All Our Tips
Data From Published Survey Results
Survey results are converging in my world as useful sources of information. In looking at some information for an upcoming presentation, Google informed me about some published surveys that contained excellent background information. For an example of survey results that you might find interesting, check out Green Target’s 2012 In-House Counsel New Media Engagement Survey.
Survey data can tell you what people in groups think or believe. Survey results can be qualitative or quantitative. Survey results can help to illustrate themes. Survey data can provide a benchmark.
Survey questions can give you ideas as well. The Canadian Association of Law Libraraies/L’Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit (CALL/ACBD) periodically carries out a salary survey of law library staff working in Canada. Non-members of CALL/ACBD are encouraged to complete the survey. If you are working in a law library in Canada you are welcome to complete the survey. Any information you provide is confidential and your personal information cannot be identified.
English: https://surveys.dal.ca/opinio/s?s=CALLACBDSalarySurvey
Francais: https://surveys.dal.ca/opinio/s?s=CALLACBDSalarySurvey&lang=fr_CA
Lawyers’ Confidentiality and NSA Eavesdropping
Take a moment to consider the many ways we use the internet and other telecommunications tools in our daily work as legal professionals. Phone calls, scheduling and calendaring, legal research, online filings, our omnipresent emails, and more generically, “Googling” for everything from court addresses to legislation to the phone number of that pizza place that feeds us on a late night deadline-driven drafting marathon.
We’ve all read articles (and perhaps even attended at conferences) focusing on security in the cloud. We’ve all been warned about the perils of the guy who might be peering over your shoulder or using some black-app to intercept your wireless data at Starbucks.
Given recent disclosures, however, regarding the US National Security Agency’s various global data-mining activities, it is no longer a question of whether our data is secure.
We now know with reasonable certainty that virtually all of our confidential data and communications is subject to undisclosed, warrantless interception, eavesdropping and archiving by the US government.
As noted in an article today by lawyer Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian, a secret NSA program called XKeyscore assures that virtually all internet activity is collected by the United States government:
A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
…”I, sitting at my desk,” said Snowden, could “wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email”.
While the political justifications for these widespread activities may or may not have merit (and that’s a discussion for another day and time), the professional implications for lawyers and our regulators of the NSA disclosures cannot be simply rationalized away.
We have now entered into an era where our assurances of confidentiality must always be asterisked. All of our professional communications continue to be confidential and privileged, but this will be subject, of course, to national security-related activity – domestic and international – over which we have no input, information or control.
No firewalls or security-proofing can change this. So today’s SlawTip is this: Consider adding an asterisk to your assurances of confidentiality.
It’s time for our regulators to speak.
– Garry J. Wise, Toronto
Update Legislation on Your Mobile Device
A couple of years ago I shared a tip for putting the Rules of Court on a mobile device. A couple of days ago there was a notice about an amendment to the Alberta Rules of Court – the rules linked in the example post.
Thanks to persistent URLs, the links in my 2011 post are still relevant. Because adding content to mobile devices is usually managed by an individual, I am using Today’s Tip to remind you that legislation (including Rules – which are really regulations) changes.
Archive or delete that old copy and update the legislation on your mobile device.
Become a Leadership Incubator
Jack Welch has been often quoted in terms of leadership and management for good reason.
“Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do. Because then they will act.” Jack Welch
How many of us work in environments where instilling self-confidence in others is seen by some managers as threatening?
Management at times and in certain people’s eyes, is seen to be equivalent to control. Perhaps in some organizations and in some situations this is necessary. But I think that in the vast majority of institutions, and I count law firms and other professional service firms in this larger category, hardly ever fall into this situation.
Instead management should be creating an environment where dealing with change – effectively dealing with change – is as a result of empowering people to have the self-confidence to anticipate and implement the proper steps to deal with the situation when they sense that it is necessary to do so.
If a law firm must have all decisions made by a beneficial despot or small management team before any action can be taken, then you have created a situation where no one is willing to take a risk and take action, fearing that they will be reprimanded as a result. That is the equivalent of a deer being frozen in the headlights. And we all know what happens when this occurs.
Accordingly, I feel the most important skill that management can pass along to others is not to look to management to make decisions but rather to incubate learning and adaptation in the organization so that smaller, more agile and adaptive decisions can be made quickly, easily and naturally. Management then can have a hand in guiding the further development of that change.
