I’m not much of a courtroom lawyer. I work mostly with technology, legal marketing and practice management. Perhaps its my distance from the practical nature of courthouse processes that leaves me somewhat unforgiving of the is-ism I see in relation to Chambers applications. By is-ism, I mean the mistake of confusing the way something is with the way it must be. I’m writing this blog post because I think there has to be a better way to hear Chambers applications.
Of Time and Money (aka Billable Hours)
Two of the dominant discussions within the legal community relate to a) unaffordable legal services and b) the lack of “work-life balance” for lawyers. In other words, lawyers cost too much and they work too much (there’s a causal link in there somewhere I’m sure). Countless committees, inquiries, commissions, and reports have made this case much more eloquently. For my purposes, Chambers at the Vancouver Courthouse is a microcosm of how the status quo is failing both clients and lawyers. Without dwelling on the administrative details, lawyers schedule their Chambers application and show-up with the goal of being heard by a Judge or Master.
My experience has been that both Judges (or Masters) as well as the clerk and registry staff do their level best to keep everything moving along. This involves an ongoing game of musical chairs in which longer applications get pushed back in the scheduling list. Between a general lack of courthouse resources and increasing numbers of inexperienced lay litigants, the system is stubbornly slow. Chambers applications are inevitably bogged down. For the lawyers, the waiting is the hardest part.
Waiting is the Hardest Part
Because judicial resources are precious (a point I don’t contest), lawyers are expected to wait in Chambers until their matter is ready to be heard. This can be hours. In some cases, time expires before a matter is heard and both sides must return to try again another day.
Maintaining rooms full of waiting lawyers is not an efficient use of lawyers’ time and it certainly doesn’t help control costs for litigants. Lawyers can wait 2 or 3 hours for their 30 minute application to be heard. At $300/hour, these waiting costs are entirely borne by the client. Multiply this by the number of lawyers lining the benches and you start to get an idea of the full cost. This is just one example of how inefficiencies in the system are putting justice completely out of reach for most people. Moreover, because lawyers tend to be incommunicado while in court, they must then work to catch-up once they’re done at the courthouse. For many lawyers, this means staying-up late into the night to catch-up on correspondence and preparation for subsequent applications and trials.
Unlike other problems with the justice system, such as the increasing complexity of substantive legal matters, waiting around for Chambers applications can be fixed. Although I lack the requisite qualifications to advise on judicial reform, I have a specific proposal so crazy, it just might work…
My Proposal: SMS Lawyer Paging
Chambers applications are not unlike any number of modern restaurant chains. Due to the volume of customers arriving at one time, not everyone can be seated. Because managers don’t want clients milling about and making noise on the immediate premises, new arrivals are dispatched with a pager system. They are notified when their table is almost ready so that they can return the restaurant. Many versions of this process work by text message.
My proposal is as follows. The courthouse should run a pilot project in which court clerks are equipped with some sort of paging system. The market is full of such products that work with mobile phones (e.g. TapGuest) and can be easily managed with an iPad. Lawyers may then arrive at the beginning of Chambers, give their name and cell phone number to the clerk and get a preliminary estimate of when their matter may be heard. They can then leave Chambers and wait to be notified when their matter is getting close to being heard (1 matter away). They would have at least 10 minutes to return to Chambers after being paged or lose their “table.” If they missed their window, their matter would be pushed to the back of the list. This is not very different from the current system.
In the Vancouver courthouse, lawyers could then do research and/or work from the courthouse library. They could return client phone calls or emails (the number one complaint to the Law Society). Quite simply, they could practice law rather than waiting around to practice law.
The costs associated with my proposal are well under $1,000.
It’s a modest proposal and it just might work.
Tags: courthouse libraries, linkedin
Posted in Law, Mobile, Technology, Things we like | Add a Comment »
Last week, Google rolled-out Call Metrics for Canadian advertisers. This is very big news for our client base for a couple of reasons.
For starters, professional services firms like to hear the phone ring. While email remains the dominant form of business communication, most new retainers tend to start with a phone call. When we review web analytics to determine the marketing ROI, professional services firms (unlike Amazon.ca or any e-commerce firm) generally want to funnel their business through their phone lines. This is where call metrics starts to prove useful. This new ad extension allows you to assess how many people called your firm via your Google ad(s), how long they were on the phone, and how much you spent on the calls.
