ARK Group Conference to Highlight Role of the Modern Law Firm Librarian: Knowledge Management, Big data and Analytics, and Client-facing Solutions

The modern law firm librarian and legal information professional’s role continues to evolve along with the changing legal industry, and knowledge management, analytics, and client-facing solutions now occupy more and more of legal information professionals’ time.

The ARK Group’s 13th annual Law Firm Library, Research & Information Services conference brings together a group of legal information professionals to illuminate their changing roles, and to share their strategies and best practices for dealing with current challenges and opportunities.  Several members of the American Association of Law Libraries’ Private Law Librarians and Information Professionals’ section (PLLIP) will be among the speakers at the event, which will be held Thursday, February 21, at the SUNY Global Center in New York.

Below is a snapshot of the presentations. View the full agenda on the ARK Group site.

Opening Remarks – Conference Co-Chairs
Kris Martin, Senior Director, HBR Consulting, and Holly M. Riccio, Senior Manager, HBR Consulting 

Putting Intelligence in BP Decision Makers’ Hands 
Angela McKane, Lead, Technology Intelligence, BP 

Keeping Up With the Quants: Leveraging Data in Managing Departments
Kathryne L. Valentine, Director of Knowledge & Practice Innovation, Dentons US LLP

Partnering with Clients to Drive Practical Innovation
Toby Brown, Chief Practice Management Officer, Perkins Coie LLP, and Gwyneth McAlpine, Director of Knowledge Management Services, Perkins Coie LLP

There Are Always Two Sides to Every (KM) Story
Kathy Skinner, Director of Research & Information Services, White & Case LLP; Gina Lynch, Director of Knowledge Services, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP; and Holly Riccio, Senior Manager, HBR Consulting 

Buyer Beware: Evaluating Analytics Products – How to Select an Analytics Product
Jean O’Grady, JD, MLS, Sr. Dir of Information, Research & Knowledge Management, DLA Piper LLP (US); Diana J. Koppang, Director of Research & Competitive Intelligence, Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP; and June H. Liebert, Firmwide Director of Library and Research Services, Sidley Austin LLP

Time for a Little Library R&R (Recovery & Revenue) 
Greg Lambert, Chief Knowledge Services Officer, Jackson Walker LLP, and Lee Bernstein, Library Manager, Haynes & Boone, LLP 

Who moved my cheese? How firm libraries create new top-line (and bottom-line) value
Ron Friedmann, Chief Knowledge & Information Officer, LAC

Kill the Library, Elevate the Service…
Huu Nguyen, Partner, Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLP; Scott D. Bailey, Global Director of Research Services, Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLP;  Nancy Rine, Director of Research Services and Conflicts, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver &  Jacobson LLP; and Thao Tran, KM Manager, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver &  Jacobson LLP

 

Law Firms & Technology – 6 Vital Questions to Ask Your Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics Vendors

business-2089533_640

By June Hsiao Liebert, Firmwide Director of Library and Research Services at Sidley Austin LLP

New artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics products are flooding the legal information space, and they claim to do everything from predicting the outcome of a case to writing briefs.  What do you really know about these products and how they work?  How do you separate the valuable products from the junk?  As the global director of library and research services at a large law firm and a former law school CIO, my team and I are constantly finding and evaluating legal information tools that can improve the work that our firm does.

Many of the newest information tools employ a mysterious algorithm that magically spits out results.  Users are expected to trust that the vendor is providing results that are reliable, accurate and unbiased.  Blindly trusting a third party, however, is a risky move for any law firm.

