Technology advancements have drastically transformed how we live, communicate, and conduct business globally. The legal profession is no exception, and lawyers have become increasingly interested in utilizing technology to improve their services. In light of this, we are delighted to welcome Kenton Brice, Interim Director of the Law Library and Director of Technology Innovation at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, to today's podcast. In our discussion, he shares his insights on leveraging technology to streamline the legal workflow and enhance efficiency. Kenton's experience will be a valuable guide for all the attorneys embracing technology to succeed in their legal careers.

In his roles, Kenton leads the Law Library, the OU Law Center for Technology & Innovation in Practice, and the College's Digital Initiative. He teaches courses and workshops on legal research, technology in practice, and innovation at the College and speaks at multiple conferences. Through his efforts, OU Law is the first and only law school in North America to receive the Apple Distinguished School award and has been listed as a Top 20 Most Innovative Law School multiple times. Kenton is a 2018 inductee into the Fastcase 50 and is a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. Before his current role, Kenton practiced with a small firm in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex, where he received honors as the Texas Appellate Lawyer of the Week and was inducted into the Texas Bar Pro Bono College.

Join Kenton and me as we talk about the following three questions and more!

Three Main questions

Recorded “live” from the aba techshow in chicago, il!

What are the top three reasons attorneys should attend the ABA TECHSHOW?
What are the top three things law students and new attorneys should know when using technology?
What are the top three tech devices or software new attorneys should purchase for their practice beyond a computer, a phone, and a printer?

In our conversation, we cover the following and much more:

[00:05] Tech Setup - Kenton's current tech setup.

[08:39] ABA Tech Show - Kenton highlights the wide range of legal technologies available in the show, emphasizing the importance of the community and the technology. He further stresses the value of in-person networking and the opportunity to connect with people from all sectors of the legal ecosystem.

[13:40] Tech Tips for Law Students and New Lawyers - Top three things law students and new attorneys should know when using technology.

[19:20] Software for New Attorneys - We delve deeper into client portals, electronic payments, and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems while discussing software that new attorneys should get for their practices.

[29:36] Business Mindset - Importance of understanding ROI when investing in technology.

[34:23] More on Mindset - Don't be afraid to adapt. Maintain a flexible and adaptable mindset. Fail often, fail fast.

[37:59] Devices and Tools - Other than the basics (a computer, phone, and printer), what other technological equipment should a new lawyer invest in for themselves?

RESOURCES

Connect with Kenton:

E-mail: kbrice@ou.edu
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kentonbrice
ABA Tech Show: techshow.com/

Equipment mentioned in the podcast:

Apple AirPods Pro: apple.com/airpods-pro/
Audio Technica ATH-M50X headphones: audio-technica.com/en-eu/ath-m50x
Bose noise-canceling headphones: bose.com/en_us/products/headphones/noise_cancelling_headphones.html
CalDigit TS hub: caldigit.com/ts3-plus/
CalDigit Thunderbolt Station: https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-station-4/
27-inch Dell monitor: dell.com/en-in/shop/dell-27-monitor-se2722h/apd/210-azhl/monitors-monitor-accessories
iPhone 14 Pro: apple.com/iphone-14-pro/
iPhone: apple.com/iphone/
LG Monitor: apple.com/shop/product/HMUA2VC/A/lg-ultrafine-4k-display
Logitech C920 webcam: logitech.com/en-ch/products/webcams/c920-pro-hd-webcam.960-001055.html
MacBook Pro: apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/Magic Touchpad: apple.com/shop/product/MK2D3AM/A/magic-trackpad-white-multi-touch-surface
Mechanical keyboard (wireless, Mac-compatible) from Logitech: logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/mx-mechanical-mini-mac.920-010831.html
Mechanical keyboard (wireless) from Logitech: logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/mx-mechanical.html
MOBDIK Paperfeel Screen Protector: amazon.com/gp/product/B07WHNJ9H8/
Plexicam: https://www.plexicam.com
34-inch Samsung monitor (single screen): samsung.com/latin_en/monitors/ultra-wide/premium-curved-monitor-with-greater-viewing-comfort-perfect-multi-tasking-34-inch-lc34f791wqlxzp/
SanDisk 128GB USB Drive Ultra Dual Drive Luxe Type-C: amazon.com/SanDisk-128GB-Ultra-Dual-Type-C/dp/B09PQJWMHJ/
Shure SM7B microphones for recording: shure.com/en-US/products/microphones/sm7b?variant=SM7B
Yeti Blue microphone (upgrading to a Shure SM7B): bluemic.com/en-us/products/yeti/

Software & cloud services or apps mentioned in the podcast:

Camo app: reincubate.com/camo/

Transcript: Tech Savvy Lawyer - Episode 58

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: [00:00:00] Episode 59 Community is key as there is no magic bullet. My conversation with the University of Oklahoma College of Law, Kenton Bryce

Kenton, is the interim direction of the law library and the Director of Technology Innovation at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. In his roles, Ken leads the Law Library, the OU Law Center for Technology and Innovation in Practice, and the College's Digital Initiative. He teaches courses in workshops on legal research, technology, and practice and innovation at the college.

And speaks at multiple conferences through his efforts. OU Law, the first and only law school in North America received the Apple Distinguished School Award and has been listed as a top 20 most innovative law school multiple times Prior to his current role, Kenton practiced with a small law firm in the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex, where received honors as the Texas Appellate Lawyer of the Week and [00:01:00] inducted into the Texas Bar pro Bono college.

I had the opportunity to interview Ken Live during the ABA Text Show last week. It was fun sitting across our guests in person, but I apologize for any background noise. As the designated media room had a running air condition system that we could not turn off, hopefully we limited it during post-production.

