Come Together, Right Now: Using the Internet to Communicate and Collaborate

7/29/2019 Come Together, Right Now: Using the Internet to Communicate and Collaborate

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CCoommeeTTooggeetthheerr,, RRiigghhttNNooww::Using the Internet to

Communicate and Collaborate

Presenters:

Simon Chester

Ron Friedmann

Rick Klau
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IN 02 Come Together, RightNow: Using the Internet toCommunicate andCollaborate

March 31 April 2, 2005Page 2

Background Material by

Ron FriedmannPrism Legal Consulting, Inc

5151 10th Rd N.

Arlington, VA [email protected]

Simon ChesterHeenan Blaikie LLP

200 Bay St., Suite 2600P.O. Box 185, South Tower, Royal Bank Plaza

Toronto, ON M5J 2J4416.643.6905

[email protected]

Rick KlauSocialtext

235 Churchill AvenuePalo Alto, California 94301

[email protected]

It's easier than ever to communicate and work with your clients, experts, and co-counsel using

the Internet. VoIP, instant messaging, video conferencing, extranets, and deal rooms provide new

and efficient ways of interacting and collaborating with others, all from the comfort of your

office. Learn about the latest in online communications tools and utilities, and how to keep them

secure.

ABA TECHSHOW 2005March 31 April 2, 2005

Chicago, Illinoiswww.techshow.com
http://www.techshow.com/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.prismlegal.com/


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Table of ContentsIntroduction........................................................................................................................................................4 The Impact of Technology on How We Communicate .............................................................................. 5Instant Messaging ..............................................................................................................................................6

New Ways to Reach Out to Clients IM Updates..................................................................................6

Wall St. IM Records Requirement and Future E-Discovery Issues.......................................................6Remote Data Display ........................................................................................................................................7

Video Conferencing ......................................................................................................................................7Voice Over Internet Protocol Telephony..................................................................................................7

Extranets .............................................................................................................................................................8Deciding on an Extranet Strategy...............................................................................................................8Are Extranet Standards Required?..............................................................................................................9A 2003 Effort to Standardize Extranets in the UK .................................................................................9A 2004 Effort to Standardize Extranets in Australia ...............................................................................9A Critique of the Australian Extranet Standardization Effort..............................................................10Getting Extranets Right .............................................................................................................................11

Good Extranets Meet Client Needs, Offer Functionality and Content..............................................11

Extranets at Work at Shaw Pittman LLP.................................................................................................11Extranets at Work at Morrison & Foerster .............................................................................................12Should Law Firms Roll Their Own Extranets? ..................................................................................12

Say Aloha to the Wiki......................................................................................................................................13Tag is it! .............................................................................................................................................................16tins ::: Rick Klaus weblog...............................................................................................................................19Matter Centric Working: Letting Lawyers Work the Way They Want to Work ....................................19

The Matter Centric Attorney Desktop.....................................................................................................20Managing Firm Know How.......................................................................................................................21Preserving Records......................................................................................................................................22Business Implications .................................................................................................................................23


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IntroductionFor this session, we have brought together a variety of articles and commentaries that each of us

has written over the years which touch on communication and collaboration over the Internet. Twoof us have been active bloggers for a number of years and we have extracted from the blog sitesrecent postings that comment on some of the technological and practical challenges faced when we

use advanced technologies as we practice law.

First lets set out a conceptual framework in which we can make some practical distinctionsbetween the various tools. The framework is a simple one, which turns on askingdoes thistechnology communicate from one or from many, and to one or to many, and is the communicationin real time that is: is it synchronous. We suggest three variations:

Synchronous communication is two-way: the parties are present at same time and all cancontribute and collaborate

Asynchronous communication is two-way: parties are not present at same time, but all cancontribute and collaborate

Publishing which is primarily designed as one way.

How do the various tools and technologies fit in?

In our session, were going to talk about all of these,bearing in mind that in all cases the clients needs andthe lawyers business purpose should drive the decisionwhich to choose. Sometimes cutting edge technologiesmay be available but less than optimal for the task athand. For example, in developing todays presentations

we could have resorted to web-based conferencing orshared work spaces. Instead, a traditional phoneconference, with files being continually shared over e-mail worked quite well enough.


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The Impact of Technology on How We CommunicateFrom Strategic Legal TechnologyBlog, by Ron Friedmann, 11/20/2003

As technology has evolved over the last few decades, we have an increasing choice for howwe

communicate: writing a letter and having it delivered, leaving voice mail messages (intentionally, bycalling at off hours), e-mailing a message, transmitting a fax, sending an instant message, or postinginformation to an extranet. The mode of communication is not just about how information istransmitted. The mode has many other implications. Two examples help illustrate this point.

First, consider e-mail. We take it for granted now of course. But around 1994 I co-wrote (and hadpublished by American Lawyer Media) an article extolling the virtues of using e-mail tocommunicate. At that time, many lawyers objected to e-mail and thought it would never amount toanything. Granted, cross-organization e-mail required complicated gateway connections at thetime (this was pre-Internet for general commercial purposes). Among the benefits I recall pointingout were:

communicating asynchronously (meaning the recipient did not have to be there to receive

the message), copying multiple parties,

keeping a written record (a sword that clearly cuts two ways in litigation),attaching files, and

crystallizing ones thoughts for the benefit of the recipient (in contrast, for example, to therambling voice mail message).

I contrasted e-mail to voice mail, which offered some of these benefits, but burdened the recipientwith often rambling thoughts and the need to take notes.

Second, a friend told me a story this week about PowerPoint. She was asked by colleagues to writea memo explaining a particular issue. As she started writing, she realized that the memo would end

up being long and detailed. Moreover, she realized that no matter how she argued the points, somereaders would not get it and others would disagree. And she found it was taking way too much timeto write. So instead of going down that path, she decided to respond to the request bywriting aPowerPoint presentation and e-mailing it. This allowed her to communicate the main points and toprovide some context and support. She reasoned that this would suffice for most of her audienceand for those who did not believe the points, they would not be convinced by a memo version andwould call her anyway.

