums to start. (It’s easier if you play albums through because you have to do less clicking to play on individual songs.)

Here they blow over the starbuck bow, like white whaling objectives of immortal achievement:

The Who’s “Who’s Next” (the best rock album ever)

The Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main Street” (not a huge fan, but my friends tell me it’s so)

Nirvana’s “MTV UnPlugged in New York”

James Taylor’s “One Man Dog” (the best album ever . . . EVER)

The Allman Brothers Band’s “Eat a Peach”

Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers”

Bob Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde”

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Green River”

Neil Young’s “Harvest”

George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass”

Johnny Cash’s “At Folsom Prison”

That’s a solid ten to start with. After you get through those, hit up the “Pickin’ On” series . . .