The vendors may not be willing to release details about the algorithms they are using, but you can evaluate the data that goes into the algorithms to begin with.  I am also a former database programmer, so the concept of “garbage in, garbage out” is ingrained in me.  We need to understand what is going into these magical algorithms in order to evaluate what is coming out.  Continue reading

KM, AI & Client Engagement: The Changing Role of Law Firm Librarians, Part 2

Reposted with permission from Gregg Wirth of the Legal Executive Institute’s LEI Blog

By Gregg Wirth, a financial journalist and the Content Manager of the Legal Executive Institute’s LEI Blog.
law firm librariansThe role of the law firm librarian has undergone dramatic change as technology, artificial intelligence and other innovations have allowed some information service professionals to reinvent the job. This has brought these professionals into areas of knowledge management, strategy, business development, client engagement and legal process improvement that are changing the way they approach their role within the firm.Katherine Lowry, Director of Practice Services at BakerHostetler, is one such innovative soul. (Eight years ago, Lowry shifted her career to report to the CIO and broadened the context of her services around technology, information, and driving greater value in services delivered by her team.) Lowry recently discussed with Legal Executive Institute how her role at the firm has evolved; and in Part 2 of our interview, she discusses her involvement in the firm’s business development and client engagement strategies, and the firm’s newest initiative, IncuBaker.

Legal Executive Institute: Previously, you spoke about how your role at the firm has evolved into one that, in turn, has allowed you to transform other aspects of the firm. Has this evolution changed how the firm interacts with its clients or how it identifies new business development opportunities for your practice groups?

Katherine Lowry: It’s changed in a couple of significant ways. Originally, it was Bob [BakerHostetler’s longtime CIO Bob Craig] and myself identifying, and bringing awareness to our Partners on the impact of technology to the legal practice. This included monitoring new legal start-ups and developing a framework to analyze our research in a tool created by my team called the Legal Nexus of Forces.


 This engagement process with our attorneys and clients helped us see that there was value in our research and ideation around improving our services using technology.


The evolution of where we’re at now is transforming this process. About a year or two ago, I was asked to go out to a client pitch. Since then, I’ve been to several of them. And it’s become more of a corollary to what I’m trying to do here at the firm — to bring what I am doing internally out to clients. For example, today, we have years’ worth of research and product studies that allow us to engage with clients frequently in collaborative ways through team calls or providing CLEs to communicate the advancement of technologies and how they change the landscape of our firm and the entire legal industry.

During the collaboration discussions at the table and the client pitches, it has been really helpful to have someone like me there to ask, “What kind of technology do you use? How do you use data?” It is a great compliment and pairing to our attorneys who are focused on delivering the best legal services to our clients, and I’ve had a lot of success at our client pitches in that regard.

After one pitch, we ended up receiving an invitation to return to complete a CLE program for a client. It was just the relationship partner, myself and Bob, and the client gave us one hour — we ended up staying for two because they had so many questions. It really hit home that clients found value in our research and identification of technology-driven solutions.

K-Lowry

Katherine Lowry, Director of Practice Services at BakerHostetler

Legal Executive Institute: So, was it this process that then led the firm to create IncuBaker?

Katherine Lowry: In a way it was. This engagement process with our attorneys and clients helped us see that there was value in our research and ideation around improving our services using technology. We worked with our Policy group to form IncuBaker, a more formalized Innovation team. One that is founded on research, awareness, collaboration across our attorneys and clients to deliver new opportunities. The future of IncuBaker in 2018 will continue to focus on machine learning, DLT/Blockchain Technology, and analytics. We want to explore with the clients how they’re using these technologies in their business and how it can improve our relationship.

That’s why we got into IncuBaker. We’re really trying to transform the dialog around certain technologies, not just internally, which is of course very important, but with our clients as well. We know that things like machine learning or distributed ledger technology are going to be some very disruptive technologies, especially for the legal industry. Previously, there was really not a path in place to decide how the firm would examine and use these technologies and help clients navigate these areas.

To really make a difference, we need to understand how these technologies can impact the firm, then collaborate with our clients and figure out what that ultimate impact is there too. I feel that’s what IncuBaker can offer — it can make sure that we have good communication back and forth for the businesses and the other administrative departments to understand how the firm can utilize these and other technologies.