This anecdote crystallized the idea for me that communication is deeply affected not just by thetransmission method (e.g., e-mail versus voice) but also by the presentation of content (e.g., writtenmemo, e-mail text, PowerPoint, or Visio diagrams). For better or worse, many business people arenow accustomed to PowerPoint presentations and find memos longer than one page tedious.

Lawyers who want to provide outstanding service to clients should consider carefully both how theytransmit and how they present information. While there is no right or wrong answer, differentchoices are appropriate for different circumstances. Lawyers should be attuned to the mode andpresentation format by which their clients would like to receive different types of information.
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Instant Messaging

New Ways to Reach Out to Clients IM UpdatesFrom Strategic Legal TechnologyBlog, by Ron Friedmann, 6/26/2003

Yesterday I noticed an ad in the Wall Street Journal for a newservice that delivers news andquotes via instant messaging (IM). I tried it just now and it seems pretty useful and unobtrusive, atleast so far.

A few years ago, most law firms would have scoffed at the idea that they would regularly send e-mail updates to clients or allow their clients to sign up for subscription alert services from the firms web sites. Yet many firms do this today. So, is IM the next wave? Will law firms begin to emulate theWSJ and deliver legal news via IM?

Arguably legal news and analysis requires some thought and reflection and therefore is notappropriate for IM. I suspect those same arguments were made about e-mail years back. The point isnot necessarily just speed - its operating in the medium clients find most congenial. I now have aWSJ buddy name on my AOL IM list. I can send a message ("main") to receive a menu of options

or a message containing my menu selection to get headlines ("1) or quotes ("2).Firms that want to occupy a high share of mind of their clients should consider a service that

emulates what the WSJ is doing. For clients who use IM, having the firm name right there on thebuddy list (or equivalent) can be a powerful awareness builder. And if that client has a legalquestion. well, Ill let you fill in the rest.

Wall St. IM Records Requirement and Future E-Discovery IssuesFrom Strategic Legal TechnologyBlog, by Ron Friedmann, 6/20/2003

Yesterday both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that NASD will nowrequire its members to save instant messages for at least three years (just as they must e-mailmessages). The same articles mention that NYSE had imposed the same requirements on itsmembers earlier in the week (which, if it was reported, I missed).

If saved IM records ever become subject to discovery, they will just add to the already largevolume of digital data that lawyers must review. I suspect that e-discovery vendors are happy aboutthis! Im not sure that IM e-discovery raises unique issues. But if Wall Street IM usage is typical,abbreviations and shorthand is rampant. Moreover, since IM interactions may follow a phone call, e-mail exchange, or hallway encounter, they may reference events or things that, standing alone, arenot all that clear. I suspect that therefore applying automatic analysis and screening techniques in e-discovery to IM will be even more challenging than it is to other digital data. There are specializedvendors that say they can help. For example, Cataphora says it can help put this type of informationinto context (meaning relating it to other documents and records) and H5 says it can help givemeaning by pre-filtering based on issue definitions.

I was also surprised that both papers did not give this more press. The NYT devoted fourcolumn-inches in a corner tucked away on page C6; the WSJ about eight on page C4. I suppose thatreflects my limited perspective on whats important!
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Remote Data DisplayRemote data display is used to project common images on remote computers, using a centralized

control. Its most typical application is in remote internet-based continuing legal education, wherethe technology can be used to share a PowerPoint presentation, to move together through acommon sequence of websites, or to demonstrate an application.

In a law firm collaboration, it can be used most easily to share whiteboard sketches and text, or toprovide end-user assistance or training.

The next step beyond that is interactive data collaboration, where both parties are jointly browsingthe web, jointly working on whiteboard diagrams or collaborating on updating a document. Remotecontrol tools include VNC, Timbuktu or Remote Administrator. A new program to check out isRemote Task Manager. Shared browser work can be conducted via SurfNChat, PowerCallWebAnytime and cuSeeMe.

Deal rooms fall into the category of persistent virtual work spaces, where remote parties (whetherclients or co-counsel), can remotely elaborate on a project or activity, sharing a common work spacefor:

Documents

Email discussion threads or archives

Digital objects

Notes

PowerPoints

Website designs

Outlines

Video ConferencingAt Heenan Blaikie LLP, we use video conferencing equipment extensively for internal

management, client team, and part mental meetings, and have found that it has significantly reducedthe need for inter-office travel. The digital video equipment becomes transparent after a while.Were using the Polycom ViewStationFX videoconferencing system, which integrates video, voice,data and web access.

Voice Over Internet Protocol TelephonyWhile the rise of email has certainly reduced our time on the phone, any lawyer knows that the

telephone remains an essential tool for practice. With VoIP, telephone calls can be made and faxessent over IP-based data networks, with amazing service and a cost/benefit that will appeal to anybean counter. VoIP converts the human voice into digital files into an analog signal which is thensent through IP or data packets over the Internet. When the other partys computer receives thefiles, it decodes the packets back to analog or voice format, so they can hear your message (orread,for a faxed document transmission).


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email

VoiceMessaging

Collaboration

Calendar

VideoConferencing

WebApplication

AudioConferencing

InstantMessaging

TelephoneServices

email

VoiceMessaging

Collaboration

Calendar

VideoConferencing

WebApplication

AudioConferencing

InstantMessaging

TelephoneServices

While using the Internet as a backbone for telephony may seem to offer simply cheap longdistance, the results of integrating telephones into law firm computer networks are much moreprofound. Since every phone message is a digital file, it can be shared, stored, transmitted, andanalyzed in the same way as any other digital file.

