Solving Legal Workplace Problems By Using Project Management

Today’s post falls under the category of using project management in law firms and other legal workplaces and institutions. (I have blogged numerous posts on this category in the past; check posts in the blog under the Category of “Project Management for Lawyers”).

The Legal Business Development Blog, http://adverselling.typepad.com/, has a recent post entitled “Eight Common Problems Solved by Legal Project Management.”

The post raises eight common problems that law firms and other legal employers face in their practices or businesses, which the blog writers assert can be solved by using principles of legal project management.

The eight problems and their proposed solutions, as discussed in the blog post, include the following (each of which is discussed in more detail in the blog post):

1. PROBLEM: Unclear, expanding or shifting objectives and scope. SOLUTION: Set objectives and define scope.

2. PROBLEM: Lack of organization. SOLUTION: Identify and schedule activities.

3. PROBLEM: Ineffective management of valuable personnel. SOLUTION: Assign tasks and manage the team.

4. PROBLEM: Budget guesstimating. SOLUTION: Plan and manage the budget.

5. PROBLEM: Failure to prevent problems before they occur. SOLUTION: Assess risks to the budget and schedule.

6. PROBLEM: Compromising quality. SOLUTION: Manage quality.

7. PROBLEM: Excellent legal work that nevertheless fails to meet client expectations. SOLUTION: Manage client communications.

8. PROBLEM: Scope-creep. SOLUTION: Negotiate change orders.

How Do you Know When You Are Done Researching?

First year law students often ask how they can feel confident that they have done enough research on a legal issue that they’ve been assigned to analyze and provide client advice about. Law librarians at Rutgers-Camden prepared a useful three-minute video that explains the questions that legal researchers should ask themselves to determine whether they have adequately researched their assigned issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elay1hLqTgk&feature=youtu.be

(Hat Tip to the Legal Writing Prof Blog).

Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States

Today I’m blogging about a very informative source about the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).

IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law has an Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States (ISCOTUS), which is directed by Professor Carolyn Shapiro. According to its website, ISCOTUS “provides information, educational resources, and scholarship” on the SCOTUS, and has three main components:

the ISCOTUS Academic Center;

the Oyez Project (providing courtroom audio and briefs) and ISCOTUSnow (a blog on the Court); and

the Civic Education Project (promoting public education about the Court).

You can read more about each of these components at the links above.

The ISCOTUS website, ISCOTUS now, also has various useful features including Featured Stories on the Court, and a Weekly Roundup of news items about the Court.

The Weekly Roundup for October 10 can be found here: http://now.iscotus.org/news/weekly_roundup_october_10_2013

The site also links to an interesting recent segment from Chicago Tonight on WTTW, where Professor Shapiro and other commentators preview the Court’s new term. The piece can be seen at http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2013/10/08/supreme-court-s-new-session

Law Student Summer Fellowship at Auschwitz

Here is information about an interesting summer fellowship for law students:

FASPE (Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics) is  accepting applications for a fellowship that uses the conduct of lawyers and judges in Nazi Germany as a launching point for an intensive two-week early summer program about contemporary legal ethics. Applications from all law students, regardless of what field of law they are interested in, are sought. Fellowships include an all-expense paid trip from New York to Berlin, Krakow, and Oświęcim (Auschwitz) where students will work with leading faculty to explore both legal history and the ethical issues facing lawyers today. All program costs, including international and European travel, lodging, and food, are covered.

The 2014 program for FASPE Law will run from May 25 to June 5.

Completed applications must be received by January 6, 2014.

Candidates of all religious, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds are encouraged to apply.

To apply or to learn more about FASPE, please visit: http://www.FASPE.info.

If you have any questions, please contract Thorin R. Tritter, Managing Director of FASPE, at ttritter@FASPE.info.

New Interview with Justice Scalia in New York Magazine

New York Magazine has a new interview with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

In the opinion, Justice Scalia gives very forthright opinions about Constitutional Originalism, his views on homosexuality, race and sex discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment, his religious beliefs … and a number of other things, including the most wrenching case he’s ever decided.

Regardless of your views on Justice Scalia’s views, you will find his candor striking.

The interview can be found here: http://nymag.com/news/features/antonin-scalia-2013-10/

A Move to Avoid in Email Communication

NPR had a very interesting piece on a practice that’s commonly used in the legal workplace, unfortunately, often in an unprofessional and unproductive way. It’s the practice of copying a third party late in an email exchange, to gain the upper hand over the original participants.

The piece is at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/09/26/226154772/the-worst-kind-of-email-cc-not-a-bcc-but-an-a-nnoying-cc?utm_content=socialflow&utm_campaign=nprfacebook&utm_source=npr&utm_medium=facebook

Lawyers Have Wicked Project Management Skills

I just ran across an interesting blog post on Ms. J.D., http://ms-jd.org, discussing the fact that those trained as lawyers have extremely well-developed project management skills. They can and do bring these to bear in legal jobs, but perhaps more suprisingly and, in the current economy, equally valuably, they can also carry project managment skills learned in legal environments over to almost any other kind of complex industry in which they may seek to work.

The blogger points out that those trained in law know “how to balance competing priorities (i.e., life and work or life and school) and, moreover, can see the general overarching themes (rules) of various problems (issues) that will help you solve problems (Paula Plaintiff’s claims, Defendant Danny’s defenses, and the likely outcomes of each) over and over again, back and forth, upside down and under.”