Enjoy. Hey everyone, just a quick shout out before we start. Are you enjoying the Texa Page podcast? Consider giving us a five star review at Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast feeds. Also, consider buying us a cup of coffee or two from the link on our blog to help the phrase some of the production costs.

Thanks and again, enjoy. Kenton, welcome to the

Kenton Brice: podcast. It's great to be here. I

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: appreciate you being here, and to get things started, tell us what is your

Kenton Brice: current tech setup? My current tech setup, I have a 15 inch MacBook Pro, M one Pro processor. Wait

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: 15 inch. Or is it 14 inch? It's either a 14 or a 16. I I

Kenton Brice: have the 16 inch shirt.

No, it's definitely the 14 inch. Okay. I had an old 15 inch MacBook program. Okay. I upgraded a couple years [00:02:00] ago, so I've got that tied into a 27 inch monitor. Nice. I'm a single screen monitor guy. Okay. Okay. Was dual screen. Mm-hmm. back to single

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: screen. Well, so. . So first, who is the maker of your 27 inch screen?

Dell. Okay. And what's, is it a 4k? Is it a 10 80 monitor? It's a

Kenton Brice: 4K monitor. Okay. So I do a lot of video editing. Okay. Excellent. And I try to record in 4K as much as possible for online lectures, stuff like that. Yeah. So I've got that. My favorite thing I have is my mechanical keyboard. Okay. Uh, it's wireless works with Mac.

Excellent. It's a Logitech. Okay. It came out probably about six months ago, but, but wait, I, I have to

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: ask why did you move from dual screen to single screen? Ah,

Kenton Brice: yeah, good question. So, I've got this question actually from a lot of people. . In my own world, I moved from dual screen to single screen Right. For focus issues.

Okay. Actually want to upgrade. I'm working on it right now to a 34 inch monitor. Yeah. I just want one monitor. Okay. I like to have three documents open at one time. Yeah. And a 34 inch monitor's. [00:03:00] Perfect at that dual screens, you know, It's just too much. I'm not an air traffic controller. I'm a lawyer and a law professor.

Well, you have to see

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: my office and my recording studio because I have three screens. I, I have the, I have the Mac xdr, the six K, which is gorgeous. And then I've got two 4K s flanking left and right, LG that I've had for a couple years. And you know, if I had the money I'd get two xdr. But

Kenton Brice: you know, that wouldn't just be, yeah.

I work in higher ed, so xdr not on my radar. But yeah, I've got, I mean, and to run all of that, I mean, I used a magic touch Padd as a mouse. I don't use mouse anymore. Okay. Yep. And then to run all that is my hub, which is a Cal digit TS four. Okay. It's a great little pieces of

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: hardware. Excellent. Excellent.

Anything else in the office that you use?

Kenton Brice: What about your mic? My mic I use, I have a Yeti blue Okay. That I use, but generally I just use my AirPods Pro AirPod Pros. Okay. To do a lot of my recording. Oh, they work really well. Okay, great. Mics on 'em. Yep. But yeah, when I'm doing [00:04:00] like online lectures, I'll use the Yeti.

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: Okay. Excellent, excellent. And we're using a Yeti blue, which we are actually upgrading. We got a shore MV seven. Okay. So that goes for a, A condenser, not a condenser. A yeah. Condenser mic to a dynamic mic. Nice. And I heard the differences and it was pretty nice. So we. Have a change. And, and by the way, for the listener, what's rather unusual about this recording is that we're here live at the ABA Tech show 2023.

And Ken and I are sitting literally right across from each other normally, like my guests are on Zoom at a video call and they're seated somewhere else, usually in another stay, one part of the country or another. And so I, I'm, I'm having sort of a giggle moment, forgive me cuz I'm seeing the person I'm actually talking to physically live in front of me.

And I can tell you, as I've always told my clients when we go before the va, that there's something [00:05:00] special about sitting there in front of the judge or in front of the person you're talking to physically versus. Through a video.

Kenton Brice: No doubt. Yeah, it's, it's interesting being here live, cuz I think the past few podcasts I've done have been on Zoom as well.

Okay. What's interesting about this dynamic is there's a microphone between us, , and I feel like we're yelling at each other into the microphone because we have this air vent above us, unfortunately, unfortunately. But yeah, it's great to be here in person. I mean, ABA tech show's. Awesome. Glad you, you know, were patient enough with me to schedule a

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: ABA tech show.

I, I, I completely understand. You're a busy man. We're all busy. I get it. So, you know, if you work with me, I'll work with you. There we go. But hold on, we're gonna go back a little bit on the tech before we get into the questions. Okay. Cool. So first of all, we talked about Zoom conferences. What do you use for

Kenton Brice: Cam?

Yeah, my webcam is the, uh, the tried and true Logitech C nine 20. Okay. I played around with my iPhone 14 Pro as my webcam for a little bit using chemo software. [00:06:00] It was really good and then it just got too cumbersome to plug it in, not plug it in, put it back on the mount. And so I just went back to the C nine 20.

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: Well, have you tried, and I, I apologize, I just don't remember the name off the top of my head, but the built-in function of using your iPhone Yes. As a cam with a Mac?

Kenton Brice: Yes, I have. It's the same pain point for me using my iPhone, cuz I, I'm in and outta my office all the time. Mm-hmm. , I'm walking around the school going to class.

Right. I have meetings to go to and to mount my phone, take it down, mount it, take it down mouse. It just became a pain in the butt. Fair enough. But I will say the, the, the built-in stuff for apple's. Great. And I'm gonna give you a shout out to Jeff Richardson and Brett Bernie. They did a whole bit on iPhone jd about camo versus the built-in stuff.