Simon Chesters old firm McMillan Binch, the firm is just one year into the adoption of the

implementation of a Cisco VIOP phone system. The phones are remarkably programmable, so thatthe phone screen becomes mechanism for transmitting internal phone directories, the clientdatabase, and personal preferences. Your VIOP phone is as personal to you as your computerdesktop settings. It can be plugged in anywhere on the internet, whether in another office withinthe firm or in a hotel across the world.

Coupled with a microphone headset, thecomputer can function entirely as a

telephone, and eliminate the need for aseparate piece of hardware. On suchsoft phones, the difference between

email and voice messaging residessimply in the fact that oneemploys text characters, rather

than sound waves.

The audio quality is unbelievably clear, no matter whatthe distance, since there is no line degradation unified messaging mean that everyone can use oneinbox for voice messages and e-mail. Since lawyers are on the road so much, getting access to voicemessages through one's email is a great feature. Another nice thing with the soft phones is the abilityto have it work and auto dial the cleints through the client database.

No lawyer at McMillan Binch has has yet abandoned a phone set to fully embrace soft phonetechnology, because its not yet completely practical. You can only trust MS Windows to a certainextent - in other words, if your PC crashes, you lose your phone. It is nice with a wireless networksince your PC and phone follow you everywhere.

Extranets

Deciding on an Extranet StrategyFrom Strategic Legal TechnologyBlog, by Ron Friedmann, 11/29/2003

Derek Smith and Peter J. Ozolin ofPaul Hastings provide a good overview and analysis of law

firm Extranets inAre Client Extranets Worth the Expense?published in the National Law Journal(December 1, 2003) and at law.com.

They explain that Extranets are not necessarily a client relationship builder. Before building (orbuying) an Extranet, law firms need to define what their goals are and what the economics of
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establishing and maintaining the Extranet will be. The article also describes three kinds of Extranets- turnkey, litigation support and management, and customized - which can meet differing needs.

This is a useful article for law firms thinking about Extranets or for law departments that areconsidering asking their outside counsel to establish one.

Are Extranet Standards Required?

A 2003 Effort to Standardize Extranets in the UKFrom Strategic Legal TechnologyBlog, by Ron Friedmann, 6/19/2003

In the current issue ofLegal Technology Insider, Charles Christian reports that guru RichardSusskind has revealed the existence of a new legal technology initiative by nine major investmentbanking groups, including Deutsche Bank and Barclays Capital. The objective is to agree [on] ITstandards for the electronic delivery of legal services, so their in-house legal departments willeventually only have access [to] one system, rather than the present situation where one bank mayface separate login and operating requirements for as many as 200 different law firm extranets and

virtual deal rooms. Susskinds article appears in the June 17, 2003 online edition of theTimesOnline (London).

In his article, Susskind reports that nine leading global investment banks in London [l]ed byDeutsche Bank and Barclays Capitalhave called upon five leading City law firms to work withthem. The five are Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Linklaters and Simmons &Simmons. He suggests that it would be best for a third party such as a legal publisher to deliver thecommon hub.

This announcement does not surprise me. I have thought for some time now that if law firmextranets do succeed, they will sow the seeds of their own destruction. In a presentation I gave,TheFuture of Technology in Law Practice to an ABA section in May 2002, I argued that clients that

actively use law firm extranets (1) tend to use more than 1 firm, (2) it

s too hard to use multipleextranets, (3) there needs to be a single, uniform system, (4) law firms will need to upload data to acommon place, and (5) data transfer standards will develop.

I agree with Susskind that it may be difficult to achieve this goal with multiple law firms. Twoyears ago, LawCommerce.com announced an initiative to create a common deal room standard. Apress release appeared on Yahoo about this June 18, 2001 and a similar one is still available atLawCommerce. As far as I know, the major technology initiative to create a world wide standardfor Online Deal Rooms did not develop much traction.

My last comment is that the potential third party providers extend beyond legal publishers. Forexample, IntraLinks provides a common extranet platform.

A 2004 Effort to Standardize Extranets in AustraliaFrom Strategic Legal TechnologyBlog, by Ron Friedmann, 9/26/2004

I have previouslywritten that if law firm extranets succeed, they will sow the seeds of their owndestruction. Clients will not want to use multiple systems; instead, a single interface to multiple
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outside counsel will be required. Along these lines, Charles Christian, in Legal Technology Insider,reports on a new effort to standardize extranets.

In the 16 Sep 2004 issue, Christian reports that Telestra (the largest Australian company) hascreated an extranet system that a company called nSynergynow provides to 45 companies inAustralia. Moreover, nSynergy has opened for business in the UK.

nSynergys LegalNet product, according to the companys website, is a common platform thatoffers collaboration features, status on all open matters, a way for clients to requests quotes for newmatters, extensive reporting, and project tracking. An article in Australian publication LawyersWeekly,The Online Brief Manager (21 Nov 2003) provides some interesting background on thehistory of the project.

Christian also reports that nSyngergy offers LegalNet free to law departments. This could lead to asituation similar to e-billing, where GC receive a service for free but firms pay fees and investsubstantial internal resources (see my recent postingon e-billing).

Long-term, I believe that the most flexible and best solution to the issue of sharing data is isadoption of data standards and common technology such as web services. Also, a standards

approach strikes me as a good way to avoid what seems like the messy economics that arise fromgiving product and services to GC for free. Theres no such thing as a free lunch applies here. Thegoal should be to reduce total system costs and share the savings. I worry that free really meanscreating extra costs and shifting costs, rather than reducing them.

A Critique of the Australian Extranet Standardization EffortFrom Strategic Legal TechnologyBlog, by Ron Friedmann, 10/5/2004

I recentlyposted about a new, single platform Extranet from Australia called nSynergy. Threereliable sources in Australia suggest this is probably not going to take the market by storm.

