• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

advice you can use — short and to the point — every Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday

technology  practice  research

All Our Tips

Counsel, Your Crystal Ball Is Busted…

So you met with a new litigation client.

Your first take on her proposed lawsuit was that liability was a virtual slam-dunk and that her damages would be assessed in the area of $25,000, maybe $30,000 if you “hit a home run.”

Conservatively, you advised your client of your opinion that her claims appeared to have a great deal of merit and that a court’s assessment would likely be in the $20,000 to $25,000 range.

So imagine your client’s shock – and yours – when a pre-trial judge ultimately opined that this claim wasn’t very strong at all.  In fact, the judge’s view was that if liability could be established, which was by no means certain, damages were likely to be assessed at approximately $5,000. Perhaps $10,000 on a very fortuitous day.

So what happened?

Well, possibly the judge’s view wasn’t correct.

But more likely, what happened was “the predictable.” In fact, we can safely predict that the legal profession’s predictions aren’t always so safe, at all.

In fact, when it comes to predicting outcomes, lawyers, as as class,  tend to be unrealistically overconfident.

At least, that’s what the research tells us.

A 2010 study compared lawyers’ litigation forecasts with actual file results and found a significant proportion of lawyers were notably over-optimistic in their case assessments.  As the study’s authors noted in Insightful or Wishful: Lawyers’ Ability to Predict Case Outcomes:

Lawyers’ litigation forecasts play an integral role in the justice system. In the course of  litigation, lawyers constantly make strategic decisions and/or advise their clients on the basis of their perceptions and predictions of case outcomes. The study investigated the realism in predictions by a sample of attorneys (n
481) across the United States who specified a minimum goal to achieve in a case set for trial. They estimated their chances of meeting this goal by providing a confidence estimate. After the cases were resolved, case outcomes were compared with the predictions. Overall, lawyers were overconfident in their predictions, and calibration did not increase with years of legal experience. Female lawyers were slightly better calibrated than their male counterparts and showed evidence of less overconfidence. In an attempt to reduce overconfidence, some lawyers were asked to generate reasons why they might not achieve their stated goals. This manipulation did not improve calibration.

…In 32% of the cases, the final case outcome matched the goal set by the lawyers. Among the remaining cases, 24% of the outcomes exceeded the lawyers’ minimum goals, and 44% of the outcomes were less satisfactory than the minimum goals set by the lawyers. A number of lawyers who did not achieve the predicted goal erred on the side of underconfidence, because their minimum goals were too modest. However, a larger proportion of the prediction deficits came from lawyers who erred in the direction of overconfidence.

The take-away from this research is that  legal professionals appear to tend toward optimistic, but unrealistic bias in favour of our own clients’ positions.  We should thus exercise caution in assessing – and relying on – our own predictive abilities. 

Our early impressions about the merits of our clients’ claims may be coloured by the professional blind spots identified in this research.  We may also be swayed by our natural empathy for our clients or by incomplete information on opposing parties’ positions that may be available at early stages. 

In short, we should manage our own expectations about results – and the client expectations they generate – with extreme care.

Which brings us  to today’s Practice Tip:

Before predicting outcomes, take a closer look. Reality checking ought to start with us, not with pre-trial judges, months or years after the fact.

– Garry J. Wise, Toronto (@wiselaw on Twitter)

 

Use Your Camera

Ah innovation.  For those of you with a smart phone in your pocket, remember that you have a camera on your device.  Why do I remind you of this?  Your phone (or tablet) camera can be used to:

• snap a picture of footnote citations
• take a ‘screen shot’ of a live presentation
• “scan” or copy a page of text from a print resource

Hat Tip to my colleague Mark Raven-Jackson.

App recommendation: Scanner Pro on my iPad works great and de-skews for the curve of thick volumes of the Canada Gazette – just saying. Cost $2.99

 

Put the Sun Behind You for Better Outdoor Pics With Your Mobile Phone

Unfortunately, the camera on your mobile phone – and even your more expensive DSLR camera – just don’t see things well quite as well as your eyes do. So, what can you do to get better outdoor pictures? Getting more light on your subject by making sure the sun is behind you will greatly improve the quality of outdoor pictures. Of course, this doesn’t work for sunrises or sunsets, but by moving around a bit you can easily do this in many circumstances for outdoor pictures of people and other things.

