Live from Legal IT 3.0: Connie Crosby of Crosby Group Consulting
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For our final, a bit belated, interview from Legal IT 3.0, we have social media consultant Connie Crosby of Crosby Group Consulting.
Connie joined Kevin O'Keefe for the Monday session on "Building a Better Web Presence" and she also blogged and Twittered about the conference.
Read more of our email exchange with Connie after the jump.
Lisa Kennelly: What were your overall impressions of the conference?
Connie Crosby: It was my first time attending, and I was only there for part of day one, but I found it extremely informative. I took lots of notes at the sessions I did attend. In some ways it was a wake-up call for me and others that it is time to really practice what we preach and really start using the electronic tools at our disposal.
Lisa Kennelly: What session or panel did you find most interesting or compelling?
Connie Crosby: During the first day lunch, conference organizer Dominic Jaar spoke along with Hon. Jean-Pierre Bonin of the Court of Quebec and Hon. John D. Murphy of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia on information technologies and the Judiciary. I found this talk particularly compelling because the judges were all but pleading with Canadian lawyers to stop using paper and to submit materials electronically. Essentially the courts want to be more technologically efficient, but they can't improve until lawyers become drivers of technology.
In particular, Dominic pointed out that 95% of documents in the law firm are created electronically, while 95% of documents submitted to courts across Canada are in paper. That means that the paper received by the courts has to be scanned back into electronic versions, and metadata reapplied. I was shocked as to what a huge disconnect there is! And it is the clients who pay for this inefficiency. I see a huge opportunity here for making things so much better in our legal system.
Lisa Kennelly: What response, if any, did you get from attendees to your Online Marketing panel with Kevin and Steve Matthews?
Connie Crosby: I had some very positive feedback. Essentially we had Kevin and Steve talk about how to build a web presence online using a number of tools, and I "drove" the Internet on the screen behind them, giving everyone a visual of what they were discussing. No PowerPoint. Those who approached me afterward said it was a very effective presentation method, and they wished other sessions had been done in this way. I hope, though, that they heard some of what we were saying, too.
Lisa Kennelly: Do you see any difference between Canada and the US in terms of their respective legal communities' openness or willingness to embrace technology and social media?
Connie Crosby: From where I sit, we all appear to be in the same boat. There is a small percentage who are exploring what is being used in the business world today, seeing how we can leverage the tools to advance ourselves and what we do for our clients. The rest either are averse to it or just have not yet heard that things like blogs, LinkedIn and Twitter can raise their profiles immensely.
Adoption is slow in both countries, but there are some jumping in with both feet and getting the full benefit of tools for networking and self-publishing. It does take time for these things to reach a wide adoption rate, especially in a conservative profession such as the law. Those who try it out this early will have a huge advantage over others who don't; this can really allow smaller firms to raise themselves up to compete with larger firms.