The reports from my sources:

Apparently, Telstra continues to use the predecessor system to nSynergy and none of themajor Australian law firms use the product. Australian general counsels are testing thesystem but corporate IT and purchasing managers are not keen on supporting a sourcingsystem unique to legal.

It is focused primarily on law firms reporting fees in a standard format; it appearseffectively to transfer the administrative burden from GC to firms.

nSynergy offers the software free to GC - seeking revenue by charging firms. But someGCs are a little concerned about the potential for hidden costs such as training andhardware, and for fees in the future. Beyond paying fees, firms are reluctant to use it becausethat would require re-keying data from existing systems

In light of these comments, it seems to me (1) the report referenced in myprior post may be outin front of what is actually happening and (2) if the real goal is fee tracking, which was not clear tome from that report, it seems GC should use one of the several established e-billing services.

Ill take this occasion to re-state two of my favorite themes: First, I think the concept behindnSynergy - a single platform or data standard for sharing data among lawyers and clients - does make
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sense. And second, while such sharing - whether it is documents, billing, or project status - is useful,it is not likely to generate huge savings. Bigger savings will flow from examining how lawyers workand changing processes so that costs are actually reduced.

Getting Extranets Right

Good Extranets Meet Client Needs, Offer Functionality and ContentFrom Strategic Legal TechnologyBlog, by Ron Friedmann, 1/16/2004

This week I had the opportunity to see a demonstration of an AmLaw 100 firms client-facingExtranet. Extranets have been much discussed but the evidence suggests little used. One reason Isuspect usage has been low is that many Extranets dont do that much. The one I saw this week,however, was impressive in its design and functionality.

This firm has done a good job thinking through the business and design issues of Extranets. Thefirm acknowledges that ideally an Extranet would be hosted by the client and visited by multipleoutside counsel. But they rightly point out that the reality is that most law departments dont havethe resources to build and host their own Extranets. So this firm set out to build an Extranet that its

clients would find useful - and succeeded.The Extranet includes numerous features such as share documents, matter management (e.g.,

docketing), contacts, tasks, and reporting tools. The interface and functionality varies, depending onthe matter type. For example, both the navigation links and content are quite different fortransaction versus litigation. In some areas of the Extranet, the firm has also included value-addedfeatures such as annotated form documents and best practice checklists.

This firm has gone beyond merely providing Extranets as we usually think of them. It also reportsthat its Extranets are, in some instances, instantiated as corporate law department Intranets. That is,employees in some companies use a corporate law department legal Intranet. Some of or the entireIntranet is actually hosted and administered by the law firm.

The firm reports that they do monitor usage and use the tracking data to improve the site and togo back to the client if usage is lower than expected to understand why. Based on the URLs I saw, itappears the firm has built the entire system using Cold Fusion.

All in all, I was quite impressed with what I saw. While I have no information about clientreaction, if I put myself in clients shoes and saw a similar demonstration, I would be impressed.

Extranets at Work at Shaw Pittman LLPFrom Strategic Legal TechnologyBlog, by Ron Friedmann, 7/18/2003

Many law firms offer their clients extranets. Anecdotal evidence among law firm knowledgemanagers and IT professionals is that clients do not use them very much. Perhaps that is becausemost extranets are focused on exchanging documents. For that, e-mail will do (or at least that is theview of most lawyers).

My July 12th post described how Morrison & Foerster created a popular extranet by populating itwith a patent docket. Earlier this week, I had an opportunity to see how another firm, Shaw Pittman
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In my last posting on Extranets, I suggested that law firm Extranets are more touted than used. Ido not have good data on actual usage, so my anecdotal impression may well be misplaced. And I doknow a handful of firms whose Extranets areused regularly and extensively by clients.

Judging by their action to create separate entities to market extranets, at least two law firmsperceive that a market exists for additional, legally-focused extranets.Tom Baldwin, formerly

consultant to Foley & Lardner and now CKO of Sheppard Mullin, alerted me to Haynes & Booneshbconnect Extranet, which has created separate entity, ClientConnect to offer customizableExtranet services.

Separately, Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold LLP has created a subsidiary called Xerdict, whichalso offers customizable Extranets.

It will be interesting to see how these two offerings fare in the market. It seems to me acompetitive space, with offerings by Hummingbird, Interwoven (owner of iManage), Documentum(owner of eRoom), and Intralinks, among others. The market does not seem to be crying out foradditional choices. There is, of course, always the possibility of the proverbial better mousetrap.

If I were advising a law firm about selecting an Extranet product, I would focus first on

functionality, including ease of use and administration. Another consideration is the companyoffering the product - its stability, focus, market position, and incentives. It can be hard enough toevaluate a software company that is purely free-standing; it would seem even harder to evaluate oneaffiliated with a law firm.

Say Aloha to the Wiki

By Rick Klau

(A version of this article originally appeared in the April, 2004 issue of ABA Law Practice ManagementMagazine.)

A Web site can be an ever-expanding white board for group collaboration. And were talking quick.

Visit the home pages of most software vendors these days and youll see a lot of talk aboutsecurity. Buzzwords will pop out at you: audit trails, authentication, identity and so on. Many ITdirectors will tell you that a system that can be locked down is a system that can work. The vendorswant to provide you with stuff that makes that happen. In fact, you dont hear vendors talking abouta lack of securityindeed, to do so would be heresy.

That may be about to change. Meet the wiki, the technology that makes your blood go cold whenyou first read about it. So lets get that out of the way: A wiki is a Web site that anyone can editatany time. And anyone can do so anonymously. In other words, the page could say one thing thismorning, then someone could swing by, and two minutes later the page could say the opposite

thing. Sound like a formula for effective collaboration? Shockingly enough, it is. (Okay, thats behindus. Read on to figure out why the anyone-anytime edit philosophy makes sense.)