Yeah. Camo is a great app and I'll let you know. , I learned about camo from Apple themselves. Yep. Last year. Okay. And so I had, I work with Apple, university of Oklahoma is a Apple distinguished school. And I had remarked once in a meeting with Apple [00:07:00] reps of how good their camera looked. And they was like, oh yeah, it's our iPhones we're using camo.

And I was like, huh, you guys should probably build that into your software. And they're like, huh, that's a great idea. .

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: So, so you're the one that came up with the idea?

Kenton Brice: No. Okay. No, probably not. Probably not. Well,

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: I, I hope they sent you a little, like a donation to the school.

Kenton Brice: No, they don't. They don't. Not at all.

But, but, so I have

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: a suggestion regarding the mounting of your phone, which you're understandably it's pain point. It's a pain in the, in the, in the tookus. Look at a, at a product called Plexi. It's clear. Basically it's a clear hook that goes over your monitor and allows you to just put your ca your phone right there, or your cam right there.

And it gives you eye to eye. So if you, it can literally allow you to put your webcam or perhaps your phone in the middle of the screen so that when you're looking at the camera, you're also, looks like you're looking at the person you're

Kenton Brice: talking to. Oh, that's great. Cause that's a, you know, the pro tip I got from Zoom a couple of years [00:08:00] ago?

Mm-hmm. was put your zoom window of the people you're looking at the very top of your screen with your cameras. Right. But I like the plexi thing. That's cool. We'll try that out. Yeah. I, it's

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: like, it's like 25 bucks, the new bucks. It's, it's, it's a nice device. I really do like it. So, ho hold on. We talked about your camera.

What about your phone? My phone,

Kenton Brice: iPhone 14 Pro. Okay. Now are

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: you a, are you an annual changer?

Kenton Brice: Yes and no. So usually , so this is. The adoption of new phone technology for me is usually based on how old my kids are, right. And how many pictures I wanna take of them and mm-hmm. . So when you have major leaps in the camera.

Yep, yep. Possibilities. That's why I'm upgrading my phone. I know it's weird to be a techie, but that's it. That's my use case. That's my needs analysis for upgrading my phone.

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: Well, you're an academics. I'm a private business person and so I lease my phone and so I'm always getting a new one every year.

Yeah. And through the Apple lease program that they have is really pretty good. Yeah, I like that a. So we got your camera. We got your, your cam and talk about your headphones. Do [00:09:00] you have the Apple

Kenton Brice: AirPods? I have AirPods Pro version one. Okay. And I also have two other sets of headphones. I'll switch in and out depending on my mood and what I need.

I do have a pair of bows, noise canceling headphones. Yeah. And then I also have probably my favorite pair of headphones I've had for years. Audio TEUs. And so audio tech. Okay. I've heard of them at a H M 50 Xs. And I love those headphones. I've had 'em for years. They're not noise canceling, but they're, they're sick for the price point.

Try the

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: AirPod Pro Max, the cans over the, the

Kenton Brice: years I work for higher education . I, yeah, I, I I hear you. New expensive tastes, Michael. Yes, yes I

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: do. As my wife

Kenton Brice: knows the hard way. But where'd you go to dinner last night? . Oh,

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: where I went was fantastic, but I also got lucky. My friends cheered me to dinner, which I was pleasantly surprised.

Nice. But, but that's a story for another day. So, as I mentioned, we are here at the ABA Tech Show, 2023 [00:10:00] Chicago, Illinois, at the Hyatt Regency. And to start our first. , I have to ask, what are the top three reasons attorneys should be coming to the a b a tech show?

Kenton Brice: Great question. So I am on the tech show planning board this year was last year as well.

And you know, being on the planning board, you kinda get the inner workings of what's going on. And we really, really do strive to design this show for lawyers. Now there's a ton of different people here from all sectors. Mm-hmm. of legal ecosystem, but for lawyers themselves, for attorneys, you know, there's, there's three main reasons that I design for as a planning board member that I hope they get out of tech show.

The first is the community. Mm-hmm. , you know, we, this is why it's so important to me that we're in person and that's kinda a hot take. Some people will be like, well, I want my hybrid conference, I want my online conference. Like, listen, if you want content, there's plenty of content. You come to a trade show like this or a conference like this, for one, the community, get to know people, [00:11:00]network.

You'll never know what comes outta that. Later there we have people from all sectors of the ecosystem. You wanna go talk to legal tech founders, they're here. You wanna go talk to academics and how they're trying to struggle with technology in the classroom. They're here. You wanna go talk to law students that you may wanna recruit to work for you?

They're here. So as a practicing. The community is the big piece. Network, network, network in the expo hall, go meet people, go to parties. Really enjoy that. The second one is the tech itself. Mm-hmm. , you know, we, we made a very concentrated effort to put the tech and tech show. So Expo halls downstairs. Yeah.

We got some amazing technologies going on. You know, obviously Chat. G P T is the talk of the town, like everywhere else it seems like everybody's marketing. Nile is just G P T. And I was like, well that's great. And so, but yeah, we got all the tech and so we've got everything you would ever want to run your practice.

You need a tool. Come here, find it.

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: Now I gotta, I gotta chime in here for just real quick cuz one thing I was [00:12:00] surprised and excited to see was that Dell has returned and I spoke to the Dell people cuz it's like, well where have you been for the last several years? Well, you know, of course we have Covid, which I understand.

And then there were some other things going on leading into it. So they hadn't been here in five years. Yeah, so the ABA is the preferred partner with Dell, so ABA members get a nice discount. and I think a little extra curation, if you will. Yeah, that's right. Little assistance from Dell when it comes to purchasing their computers and products.

