Law Librarian Blog

ATL Survey: What factors do you believe ought to be included (and ignored) in a hypothetical new, improved approach to ranking law schools?

See Brian Dalton's ATL post, What Would a More Relevant Law School Ranking Look Like? You Tell Us, for background on the issues and a link to the brief survey questionnaire. [JH]

Did Hank The Cat Come In Third In The Virginia Senate Race?

I usually stay away from writing about politics.  The country is polarized politically, more so after last Tuesday’s election results.  There is one election result that caught my eye that is worth mentioning however.  The race for the Senator for the state of Virginia resulted in the election of Tim Kaine over George Allen.  According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Hank the Cat likely came in third with possibly as many as 29,000 write-in votes.  We are used to close elections where a handful of votes could swing a major election.  Allen v. Kaine v. Hank anyone?  It’s a great day for feline-Americans everywhere.  I don’t know who might have come in fourth or fifth, but I’d feel pretty stupid by losing to a cat.  I would expect Hank to celebrate his showing with a round of catnip.  Unlike human catnip, it’s legal.  [MG]

Is the ABA Journal Trying to Persuade Just for Men to Advertise?

From the ABAJ news website. And "yes, I like my gray hair and let it show" because I've earned every damn strand of gray hair on my aging and decrepit head. [JH]

Screen capture taken on April 16, 2012.

Peeps in Law: Voting underway in ABAJ's Peep Diorama contest

To view finalists and to vote go here. Polls close at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 12. See also the gallery of contest submissions. [JH]

Reminder: Voting in the 5th Annual ABA Journal Blawg 100 is About to Close

You still have time to vote for your favorite ABA Journal Blawg 100 nominees. But not much more time.

You can vote online "through Dec. 30" by way of the link provided on this page (free registration required). As mentioned earlier this month, there are some damn good blogs deserving recognition in the Legal Technology category. Good luck to all.

Popular vote totals for the 12 category winners will be published by the ABA Journal in early January. [JH]

Thank God the World is Going to End on December 21, 2012: The Coming Deluge of Law Firm Blogs

Reporting in Watch Out: A Deluge of Legal Blogs is Approaching, Bob Ambrogi reviews some of the findings of a recently released survey of social media in the legal sector that was conducted by LexisNexis and Vizibility. Bob writes:

Better start building that ark, because a deluge of new blogs will soon flood the legal profession. At least, that seems to be the conclusion of a just-released survey of social media in the legal sector conducted by LexisNexis and Vizibility.

....

Of AmLaw 100 firms, 93.8% have or plan to have blogs. Of AmLaw 200 firms, 94.7%. Move on down the list and the percentage for every size firm is greater than 75%. Among 1-5 lawyer firms — which make up the majority of firms in the U.S., 87.8% have or plan to have blogs.

In short, roughly nine out of every 10 law firms will be blogging — some might have multiple blogs.

Oh boy, can't wait. For survey details, see Vizibility's press release and Social Media in the Legal Sector infographic. [JH]

"Going Mac" in the Legal Industry is Gaining Ground

According to the 2011 Clio Apple in Law Firms Survey results, summarized here, 46.5% of respondents said they chose Apple hardware over PC options because the technology was more reliable and secure. Usability ranked next at 33.8%.  Familiarity due to home use of Apple/Mac products was 9.8%, and aesthetics and design came in fourth at only 3%. 76.5% of law students said that when they graduate, they plan on choosing a Mac platform for their office. Of particular interest in that 25.3% of respondents had switched to Mac within the past year.

About this year's survey findings Clio CEO and Co-Founder Jack Newton said: 

Apple hardware and devices – especially the iPad and iPhone – continue to capture the attention and dollars of lawyers, cloud-based applications have won attorneys’ confidence and gained more traction.  With the majority of law students planning to use Mac apps in their law practices upon graduation, we can reasonably predict a longstanding trend toward continued expansion of Apple products within the legal industry.

