practicehacker

(... still more) Predictions ...

I was going to write something clever here but … screw it. This is what I think is going to happen in 2010.

1. Big law firms lose clients due to high overhead and lack of value
2. Small law firms pick up the clients and their profitability jumps
3. Unemployed grads go solo en masse depressing all lawyer wages
4. Home and flex offices, telecommuting, and telepresence catch on
5. Inefficient lawyers lose while those with social media savvy win
6. Walled gardens like Facebook thrive at the expense of open ones
7. Lawyers will use Twitter and Facebook at last, but still suck at it
8. Lawyers.com beats Avvo by selectively going public on some level
9. Blogs v. Twitter: Kevin O’Keefe and Rex Gradeless fight to the death
10. Real-time search and social media change legal research forever

Bonus: I finally stop making stupid predictions about the future of legal tech.

Feel free to share your thoughts about the coming year in the comments section below. See you in the new year.

I was an early and passionate supporter of Avvo. I posted about them. I defended them on the nationally syndicated podcast TWiL. I interviewed company President Mark Britton.  I honestly wanted the site to succeed, and in the process to give Lexis and West a run for their money (or at least some competition).

So it was no surprise when I was contacted by an Avvo salesperson the other day. But when he started to give me the hard sell it felt like I was talking to West or Lexis, and it was just as disappointing. It seems that Avvo wants $1,500 to advertise for 3 months. Their justification is that a period of less than 3 months wouldn’t yield results. In that case why not 12 months? Why not more?

Hey Avvo: you turned off an early, stalwart supporter with your heavy-handed, pushy sales pitch. Hope it was worth it.

Thought I’d share some choice video from TechShow 2009 featuring all 4 of the Best of Show winners that I wrote up in TechnoLawyer, plus interviews with some of my heroes such as Bob Ambrogi, Jay Funeberg, and Kevin O’Keefe, as well as sightings of legal blogging all-stars like Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighelle. I’m still excited.

See related videos here and find me on YouTube as practicehacker.

We're the ABA Damnit! We own you!

This was my 10th year at ABA Technology Show in Chicago. This year was particularly cool.  Here’s why:

Meeting The Heavies: To me, seeing people like Dennis Kennedy, Tom Mighelle, Bob Ambrogi, Jim Calloway, Kevin O’Keefe, Brett Burney, Andy Atkins, Jay Foonberg (!) and the rest of my pretend blog friends … I mean pretend LinkedIn friends … is like reconnecting with long lost relatives. Exciting and a little intimidating. But all of them were really great and down to earth. Except that Kennedy. Such a prima donna. I kid, I kid.

Meeting Canadians: Who can forget meeting the Great Librarian of Upper Canada! Beat that. Then there was Phil of the Future (my name for him), Steve Matthews (nice guy), Brett Burney (I think he’s Canadian), Dominic Jaar (vive la Quebec libre!), the boys from Clio (or as I called them, the Booth Babes), and a host of other talent from the Great White North. It was great to meet you all: now go back where the ice doesn’t melt until July.

Technology Becoming Accepted: This year for the first time in memory I noticed a preponderance of grey hairs and the careful gait of partners scoping out potential buys for their offices.  This was not the brash, flash-in-the-pan TechShow of the late-90′s in which the Internet was decried as a fad.

SaaS, Saas, and more Saas: Software as a service was all over the place, and by next year it will be pervasive. This year I was knocked out by the number and variety of kick-ass SaaS providers at the show including Clio, RocketMatter, and VLO Tech. Clio was my hands-down favorite for a number of reasons – I intend to use it in my own practice. Whatever your cup of tea, the idea of throwing away the IT department in favor of the Cloud is gaining traction fast.

Less is … Less: One lamentable fact about this  year’s show – there was less of it than I’ve seen in a long time. Another casualty of the economy I’d say, but we shouldn’t overlook the fact that many legal technology vendors have been slaves to profit instead of boosters for innovation and the slow economy is making it painfully apparent what a royal screw job they’ve been giving lawyers all these years. Many players couldn’t make it ? Good riddance to bad company.

Other than that however, it was a great experience as always and one that I heartily recommend to one and all. If you haven’t been to TechShow, go there. If you have, come back. A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

For more coverage see my SmallLaw Column in TechnoLawyer.

Check out Twitter coverage of TechShow.

As always, I’d love your thoughts. E-mail me at mhedayat[at]mha-law.com or tweet me @practichacker.

ttyl

Ed. Note: Readers will remember my zealous defense of Avvo in its early going, as well as the controversy surrounding that position (what I call a “free market” stance). Here is a selection from those rebellious times. But it wasn’t until this year that Avvo’s rabble-rousing approach to the legal marketplace reached Illinois, that shining jewel set in the silver sea of the Midwest. The Paris of fly-over territory. And when Avvo arrived its new ideas were welcomed by our foreward-thinking judiciary with open arms (and clenched fists). But don’t take my word for it ..

Avvo

The Illinois ARDC Responds to Avvo’s Petition

July 8th, 2008 by Josh King, VP of Business Development and General Counsel

I received the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission’s response to Avvo’s Illinois Supreme Court petition yesterday. Although I had hoped that the ARDC would simply ask the court for guidance in dealing with the apparent disagreement between public records law and the ARDC’s 28-year-old guidelines for providing attorney records, the ARDC went to some lengths to defend its guidelines and take issue with what Avvo is doing. I’m not entirely sure why – the guidelines in question have survived both the advent of the internet and the explosion of openness in most state open records laws, so there surely would be no shame in inquiring whether the policy is still relevant, let alone whether it complies with the current state of Illinois law on public access to judicial records.

The guidelines in question, you see, generally prohibit the dissemination of the Attorney Roll to nn-Illinois entities or for most commercial uses (for-profit Illinois CLE providers are exempt). Putting aside the only-for-Illinois portion of the guidelines (a restriction that surely doesn’t meet the standards of the federal Constitution’s Privileges and Immunities clause), the ARDC has focused on Avvo’s status as a commercial entity and Avvo’s use of the attorney records. Along the way, the ARDC has attempted to understand how Avvo works. Unfortunately, it hasn’t done so via the lens of the consumer. So let’s clear up some misconceptions the folks in Springfield hold: [read the rest here]