And so I'm guessing that your new monitor that you're looking at is going to be the Dell 37. Is that 34 or 37? 1

Kenton Brice: 34 range. I mean, I'm in a little different world in higher ed because as an ABA member I get a discount, but I also have to go through approved computer purchases with the university. Right.

Anyway, so yeah, all the tech is here though. And I mean, and And that's a great point. You bring up a great point. It's not just software, right. Are hardware vendors here. If you need to know like the new Fujitsu Yes. Scanning desktop. And actually I was just about to mention

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: the Microsoft it's here. Yes. [00:13:00] So, and that it is just like a mainstay for I think that's right.

Any attorney, because you know, everyone needs to be able to digitize the documents. That's right. To get, because quite frankly, who has filing cabinets?

Kenton Brice: We should not have filing cabinets anymore. There's security risk . But that's a different conversation

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: that, that, that, yeah, that's not, it's not a tech issue.

That's, that's more of an office's a process issue. That's a, that's a foot a footprint issue. But that's another story. So I think that was

Kenton Brice: two. Yeah. So let me talk about the third, and this is where, you know, if I think about why attorneys come into tech show, obviously the community, obviously the technology, but also the thought leadership.

Mm-hmm. . And so that's what we also try to design for, bringing in the thought leaders from around the country to come talk about how technology's being leveraged in practice. But we also wanna go a little bit further than that cuz technology does not exist in a vacuum. We wanna talk about wellness and attorneys' livelihoods.

So you're gonna see thought leadership through sessions throughout tech show that are dealing with those same issues. You know, the keynote panel we, this morning mm-hmm. that Jane Rearden had a little bit to do with technology, but it was [00:14:00] about reregulation. Cuz technology can affect how we think about we, how we regulate the market, how we regulate lawyers and so, You know, we, we have such amazing thought leadership and that goes back to the community element.

You go listen to that and go talk to those people. They love talking about what they are experts in and oh yeah, you know, you wanna learn about, you wanna learn about document generation workflows, you're coming to the right place cuz you're gonna find the people that are the leaders on thinking through this.

I mean, I hosted my own technology competency workshop this morning for two hours. We had a good size crowd in there, about 30, 40 people to go through and understand how do we define technology competency when it comes from an ethical component or a business skills component. and you know, it's good work and the people in that room, they're, the amount of brain power in that room far exceeds what I can do on my own.

Right, right. So the thought leadership is here and if you need to understand how to run your practice or what's going to happen in the future with practice tech show [00:15:00] definitely has something to offer for you. Excellent,

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: excellent. So let's move into question number two. What are the top three things law students and new attorneys should be aware of when using technology?

Kenton Brice: Oh, so this is my day job, right? Right. And so, uh, I teach technology and innovation and law practice at the University of Oklahoma through our digital initiative and some other core stuff we have. And man, I bring law students with me in a tech show. Yeah. Michael, you've interacted with them before? I, I met

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: some last year.

Unfortunately, I haven't had the opportunity to meet any this year, which is not saying that I'm avoiding them, they're just, they're busy enjoying the tech show, which is great.

Kenton Brice: Yeah, I hope so. Yeah. Which I think is great. They, we got some great students here, but when I talk to my students and, you know, there's three main components I think.

uh, if I could boil it down, right, uh, one, there's no magic bullet, right, right there. Like technology is a tool. You know, paper and pen is technology. It exists. It did not exist at one point. It existed at another point. That's kind of like, okay, well we need to improve something. How are we gonna do that?

Let's use a [00:16:00] tool to do that. This piece of technology. But there's no magic bullet, right? And that's why I try to explain to him, even right now with chat e p T, the conversation of can this write a legal brief? Can this write my motion? What can it do? I'm like, it can do it a lot, but it's not a magic bullet.

It's not gonna be able to replace your abilities. So you have to understand all these. I would say, you know, as I just said about the expo hall and how awesome all this stuff is, it is awesome. But you can also get into that shiny trinket syndrome. Mm-hmm. . And you're like, oh, look at this. It's awesome. It's gonna fix everything for me.

I'm like, no, probably not. So that's my first lesson to them. There's no ban of bullets. . Now that goes to my second one though, is that technology does not exist in a vacuum. Right? Right. And so I preach routinely. I call my classes more preaching sessions. Okay. They say lectures, , where just the prophet out there.

But it does not exist in a vacuum. You know, it, IT technology is a piece of the pie of the solution to a problem. Right. So is your process. Right. You [00:17:00] know, John Grant, it's out in Oregon. We did a session a couple years ago and he always likes to talk about how process is a technology, but you know, you got technology process and the people, you have to understand how people work.

Mm-hmm. and that's the great work that's been done. I'm, I'm on the shoulders of giants there just talking about that stuff through the Delta model or the T-shaped lawyer or the whole lawyer from Isles, the Institute for the American Advancement Legal System. Technology doesn't exist a vacuum. I try to relate that to them as much as possible.

That's why I think also going back to why attorneys should go up to the check show, the techs here, but so is the thought leadership. If you don't know how to apply the technology in your context, You're gonna waste a lot of money and a lot of time and you're gonna be really frustrated. And probably what ends up happening is you think technology is stupid.

And so you gotta understand how to leverage it in your context. Now that all comes to my third point. Technology is awesome and it will change how you work. It will change how you approach your work. And so when I talk to my students, you know, I talk about a third, a third, a third in my class, A third of it's gonna be [00:18:00] about business process.

A third of it is about design thinking and implementation strategies. And the last third of my class is actually talking about how technology, what technology's out there to implement. Cuz here's the deal, like if I could adopt a new technology, understand going through like a design process. Now I've gone through the process of understanding what my process is and then how technology can improve it, then I can go implement it.