763 people participated in the survey, 80% of which were practicing lawyers and 20% of which were law students or non-lawyers.  76% of respondents were lawyers at firms with 10 attorneys or less. [JH]

"Advertorial" Reader Survey Rankings of Legal Vendor Services in the NY and DC Markets

On the heels of second annual New York Law Journal Reader Rankings of Legal Vendors published in September 2011, comes the first annual Legal Times Reader's Rankings of Legal Vendors, (dated Novermber 2011)! Yes, yes, I know both titles are owned by ALM. Both reader surveys were conducted by ALM's sales and marketing teams each time. The difference is that the vendor rankings are supposed to be local market spectific. The former for the New York legal market. The latter for the DC market. The NYLJ vendor rankings can be viewed here. Sorry, don't have a link to the Legal Times vendor rankings. Perhaps one is out, but I didn't look hard for it because, well, my hardcopy is as an "advertorial" supplement.

For my idiosyncratic selection of differences in this "local legal market" rankings comparision, I've tried to limit the comparison to very comparable product categories. One assumption I made was that NYLJ had a catagory labeled "Best Online Search Vendor" while Legal Times labeled the category "Best Online Legal Research" Where I could find perceived comparable product categories used by both, I have identifed the rankings from each reader survey in the below table.

Oddly, the NYLY had a category for Best Legal Process Outsourcing (1. Pangea3, 2. UnitedLex, 3. Integreon) while I found no similar one in the Legal Times ranking. Hey, perhaps I missed it. You know, the whole aging and decrepit Boomer-gen law librarian with just about no functional short term memory thing.

The Legal Times survey did have a couple of interesting categories not found in the New York Law Journal survey. (Loop back up to the whole WTF aging and decrepit caveat.) Here are the three unique Legal Times categories I found interesting. The most interesting one is:

1. Best Legal Research (Includes Print)

1. LexisNexis
2. Thomson Reuters
3. Bloomberg

Are the DC practitioners including BGov in addition to BLaw? Does "including print" mean DC partitioners are including BNA by voting for Bloomberg? NB: THe NYLJ poll was conducted before the announcement of Bloomberg's BNA acquisition. Also, does "including print" indicate that voters are responding to perceived differences in editorial quality, relevance of, and pricing for print titles by ranking Lexis ahead of Thomson Reuters?

2. Best Legal Research iPad App

1. WeslawNext
2. LexisNexis Legal News
3. Bloomberg

Ah, OK aren't iPad apps dandy?

3. Best Corporate Kit/Forms Provider

1. LegalZoom(dot)com
2. Blumberg Excelsior
3. LawDepot(dot)com

Really? DC practitioners are using LegalZoom and LawDepot forms? For exemplary research to work off of? For some  associate telling someone "to send this to the client or the billing partner for review and remember to bill the client 2.5 hours of time re: research and drafting X"? OMG, this is a 60-something corner office billing partner's dream come true if he or she is using LegalZoom and LawDepot forms (read "now I call bill the client for something other than reviewed associate's work, etc.).

And now for my admittedly idiosyncratic selection of category comparisons. Since sales and marketing teams ran these polls, I have no idea if the categories are strictly defined. I also have no idea how the surveys were conducted (eg for each category was a large list of product opinions provided? Was the list limited to advertisers for each individual publication?) Remember, one for primary purposes of these reader surveys is to sell "thank you for voting us top vendor in [insert local market]" ads. Also note that the published results from each only ranks the top three and provides absolutely no information about stats. Did number 1 beat out number 2 by one vote, 50, 300?. For the voting population in a category, what percent of readers picked the top ranked product, 20%, 50%, 70%?