 

Hacker’s Guide to Being More Productive

♫ more productive
comfortable
not drinking too much
regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
at ease
eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)
a patient better driver…♫

Lyrics and Music by: Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O’Brien, Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway, recorded by Radiohead.

I don’t know about you, but I have been largely disillusioned by the ‘traditional’ ways of trying to be more productive. They have come to feel like, well, candy-coated panaceas. And frankly, if they worked, then all of us would be a whole lot more productive. But, at least for most of us,  they don’t. I suspect – if I am any example, that they don’t work for the majority of us because at the heart, we need fresh ways to get more productive than the ‘make up a to-do list’ every morning before you start work..yadda yadda….

So it was encouraging to read “Six Ideas For a More Productive Work Day” by Kit Hickey, co-founder of Ministry of Supply on CEO.com. Seems she has been trying to figure out how to be more productive, too. Oh and she noticed that her well-being and happiness at the workplace was tied to her productively.

Her first suggestion? Work out Regularly. This one REALLY resonated with me.  You see, I had some surgery this last November. Awaiting the surgery, I had to curtail my activites by necessity. Before this, for the last 30 years I have been a runner. More particularly, I ran at noon. I was happy and productive. I LOVED running at noon. But waiting for the surgery, I had to revert to the lifestyle of eating my lunch at my desk and working working working …long hours – 12 hours most days with no real workouts or breaks. Could I say my productivity climbed as a result of the long hours? No. Was I happier at my desk? No.

Kit said that her best ideas came to her when she was running. I totally agree! My columns, papers and articles largely began as ideas on a run. Running made Kit feel more productive and creative. I echo that correlation. It also increased her well-being.

So the first hacker tip to get more productive at work: is to get away from it. Go for a run (or swim or whatever works for you). Tune up your body and let your mind think freely. I think you will be amazed at how this can change your life.

Kit’s other suggestions? Take meetings outside of the office. She schedules meetings with exercise classes. Wow.

Mix it up – don’t just work from your desk in your office. Find out what works for you and give yourself permission to follow those ideas.

Bring your dog to work. Well, ok, here I would have to say that I don’t have a dog. I am terribly allergic to them. So – Kit – this one is all yours. I can understand what you are trying to do here.

Evaluate work output, not desk time. Yes Yes Yes! We have been telling lawyers to move away from billable hours as a metric of work for some time. Why ? It is an input metric..”how much time did you put into something”..rather than ..”what did you achieve in that time?”  If you evaluate results (and not just effort) you have moved yourself into a new paradigm. You can adjust your billing as well to bill for results and not effort.

Her sixth suggestion? Set aside distraction-free blocks for creative work. Again I can’t agree more. Block off your calendar for specific tasks, tell the office ‘no interruptions’ unless it is truly an emergency and give yourself permission to go at the matter at hand.

She advises that you shouldn’t be afraid to experiment. After all, as Sherlock Holmes would say: “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” If the ‘traditional’ ways of trying to be more productive are impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

–David J. Bilinsky, Vancouver, BC. (@David_Bilinsky on Twitter) 

 

 

 

Successor and Predecessor Tribunal Names

Back in the summer an Alberta bill was which caused the name of a decision making tribunal to change. For legal researchers, the important task is knowing what to look for regarding content, and often this means that you have to know who you are looking for.

This tribunal, now called the Alberta Energy Regulator has an excellent website with good methods for accessing their current and previous decisions. Decisions from this tribunal are also available with great coverage in LexisNexis Quicklaw.

Hat Tip for today’s tip goes to Quicklaw, especially for sending out content announcements like this one from November 14, 2013:

Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board Has New Name

In response to the Responsible Energy Development Act, proclaimed in June, the Alberta Energy Regulator succeeds the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board and takes on all its regulatory functions.

Given this change, please note that the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board source on Quicklaw has been renamed Alberta Energy Regulator and now includes decisions rendered by both tribunals.

 

How to Tell Which Side of the Car Your Gas Cap Is On

The location of the gas cap on any car you own or drive regularly is probably second nature to you. But when you drive a rental car into a gas station, how do you know which side the gas cap is on? Can you spot it in the side view mirrors? Probably not. Do you need to get out and walk around the car to spot it? Absolutely not.
If you look on the fuel gauge of most modern vehicles, you will see a tiny fuel pump icon with a triangle on one side. That triangle points to the side of the car that has the gas cap.

 

Lawyers: To Blog or Not to Blog

And since this is my first Tips post of 2014, a belated happy new year to all our readers.

