Pbwiki In The Legal World

PBwiki in the Legal World How PBwiki Can Improve Efficiency and Productivity In Your Law Firm

Introduction 

PBwiki helps boost productivity and efficiency in the: Transfer of Information (email)  Retrieval of Information (legal databases)  Analysis of Information (case facts) 

I. Transferring Information: Email 

Current Practice: 

Flooded email inboxes from: • Emailing reference documents • Outlook as data storage • Using your email as your administrative task manager



With PBwiki: 

Clean inbox! • PBwiki can store your reference docs in a central location • No need to fear the “delete” button! • Administrative processes can be handled centrally via wiki

Storing documents in Email:

Storing Documents in the Wiki

VS

Donʼt Email Reference Documents to Small Group -- Store Them in a Wiki! 

Emailing reference docs: 

  

You have to predict the individuals who will find the documents useful Floods inboxes Document cannot be changed after sending Recipients might delete it

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Storing reference docs in wiki: 

  

Anyone who needs it in the future can find it, anywhere, anytime Happy, empty inbox You can update reference doc anytime Delete away! Document is there in the wiki when you do need it.

In the 2008 Lexis Nexis survey, 53% of respondents spend at least one hour searching for documents or emails. Almost 20% spend from 2-4 hours.

Administrative Tasks Can Be Streamlined by Wikis! 

No more, “Did you do this yet?” emails or “Note to self: add user to database”



A wiki can be a collaborative task manager

Let the wiki keep track for you! It’s online and collaborative.

II. Retrieving Information: Databases 

Current practice: 





“Practice makes perfect”: how to make initial “practice” painless User-unfriendly legal databases Swamped “specialists”



With a wiki: 





Wiki as a “learn as you go” supplemental training tool Provide “road-maps” for hard to navigate databases Free the specialists for truly urgent requests!

Practice Makes Perfect! But if you donʼt have time to practice… (or, “I havenʼt touched this database in 2 months. What the heck do I do!?”)



Your memory:

After 2 months

Let PBwiki be your memory. It won’t matter if it’s been 2 months or 6 months; PBwiki will keep you up to date, when you’re ready.

Provide Maps to Navigate through Databases 

Each database is different. PBwiki help you “navigate” through their individual quirks.

A Database Map Also Saves Time for Your Specialists 

Let PBwiki act as the central reference: reroute simple requests to the wiki instead of flooding your specialists with requests.

A wiki never gets tired. It just keeps going and going and going..

Your specialists, however, do. Save their expertise for all of your crucial issues. Let the wiki handle the rest.

“Approximately 67% of legal professionals wish that they can spend less time organizing information, and more time using information that comes their way.”

III. Analyzing Information: Case Facts 

Current Practice:  



CaseMap, OR Collections of case facts are placed into MS Word documents, which are: • Hard to update and distribute • Difficult to search for and organize

With PBwiki: 

Wikis are perfect for managing dynamic collections of facts, with: • An extremely user-friendly editing function • No need to distribute updates every few days • Instant available access for all team members • A comprehensive search functions and the option of multiple “tags” for every page

According to the Lexis-Nexis survey, legal professionals reported difficulty in finding the correct or most recent version an average of 5 times per week.

Wikis are Dynamic and Instant   

No more punching holes for binders, or printing out new versions of indices. No more emailing five successive versions of the same document. No need to worry if you have the most current version, or waiting for someone to send you the most current version (or its location)

Your clients want instant results; shouldnʼt you get the same from your own documents?

PBwikiʼs Open Collaboration Platform Helps Prevent Overlapping Labor:

18 hours

18 hours

Combined effort can get things done in half the time.

Let’s take a quantitative look at how a wiki can help you:



If we just look at the advantages of a wiki in reducing email:

 “A 2004 study conducted by the ePolicy Institute and the American Management Association that surveyed 840 U.S. businesses showed that nearly 60% of participants spend at least 90 minutes per day on email alone. 20% spend between three and four hours per day on email, and 10% spend more than four hours - half their workday - per day on it.” http://orange.eserver.org/issues/5-1/pratt.html

Estimate: Lower End 

1,900 billable hours/year (2,300 office hours/year) 





Cleaning email, learning how to use a legal database arenʼt billable! If email is 20% of hours, thatʼs 460 hours/year; every email interruption wastes several minutes Reducing non-billable email usage just 20% reclaims almost 100 billable hours/year! • At $400/hour, thatʼs $45,000/year in additional billings • PBwiki costs $96/attorney/year

Estimate: Higher End  

Studies show that upper level management actually spent the most time on email 1,900 billable hours/year (2,300 office hours/year)  

If email is 30% of hours, thatʼs 690 hours/year; again, every email interruption wastes several minutes. Reducing non-billable email usage just 20% reclaims 128 billable hours/year! • At $500/hour, thatʼs $64,000/attorney/year in additional billings • PBwiki costs $96/attorney/year

And That Doesnʼt Even Count Time Wasted On:   



Waiting for specialists & paralegals to respond to requests. Overlapping labour (e.g. 3 different employees organizing 3 sets of the same 100 emails distributed within a group). Dealing with email-induced errors (e.g. overlooking an important request or task because of an overflowing inbox). Orienting new team members under time pressure (storing reference information means that to orient new members, youʼll have to dig through your mailbox and forward those emails, contributing to the cycle).

To Take Another Approach: 

“In Cavanagh’s 2003 study, 72% of respondents reported that they spend significantly more time managing their email than they did just one year earlier, and that they work longer hours as a result… Cavanagh estimates the average loss in annual revenue due to email overload to be 12%.”

Calculation:   

Skadden brought in $2.7 billion in revenue last year. 12% of $2.7 billion is $324 million. If the wiki even reduces the amount of “email overload” by 10%, that should bring in an additional $32 million per year.   

With ~ 2000 Skadden attorneys, this means an additional $16,000 per attorney per year. PBwiki costs $96 per attorney per year. If PBwiki reclaims $16,000 per attorney per year, that comes out to a daily return of ~$44 per day. It takes only 3 days to make the cost of PBwiki back.

Conclusion: 

PBwiki provides: A central, easy to reach repository for reference information and administrative details.  A road-map to help navigate through the most difficult of legal databases.  A dynamic platform to manage and organize your case analysis. 

Sources           

Memory graph: http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/1605/ff_wozniak?currentPage=2 Flooded inbox picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebecca_jeffery/967763135/ Drowning in email: http://www.flickr.com/photos/will-lion/2625715043/ Email Overload: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaxmac/2632052680/ Spaceball email overload: http://www.flickr.com/photos/palapainyelapa/31323858/ Email overload 2: http://ola.wkkf.org/klcc/klccnewsletter/2007/Mar/images/tech.jpg Empty inbox: http://mcnitt.com/images/inbox-large.png Information Overload: http://itorganization2017.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/informationoverload.jpg Collaboration: http://steves.seasidelife.com/Collaborationnotsomuchabouttechnoloogy_F196/collaboration5.jpg Information overload 2: http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/cwl/lowres/cwln893l.jpg Overworked: http://www.flickr.com/photos/beforethecoffee/2404849371/