Best Online (Legal) Research Vendor
Rank	NYLJ (9/2011)	Legal Times (11/2011)
1	WestLaw Next	LexisNexis
2	LexisNexis Total Litigator	Thomson Reuters
3	eLaw	Bloomberg
Best Small Firm/Solo Research Vendor
Rank	NYLJ (9/2011)	Legal Times (11/2011)
1	Westlaw Litigator	LexisNexis
2	Lexis Advance for Solos	Thomson Reuters
3	Google Scholar	Fastcase
Best Tables of Authority Software
Rank	NYLJ (9/2011)	Legal Times (11/2011)
1	LexisNexis	LexisNexis
2	WestCiteLink	Thomson Reuters
3	Shepard’s Full Authority	Fastcase
Best Case Management Software
Rank	NYLJ (9/2011)	Legal Times (11/2011)
1	SAGA Systems	Thomson Reuters ProLaw
2	Time Matters	Capital Novus
3	CaseMap	Symantic
Best Matter Management Systems
Rank	NYLJ (9/2011)	Legal Times (11/2011)
1	Serengeti Law	LexisNexis CaseMap
2	Corporation Service Co.	Serengeti
3	Bridgeway Software & CaseTrack	CaseTrack
Best Docketing & Calendaring Software
Rank	NYLJ (9/2011)	Legal Times (11/2011)
1	eLaw	LexisNexis Firm Manager
2	CompuLaw	Thomson Reuters ProLaw
3	Time Matters	Clearwell Systems
Best Time & Billing Software
Rank	NYLJ (9/2011)	Legal Times (11/2011)
1	Sage Timeslips	LexisNexis Time Matters
2	Time Matters	Thomson Reuters ELITE
3	SAGA Systems	Tab3
Note: Product identification listed as published in each publication. Caveat: I am dyslexic!

What can we say about the above survey results? For example...

Can we say that the presence of Bloomberg in the DC market finding and its absence in the NY market indicates that Bloomberg has better penetrated the DC market than the NY market? Don't think so unless the readers are including BGov and BNA and even then one must qualify that by recognizing the time differential between the two reader surveys.

Can we say that the failure of Wolters Kluwer to be listed in the top three of any relevant category means the Company is heading down the path of oblivion? Not without knowing the institutional demographics of readers who particpated in each survey and whether WK was listed as a voting choice.

Can we say that Fastcase has made significant inroads in the DC but not the NY market? (Like OMG, Google Scholar is ranked third in the NY best solo research service). Who knows because the methodology and findings of both surveys leave huge gapping information holes.

Is there anything we can say about the survey findings with some degree of certainty? I think there is. Law students are not being exposed to many of the above listed productivity-related services. Ditto for legal skills profs and law librarians. IMHO, case and matter "solutions" can and should be integrated into the legal curriculum to the greatest extent possible by becoming part of the law school "package" at no additional cost, assuming of course, vendors want to indoctrinate law students in their use for future licensing receptiveness.

Is there anything else that can be said with some degree of certainity? You bet. The "advertorial" value of reader surveys conducted by ALM sales and marketing department probably means that we will be seeing more local market surveys like the two covered in this post. [JH]

The Legal Technology Category of the 2011 ABA Journal Blawg 100 Includes Too Many Damn Good Blogs!

I've narrowed my selection to three but just can't decide because they are all very deserving. Well, I (and you) have until until Dec. 30th to vote for your favorite blogs (in 12 categories) for the 2011 ABA Journal Blawg awards. Article here. Vote here (free registration required).

3 Geeks and a Law Blog: “It is a vital resource of ‘law geek’-related news, and I rely on it,” Jan Rivers, competitive intelligence liaison at Dorsey & Whitney in Minneapolis, wrote us. Last fall, the geeks started their Thursday Elephant Posts, which pose a question (What will your firm stop buying in five years?) and post answers from librarians, marketers and other legal practitioners.

Above and Beyond KM: Blogger V. Mary Abraham is a lawyer focused on knowledge management at Debevoise & Plimpton’s New York City office. Most posts focus not on incremental news developments in her discipline, but rather its “nontech challenges” and big-picture concerns: strategy, productivity, and encouraging strong-willed attorneys to share information systematically.

Slaw: “Slaw is to law what Slate is to popular culture,” law blogger Robert Ambrogi writes. “It is an online magazine with a diverse array of writers and perspectives covering a wide array of legal topics. It is always interesting, always smart and always insightful. It represents the best of what a legal blog—strike that—any blog can aspire to be.”

Congratulations to all! [JH]

Law Library Information Budget Estimates Decline by 21.7% According to 2011 AALL Findings

The 2011 edition of The AALL Biennal Salary Survey and Organizational Characteristics is now available. While the salary survey findings may not be very useful in the private and government sectors, the findings of organizational characteristics with respect to information budgets has some information value. Because of the differences in AALL survey response rates over the years one cannot say how much more than $1 billion on print and online resources is spent by institutional buyers each year. So firm conclusions cannot be reached about total information spend. However, some insights about trends can be drawn from information budgets provided by AALL institutional buyers as long as one is mindful of this limitation.