Feel free to ask your own practice-related questions in the comments below or via Twitter.

– Garry J. Wise, Toronto (@wiselaw on Twitter)

 

Translation Help With TERMIUM Plus

Today’s Tip is about our languages thanks to a tweet from Susannah Tredwell, Manager of Library Service at Davis LLP in Vancouver.

Susannah shared news about TERMIUM Plus (R), the Canadian Government’s terminology and linguistic data bank.

What is in this data bank? According to the site:

• Almost 4 million English and French terms;
• More than 18,000 Portuguese terms;
• More than 200,000 Spanish terms;
• More than 4,000 monthly updates;
• Accurate, specialized and up-to-date terminology;
• The Government of Canada´s standardization tool;
• 17 diverse and user-friendly writing tools.

A quadralingual databank gives the precise English, French or Spanish or Portuguese equivalent for everything from plants, diseases, machines and tools. TERMIUM Plus also contains the meanings of very specialized terms and offers a writing assistance tool. Legal terms are included in the data bank with very specific source cites and context provided with complementary documents for many records.

There is a companion app that offers the ability to to find terms in both official languages available Apple and Blackberry devices and a mobile friendly web app for other devices.

Slawyers who need to ensure the accuracy of terms and phrases should check it out.

Thanks Susannah!

 

Don’t Worry About Overcharging Your Mobile Device Batteries

Some people still worry about overcharging the batteries on their mobile devices. Those of us that have been around a bit longer will remember the days when you were supposed to fully charge and then fully discharge your batteries so they would maintain the ability to take and retain a full charge through many charging cycles. This was an issue that was necessitated by nickel-cadmium batteries, which are rarely used in modern devices.
Lithium-ion batteries are now found in most modern smartphones, tablets, laptops and other mobile devices. Charging your lithium ion battery after a partial discharge is totally fine. In fact, you’re better off charging your device whenever possible rather than letting the battery go all the way down to zero as doing this will actually help preserve your overall battery life over time. Go for a full charge whenever you can!

 

The Hacker’s Guide to New Year’s Resolutions

♫ He’s got this dream about buyin’ some land
He’s gonna give up the booze and the one night stands
And then he’ll settle down, in some quiet little town
And forget about everything…♫

Lyrics, Music and recorded by Gerry Rafferty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Year’s Resolutions?  Phfft.  Been there, Done That, Got that T-Shirt.

We all resolve to get fit, lose weight and spend more time out of the office etc etc etc.  Speaking personally I have had my fill of resolutions that are born from the best of intentions but then die a cold hard death on the shoals of life.

So here goes: The  Hacker’s Guide to New Year Resolutions: How to make real change in your life.

First step:  Realize that you do things the way that you do because of how you are: the way  you find things enjoyable or appealing or not, the way that you reward yourself for doing certain things and avoid others, the way that you find that you are too tired at the end of the day to get out and head to the gym etc etc etc.  In other words, it is the structure of how you go thru life that determines, to a large part, how you do things (or not, as the case may be).  The problem with New Year’s Resolutions is that you set up goals without putting into place the mental supports that would allow you to change.  If you don’t change the structure of how you do things, don’t expect things to change.

Second Step: Make ONE and ONLY ONE resolution and make it YOUR priority to get ‘er done before the first quarter is over.  Stick it on your monitor.  Put it on the top of your ‘To Do’ list.  Think about it.  Often.  Take small steps towards it every morning *(not every day because that is how you let it slip it down the priority chain  – because at the end of the day you will realize that yes, once again there it is sitting on the To-Do list)*.

Third Step: Schedule time in your calendar to work on it for 15 mins every Monday to Friday (inclusive).  Rework and restructure your time, your schedule and how you approach life and work to intentionally fit in the time (and the energy) to achieve this one goal.

Fourth Step: Most of all, hold yourself responsible for making this happen.  You have to change how you work before you can expect other things to change.  So resolve to not only change this ONE thing but also –  resolve to change yourself.  Use this resolution to be the motivation to implement change, starting with you.

Fifth Step: Once you have achieved this ONE resolution, celebrate it!  Give yourself a reward for getting the job done. Make sure you make yourself feel good about achieving this change (*in yourself*).

Sixth Step: Resolve to change something else. You don’t need to wait for a special day in the year to keep the changes happening.  You are becoming  – reworking – yourself into a person who can implement change.  Congratulations.  Now get started on your future!