Category Archives: Law Practice Management

eDiscovery California, Education, Law Practice Management

e-Discovery California: Upcoming Presentations, Activities & #LPMT Free Offer EXTENDED!

00443095
Is it just me, or are these officially the dog days of summer?  Maybe I feel that way because while visiting my mom, the temperature hit 115 – not fit for man, beast…or lawyer!

The California State Bar Annual Meeting is rapidly approaching, so I thought I'd issue this friendly reminder.  I'm presenting CLE #144 on Sunday, September 18th from 8:30 – 9:30am with my colleague on the Law Practice Management & Technology Section Executive Committee, Derick Roselli, called "Truth or Consequences: e-Discovery Facts and Fallacies".  Here's the synopsis I came up with this time:

"Often, attorneys and their clients lack an understanding of technology, and are unclear about e-discovery rules and the risk of sanctions. This presentation provides an in-depth understanding of the process and how to stay on the right side of ethical lines."

That's a bit better than the ones I came up with at the last minute.  For attorneys, one-half-hour of the presentation qualifies for the coveted ethics credit.  So, do what I'm going to do; get up early, drink as much coffee as you need, then join us for some very useful information!

And while we're talking about credit:

You still have time to take advantage of free LPMT Section membership through the rest of 2011.  The deadline has been extended and is now Tuesday, September 27th.  All you need to do is send an email to lpmt@calbar.ca.gov and include your California State Bar number (if you have one).  That's it!

But wait!  There's more!  This offer isn't just for attorneys – or even California-licensed attorneys.  Out of state attorneys, paralegals, anyone who would like to test-drive the section may join!  You still have time.  Email us before the deadline!

Before I go, if you're attending the annual meeting, just thought I'd mention, if you want to meet, I'm going to be there every day from Thursday through Sunday.  I do have a ton of meetings and activities scheduled, but I'll always make myself available.  Also, I encourage you to partake of the many other high-quality CLEs presented by the LPMT Section.  Check the guide for details. 

Now, where did I put my lemonade?

Education, Law Practice Management, Media, Strategy, Weblogs

A Perry Home Companion

MP900400186 Well, it's been a quiet week in eDiscovery Insights-Land, California, out on the edge of the prairie…the little blawg that time forgot and the decades may improve…where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the lawyers are above average…

Anybody who's a fan of Garrison Keillor recognizes the above reference.  About the only connection I have to the original is that I grew up in the province of Alberta, which is on the Canadian prairie (yes, Canada has a prairie…)

I channeled that quote after reading this great line from Adrian Dayton in the National Law Journal:

"Social media and blogging aren't about making you famous; they are about making you a little bit famous…"

Dayton examines why major law firms are – or aren't – blogging, and why.  Take it from me, I can think of many reasons to blog and many reasons not to blog.  In this 'taken out of context' world, which also happens to be a staple of litigation strategy (as I partially examined in this post, recently) it's very easy for someone to take a snippet of information and manipulate it.

Comes with the territory.  Like it or not, we live in a sound-bite world.

On the other hand, a lot of major firms may not be blogging; but they're reading us.  I found that out when, for example, a Partner at Jones Day quoted one of my posts for an article about Twitter in the New York State Bar Association Journal.

A little bit famous…

[Thanks to Charlotte Brownstone for today's title!]

eDiscovery California, Education, Law Practice Management

e-Discovery California: #LPMT Offers Free Membership to ALL #Calbar Members

Hot on the heels of Calbar's Annual Meeting offer, my Law Practice Management & Technology Section is doing you one better:

"During the month of August, you have an opportunity to join the LPMT Section free and enjoy the benefits of membership.  To receive your FREE LPMT Section membership for the remainder of 2011, just send your name and California State Bar number to LPMT at LPMT@calbar.ca.gov by August 27."

eDiscovery California, Education, Law Practice Management

e-Discovery California: Starting August 2nd, #Calbar Annual Meeting Attendees Receive Free Section Membership! #LPMT, Anyone?

Annual meeting registrants; beginning August 2nd, this is your opportunity to test-drive a Calbar section free through the end of 2011, and obviously you want to try LPMT!  Uh-oh, guess I'd better sign-up for that "Elimination of Bias" CLE…

Guess what else you'll get?  The opportunity to see yours truly – along with my LPMT colleague Derick Roselli – present program #144 on e-Discovery Facts and Fallacies, Sunday, September 18th at (ugh!) 8:30am.

