The Geek In Review

David Kamien is the CEO of Mind Alliance and is someone who understands that in order to truly collaborate with your clients, you have to understand their needs on a granular level. That means capturing the data in a way that proactively predicts legal and regulatory risks that companies like them are likely to face, but also list the probable impact that those risks are likely to impact them spec...

A law firm's primary function is to enable lawyers to practice law. In fact, many of us on the operations side of the law firm business have heard the complaints of lawyers that there are too many "other tasks" that take away from their practice of law. On today's episode, we talk with the CEO of Williams Lea, Clare Hart, about the challenges she and her company have faced during the pandemic, and...

The i. WILL Foundation is a culmination of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP's CIO, Andrea Markstrom's passion for empowering women. i. WILL (Inspiring Women Igniting Leadership & Learning) works to connect, professional women across different industries and leverage this network to help give these women the guidance to build upon their leadership skills. i. WILL now has a foothold in New Yo...

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, we have seen many firms expand and publicize their diversity efforts in the community. Many of these efforts are part of pro bono programs supported by individual firms. Brenna DeVaney , Director of Pro Bono Programs and Pro Bono Counsel at Skadden and the Law Firm Anti-Racism Alliance (LFAA) have a different approach--leverage the legal and technical expertis...

How successful have firms been in handling the stress of adjusting to the needs of the market, knowing how to present that message to clients, and understanding how a sustained firm culture plays a critical role in their ability to cope? Barbara Malin , Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer at Jackson Walker, LLP , and Jennifer Johnson , CEO of Calibrate Legal discuss the critical role...

We’ve been off for a month and we come out swinging for this #Barpacolypse #Diplomaprivilege episode. Each July, thousands of law students and attorneys are required to sit for and pass the bar exam in their states if they wish to practice. The fairness, bias, and necessity of the test has been called into question in the past (Note: the exam is a relatively recent method to determine attorney com...

While we have a few comedic moments on the podcast (usually unintended), we actually have a real-life comedian, Eugene Cipparone , join us on this week's episode. Eugene is a lawyer, who took a few years off to join The Second City comedy troop in Toronto, before working his way back into the legal industry as Goodmans, LLP's Director of Professional Support. With the pandemic, the need for suppor...

Since Antonin Scalia was not available to be on the podcast, we reached out to Northwestern Law School's John Paul Steven's Professor of Law, Andrew Koppelman , and Jackson Walker Labor & Employment attorney, Sara Harris , to fill in. Justice Scalia believed in the concept of textualism when it came to the Court interpreting the law, without allowing one's personal political bias to play a rol...

We wanted to produce a special episode of The Geek in Review to discuss the tragedy surrounding the murder of George Floyd and the protests which are going on over the past ten days. While we focus our discussion on the legal industry, the issues are certainly not limited to lawyers and legal professionals. We've dedicated the entirety of the episode to this topic. Just two months ago we had Bryan...

Before the world turned upside down, one of the issues we were following was the Georgia v. Public. Resource. Org case where the State of Georgia brought a lawsuit claiming copyright protection on the annotations for its Official Code of Georgia. Our three podcast series (unintentional) started out with Tom Gaylord discussing the initial filing with the Court, Ed Walters and Kyle Courtney breaking...

While most of us in the legal industry were still finding their sea legs when it came to working from home, today's guests were planning a moon shot experiment of creating a virtual legal conference completely from scratch. Haley Altman and Alma Asay from Litera Microsystems talk with us about their experiences in creating and producing The Changing Lawyer LIVE! virtual conference back in April. T...

It's episode 75!! We think we look fabulous and that we definitely don't look a day over 50.  While most professional associations are experiencing significant changes due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, today's guests have launched a brand new network and say that this might be one of the best times to enter the market. The Legal Value Network (LVN) focuses on the delivery of services and conne...

