Legal technology evangelist, author and blogger Nicole L. Black recommends that a legal blog is one of the best ways to create a memorable and search-engine-friendly online presence. Simply put, blogs are a great way for lawyers to showcase legal expertise while increasing their firms’ search engine optimization—all while helping them to stay on top of changes in their areas of practice by writing about them on their firm’s blog.
Jordan Furlong is a leading analyst of the global legal market and forecaster of its future development. In this article he discusses the changing landscape of the legal market, focusing on why and how the disruptive impact of advanced technology in the law will be to reduce the incidence and volume of traditional legal work given by clients to lawyers. Furlong states that this is not just a market change; this is the emergence of a new legal economy. That’s a term we need to start thinking about, developing more fully, and changing our strategies to reflect.
Nancy Dixon, a leader in the field of Knowledge Management, has been thinking about and studying what makes conversations work, and she has created a chart as a way to organize her thinking. She shares it to provide both an actionable guide to use with customers and colleagues, as well as to encourage conversation and additional thoughts.
In her three part article on AI in Legal Research and Law Practice, Carolyn Elefant, attorney, tech guru, and legal blogger, shares actionable information, knowledge and topical resources that were the foundation of her presentation at the AALL 2019 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Elefant’s mission has always been to ensure that solo and small firms have current information, not just on new technology developments, but also on how these new tools can be applied in practice. AI is a fast-moving target that presents significant challenges to professionals in many roles – lawyers, law librarians, KM, CI/BI, competitive intelligence, marketing, and research analysts to name but a few. Elefant’s primer illuminates the critical role law librarians play in the effective implementation of AI within their organizations. See also Part I and Part III.
As writer/editor for more than two decades, Sarah Gotschall’s article immediately piqued my interest. Gotschall writes that when she proofreads her own work product, she is doing so with what she think she wrote in mind, rather than than focusing specifically on the words on the page. The addition of Speak command to your Quick Access Toolbar in Microsoft Word will be of interest to writers, editors, researchers, librarians, InfoPros, students, and marketing folks too.
Lawyer, legal tech Innovator and legal blogger Kevin O’Keefe showcases the extraordinary talents of Robert Ambrogi, who is acknowledged as the best in class of law and technology journalism in America.
Ed Walters, CEO of Fastcase, talks about how the new age of law firm innovation is changing legal services by moving from anecdotal to data-driven insights and thus providing better-informed guidance for clients. Walters also identifies the value of analytics to manage and mitigate risk, which he points out is almost always more cost effective than litigating the effects after the fact. Most importantly, Walters highlights not only how law firms are using AI, but that they are also building their own tools to deliver new types of services as well.
V. Mary Abraham shares the law firm ranking system used by Fidelity’s Head of Legal Innovation.
Global Industry Analyst Josh Bersin addresses critical employee workplace analysis validating people skills as highly rated employer HR and talent requirements. In professions for whom continuous delivery of outstanding customer services using collaborative and dynamic team efforts is the norm, Bersin’s data driven analysis is a benchmark to expand upon organizational mission, vision and values.
Advertising is now part of a complex ecosystem that engages a wide range of components, including but not limited to: social media, Big Data, AI, data mining, competitive intelligence, and marketing. Alan Rothman reveals and explains for readers just how utterly different and hyper-competitive advertising now is, with work product largely splayed across countless mobile and stationary screens on Planet Earth. Rothman describes how expertly chronicling and precisely assaying the transformative changes happening to this sector is an informative and engaging new book, Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (and Everything Else), by the renowned business author Ken Auletta. Just as a leading ad agency in its day cleverly and convincingly took TV viewers on an endearing cultural tour of the U.S .as we followed the many ad-ventures of Bartles & Jaymes, so too, this book takes its readers on a far-ranging and immersive tour of the current participants, trends, challenges and technologies affecting the ad industry. Auletta’s book is not only timely and insightful, but demonstrably valuable for the professionals in the legal sector who are striving to effectively engage, employ and measure the value of marketing to clients and potential clients in a rapidly changing environment increasingly dependent upon using big data and analytical platforms.