Origins of the Species:What Is It?
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Wiki is Hawaiian for quick. And its the notion of allowing users to quickly and easily edit Webpages that sets wiki technology apart from other collaboration environments. Wiki is the name of anapplication as well as a concept. There are countless wiki program clones available online thatoffer similar functionality. While wiki will celebrate its 10th birthday next year, it has its origins in adatabase effort from Carnegie Mellon University dating to 1972.

Wiki was under the radar of most Web users for much of the past decade, and its only in the pastyear that its use has started to skyrocket among casual users. In hands-on terms, a wiki is a verysimple Web application installed on your Web server. Early implementations were completely open,allowing anyone to edit and having no notion of capturing who made what changes (unless theperson annotated those changes himself or herself). But todays wiki applications do include usermanagement to track who does what. The point of a wiki is to create an electronic white board,whereby any user with access to a browser can view what others have written and can add their owncomments, edit others mistakes and contribute to the conversation. The telltale sign of a wikisystem is the Edit button that appears on a Web page: Click on it, and youll have the ability tochange the text on the page.

Why Bother with It?

Consider how a law practice could put this technology to use to foster knowledge sharing. If youthink of a wiki an ever-expanding white board, you start to get an idea of how it might enablegroups to share information, organize that information and, over time, correct and enhance thegroups collective knowledge base.

Most people, when they first hear about it, assume that this capability makes wikis vulnerable todigital graffiti artists, who can swoop in, write whatever they want, then go away. While thatscertainly true, there are practical ways to limit this. First off, if the goal is to work among a team, youcan always put the wiki behind a password so that only those people who have authorized access tothe wiki site can edit its content. In addition, there are a number of different wiki implementations,

several of which explicitly incorporate some advanced user and rights management so that onlyallowed individuals can make changes to content.

Does It Work?

Ive written before about the trend in moving from centralized software management todecentralized software. The most obvious example of this is the weblog phenomenon, which took apreviously highly centralized function (Web publishing) and turned it upside down. Anyone couldpublish a weblog, for little to no money and without any of the steep learning curve thataccompanies the bigger, centralized applications. Wikis also decentralize the process of collectingand sharing knowledge among a group. Now, go back to the white-board analogy:What if, to use awhite board, only one person could be in the room at a time? That person would write somethingon the board, leave the room and tell a friend (or group of friends) to go take a look. Then, one byone, theyd each enter the room and take a crack at improving on the original contribution on theboard.


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Hardly a way to collaborate, is it?

Yet thats exactly the model in use when people create documents, send them to others and askthe individuals to send back comments. A wiki changes this model. Not only do you have the abilityto edit content that you see, but you can create new pages, link among page and use many othertraditional Web tricks (hyperlinks, display graphics, attached files and the like) collaboratively. Now

the white-board analogy breaks down, because no white board in the world can do that.

Exploiting Wiki Technology

To take advantage of all a wiki can enable, it helps to be familiar with wiki markup. Based onthe assumption that average users dont know all about HTML, wiki implements some text-basedshortcuts to make using the system easier.

Mixed capitalization. If you want to automatically create a new page linked from where youretyping, type NewPage. (No spaces between words, please.) The wiki application automaticallyrecognizes this as a page name. When you click on Save, youll see your in-place edits and a link to

the NewPagewhich will start out blank. This is useful when you have multiple pages that arerelated to each other, but need to be separate pages instead of one long page.Wiki will automaticallylink the pages together.

Hyperlinks. You can create hyperlinks to other content, on the wiki or anywhere on the Web.This is typically accomplished by putting square brackets around the URL, such as[www.abanet.org].

Tables. Rather than remember how to code tables, you can just put lines between cells, forexample:

|Cell 1 | Cell 2 | Cell 3|

The wiki will automatically format this content as a table, with as many rows as necessary.

Bullet lists. Rather than use the code, just use asterisks, and the wiki will format your textappropriately. There are other conventions that many wiki engines (the term popularly used torefer to wiki applications) will follow. Once installed, the wiki will give you plenty of documentationon using its tools.

Note that some wiki systems use different variations on the concepts above; most will include edittips, or suggestions for formatting, which should answer how to adjust the formatting within that

system.


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Why It Works

I started out by talking about security (or the lack thereof). Well, wikis succeed in part becausethey do not impose a lot of restrictions on users. Groups, it turns out, are quite good at regulatingthemselves. The big advantage to a wikithat anyone can editmeans that inaccuracies getcorrected quickly. Also, people who contribute good information on a regular basis become well-

known (and respected) in the group. Plus, anyone who is new to the group has a terrific archive ofknowledge shared by the group that will get the new individual up to speed. And quick(ly).

Tag is it!

By Rick Klau

A few years back, taxonomy was the knowledge management buzzword. (See? Even buzzwordslike KM can have their own buzzwords.) A taxonomy, the thinking went, was the holy grail for alaw firm seeking to leverage its knowledge. The law firm would classify its knowledge, creating

categories for every practice area, every subject, every jurisdiction. In short: once completed, thefirm would have a complete map of the kinds of things it knew, making the sorting and retrieval ofthat knowledge a simple process.

But like the challenge inherent in taxonomies the requirement of thoroughly classifyingeverythingwas precisely why so few law firms have been successful in implementing them. An effectivetaxonomy requires tremendous commitment on the part of the law firm, and not just from the ITstaff. To be useful, it must reflect what the lawyers know, and therefore required the time of thelawyers the same have little time to spend on non-billable work (especiallywhen it concernstechnology).

In The Innovators Dilemma, Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen describeshow many new technologies develop: by delivering less functionality that customers arent asking

for. (Doesnt make much sense, does it?) Looking at a number of technologies that developed overthe 80s and 90s, Christensen pointed out that in each case, the newer technology was not what thecustomers were asking for, and often came out of a tangential business need. By serving the lower(and less expensive) end of the market, these displacing technologies grew and eventuallyrepresented a threat to the established companies.