Management should not seek to control; rather management should seek to incubate and cultivate leadership in others. Rather than being threatened by the increasing skills of staff, the organization should embrace the increased agility and adaptation to change that this creates.
After all, isn’t increasing self-confidence all about empowering the firm and those within it to act and to act quickly in order to adapt to smaller changes as they occur in order that the firm isn’t broadsided by a big change? Instilling such a learning environment will only become more important as change continues to wash over us.
Read About Clients
The best legal research output comments on how to apply the law to the facts and reaches a conclusion on how the client should be advised to move forward. Today’s Tip is a reminder to read about clients in order to wrap your legal research in the context of the present day story.
Events that require intervention by lawyers do not take place in a vacuum. They are point in time, point in history, point in geography, point in life issues. Better advice is provided with context. Where can you find this context?
- A client’s social media channels
- Industry news releases
- Newspaper articles
- Association or special interest group communications
Cool Pics of Cool Things on WhereCoolThingsHappen.com
There are loads of photo sharing and collection sites on the web. One can spend many hours wondering around looking for great pictures. One site worth a visit is WhereCoolThingsHappen.com. It has collections of photos of “cool” places, stays, art, photos, gadgets, transport, outdoor advertisements, food and architecture. If you need a bit of a break, stop by WhereCoolThingsHappen.com for some great pictures of cool things. It is updated daily and bloggers note – WhereCoolThingsHappen.com encourages other bloggers to use its photos.
Creating the Team: A Leadership Moment
Do law firms need leadership and teams? The author would state that at no other time in the past has the legal profession needed leadership as they need it at the present. The legal profession is facing unprecedented pressures from all corners. In the author’s view, if we fail to respond to these pressures in a timely and appropriate manner, then the failure is due to the lack of leadership within the profession.
We need to learn how to build teams in law firms. We need to learn how to respond to competitive pressures by building teams that can respond appropriately. We are a profession of individualists who now must learn that the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. The lessons will not be easy. They certainly run against the grain of most if not all, lawyers and their training and orientation. But the world has changed. And lawyers, to be relevant, must strive to change as well.
Richard Hackman, Edgar Pierce Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University was recently interviewed on Yale Insights on the issue: “Do Teams Need Leaders?”
He was asked the following question:
Q: What are the conditions a leader should be putting in place before a team is established?
What sets the stage for a great team, a great organization, or a great nation is not all that different. There are several key conditions in all cases.
• We need to know who we are. If we’re a team, we need to know who is on this team. It can’t be a team in name only with uncertainty around who is actually participating.
• We need a well-defined purpose. It’s absolutely critical to be clear about what we’re trying to achieve.
• We need the right people on the team. Do we have the right number of people? The right mix of people?
• We need norms of conduct. What goes and what doesn’t go in this enterprise?
• We need a supportive organizational context. Is there a broader context providing the resources, the information, and support that we need to pull this off?
• We need well timed coaching. Do we have people in place to provide coaching to help the enterprise take advantage of those favorable conditions?
I run through that same list whether I’m talking about a small team, a division of an organization, a whole organization—and you can go up from there. Those are conditions of social systems which, when in place, increase the chances that that system will pursue its objectives efficiently and well. When they are not there, then the prospects for success go down.
One of the critical skills that lawyers and law firms need to cultivate, in my humble opinion, is the ability to become leaders – leaders of teams, of firms and finally of the profession. As Richard Susskind has noted, “Tomorrow’s Lawyers predicts fundamental and irreversible changes in the world of law”.
How better to learn to respond to these fundamental and irreversible changes by creating an environment for change through effective leadership? Not only do teams need leadership, law firms and the profession need leadership. The time is now…
Make Connections
I had the pleasure of attending the American Association of Law Libraries conference this week. Despite having 20 years invested in my profession, I was a first time attendee. One of my key take aways from attending this conference is that I should have done it sooner.
Meeting colleagues from AALL has given me new connections to reach out to in the USA, validated that issues facing the legal industry and law libraries are universal, reinforced that my methods of practice are sound (and sometimes innovative which was great news), and expanded the number of people in the universe who will remember the name of my law firm.
Local, provincial, and national connections are important. International connections are relevant too, as is the learning that comes along with conference attendance. Attending AALL, especially in addition to the Canadian Association of Law Libraries conference, will make 2013/14 an innovative year for my library.