Backup & Recovery Systems, Cost, Criminal Liability, Disaster Recovery, Education, Implementation, Law Practice Management, Scope, Strategy

#CalBar Solo & Small Firm Summit Recap

MP900439382 Yeah, I know.  The summit ended Saturday at noon.  It's been a busy week for me, but better late than never.  I had to skip the Thursday sessions, but arrived early Friday morning.  I was backing up another one of my LPMT colleagues in the tech lab, so between his presentations and mine, I didn't get to attend anyone else's sessions, which was a shame, because there were some good ones.  I did catch the bulk of Stephen Fairley's morning keynote on marketing and SEO.  I can only say this; the man is right on about what he was saying.  It was similar to the advice I received from my web guru, Clint Brauer.  Bottom line; if you're going to make a serious attempt at creating an online presence, you need to understand how your information will propagate to the 'web before you develop web sites, create accounts, etc.

I didn't know what to expect for my labs on disaster planning, but for both sessions (I did the identical presentation back-to-back) I had full houses.  The attendees asked a lot of good questions – which is the first indication they're not bored – and although we had some technical difficulties, I was able to illustrate how, in some cases, a few minutes is all it takes to create a basic backup strategy.

Day three, Saturday, I took in the morning keynote on "Multitasking Gone Mad", or, how the more we multitask, the less we accomplish.  Now, this was Irwin Karp presenting – who also preceded me on the LPMT committee – but I'll tell you, the idea of doing one thing at a time is something to strive for, but awfully hard to accomplish.

The second session should really make the eDiscovery people excited.  It covered hearsay (civil, for the most part), but guess what the starring attraction of most of the examples was?  Electronic evidence!  For example, the presenter showed a slide from a traffic camera of a car colliding with a truck at an intersection.  Another was a photo of a simple bar code (not a QR code, like the one you see on my right sidebar).  In both instances, the question was, is this hearsay?  As usual, the answer was, it depends on your jurisdiction.

The third session was one that eDiscovery professionals most likely wouldn't be attending.  It covered the activity up to and including the arrest of a client.  As you know, I also handle criminal cases, so again, this was a good refresher for me.

So, basically a quick in-and-out, and barring any changes to the schedule, my next presentation will be at Calbar's annual meeting in September.

Education, Implementation, Law Practice Management, Strategy

A Lawyer Walks into an #LPMT Presentation…

MP900448335 No, I'm not going to post every time I make a presentation – unless there's something interesting to note.  In this case, my colleague Gideon Grunfeld and I presented on law practice management issues.  He covered attorney advertising and reputation-protection online and I covered – what else – protecting your data in the cloud, via social media, on your PDA, etc.  I also ran the attendees through the new California State Bar Opinion 2010-179 re: wireless networks.

Now, this was a group of tax attorneys, which is not in our usual wheelhouse, and being as we were the first presenters at 2:30 PM, I assumed we wouldn't get more than 15-20 people.  Then they started having to bring in extra chairs…then more extra chairs…and by the time we concluded, they were standing in the hallway; we estimated close to 50 people!

What's the significance?  Well, first of all, we knock ourselves out to try to do quality presentations, so it's no fun presenting to an empty room, but second of all, I was heartened that these attorneys wanted to know this material.  We took a bunch of quality questions, also.

Things are looking up!

eDiscovery California, Education, Law Practice Management

e-Discovery California: #LACBA Tax Night Panel – 06-15-11

00443095 This just in:  I’ll be appearing on a panel with my LPMT colleague, Gideon Grunfeld, at the annual LACBA Tax Night series of CLEs on Wednesday, June 15th from 2:30 – 3:30 PM.  Here’s the synopsis:

“Gideon Grunfeld (Rainmaking for Lawyers) and Perry Segal (Attorney, and Management and Technology Professional) lead a discussion of the impact of technology on law practice management, from blogging and business development to data security, storage, and the Cloud.”

Education, Implementation, Law Practice Management, Strategy

A Lawyer Walks into an #eDiscovery Presentation…

MP900422817 Last night, I did a one-hour presentation, "How to Lose an eDiscovery Case in 30 Days", to a room full of seasoned lawyers – and a couple of judges – for the Los Angeles County Bar Association Litigation Inn of Court.  I've been a member of this group for approximately two-and-a-half years and, having discussed eDiscovery at length with the members over the usual cocktails and dinners, I tailor-made my 20-slide talk to focus on what I believe they wanted – and needed – to know.

Slide #1 was my nine-point outline of what I would cover over the hour.  Forty minutes later, I was still on that slide.  The Inn of Court uses an open-question format.  Unfortunately, in our space, one question opens a can of worms, which spawns multiple follow-up questions.  Obviously, it's a good thing that there were so many questions – and the attendees can always read through my presentation at their leisure – but, as someone who is always observing those who are observing me, it illustrates how much farther there is to go.  I could have easily stretched the talk to two hours and still would have likely run out of time.

When I present at the CalBar Solo and Small Firm Summit June 24th, I may have to switch to the despotic method and hold questions until the final ten minutes.  It's a tough call.  Every question I was asked last night was substantive and important – and deserved an answer.  The problem is, with only an hour available, the best one may hope for is completing an overview.

To put it another way, I made it through the meal, but didn't get my dessert.