Then that implementation, I've gotta start changing how I work. And so it's like I, I go to this analogy a lot and it's, you know, for lack of a better of analogy, cuz this is just my world I live in, you know, it's, it's. It's a phrase that Jesus said and one of the gospels, and it's like, it's like trying to put new wine in old wine skins.

If you bring in technology and try to put it into an old system, right. And try to keep on doing it the old way, something's gonna break. And most likely it's gonna be, you know, somebody's, somebody's mind. You know, they're just gonna like, oh, this doesn't working. Why do we invest so much money? Right.[00:19:00]

Technology is awesome. It can do a lot, but you really will change how you work. And that may go even further in what we talked about with our students. Technology can also change how you make money. Right. And that's the other big point. And that's a pain point for a lot of my students where I get emails from my former students about two or three, four years out.

Mm-hmm. , this was all great. Now I'm in this old wineskin world and I'm like, yeah, the old wineskins, how they make money and they haven't been able to conceptualize and step back. And I get it. We're busy. I was a practicing lawyer. You know, you're busy and you don't have time to think through how I innovate my practice.

I would say loosen up a little bit, right? And so just understand it is awesome. It will change the way you work. It may even change the way how you make money and your billing strategies. And so I just want my students to get their minds open just a little bit so that they can go out into practice and be that voice that's in that wilderness for me saying, Hey, there's a better way to do this, isn't there?

Oh, by the way, [00:20:00] if we did it this way, leveraging this document automation platform, maybe we could flat fee some of this. Where can we scale our businesses? And so instead of me grinding it out for $250 an hour, maybe we can make a thousand dollars an hour, right?

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: And Well, you know, it's interesting you talk about new ways of thinking of how to do your business.

I mean, we've been talking a lot during the tech show about subscription models. Yeah. You know, with Aaron Levine from Hello, my Divorce, sorry, or Hello Divorce. Hello Divorce.

Kenton Brice: Yeah. And you know, KBU is here. Matt

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: Kbu is here. Yeah. That was the other, uh, person I was

Kenton Brice: trying to think of. And you know, Kimberly Bennetts here.

Yeah. Uh, yeah, there's a technology for this, by the way, for subscription services. Yes. I'm not promoting them, but Fiue

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: Ken, for our last question, what are the top three tech devices or software that new attorneys should purchase for their practice beyond a computer, a phone, and a printer? ,

Kenton Brice: man, what a great question.

Okay, so I'm gonna divide this into two questions. Okay. I'm gonna divide it into devices and tools, okay. And [00:21:00] software. Cause I'll answer both. All right? Fair enough. I just decided that, by the way, , okay? I, I, I am not objecting, so I'm gonna go software first, okay? Okay. And I'm gonna do four. Okay? Four reason why you should have a case management system.

Yes. You don't have a case management system. Get a case management system. So you need to have that foundational backbone for your firm. Whatever it may be, right? A product, it may be, go find a case management system that

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: works for you. Now that being said, must it be on the cloud.

Kenton Brice: I'm gonna say most likely, yes.

There are specific circumstances where we'd probably, this is part of like technology doesn't exist in a vacuum, right? Right. You need to understand your practice, what you want to do. For the majority of lawyers, it should be in the club. And the reason why is with remote work, god forbid another pandemic, you gotta be able to transition.

Mm-hmm. without having to have a major tech debacle going on, you know, the server based days. I mean, my old firm in 2010, we made a [00:22:00] very specific decision never to leverage a piece of technology hardware that we're gonna have to replace in five years. Right, right. Like infrastructure wise, right. We were cloud-based, like we don't wanna maintain servers, we're lawyers and we're a small firm.

Right? So most small firms, where are you gonna go pay an outside IT consultant, a bunch of money to maintain your server? Or are you just gonna go through a subscription for the same software? . And so I think, you know, for the majority of lawyers, I say it needs to be cloud-based. Now everybody's got their own context.

Everybody's got their own budgets. Everybody's got their own history that they're bringing into 2023, right? But now, I mean, cloud-based case management systems, I think are the norm. They should be the norm. And then I would say you have to have an exception if you're not using a cloud-based system. All right, so cloud-based case management system.

And then I'm gonna go straight to the Cleo Legal Trends report from a couple of years ago. Okay? A crm, a client portal. and a software to take electronic payments. Now,

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: hold on, let's, let's go through each piece. Sure. Just so we define it for the[00:23:00] listener. So first of all, the Cleo Trends report is, so Cleo

Kenton Brice: Trends report is a research report that comes on every year in October at the Cleo Cloud Conference.

They release it. They've been doing this since 2018. You'll have to fact check me on that. 2017, no, maybe 2016. They've been since 2016. Ok. They've been doing it for a while. And so what they do, and I'll let Josh Linen and those guys talk about what, how they actually do it. But they kind of, you know, anonymize and aggregate a bunch of data.

But then they started getting into more research work where they're gonna go higher firms to do research with them, consumer surveys, things like that. And so they publish this report and it's kind of like showing what's going on in the legal market. And I love that report. It comes out every year. And it helps me give some kind of baseline data to talk about issues in the legal industry.

So in 2021, fact, check me on that. Or 2022, I can't remember. It's been a couple of years. You know, [00:24:00] so, oh yeah. Your brain gets a little scrambled. With three years of being inside, they had this data point where it said that attorneys that were leveraging three pieces of technology were making more money per hosted or perf fee earner in their firms than other firms that did not use these three technologies.

