The heat may have dampened the gaudy Hawaiian shirts of the LawNet crowd but not their spirits. This is the highlight of US IT directors’ professional year and an opportunity to network with their counterparts in other law firms. And there is much talking to be done, with 650 delegates attending the event, held at La Quinta, a resort in the Californian Mojave desert, just outside Palm Springs.
Attendance by UK law firms at this event seems to have tailed off over the past few years and the only British firms to attend were Dechert and – in an unofficial capacity – Herbert Smith. UK vendors were better represented. The UK sales squad from CMS turned up in force, along with Neil Cameron from Keystone, drumming up interest for the upcoming launch of the US version of Keystone. Stalking the exhibit hall was Liam Flanagan, the founder of Tikit, on the prowl for new ideas.
The scope of the conference is massive. Delegates can choose between eight seminar tracks – applications; corporate and government; finance; internet; professional development; strategy; industry spotlight and speaker starlight. Or they can address their own specific technology problems at one of the three ‘LawNet University’ workshops.
The sessions:
Following a day devoted to product user groups, the conference kicked off with a keynote speech from stress management consultant to the stars, and regular Oprah Winfrey guest, Richard Carlson. His argument – don’t get stressed about screaming partners and useless support from suppliers. Develop a sort of karmic detachment and avoid that ulcer. The title of Carlson’s book, ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff’ provided both a catchphrase and, inevitably, a target of gentle mockery for the rest of the five-day event.
Industry veteran Stan Wasylyk – a former IT director at Jones Day Reavis & Pogue and now head of legal IT consulting at Hildebrandt – led a professional development session for new IT directors. He offered some handy tips on muddying the waters when one’s performance is called into question: blame the person who was there before you or reorganise the IT department. He then explained the mindset of the average law firm partner and outlined the importance of finding a back door to any argument with lawyers, before it commences, and of dealing with them one on one before they gang up on you.
Peter Lamb, director of information services at top Canadian firm Osler Hoskin & Harcourt, explained how to wring the best possible support for technology products out of the vendors. His advice: first decide whether you want the vendor to roll out their application for you (leaving you completely at their mercy when it comes to support); or to take the more expensive option – in the short term – of maintaining staff to deal with it in-house. “Once you have made your choice, stick with it,” he said. “And make sure the vendor understands your understanding of support.”Lamb said it was important to complain early, to be cautious of taking up vendors’ advice on changing the scope of an implementation project and, above all, to use a rigorous request for proposal (RFP) process. When dealing with start-ups and other small companies, he said it is important not to underpay them as it might have a detrimental effect on their performance.
A consortium of IT directors from large US firms – Riker Danzig, Foley & Lardner, McAfee & Taft and Porter Wright – managed to deliver an illuminating session on monitoring internet usage and the perennial menace of pornography. Gary Rink, of Riker Danzig, maintained that even in the highest billing firms, about a quarter of net surfing was done for non-work-related purposes. He emphasised the importance of monitoring everybody’s internet usage equally, from the loftiest partner to the most humble employee, to avoid discrimination lawsuits.
Douglas Caddell, of Foley & Lardner, said recreational web surfing was almost never the root cause of network performance issues at large law firms. On the other hand, he recalled that Foley had already sacked both lawyers and support staff for passing around pornography and jokes. David Rigali, from Porter Wright, explained the reasoning behind his firm’s controversial decision not to monitor employees’ surfing habits. He is sceptical of the effectiveness of the network monitoring products available, particularly those that rely on keyword searches. Above all, he fears that actively monitoring internet usage might increase the firm’s liability. Even so, he admitted that law firms – including his firm – did need to have the capability to monitor network traffic and follow audit trails, in case they are called upon to do so.
Thomas Gaines, the chief information officer at King & Spalding, a firm based in Atlanta, devoted his speech to the ‘culture wars’ between lawyers and the IT department. Gaines is in the unusual position of being an ex-lawyer, a partner of the firm and head of the IT support function. While he admitted that as a fully paid-up member of the partnership it was easier for him than for most IT directors to get the partners’ attention, getting senior management figures to buy into IT projects was still the key to success. He also said it was vital that the head of IT had the time to deal with the technical issues without major distractions. He offered some pointers to avoid being taken to task if the partnership’s high expectations of a new project are dashed. He said that the worst trap to fall into was to over-promise and under-deliver. “Do not tell them what an application can do, tell them what you think your department can get it to do,” he said.
Also of note was a speech by the noted cognitive psychologist Herbert Roitblat, who has devoted his career to studying the brain processing capabilities of dolphins. In a bid to emulate this natural intelligence, he developed neural networks that aim to force computers to think like animals or humans.