Photo by Todd Snodgrass (Creative Commons)
I actually blogged about Google’s Click-to-call ad extension back in June. Those ads only display on mobile devices with full browsers (iPhone & Android). A user can click your phone number and call your office directly from the ad. Call metrics are somewhat different in that a custom, temporary 1-800 number is included in your ad text. This number can be seen on any device meaning that the person can call from any phone. Calls to the toll-free number are automatically forwarded to a number of your choosing. The cost of using call metrics is $1/call. However, you can enable either call metrics OR click-to-call ads.
Besides being able to assess marketing ROI, the real advantage here is the benefit of getting a 1-800 number (even if its temporary) without having to pay the full cost of a dedicated 1-800 line. In other words, it conveys the image of larger operation without the cost. For example, suppose you’re a 3 lawyer family law firm with clients across the Kootenays and Western Alberta. While many of your prospective clients call your office long distance, a dedicated toll free line would be cost prohibitive on your end. That being said, you’re likely to get more long distance calls with a toll free option.
For lawyers out there looking to setup a virtual practice, this option will prove particularly appealing. Now if only they would release Google Voice in Canada…
Tags: linkedin
Posted in Google, Law, Law firm websites, Mobile, SEM/SEO, Technology, Things we like, Virtual Practice | Add a Comment »
Building websites for professional firms, one of our ongoing challenges is browser compatibility. What looks gorgeous on one browser may be disjointed and glitchy on another. The classic problem being drop-down menus. As a lawyer at a web design company, its interesting to look back with nostalgia on the earlier days of Netscape vs. Internet Explorer. Monopolistic behaviour made testing websites comparatively easy.
The browser market is now thriving and we are increasingly faced with the question of which browsers we will support. This doesn’t mean that unsupported browsers won’t display the site, only that we won’t be testing on them. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: linkedin
Posted in Apple, BlackBerry, Google, JetPack Websites, Law firm websites, Microsoft, Mobile, Technology, WordPress Websites | Add a Comment »
A long time ago (early 2000′s) before Google was a powerhouse and Apple was a mass market media darling there were two major players in smartphones – Microsoft and Blackberry (Ok, maybe Palm to a certain degree as well). They had the marketplace covered and produced solid smartphones which had quite a few of the features of the modern day devices (cameras, calendars, apps, contacts, instant messaging) although the experience was a little mundane and uninspiring (and non-touch).
Fast forward to the year 2007 when Apple crashed the party and upended all that was peaceful in the staid smartphone market with their touch-enabled device, the iPhone. Now, Apple weren’t the first to the smartphone party, nor were they the first to introduce touch, but they did meld their usual user-friendliness and marketing savvy to upend the entire market and introduce a more consumer-friendly device. The iPhone, and the whole touch phenomenon changed the landscape for smartphones. Out with the old and in with the new!
Fast forward once more to 2009 when Google bust down the door of the smartphone party with their introduction of an touch-enabled open-source OS called Android. Not the sexiest interface, nor was it the most user-friendly but what it lacked in pizazz it made up for with the promise if being open to the people and having Google’s backing, which would ensure it would become bigger and better as time went on. So far, the flagship android device seems to be Google’s Nexus One.
Also in 2009 Palm came back fighting by introducing the much-hyped Pre smartphone. Unfortunately for palm it’s quite a bit smaller than any of the other companies and it’ll be tough to move the numbers that the other big players can. Have to give Palm props though as they’ve developed a beautiful phone with a very slick interface utilizing touch capabilities and a slide-out keyboard.
Since the introduction of the iPhone and all the other touch devices the Blackberry brand has held it’s own, even introducing it’s own touch device which never really caught on with the mass market. Microsoft, however has taken a severe beating in market share and as of yesterday has essentially pulled the plug on it’s old smartphone operating system. Microsoft haven’t given up however, the new Windows Mobile 7 series looks to be a complete departure from anything they’ve ever introduced before and my hunch is it’ll be a gamble that will pay off.
It seems every few months someone introduces a phone/OS combo that makes me really want to trade in my trusty Blackberry. What stops me? Well, I know that in another 3 or 4 months there will be another phone that will make me glad I waited. And now, with the unveiling of the new Microsoft mobile OS I think I’ll hold off a bit longer just to see how things play out. The battle for our mobile dollars is heating up and there’s never been the amount of competition we have today.
My blackberry does all that I need for now, but the grass is always greener on the other side in tech land.
Posted in Apple, BlackBerry, Google, Microsoft, Mobile, Technology | Add a Comment »