The blog post can be found at: http://ms-jd.org/combining-things-you-have-make-stuff-work-non-legal-skill-set

Aspiring Law Professors Conference on September 28

The Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University will be sponsoring the Aspiring Law Professors Conference, which should be of interest to anyone interested in a career as a law professor. The conference will feature speakers on both doctrinal hiring and  clinical/legal writing hiring as well as offering opportunities for attendees to participate in mock interviews or mock job talks.

The conference will be held Saturday, September 28, 2013 in Tempe, Arizona. Here is additional information about the conference, courtesy of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.

“The Aspiring Law Professors Conference is designed to assist visiting assistant professors, fellows, judicial clerks, and others who are interested in a career in law teaching. The conference is targeted both at those who plan on attending the AALS conference this October and those who are still merely contemplating whether to pursue an academic career. To that end, the conference will be organized around two main events. The first, the morning session, will consist of informational presentations and panels for people at any stage of interest in academia. Our speakers include faculty from various law schools, including two Deans, who have extensive experience with hiring in the entry-level law teaching market. The keynote speaker is Professor Christine Hurt, of the University of Illinois School Of Law. We have endeavored to make sure that conference speakers not only have general interest and expertise in entry-level law teaching, but also have specific experiences relevant to aspiring law professors. Some hold advanced degrees in other disciplines; others have held VAPs or fellowship positions themselves; some have taught at multiple schools; and most have been active in the AALS hiring process as members or chairs of hiring committees.

The second event, the afternoon session, will provide those who are “going on the market” the opportunity to practice job-talks or interviewing skills with full-time faculty members from law schools around the country and receive individualized feedback. Those who will be going on the market after 2013 will learn more about how to land a teaching job through various presentations on topics such as the value of advanced degrees, visiting assistant professorships, and fellowships.

The College of Law will provide both breakfast and lunch to participants and will also arrange for a hotel near the College to provide rooms at a reduced rate. There will be no registration fee for the conference, but conference attendees are responsible for their own travel expenses. Potential attendees may find more information about the conference and register for it at

http://conferences.asucollegeoflaw.com/aspiringlawprofs/.”

Welcome to the New Academic Year!

A new academic year has begun, and with the new year, I’ll be resuming regular posting here on the “Think Like a Lawyer” blog.

To start things off, I want to announce an interesting new student legal writing competition. As part of its upcoming 2014 Southeast/Southwest People of Color
Legal Scholarship Conference on Feb. 27-March 2, TSU Thurgood Marshall School of Law will sponsor its annual Student Writing Competition, open to all students enrolled in an ABA-accredited law school during the academic year.

Here is the law school’s description of the competition requirements:

“Typically, entries will be a scholarly paper fit for publication in a law review (20-page length minimum). The paper for this year’s competition is due on Monday, December 2, 2013.  Our conference theme is ‘Civil Rights as Human Rights: Still Struggling 50 Years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act.’  For more information, please visit the conference
site at http://www.seswpocc.org<http://www.seswpocc.org>.  (Detailed program information
will be posted soon.)

Detailed instructions about the competition may be found at http://www.seswpocc.org<http://www.seswpocc.org> and certain information
is provided below.

ELIGIBILITY: The competition is open to all students currently enrolled in an
ABA-accredited law school during the 2013-2014 academic years. The student
must be a current J.D. candidate.

DEADLINE: Due Monday, December 2, 2013.

FORMAT: Entries should be a scholarly piece fit for publication in a law review. Entries
should follow standard footnote formatting, including Bluebook (19th or newer
edition) citation form. All entries must be submitted in English. Each entry
should be no less than 20 pages and no more than 25 single-sided
double-spaced pages with one-inch margins and 12-point Times New
Roman font.  Entries containing endnotes or including appendices or
supplemental material will not be considered. Published papers or papers
already accepted for publication are ineligible. Each student may submit only
one entry. Entries should be the sole work of the author and should not yet
have undergone editing by others. Editing includes any significant revision as
well as technical or substantive review of citations. Informal support, such
as general comments on preliminary drafts, is permitted. All entries must
be submitted electronically in either Word or PDF format. The student
is responsible for confirming receipt of his/her submission. Technical errors
on the student’s end will not be the basis for extending the submission
deadline.

JUDGING: All competition papers will undergo a blind review
process from the writing competition panel. Therefore, entrants should not
include their name or the name of their school on the competition paper
itself. Instead, participants must submit a cover page indicating their name,
school, permanent address, and telephone number.

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: Please contact Assistant Professor M. Victoria Taylor at
vtaylor@charlottelaw.edu<mailto:vtaylor@charlottelaw.edu> or Linh K.
Dai at Linh.Dai@asu.edu<mailto:Linh.Dai@asu.edu>.”

This strikes me as a very timely and important topic for papers, and I hope that many law students will compete.

Exemplary Legal Writing 2012: The Green Bag’s Honorees

The Green Bag: An Entertaining Journal of Law (www.greenbag .org), has chosen its annual “Exemplary Legal Writing” honorees for 2012. Samples of their work will appear in the forthcoming 2013 edition of the Green Bag Almanac and Reader, http://www.greenbag.org/green_bag_press/almanacs/almanac_2013_excerpts.pdf. The … Continue reading →