A new technology is emerging on the Internet not to solve law firms knowledge managementneeds (a market rife with expensive products and law firm budgets in six and seven figures), but tosolve a bookmarkingproblem? (As in your browser bookmarks.) Sure enough.

Tagging the basics

Visitors to http://del.ici.ous (a service far easier to pronounce than to type) can create a freeaccount, where they can start bookmarking websites they visit. When a site is bookmarked,
http://del.ici.ous/


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Delicious asks you for some words to describe the site. Each word becomes a tagand each tagbecomes its own category that lets users navigate through their bookmarks.

Unlike the taxonomy approach mentioned above, there is no relationship (hierarchical or otherwise)among tags. In fact, once you realize that Delicious is designed to be a socialservice, you start to see

the opportunity for chaos: you have no monopoly over what tags describe a particular website.

Take a CNN.com story about the weather in Chicago as an example. Once I see it, I may add thetags chicago, weather and snow while someone else may add the tags illinois, accumulation andwindy. In a traditional, top-down view of knowledge management, this is fundamentally broken:either the article in question is about Chicago, weather and snow or illlinois, accumulation andwindy. Or a combination of the two. But not either one or the other. There has to be one, agreed-upon view of what the article is (and what it means), or there will be uncertainty and confusion.

Tagging A Window Into Your Colleagues World

Except that it turns out there isnt uncertainty and confusion. When I use Delicious to look at sites

Ive bookmarked, I can see how I categorized the site, as well as how others have. In this sense, I get tosee angles to the site I may not have realized. I see alternative perspectives about what the site meansto others. And, thanks to the magic of hypertext, I can navigate through those alternative tags toview other sites that are similarly categorized.

Rather than force a group to agree in advance on what terms matter, a service like Delicious lets thegroup instead focus on which content matters. The categories exist as representative of the content,rather than the other way around. Broad tags like Chicago can include weather, restaurants, realestate anything. And narrow tags like accumulation will ordinarily contain targeted info specificto that concept; in both cases, the possibility of finding things you didnt already know about is quitehigh. Since the goal of any good KM collaboration strategy is to spread the organizations

knowledge among all participants, this is a good thing.

This bottom-up way of adding order to the content (not vice versa) proves to be a very effectiveprocess for not only classifying the content, but also for identifying which categories are in factinteresting to the group.

Delicious is not alone. A photo sharing service flickr not only encourages users to upload theirpictures (thats been done for years by companies like Ofoto, Shutterfly and others), it encouragesusers to tag their pictures. Should you choose to share your pictures (that is, make them publiclyviewable), suddenly viewers can browse photos by tags.

These are consumer services, but let

s return to Christensen

s hypothesis in The Innovator

sDilemma that disruptive technology often comes from the lower end of the market. As of thiswriting, a major endorsement of the tagging phenomenon comes from Technorati, a company thatgrew up around indexing RSS feeds from weblogs.


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Technorati Tags Exposing Connections Among Tags

Technorati is a service that shows the linkages among conversations on the Internet. Weblog A linksto Weblog B, which links to Weblogs C & D. Those links represent connections that Technoratiindexes, then represents on its website. Anyone visiting Technorati can find related weblogs lets

say you like Ernie the Attorney

s website, but didn

t know about Bag & Baggage (the excellentweblog from Denise Howell). Thank to Technorati, all youd need to know was Ernies web address;plugged into Technorati it will reveal all weblogs that linkto Ernie. This alone is useful.

A new feature from Technorati now also indexes tags. Rather than just show links between websites,Technorati now also shows links between tags. This allows you to navigate from one weblog toanother based on the category the weblog author chose to apply to the content. Technorati alsoindexes tags from flicks, del.ici.ous, as well as Socialtext wikis (disclosure: I work for Socialtext). Ifyoure interested in a particular tag, go to http://www.technorati.com/tag/techshow. Youll seeevery bookmark from Delicious that users tagged with the techshow tag, all photos fromTechShow, all blogs mentioningtechshow in their category, and any public Socialtext wikis thatinclude a techshow category. Suddenly, the lack of a hierarchy is no impediment to finding related

kinds of content regardless of where that content is stored or who categorized it. (And unliketraditional systems, where the author dictates how the content is categorized, Delicious and flickr leteach individual viewing the page decide how to categorize the content, increasing the likelihood thatsubsequent visitors will see it.)

To fully understand why this concept of tagging matters, and what it means for how individuals andorganizations will use the web in the near future, read David Weinbergers provocative Small Pieces,Loosely Joined. (Weinbergers own encounter with the competitive displacement of the webbrowser in 1993 a threat to his far more capable software is recounted in the books preface,available online here.)

And finally, a new buzzword

To my co-panelist Simon Chesters utter horror, theres even a buzzword for this phenomenon:folksonomy. Wikipedia has a good definition and list of resources here. I predict well see enterpriseapplications (that is to say, commercially produced software based on these concepts targeted atbusinesses) within the next six months. One thing is certain: whether Im right or not, the tags thatothers use to describe this article on my blog (brilliant, foolish?) will tell the story better than Icould.