It's not unusual for law firms to invest around $1M in recruiting, hiring, training, and retention of Associates over the first four years of their legal career. However, if you look at the actual retention rates through the fourth or fifth year, it is essentially a coin flip on whether the firm retains, or loses that talent. Bryan Parker, CEO of Legal Innovators thinks that it is not a good retur...

Heidi Gardne r, Distinguished Fellow and Lecturer at Harvard Law School, and Brian Stearns , Chief Commercial Officer at Workstorm , talk with us about collaboration when most of us are under a shelter-in-place order. There are definitely tools to make it easier to collaborate remotely, but there is a process that must be evaluated first. There's also a human element that must be considered in who...

There is no reason why we should let an emergency go to waste. So, we've both taken on a side project while we work remotely. Marlene's new daily ILTA blog presents a quick update on the skills we need to work on while we're working from home. Her first post, Be Sheltering: Not Sheltered discusses a number of initiatives going on which we all can contribute. You can find out more on the ILTA blog...

We try... and fail to stay off the COVID-19 topic this week, but it's just too ingrained in our lives right now. For those of you out there doing the remote work thing, we understand and hope you are adapting to the new work mode with little interruption. We, too, are working remotely, and hope there are not too many background noises of kids, refrigerators, or pets making cameo appearances on thi...

Using Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Natural Language Processing to hold a conversation might seem like a far off idea when it comes to the legal industry, but it is not. We sit down with Baker Hostetler's Katherine Lowry , and Puerto Rico defense attorney Diego Alcala to get a better understanding of how chatbots work, and what value they can bring from legal practices ranging fro...

With all of the news about COVID-19 (Coronavirus) making its way into the United States, it is time for law firms to think about what they are going to do to prepare for a possible outbreak that will affect their business operations. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans need to be dusted off and updated to manage the different scenarios that may come our with over the next few months. W...

The legal industry relies upon the writings and communications of lawyers, judges, and lawmakers. For the citizens and clients who are subject to these legal writings, understanding the legalese is painfully frustrating. We were asked by a fan of the show (in full disclosure, it was Greg's sister-in-law Wendy) why lawyers can't write in plain English. We pulled together a panel of four experts on...

We reach across the Atlantic Ocean and talk with Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner's Nick Pryor on his work the firm's BCLP³ innovation objectives. Nick heads up the firm's European, Middle East, and Asia innovation projects, and gives us some insights on the joys and hardships that come with innovation in the global legal market. Whether it is regulations, cultural challenges, competition, or setting a...

If there's one thing that many of us need these days, it is a cybersecurity expert on retainer. Luckily, law professor Steve Black , visiting professor at the University of Houston fills that need. Prof. Black talks with us on a number of issues including what motivates hackers and cybercriminals (spoiler: it's money), the dark web, how law firms and business approach information stored in the clo...

The social media platform Fishbowl is designed to create an anonymous but verified space for professionals to socialize with others in the same profession. CEO and co-founder Matt Sunbulli joins us this week to talk about FIshbowl's entry into the legal industry social media space. It's been about eight weeks, but there is already a large number of attorneys and other legal professionals using the...

While we may have had a tough time pronouncing things correctly, this week's guests said all the right things when it comes to being a leader within their organizations. Laura Toledo , Communications and Marketing Manager at Nilan Johnson Lewis PA in Minneapolis, and Kevin Iredell , Chief Marketing Officer at Lowenstein Sandler LLP in New York, discuss their year-long experience in the SmithBuckli...

With the new decade comes a new tagline for The Geek in Review introduction. Let us know what you think of the change. Ellyssa Valenti Kroski is the Director of Information Technology/Director of Marketing at New York Law Institute and is the editor of the new book, Law Librarianship in the Age of AI . Whenever there is a monumental shift in technology and processes, there will be winners and ther...

The past ten years have been what University of Tennessee Law Professor Ben Barton calls "the lost decade" for law schools. In his new book, Fixing Law Schools: From Collapse to the Trump Bump and Beyond , Professor Barton walks us through the issues he sees with the current structure of legal education in the United States, and ways to actually fix it. The book focuses on three areas that need co...