And they were client portals. Mm-hmm. , electronic payments and a crm. And so that's where the rubber hits the road. If you wanna talk about, why don't I tell my students if they're gonna launch their own firm or go into a firm, right. And, and they want to know what are the. For technologies, and I say case management, case management may do all of that.

It may not do all of that. It may do all of that, but not very great. And so you may need to go get additional tools to plug into your case management system or to integrate through zap your through some native API integration. But when we talk about C R M A customer relationship management system, you know, we use Salesforce at the university.

And so babe tracking relationships and using data in relationships to make better decisions [00:25:00]about those relationships, maybe that's profit. Maybe that's something else. But the great thing about C R M and why it's different than a case management system is it tracks a relationship, not a case or a matter, right?

Right. And so it's supposed to cover your entire client relationship from the early stage cold lead that hits your website, right? All the way through a satisfied client and how you're leveraging, sorry, you used the word leverage, leveraging that relationship for referrals. , right? You don't represent them anymore.

So they're not giving in your case management system, right? And you still have to maintain that relationship and you should have a system for that. Lawyers have always had systems for that. It's called a Rolodex. Now we have technology that's more advanced to understand where our leads are coming from, where our business is coming from, where our pipelines are, where, what's our pipeline for success for business, where those look like, where's our lead generation actually working?

We have those sessions here at Tech Show, by the way, so I'll let the experts talk on that. So yeah, crm, major, major point [00:26:00] of emphasis. The next one is client portal. I preach, like I said, I preach again, I lecture a lot. Mm-hmm. on the use of client portals instead of the use of email. They're way more secure for sending sensitive documents.

Mm-hmm. , notice to everyone on listening to this podcast. If you did not know, email is not secure. And so we have an ethical duty. Go read your ethical rules to use reasonable means, right? Reasonableness is the standard, all right, to prevent unauthorized disclosure or access to client information. Well, if you're sending really sensitive client information or any, or any confidential information over an unencrypted email, you probably in violation of that rule.

And so using a client portal hijacks that whole process for you. Mm-hmm. put it in the client portal. You send a notice to your client, they get the link and the client portal also can open up other functionalities. I love my doctor. I'm gonna say that Dr. Brian, if you're listening, you're a great doctor and the reason I love you is you create the most frictionless [00:27:00] experience possible.

I set up an appointment through my portal. We already have an established relationships. Remember, this has already established our relationship's, right? I set up appointments to my portal to meet with you. You send me reminders, and then it says, click into the portal to guess what? Fill out an intake form for the media I'm going to have with you.

That right. He has all the data already. When I show up, I don't have to fill out any forms. I just show up at the office and I say, I'm here to meet Dr. Brian. They say, what's your name? I say my name, and you know what? Dr. Brian has all my data. Mm-hmm. all the information that's pertinent my appointment, and I love it.

It's frictionless. Mm-hmm. ,

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: frictionless, I think is the word. I

Kenton Brice: get high value outta my doctor. Mm-hmm. instead of the low value stuff that doesn't matter, and that's all because of the portal. So client portal, big deal, and one that enhances client communication and they can get the status of their matters.

Right. I get the status of my prescriptions or whatever it may be through my client portal. I don't have to [00:28:00] call them and say, Hey, I need to get a refill on my prescription. Guess what? I go on the portal, I get a refill, that's it. It's already been pre-approved. I don't have to call them, which I love that now, legal.

Okay, what's the status of my case? What's going on with my case? Where, where are we at in my process? What's going on that, well, one, have you explained your, the litigation process if you're in litigation, right? What about the contract negotiation? Where are we at? I don't know. What version of the contract are we on?

All that should be in a portal that they can access anytime they want and you should be trans more transparent with your practice. And the third one, electronic payments. I mean, come on. Oh, 2023. Yep. What are we doing? Are we still taking checks? You know, I, like, I haven't written a check in five years. I don't carry cash.

You know, I, I am, we live in a cash quote unquote cashless society. I still know lawyers that still require their clients to come into their offices and deposit a check with the reception to pay their bill. Wow. Right? Oh yeah. So electronic payments is, should be part of your case management. If it's not, we have vendors [00:29:00] downstairs that will offer you a solution for you.

Right. Right. Now I wanna say this cuz I tell this to my students because they always ask me, well, all this stuff costs money, doesn't it? . I'm like, yes, it does cost money, but that's called an investment, not a cost. You need to be thinking differently about how your spend is with overhead. If your overhead is your investment into the tools that won't make you money.

Right. That's an, that, that's an investment mentality. If you just think of it as a cost, you're gonna try to cut it as fast as possible. Mm-hmm. . And so I have these issues with higher ed. I have to talk to people that make decisions about purchasing all the time. Like, is this really a cost or is this an investment?

Right. And so my students, you know, they, a lot of 'em never pr, most of 'em have never been in a business before. They come in straight through, right, right. They K through 12 undergrad law school. And they'd be like, wow, $500 a month for all this technology. That's a lot of money. Like, you're right, but you know, you're trying to make money too.

Right? And [00:30:00] so if you can make an additional 20, $30,000 a year from adopting these technologies, according to the data from Cleo, I think it's worth the $6,000 investment, but, but

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: you know, there's a way, I think also a different way to think of. So it's an investment. I get it. So it's $500. Let's say it's $500 a month.

Okay? At the same time, think of the money that you're saving. In other words, you don't have a receptionist at the front that you have to pay on an hourly basis or on a salary to make sure she's sitting, she or he, excuse me, are sitting there, you know, in their butt to greet people coming into the door.

Because look, most attorneys, many attorneys are moving towards a virtual office, you know, where they're, or maybe they're just not even coming in that often. And so they're saving money on the overhead of a brick and mortar office. The time of, you know, going to and from work. The cost of getting up and dressed up, just sitting up in a suit, the time that's invested with all of that.