[Simon Chester ripostes Thomas Vander Wals coining of folksonomy as a term to use many tomany collaboration to generate meaningful relationships is interesting and profound, but it s an

inelegant neologism to join the Old Saxon word

folc

with the Greek

nomia

. Fowler in ModernEnglish Usage at p49 says To create barbarisms is a grave misdemeanor; and the greater the need ofthe word that is made, the greater its makers guilt if he miscreates it. But after all we lost the battleon the word television let folksonomy rule.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomyhttp://www.smallpieces.com/content/preface.htmlhttp://www.technorati.com/tag/techshow


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tins ::: Rick Klaus weblog

Selected posts on collaboration and wikis:

Category Title Date

Wiki The Long Tail 1/10/05Wiki Year of the Enterprise Wiki 1/6/05Wiki Saving Money and Time with Wikis 6/4/04Wiki Wikis Entering the Mainstream 5/28/04Collaboration KM Individual vs. Organizational 7/19/04Collaboration IT Innovation in the Next Decade 5/26/04Collaboration Federal Government Worst at KM By Far 4/28/04Collaboration Knowledge is Not a Zero Sum game 8/30/02Collaboration MITRE and the Thank You Database 9/3/02Collaboration Seven Myths of Knowledge Management 7/26/02

Other good samples:

Posts by category:o KMo Innovationo Business Strategyo Technology

Matter Centric Working: Letting Lawyers Work the Way

They Want to WorkNOTE:

Communication is nothing without substance. Though this session focuses on methods of communication, it is criticalto remember that much of what lawyers communicate is substantive. The article was published in KMWorldmagazine (July/August 2004).

By Andrew Pery and Ron FriedmannLaw firms operate in an increasingly competitive environment. First, globalization requires firms

to reach beyond their traditional boundaries, forge alliances internationally, and practice in multiplespecialized areas of the law. And second, the pressure to improve realization rates has never been

more intense.To meet these challenges, firms must use their intellectual capital as a strategic resource. This

means firms must provide lawyers with a single interface to all client and matter information.Systems such as document management, legal research, records management, financial reporting,
http://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/cat_technology.phphttp://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/cat_business_strategy.phphttp://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/cat_innovation.phphttp://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/cat_km.phphttp://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2002/07/26/seven_myths_of_knowledge_management.phphttp://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2002/09/03/mitre_and_the_thank_you_database.phphttp://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2002/08/30/knowledge_is_not_a_zero_sum_game.phphttp://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2002/04/28/federal_government_worst_at_km_by_far.phphttp://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2004/05/26/it_innovation_in_the_next_decade.phphttp://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2004/07/19/km_individual_vs_organizational.phphttp://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2004/05/28/wikis_entering_the_mainstream.phphttp://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2004/06/04/saving_money_and_time_with_wikis.phphttp://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2005/01/06/year_of_the_enterprise_wiki.phphttp://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2005/01/10/the_long_tail.php


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and collaborative tools must be integrated. Moreover, know-how must be systematically captured,managed, shared, and re-used.

Firms should integrate previously disparate systems and capture know-how in the context ofmatter life-cycle management, as illustrated below. Upon intake, a new matter must be reviewed forpossible conflicts. If cleared, it is assigned to a practice area, categorized by topic, and a matter

folder created. The matter folder contains all related documents, e-mail correspondence, and billinginformation. Ideally, it should be pre-populated with key dates (docketing data) and relevantprecedents. There should also be an easy way to designate documents for re-use (knowledgemanagement) or for retention (records management). Partner views of the folders should includefinancial reports about the client and the matter. In many instances, information will be shared withclients or co-counsel and must therefore be accessible via collaborative technologies.

Managing the work explicitly in its natural life-cycle, providing access to all the information abouta matter in a single interface, and capturing re-usable know-how all contribute to better client serviceand higher realization rates.

The Matter Centric Attorney DesktopThe old paradigm of the application-centric desktop is fading; instead, firms must provide a

content-centric view. Lawyers do not care that e-mail systems manage messages and documentmanagement systems manage documents they want to see all related information in a single,logically organized interface. Consequently, many firms use a portal or Web browser-based solution.Others view Microsoft Outlook as the key because lawyers use it so much and it is now easy toinclude in the Outlook folder tree documents or folders from the document management and othersystems.

UK-based Allen & Overy LLP, one of the worlds top global law firms with 4,800 fee-earners andstaff in 23 countries, is implementing a global virtual file called Omnia using the HummingbirdEnterprise portal, document and knowledge management capabilities. Dave Burwell, A&Os CIOsays, Omnia offers our attorneys an interactive matter-centric view of the firms matter, know-howand client information within a single browser interface. Fee-earners anywhere in the world caninteract with the virtual file that contains all information related to a particular matter includingdocuments, e-mail and paper correspondence, time, billing and contact information. As a result, ourfee-earners and staff are better able to manage work in progress, improve productivity and serviceour global client base more efficiently.


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The matter-centric view is especially useful for managing work in progress, including documents,e-mail, and financial data. This view is also a natural way to facilitate collaboration outside theorganization because co-counsel and client permission to access information is generally determinedat the matter level.

Another benefit of the matter-centric and life cycle approach is the potential to automate tasks.

This may include work flows that automatically create certain documents and that pre-populatenew items with matter metadata. For example, client information created during the matter in-takemay be automatically populated to the client matter folder once the firm completes the conflictscheck. Once the client matter folder is generated, the assigned lawyers are notified of the newmatter and have immediate access to critical information.

Managing Firm Know HowCommonly referred to as knowledge management, firms are recognizing the importance of

fostering a knowledge sharing culture as a means toward better client service and improvedrealization rates. Many firms today consider knowledge management as a cost of doing businessrather than an optional achievement.

By organizing and categorizing firm work product into practice areas or topical categories a firmcan gain several benefits. For example:

Quicker ramp up of new lawyers via access to a library of best practices;

Faster delivery of services, particularly standard commercial transactions by re-usingprecedents; and

Preserving and protecting the collective firm know-how as lawyers leave the firm.There are two approaches to capturing firm know-how. One is an automated approach that uses

software to identify and find useful documents. Another is to rely on a more manual, human-driveneditorial process. The two are not mutually exclusive and a blend is often best.

Automated tools can sift very large document collections to find a small subset but the subsetsreturned are often too large and contain too many false hits or do not provide any context.