We need to ask these questions now. What do these technologies mean? Does this mean we can offer a new line of service? Are we structurally set up to be able to have and apply machine learning?

Legal Executive Institute: Does that take a lot of internal coordination?

Katherine Lowry: I would say, overall, it’s a top-down approach, and we’re making sure to work appropriately with the group chairs, asking them to provide attorney liaisons to participate in studies and conduct proof of concepts to determine what technology will provide the greatest amount of value. As far as administration departments, it’s really about collaborating with them and casting a vision of what’s possible together.

That’s where the engagement with the client, I think, is going to get even more valuable as we progress. The undertone is technology, but it’s really about understanding. “What are their business issues? What are they trying to solve?” From there, we feel at Baker, we’ll have great intelligence to figure out what we should focus on to support them and to provide even better service to them.

And I think we’re having a lot of success so far with that.

KM, AI & Client Engagement: The Changing Role of Law Firm Librarians, Part 1

Reposted with permission from Gregg Wirth of the Legal Executive Institute’s LEI Blog

By Gregg Wirth, a financial journalist and the Content Manager of the Legal Executive Institute’s LEI Blog.

law firm librariansAmid all the dramatic change in the legal industry, it may be the image of the law firm librarian that has changed the most. Gone is the quiet, staid librarian housed in an oak paneled room, locating dusty legal tomes upon request. Today’s law firm librarian is much more likely to be one of the most tech-savvy members of the executive team, and the lynchpin of the firm’s strategies around knowledge management, information resources and business process improvement, all while keeping a hand in the latest innovations, such as blockchain and artificial intelligence.

Perhaps exemplifying this vocational evolution best is Katherine Lowry, Director of Practice Services at BakerHostetler. Lowry recently discussed with Legal Executive Institute her role at the firm, the value of collaboration and the thrill of interacting with clients.

Legal Executive Institute: Five years ago, you became BakerHostetler’s Director of Practice Services, a position that not a lot of law firms currently have. Briefly, could you describe what you do in that position?

Katherine Lowry: When I first joined in 2010, I was Director of Information & Resources, but the aspiration was that the role would become more prominent. We just had to define it, and we had to create it. There definitely was a strategy in place to do more with that position and have it integrated into IT and not just be traditional library services. So, it wasn’t too long after that — a little more than two years — that I became Director of Practice Services.

With that new title came a great expanding of my responsibilities. I went from overseeing traditional library services and records & information services, to also handling Legal Innovations, which now includes a data analytics and business intelligence strategies; User Services and Lateral Onboarding, Information Services Training and the Project Management Office, which was completely revised with a new governance model and methodology to apply to the entire Information Services department and the CIO’s office. Then of course, earlier this year, I was given responsibility for IncuBaker, the firm’s initiative in the areas of blockchain, artificial intelligence and data analytics.

My responsibilities expanded over the years, and I was challenged to transform such groups as the PMO and Lateral Onboarding, and then give over responsibility to those groups to others. In fact, to make room for continued growth in innovations through Legal Innovations and IncuBaker, I now manage fewer teams. However, the constant theme throughout my tenure at Baker is to focus on services delivered to our attorneys and ultimately our clients and to ensure the needs of the business dictates the integration of technology.

For example, the librarians — we call them legal researchers, because I think people have that connotation that librarians are all about helping you check out books or that it’s mostly print-driven — are key in the firm’s technology integration. For example, we wanted to adopt IT as a service, rather than IT as an engine. The idea of IT as an engine, is that ‘We’re here to keep the lights on. We’re here to keep making sure that Word doesn’t crash for you, and that you have mobile devices and whatnot.’

IT as a service model, under my group, really means that we’re driving and creating different services to the firm’s attorneys, whether it’s legal research or micro-education about our suite of offerings in information services.

Legal Executive Institute: 
So, it’s a different way of looking at the firm’s knowledge and information resources, is that right?