Based on reporting AALL law libraries, total 2011 information budgets declined from $1,389.118,580 in 2009 to $1,086,993,2226 in 2001. That's a 21.7% decline since the last reporting period two years ago. Based on available data -- meaning based on prior biennal reports I have readily available, namely the 2009 and 2005 editions in additon to the current 2111 editon -- this year's reported decline is more than three times higher than any earlier reported decline on a percent basis. Between 1999 and 2011, the previous largest decline reported was 6.5% in 2007 compared to 2005 reported total information budgets. See graphs below.

The major sector contributor to the 2011 decline was private law libraries although academic and government library sectors also reported declines. The difference in total information budgets reported between 2009 and 2011 was -$302,125.544. The private sector contributed -$212,017,438 or some 70% to the total decline. This, of course, is no surprise since institutional buyers in the private sector drives this market. Even using the less than comprehensive stats based on AALL reporting law libraries, private sector law libraries represents about 70% of all institutional buyers' spending.

Viewed from this perspective and taking the limitations of the survey response rate into account, it is still noteworthy that the average 2011 information budget for the major market player, private law libraries, declined by 13.3% compared to 2009. The average 2011 total information budget declined by 20% for government libraries and by 4.1% for academic libraries. But for academic law libraries receiving online legal search at what has to be viewed as a discounted wholesale price, one can assume in my opinion that the average academic library's total information budget would have declined more substantially in 2011.

All institutional market sectors reached record highs in terms of their electronic information budgets as a percent of total spend. Even at its discounted rates, electronic information budgets in law schools have increased to 27% of total spend, up from 23% in 2009. In the Government sector the increase was to 21% from 17%. In the private sector, spending for electronic resources rose from 64% in 2009 to 69% in 2011. No doubt, online legal search price inflation played a factor. No doubt print cancellations in the Shed West Era played a role too.

Providing information budgets every two years by AALL, even taking into consideration its limitations, is a "good thing" in a sort of least amount of effort to use the findings sort of way. AALL acting upon the findings in any sort of public forum for all to read leaves much to be desired. [JH]

Click to enlarge.

Some Thoughts on Thomson's Acquisition of West Being Honored as Worst Legal Publishing Merger

Reporting on the findings of Dewey B Strategic's self-admitted unscientific poll on best and worst legal publishing industry mergers, Jean O'Grady writes:

According to the Legal Information Buyers Guide and Reference Manual, between 1995 (the year before the Thomson acquisition) and 2008 West's print prices increased 232%. During that same period Lexis/Matthew Bender print prices increased a mere 70%.

The unprecedented and inexplicable print price increases were the overwhelming factor cited in defining the Thomson-West merger as the "worst legal publishing merger."

Is anyone really surprised by TR Legal's history of price inflation being cited for earning the honor of being the worst legal publishing merger? Along the way to achieving this high honor I think TR Legal had some help. That would be AALL but not just AALL. The inertia of collection development decisions at the institutual level also contributed greatly. It took not wasting a perfectly good recession to finally disavow out of economic necessity the traditional keep what was acquired decades ago for "the sake of the collection" attitude in the academic and public sectors. Damn those private sector law libraries for starting to shed West print and move to electronic-only back in the 1990s! Their "bad;" joking of course.

Insert your own thoughts about the anti-competitive consequences of a duopoly that displays monopolistic tendencies because declining demand does not result in declining pricing for high margin products. The very visible hand of this market meant Thomson was able to increase West's pre-acquisition 25% profit margins all the way up to 32-33%. Well, TR Legal's profit margin has headed south to pre-acquisition West territory. Everyone except TR Legal's pricing gurus have said "whoa" now.

Triving, Surviving and Fading Away. O'Grady asks would West have "thrived" in the 21st century without being acquired by Thomson? Her answer is "I suspect not."

[West executives] understood that the economics of their industry was changing, they would need capital infusion to improve their infrastructure to remain competitive. Had West not been purchased by Thomson we might have seen the company targeted by a Godon Gekko and sold off in parts. Innovation is expensive.