In the human approach, dedicated workers identify useful documents, save them to a separatedatabase, and describe the context in which they were used. Many law firms, especially in the UnitedKingdom and Australia, have practice support lawyers or knowledge managers whose primaryjob this is.

At Allen & Overy LLP, the firm designed its know-how system to encourage information sharingamong the staff. The know-how system contains more than 20,000 items including precedents, bestpractices, advice and templates. In addition, Dr. Burwell says, We have streamlined our process inorder to ensure documents are classified correctly. The key to the implementation is to ensure thatthe knowledge management tools and practices are tightly integrated into the day-to-day business of

the fee earners.One specialized legal-market product, AdvanceKnowledge by ii3, Inc. of Toronto, offers an

approach that greatly facilitates the manual approach. Tight integration with the HummingbirdEnterprise document management system and a built-in workflow make it easy to submit


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documents to a separate repository. Moreover, during the submission process, a lawyer orknowledge manager can easily enter contextual information, associate related documents andinformation (e.g., key contacts), and categorize the material into a taxonomy. The system evenidentifies expertise based on the number of submissions by category, which in turn, provides anincentive to submit documents.

McCarthy Tetrault, the largest law firm in Canada, has used AdvanceKnowledge andHummingbird Enterprise document management for several years. In the course of rolling out theproduct, the firm also took many measures to motivate lawyers to submit documents. GeorgeTakach, the McCarthys partner who spearheaded this effort, says that using AdvanceKnowledgehas made a huge difference for our firm. We no longer talk KM we really do it. Between thesoftware and work practices we established around it, lawyers regularly contribute content and, moreimportantly, describe the context of deals, cases and other matters. This makes it easy for otherlawyers to find valuable know-how quickly, which means better service and greater efficiency for ourclients. The use ofbroadcast e-mail to find documents or expertise has fallen off dramatically.AdvanceKnowledge allows us to extract much more value from our document management andCRM systems.

Preserving RecordsManaging firm records has several dimensions: ensuring business continuity, complying with

legislative mandates relating to records retention, and planning for the potential discovery of digitaldata in litigation.

Records management should be an integral component of a matter centric attorney desktop. Theclient matter folder should have embedded rules by which documents are classified in accordancewith pre-defined retention practices. Automated triggersor workflowsthat declare a document a recordinvoke these retention rules. Declaring a document a record means that it cannot be modified (it isan authenticrecord) and it must be maintained for a specified period of time.

E-mail management is a special challenge for law firms because lawyers rely on it so heavily forsubstantive, client-related issues. Which messages should be preserved and which ones not?Increasingly, automatedtechniques allowclassifyingand categorizingmessages into client matter foldersthat meet predefined classification criteria. Rules engines can infer in which matter folder themessage belongs and how it should be classified for retention purposes. Automated approaches donot eliminate the need for human review, but they do help in the initial process of distinguishingbetween irrelevantand vitalrecords.

Effective records management practices means less onerous discovery expenses should litigationoccur. The absence of a formal document retention policy can result in dire consequences. Forexample, there have been cases in which exculpatory evidence was not allowed into evidencebecause of problems in how documents were retained. Automated approaches do not eliminate the

need for human review, but they do help in the initial process of distinguishing between irrelevantand vital records.


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Business ImplicationsThe days of law as a genteel profession are over firms now run as businesses. Recent mergers

and failures of large firms have surprised even long-time observers. Growth and profitability are thenew mantras. Many firms now take marketing and business management seriously, hiring highlycompensated Chief Marketing Officers, emphasizing cross-selling, tracking profit and loss at the

practice group level and shifting from low-margin to high-margin work.Leveraging firm know-how is an effective tool to promote the firm. Client matter information is

often re-purposed around practice centric content that links the firms domain expertise toprecedents. Legal research content then is published to the firm extranet, as a service to existingclients and as a marketing tool for attracting prospective clients.

The challenge for law firms is to generate incremental value from an inherently scarce resource time. Application-centric computing is giving way to a data-centric model; at the same time, firmsare capturing matter-specific work to create shareable and re-usable knowledge bases. Thistransformation may change the way firms generate value and maximize realization rates. Hourlybilling may give way to value-based billing (for example, fixed fees). Partners have the potential toscale their practices by having junior lawyers deliver the high quality service by re-using precedentsand best practices.

Viewed in the competitive context and pressure to generate profits, the matter centric way ofworking is not just a desirable model but an imperative. Conventional wisdom once held that firmsshould not invest in knowledge enabling processes unless there is cost recovery for these initiatives.This premise is no longer valid. Such investments ought to be considered as a cost of doingbusiness.

###About Hummingbird

Hummingbird is the leading provider of practice management solutions for law firms and

corporate legal counsel. Hummingbird is a market leader with 53% market share of top grossinglaw firms globally.

Hummingbird recognizes that firms have different ways of working and different infrastructures tosupport. Hummingbird strategy is to provide a flexible environment that supports how lawyerswork, based on configurable matter and practice centric views of firm work product and know-how,accessible from a wide range of user interfaces. The architectural foundation of HummingbirdEnterprise is to provide single point of access to a suite of applications that are highly integrated.For more information visit us at http://www.hummingbird.com/legal_kmw04About The AuthorsAndrew Pery is Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President of Hummingbird Corporation.He has over 20 years of marketing experience in the software industry. Andrews experience

encompasses product marketing, brand strategy, mergers and acquisitions with both pre IPO andpublicly traded companies.Ron Friedmann is the president of Prism Legal Consulting, which helps law firms with the strategicuse of technology and legal market software companies with marketing and strategy. He is a lawyer


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by training and has held senior management positions at two large law firms and two legal softwarecompanies. E-mail: [email protected].

Simon Chester Ron Friedmann Rick Klau
mailto:[email protected]