And those are tons of savings, dry cleaning, [00:31:00] purchasing, and repairing suit.

Kenton Brice: No, those are great points. So he, but I would say also, I, I go back to question two. What three things should law students and new attorneys be aware of mm-hmm. when using technology? You know, this is understanding that, that business mindset, right?

You know, if you, if you don't understand your process, if you don't, so here's what, say if you go through it. So I, I got my Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification a couple years ago, and the reason why was to understand from disciplines outside of law, What could help improve the legal profession? Okay.

Improve what I teach. I've always been a process guy, but I've finally got some formal language around it. Okay. You know, if you're going through a design or a process improvement exercise, the one question from a business is roi, right? And that's the big thing. And so you start ooi, it's like a hypothesis when you start this process improvement or design methodology.

Like I think I can improve things such a stint that this is my roi. And then you go through the thing and then you're like, [00:32:00] well, did my hypothesis come true or not? It's the same thing as a scientific method, but so with roi I'm like,

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: but But hold on, just

Kenton Brice: for the listener roi. So sorry. Yeah. Return on investment, right?

And so you're looking at the amount of either time or money or other resources that you are going to spend to improve whatever your current process is. That's your denominator. Your numerator is the improved state. And I would say this, if you're gonna go through this process, come to OU Law. We'll teach you and I'll teach you, come pay me tuition.

It's awesome, . Or just think about it like this, right? My improved state over my exist, like over the investment it took off my existing state. If your ROI is less than 100%, you should not go for it. Now, most of the time you'll see this in lean thinking or lean Six Sigma thinking most of the time that that roi, if you really go through the exercise mm-hmm.

and actually adopt new technologies that improve your processes, your ROI is gonna be like 20000%. [00:33:00] Gotcha. 30000%. Because for legal practice, what we've been doing as a profession for a hundred years is ripe for process improvement. Mm-hmm. , right. And technology adoption. That's why the numbers from the CLEO Trends report in my mind are so start when you say, oh, you usually have three technologies.

You're gonna make an additional 30 to $40,000 per B earner. . I'm like, yeah, because the, the stakes are so low. Like it's just like the denomin, you're just like, oh my gosh, the current state of affairs is so, I wouldn't say backwards, just kind of antiquated. Mm-hmm. that if you put any kind of technology on top of a process to improve it, you're gonna see a massive increase in what you can do.

And we're seeing that. We're seeing that, and that's where you get these subscription based services. These script, like what we talked about earlier, which you mentioned earlier. Earlier, you're only able to do that type of building structure because you went through this process, right? You understood your [00:34:00] process right.

You understood your knowledge. Right? And you understand that there's technology to put on top of that, to really create efficiencies. So that really changes how you think about making money. You gotta go through the whole process of doing this.

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: Pardon the interruption. I hope you're enjoying this episode.

Consider sharing this show with others and please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your download feeds. If you're listening directly from our blog, consider buying us a cup of coffee or two from the link on our blog to help the phrase some of the production costs. Thanks again, and enjoy.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, I think you answered part one of question three with the four pieces of software software. Just wanna make sure I, I have that down. I wanna, in my head I have that down. The reason why I'm kind of pausing here a little bit in this conversation for the listener is that, you know, I could think that one thing the listener may be worried about is like, well, fine, I picked this one practice management program, but holy.

You know, I made a mistake, so I'm hesitant at [00:35:00] first to even start something like that. And then I realize I'm making a mistake. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because the, the award winner for the startup Alley was a company I, I will put in the show notes that basically one for universally being able to transfer the dataset from one practice management software to another.

So if it's a, and you know, no offense to you, but if it's sort of like cleared a smoke ball Sure. Or smoke ball to. , um, there's a file line, anything or et cetera, et cetera. So this way, if you're not happy with the one you get, you have the ability to easily, now of course there's gonna be a price point I'm sure to transfer it to another practice management program that will allow you to see, hey, maybe this is a better fit for me.

So I, I thought that was exciting for

Kenton Brice: the, uh, I'm glad recipient, glad, I'm glad you said that cuz when, when I was watching the startup pitch Competition again, another reason why to come to tech show, like you see the new, coolest and greatest stuff

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: and even if they [00:36:00] don't win, you still, you

Kenton Brice: still see it.

Cool. There's some cool stuff in there. Absolutely. Yeah. The Universal migrator, I think it was called, and you know it is, I was standing in the back of the room with some other legal tech founders and other people mm-hmm. kind of watching mm-hmm. . And when they pitched. . I was just like, man, where were you 10 years ago?

Really? Because, because I, I've done this mm-hmm. , I've migrated from one system to another. Same here. And you know, I was the guy who had to do migration as a lowly associate in the office. Mm-hmm. , I'm not saying that was a bad thing. I mean, I had a great job and I loved my firm, and they were great guys and girls and, but you know, the process of doing, that's not why I went to law school.

Exactly. I didn't go to law school to migrate data from Cleo to Faine or from, and the great thing about what they promoted, I haven't seen in action yet. Right. But I'm just saying what their pitch was, was, oh, you can, if your firm splits up, or Yes, you're bringing in more attorneys from other firms where you're adopting books of business, oh, just use us and we can do all that for you.

And I'm like, where [00:37:00] were you 10 years ago? Oh, I, I had that problem. I went from,

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: I went from one practice management program to another, and I'm like, I, I still had to babysit some of the old stuff. to make sure

Kenton Brice: I had it over there. Yeah. So I'll say this, I, this is why that was so fantastic to me. Mm-hmm.