Indeed it is. One has to wonder what would have happened to West without Thomson picking up the tab for IT. Not having sufficient capital to invest in IT is the reason why CCH is now part of Wolters Kluwer.  It is also why BNA is now part of Bloomberg. This is probably why Thomson's acquisition of West came in a second in the voting for "best merger", albeit a distance second to Lexis' acquisition of Shepard's but still a couple of percentage points higher than Matthew Bender's acquisition by Lexis.

I guess a distant second in best legal publishing industry mergers voting  while earning top honors in worst merger says something about the karmic relationship between Thomson Reuters and those members of the community of professional legal information consumers who took O'Grady's survey. It's going to take some mightily complex synastric calculations to see what the future holds. If TR Legal doesn't have a corporate astrologer on staff, I'm thinking the WestSearch staff should be up to the task. Twelve signs, twelve houses and ten planets using a mystical matrix for a metadata-rich algorithmic comparison of the relative positions of the planets and the houses between TR Legal's executives and what's left of TR Legal's client base shouldn't be that hard. Got zodiac?

For much more, including O'Grady's comments on West Publishing as a "fading landmark," see The Worst Legal Publishing Merger - Can the Virtuous Circle be Un-broken? [JH]

Lexis Acquistion of Shepard's Voted Best Merger

In September Jean O'Grady posted a informal survey asking readers to vote for the best and worst mergers in the legal publishing industry and promising to report the results upon its conclusion. Last Friday, she reported the findings on the best mergers. By a hugh margin the acquisition of Shepard's by Lexis in 1993 won. Details including a summary of survey takers comments here.

I too think the Shepard's acquisition was the best merger. Some could argue that Lexis without Shepard's would have made Lexis substantially less competitive than Westlaw in the 1990s. The acquisition is still paying dividends. I, for one, would be very unconfortable about not offering Lexis+Shepards online to our little county law library's on-site and off-site user population. While Key-Cite isn't as bad as it once was, it still isn't the gold standard in legal citators.

O'Grady promises to report the findings on the worst legal publishing mergers this week on Dewey B Strategic. Should be very interesting. [JH]

CNBC's Ranking of the 10 Most Hated Jobs

Wedged in between 8th place, Technical Support Analyst, and 6th place, Electronics Technician, in CNBC's 10 Most Hated Jobs by level of job dissatification is Law Clerk:

7. Law Clerk
Clerkships are among the most highly sought-after positions in the legal profession. A law clerk assists judges as they write opinions, and the ones who get the job are almost always near the top of their class at law school. Six justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, including Elena Kagan and current Chief Justice John Roberts, were all law clerks early in their careers.

The job clearly beefs up a resume. Yet law clerks still report high levels of dissatisfaction. The hours are long and grueling, and the clerk is subject to the whims of sometimes mercurial personalities. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also reported the job brings in a median salary of $39,780 a year—not exactly striking it rich—and those looking for advancement within the position simply will not find it.

What the most hated job? According to CNBC:

1. Director of Information Technology
For all the press that teachers and nurses get for their long hours, low pay and thankless tasks, it may be surprising to see the most hated job was that of information technology director, according to CareerBliss. After all, the salary’s pretty good and with information technology such a prevalent part of everyday business, an IT director can hold almost as much sway over the fate of some companies as a chief executive.

Still, IT directors reported the highest level of dissatisfaction with their jobs, far surpassing that of any waitress, janitor, or bellhop. Of those who responded to the survey, one simple, five-word response summed up the antipathy very well: “Nepotism, cronyism, disrespect for workers.”

[JH]

Reminder: Dewey B Strategic's Survey on the Best and Worst Legal Publishing Mergers Closes Today

Here's the post with link to the survey. Watch for Jean O'Grady's forthcoming summary and survey findings on Dewey B Strategic. [JH]

Will the PACER Fee Increase Change Your Research Habits?