Go ahead, expand your horizons.
Get the Music You Want for Every Mood or Occasion From Songza
There are loads of music streaming sites on the web. One of the best is Songza.com. It suggests different playlists for the mood you are in and it has playlists for every conceivable music type. 
There is a Music Concierge that will give you options like Brand New Music, Working to a Beat, Working (no lyrics), Boosting your Energy, Basking in the Sun, Cooking, Unwinding and many more. There are Popular playlists, including Today’s Pop Hits, Today’s Upbeat Country Hits, Hot 100, Today’s Dance Club hits and so on. You can browse lists by Genre, Activities, Moods, Decades and Culture. If you create an account it will create playlists to match your personal tastes.
It is 100% free and there are no listening limits. There are apps for iPhone, Android and Kindle Fire.
Checkout Songza for some great music.
Take a Vacation!!
We tend to focus on topics of how to increase effectiveness and efficiency in this column as well as how to strive for heightened performance.
This one will be completely different.
Today we are going to highlight the benefits of getting away from it all and taking a vacation.
Why focus on taking a vacation?
According to advantagebehavioral.org there are at least 5 benefits to taking a vacation. These are:
Vitamin D is free
Vitamin D is essential for maintaining healthy bones and keeping the immune systems and nervous system functioning normally. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin made by the body, in the skin, from exposure to sunlight. While this essential nutrient is available as a supplement, spending some time outdoors each day (as little as 5-15 minutes) can provide the needed benefits. The best part: the sun is free! Further, preliminary research suggests Vitamin D can help prevent various forms of cancer, including breast, prostate and colon cancers.Play is not just for kids
Taking time to play has powerful benefits for children and adults. Play has been said to be the single most significant factor in determining our success and happiness. Play is just as important as sleep! Play involves anticipation, surprise and pleasure. Adults who play can enjoy freedom from time, rules and responsibilities, bringing balance to their busy lives.Relationships are enriched
Spending time together enriches a marriage, which strengthens the family foundation. Through traditions and rituals, such as vacations, any relationship can be enriched. Vacations and other traditions make memories and are the glue that binds us. Vacation can provide an opportunity to talk with one another, learn new skills or discover new interests.Children feel love, support and safety
Children who witness their parents and grandparents having fun, laughing and enjoying life learn valuable lessons about life. Spending time together as a family provides children with feelings of love, support and safety, which are key components for thriving in today’s uncertainties.Vacation time shrinks stress
Vacation helps shrink stress and anxiety while also boosting the mental and physical health of the entire family. We need a brain break, a detour from deadlines and a timeout from technology! It takes effort to unplug from the ever-spinning world around us, but one’s mind, body and spirit will be renewed by re-plugging into the joys of quality time with family and friends. Isn’t it time for you to take a break?
There are certainly other benefits as well.
According to NPR.com that quoted Karen Matthews of the Mind Body Center at the University of Pittsburgh:
“Taking time away from work and routine allows the body to replenish and repair itself”
NPR.com further stated: “The center surveyed 1,399 participants recruited for studies on cardiovascular disease, breast cancer and other conditions, and found that leisure activities, including taking vacations, contributed to higher positive emotional levels and less depression among the participants. Other benefits include lower blood pressure and smaller waistlines.”
Need further reasons? According to the Huffington Post:
Stave off a heart attack
In a study of 13,000 middle-aged men at risk for heart disease, those who skipped vacations for five consecutive years were found to be 30 percent more likely to suffer heart attacks than those who took at least one week off each year. Even missing one year’s vacation was associated with a higher risk of heart disease.
What if you are a woman? According to :
Women who take vacations frequently are less likely to become tense, depressed or tired and are more satisfied with their marriages, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at Marshfield Clinic, Marshfield, Wis.
The study, published in a recent issue of the Wisconsin Medical Journal, found that the odds of depression and tension were higher among women who took vacations only once in two years compared with women who took vacations twice or more per year. In addition, the odds of marital satisfaction decreased as the frequency of vacations decreased.
The evidence is clear. If you can afford even just a week off, take it. Do yourself, your spouse or significant other, your children and your marriage some good and spend time with those you love. The one thing that none of us can bank is time. No better time to take a vacation than now in the nice hot summer!