K-Lowry

Katherine Lowry, Director of Practice Services at BakerHostetler

Katherine Lowry: Yes, and I’m going to step outside the library for just a minute, to give you an example. One of the groups that I manage is training for all of the CIO’s office. Our group is deeply entrenched in trying to make sure that there’s a greater level of adoption for the technology that we have across our enterprise. That is our core goal, so we’ve revamped exactly how we do that. We offer training classes that are more web-based so we can cast a wider net. We’ve worked with target segments inside of our offices, creating these local active advocates of the technology, so that they can be another line of defense and adoption. And we’re pushing this knowledge across each office. As a result, secretaries are getting greater expertise, and they’re helping us spread the word about integration of technology.

Most recently, we’re working on micro-education on-demand. If you need to know something, we have a platform now called Brainstorm, where you can search. No session is longer than probably two-to-three minutes. It’s just a quick bite of how to do something, or where to find it, that sort of thing. It really boosted our Microsoft Office 365 integration, by helping people understand the software’s capabilities and how to expand those.

These and other initiatives were first called ‘practice innovation’, but now we call it ‘legal innovation’, and it’s really just our strategy to help innovate on a practice level or on a more specific topic. And the integration and adoption of such technologies has always been a core focus of mine since I’ve been at the firm, regardless of what title I’ve had.

Legal Executive Institute: It sounds like you work with IT, research and other groups to integrate technology into the firm’s practices. How important is this collaboration and how can you fend off the silo-mentality that seems so prevalent at larger law firms?

Katherine Lowry: If we want to address a question like, ‘How do we coral this kind of knowledge into a practice group’s or practice team’s workspaces and integrate it all into the document management system, so that everyone can share the same information and data across all 14 offices?’ — then that typically falls in the knowledge management function and means we’re going to have to stretch the solution across the entire firm for it to work well.


The integration and adoption of such technologies has always been a core focus of mine since I’ve been at the firm, regardless of what title I’ve had.


For us, that means we’re rapidly trying to introduce data analytics across the firm, develop a formal Business Intelligence strategy, and make sure that we know what data we have across the firm, so that we can make better decisions and not just trying to find data in one silo that may not be representative of other pieces and parts across our enterprise.

Getting rid of the information silos here, locating and assessing all our internal knowledge, then creating knowledge graphs across all of our practice areas — it’s not easy work. Sometimes, we had nothing to start from. We had to kind of create from scratch, and ask ourselves ‘How do we structure this? What does it look like?’

And with AI feeding raw data into the mix, we now have to be the cleaners and tag it. We have to create these knowledge maps and graphs that represent our work and illustrates what we know. If we do that, then I believe that we’re going to be able to leverage AI even more.

This is a major culture change — not just for us but for the industry. And it’s definitely not a discreet project; it takes a horizon vision. It takes asking yourself, ‘Five years out, what is that going look like and why do we need to be owners of that? And, who else can help us with that?’

In Part 2 of our interview with Katherine Lowry, Director of Practice Services at BakerHostetler, we’ll discuss her role in business development and client engagement, and the firm’s newest initiative, IncuBaker.

Continue reading
https://firmerground.wordpress.com/category/big-data/
firmerground.wordpress.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2019-35
74162
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:ZRHL5DOZ6BY3H7QFMWLHDQ46TSEKWZMU
<urn:uuid:bb763546-ac8e-4339-8d1a-2804383598ce>
2019-08-18T17:52:42Z
192.0.78.12
text/html
sha1:7PO5B3GJNH27EH5PU65E55RWD5Q7T7H2
<urn:uuid:aca19f0d-7ed4-4a50-9462-abc125620fd4>
https://firmerground.wordpress.com/category/big-data/
response
<urn:uuid:7dbfe317-23d2-4c12-b6db-567259948bb4>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2019-35
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for August 2019
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-112.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.15 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.1-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/