Erika Wayne is conducting a quick survey on Legal Research Plus here. [JH]

Vote for the Best and Worst Law Product Mergers

Jean O'Grady has launched a poll for law librarians (and others) to assess the consequences of the legal publishing industry consolidation for once independently owned but now "brand" products of Thomson Reuters, Reed Elsevier and Wolters Kluwer. Jean writes

I selected a sampling of legal publishing mergers and acquisitions and focused on those that had transformative potential for the companies and products involved. I invite you to vote for the best and the worst mergers and acquisitions and provide a comment of why it was good or bad.

The emphasis here is on being a selective sample. For example, RIA and Callahan are not listed but the omissions do not distract from the poll. I would have liked to see Lawyer's Co-op listed even though I might not have selected it as best or worst. Hell, I'm still trying to decide what my selections will be. By asking participants to vote for the best and the worst instead of asking participants to rank them, one has to give some thought before making a selection. A good thing. As Jean notes the poll provides a comment box so participants can explain their decisions. Another good thing. Hopefully participants will comment.

To set the tone for this thought-provoking poll, Jean writes

The success or failure of these mergers and acquisitions are ultimately assessed by a variety of factors including whether the product is improved or is impaired, whether the culture and "good will" of the publisher and it's representatives are enhanced or diminished or whether the product is positively enhanced through transformative reengineering or obliterated by neglect or misguided re-design.

The poll will close on Sept. 23rd and Jean promises to write a follow-up post based on its findings and provided comments. Should be very interesting. Details including a link to the poll are available at Dewey B Strategic. [JH]

What Do You Use for Legal Research? Current Results of Poll on ABAJ Website

The poll widget is located in the right hand sidebar on the ABAJ website. Note the response rate for Google Scholar. I'm thinking the "other" category could include Fastcase, CaseMaker, free access sites other than Google plus online services offered by BNA and CCH. The below screen capture of results was taken on the morning of August 8, 2011. [JH]

"Our research today will help Thomson Reuters develop products that will be most useful to your profession."

So I received a semi-mass emailing from some Thomson Reuters Market Research senior analyst (think, he must be 25-years old as opposed to a 21-year old for "senior" analyst status) very late last week which read in redacted part:

Thomson Reuters values your opinion and would like to include you in an online research survey regarding the products and services they offer. Your feedback is extremely valuable and will help us better meet the needs of professionals like you.

The link below will take you to a survey hosted by TRC, an independent market research company. The information you provide will be kept strictly confidential and will be reported only in aggregate form. The survey should take about 15 minutes to complete. If necessary, you can start the survey, leave the site, and finish at a later time by again clicking on the link in this email.

Why redacted? Because the link is omitted. You know, the whole confidentiality thing about another TR survey I would characterize generally as being the Company's trying to figure out how to catch up to the pack since it is supposed to be a market leader. At least that's my take based on what few of the survey questions I saw.

I had received an alert with the survey link a few days earlier from a colleague. Either his opinion is more valuable, TR is staggering mass email solicitations, or TR's survey software can't accept a whole lot of responses at any given moment in Internet time.

Anyway, the time I spent on the survey didn't take "about 15 minutes." More like 60 second when I got the following response:

Unfortunately, we have filled our quota of interviews with people matching your profile.

Matching "my profile," really? Or was the response to the last question I answered not what TR wanted to hear? So it goes for "Thomson Reuters develop[ing} products that will be most useful to your profession." [JH]

Still Time for Private Law Libraries to Contribute to Collection Rebalancing Survey for a New Resource Guide

It appears that private law librarians (one per instiutional buyer) still has time to respond to the survey on collection rebalancing for a new AALL resource guide. Check this link to the survey. All things considered, I think this is a very important survey, the findings of which hopefully will be widely available to all law librarians. The results could make for very interesting conversations at Philly 2011: Cream Cheese, Cheesesteak or Karaoke. [JH]

It's a Perfect Friday Afternoon Diversion: Remember to Vote in AALL's Day in the Life Photo Contest

AALL members have until April 17 to choose the best photo in each category and one best overall photo in the Day in the Life of the Law Library Community photo contest. Simply log in to http://www.aallnet.org/dayinlife/finals/ with your AALLNET members-only e-mail and password. Winners will be recognized on AALLNET, in an  issue of AALL Spectrum, and during the 2011 AALL Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. [JH]