Reinventing Professionals

I spoke with Samantha Williams, the Director of Employer Relations at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, where she focuses primarily on small firm outreach and employer development. Williams is the co-author (with Linda Calvert Hanson) of Small Firms, Big Opportunity(LawyerAvenue Press, 2012), which provides readers with practical steps to identify where jobs are, how to get hired, and how to succeed in the new legal economy. Williams shared tips on why law students and recent graduates should be focusing on smaller firms as potential employers, the best resources for those seeking employment with small firms, and the single most important concept to be aware of when looking for job opportunities with small firms.

I spoke with Desiree Moore, an attorney and the founder of Greenhorn Legal & Greenhorn Bold. Moore is also the author of Thrive – A New Lawyer’s Guide to Law Firm Practice (American Bar Association, 2012). We discussed her venture providing what she describes as “the foundational information law students and lawyers need,” her motivation for writing Thrive, and the launch of her on-demand practical skills training series, which focuses on professionalism, time management, communication, networking, and marketing, among other core competencies.

I spoke with Matt Homann and JoAnna Forshee, producers of the annual LexThink.1 legal innovation conference, which is being held in Chicago on Wednesday, April 3rd on the eve of the ABA Techshow. Homann is the well-known founder of LexThink, a legal innovation consultancy, as well as the creator of the popular [non] billable hour blog. Forshee is the CEO of InsideLegal, which she describes as “the insider’s guide to doing business in legal technology.” Homann noted that LexThink.1 started 4 years ago as Ignite Law. Participants have 6 minutes (as in one-tenth of an hour of billable time) and 20 slides, which rotate every 18 seconds, to convey their ideas on this year’s theme – disruption. Prior sessions focused on the future of law, the future of legal tech, and client service. (I had the privilege of participating in the inaugural event in 2010, with a session called: What I Learned About the Future of Legal Marketing From Playing Wii Bowling With a 4 1/2-year old.) Ten speakers selected by “more than one thousand votes cast” online will cover a variety of topics ranging from Big Data or Big Brother (Eric Hunter) and Don’t Do What You’re Good At (Jay Shepherd) to Knowing the Unknowns (Roe Frazer) and LegalZoom is Eating Legal’s Lunch (Mark Britton). The only participant, who has appeared in all four productions is Will Hornsby, who will be discussing Gaming the System: Are lawyers ready to game-up? Forshee notes that speakers typically rate the difficulty of the experience at about an eight on a ten-point scale and Homann suggests that in addition to practice, participants should focus on their transitions to get comfortable telling a story in equal segments. Those interested in following the sessions on Twitter can search for the Hashtag: #lexthink.

I spoke with Matt Homann and JoAnna Forshee, producers of the annual LexThink.1 legal innovation conference, which is being held in Chicago on Wednesday, April 3rd on the eve of the ABA Techshow. Homann is the well-known founder of LexThink, a legal innovation consultancy, as well as the creator of the popular [non] billable hour blog. Forshee is the CEO of InsideLegal, which she describes as “the insider’s guide to doing business in legal technology.” Homann noted that LexThink.1 started 4 years ago as Ignite Law. Participants have 6 minutes (as in one-tenth of an hour of billable time) and 20 slides, which rotate every 18 seconds, to convey their ideas on this year’s theme – disruption. Prior sessions focused on the future of law, the future of legal tech, and client service. (I had the privilege of participating in the inaugural event in 2010, with a session called: What I Learned About the Future of Legal Marketing From Playing Wii Bowling With a 4 1/2-year old.) Ten speakers selected by “more than one thousand votes cast” online will cover a variety of topics ranging from Big Data or Big Brother (Eric Hunter) and Don’t Do What You’re Good At (Jay Shepherd) to Knowing the Unknowns (Roe Frazer) and LegalZoom is Eating Legal’s Lunch (Mark Britton). The only participant, who has appeared in all four productions is Will Hornsby, who will be discussing Gaming the System: Are lawyers ready to game-up? Forshee notes that speakers typically rate the difficulty of the experience at about an eight on a ten-point scale and Homann suggests that in addition to practice, participants should focus on their transitions to get comfortable telling a story in equal segments. Those interested in following the sessions on Twitter can search for the Hashtag: #lexthink.

I spoke with Roe Frazer, the founder of Cicayda, a Nashville-based software company providing cloud-based e-discovery tools; Case Logistix, now owned by Thomson Reuters; and, Digome, a digital marketing firm. Frazer noted that the name of his new venture, Cicayda, comes from the quest to find a rare blue-eyed cicayda and compared it to a legal team’s search for documents in the era of big data. Calling it “Angry Birds for e-discovery,” he highlighted that Cicayda offers an app-like look and feel for all of the company’s offerings. Frazer’s goal is to make software that lawyers can use while bringing “transparent pricing and price sanity” to the marketplace through a pay-per-use model. He considers this new offering “iteration 0.0” because he expects that customers will drive future development through social media channels.