Cause in agile thinking as well as in other process improvement and design thinking, you always thinking fail often, fail fast, right? You wanna fail fast because you wanna learn quickly what's working, what's not working, right? So if you adopt, I'm not, I don't promote any product as my own cuz I work for higher ed.

I don't work for anybody. Right? So, but let's say you adopt case management system A, right? Three months later, four months later, you give it that test run. Hopefully you go through an evaluated process to actually understand your needs. Mm-hmm. and do your needs assessment. And you scored it, and you adopted it.

I think sometimes just don't work out in the real world. If it's three or four months later, you need to fail fast and know it's not gonna work for you. And move on to case management system B [00:38:00]right now. This tool allows you to fail. Fast. Like Yes. And, and removes a lot of the headache from the ideas of failing fast.

Because when you talk about this to lawyers, I do, they're like, well, yeah, but if I adopt something, I don't wanna fail fast. I have to be Right. Right. Because the, the cost of transition from one system to another to take that time or go hire somebody is a major pain point for people. Mm-hmm. . Absolutely.

And so it keeps them from adopting process improvement and strategies. So now if we have tools, technology, right, right. Which is awesome if we use it, not, you know, understand how we can use it. This is where this stuff gets really cool, because if I can just transition from one to another and the pain, and probably the other legal tech companies here don't like hearing this, but if the pain is less for me, then I get to fail fast.

Now, hopefully you're failing fast, so you find the right solution that works for your firm, it makes you good and, and makes you good

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: money. Right. You know, you know, on a personal story, I, you know, like 10 years ago I was switching from [00:39:00] one practice management program to another and. , the new practice management program I was moving into, one of the things I liked that we were doing was workflows.

Mm-hmm. . Now, unfortunately, at that time, you had to like, hire a programmer to do all that stuff for you, which was fine. And I did that, and then apparently the programmer had some problems, which, you know, understandable. But at the same time, it's frustrating. And then the practice management program was telling me, well, you can't use our product until your workflows are done.

And I'm like, well, that's, you know, that's, that's really a waste of my time. So part two

Kenton Brice: devices. All right. Tools, fun stuff. Uh, fun stuff. That's why I call it, you know, I, as a lawyer, the probably one of the most valuable things to me outside of my computer, my phone, or my printer. Mm-hmm. is a really good pair of headphones.

Okay. For a couple of reasons. One, I need to focus when I work. Right. And. , [00:40:00] you know, a good pair of AirPods, and this goes into the software thing too, but you need the hardware to support the software, right? So I use a software called brain.fm. Okay. I love this software. It helps you focus. It's a, I don't even know the technology's called.

I'm not a brain scientist. I'm a lawyer in higher and law professor, but it's, it's fascinating cuz it really works. And they're funded by an NSF grant to try and figure this out. But you have to have a good pair of like noise canceling headphones. Also, I would say, you know, I remember those late nights of working and briefing.

Mm-hmm. and I on my headphones. And you just get in a zone. You want to get in that flow state when you're working that distractions just kind of melt away. Right? And you know what's really good at that? A good pair of headphones. So good pair of headphones. I agree all day long. Whether it be AirPod pros, Invest in good headphones.

I know I, I kind of gave you a hard time earlier about AirPods Max, you know, being so expensive, but if that's what it takes. But

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: the noise canceling

Kenton Brice: on that is fantastic. If that's what it takes. Get that good pair of headphones and I'm, [00:41:00] I'm serious, like this is like, so like base levels things.

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: Well, you know, it's funny cause to leave for this trip I loaned my wife, my AirPod Pro Max because there was construction going on in the house and she had meetings and businesses and whatnot and she's like, I don't know what she's go, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna, any work done.

And I said, well here, try these. And if they work, fantastic. Cuz I have the AirPods, the, you know, the like the, the second generation AirPods, which I originally got way back when. Cuz it's great when you're like walking about traveling cuz you don't wanna like tune out the world because if like a car's coming or someone's trying to call your name, you, you need to be able to.

I borrowed my wife's AirPod pros, the middle ones, like the ones that you're digging out right now that has some noise canceling to it. And I could tell the difference between hers and mine. It's like I had 'em in and I didn't realize that the noise canceling was on. Cause I could hear things, not a lot of things, but I could still hear things.

Yeah. Yeah. And [00:42:00] like, like when I was on the airplane, I could hear the person over the PA system talking. Yeah. I think. But I, but I couldn't hear the airplane. Yeah. Which was nice. So I was just surprised. But I understand what you're saying and there's a, there's a price point for everybody and I absolutely get it.

Invest

Kenton Brice: in a good parent. Right? Like if it's a thousand dollars and you think that's gonna improve your work for the next five years, invest. . That would be my thing. It, it's like, that's why I say investment versus cost. So headphones one. All right. One, two, two. Now this is, I would say post-it notes, however, cause I, you know, if you're on the phone, you need to take a quick note.

That's how we all used to do it. Either a diary or journal. So a couple of years ago I upgraded, and I have a whiteboard desk. My entire desk is a whiteboard. Oh, okay. And it is a standup desk. So it's by uplift. Right? Right. Device company. So it's a standup desk motorized, but the entire desk, it's six feet by three feet.

Okay. Just straight whiteboard. And I [00:43:00] have expo markers or dry erase markers on my desk. And so when I'm on the phone on a Zoom call, all right. I'm just jotting notes down. Oh, on my desk. Okay. And then I take a picture of my notes, put it in my, you know, note OneNote app. and that's awesome cuz now I don't have to worry about finding the post-it notes or where's that piece of paper that was gonna take notes on where's my legal pad?

Right, right. If I'm on the phone or somebody calls me or a Zoom meeting, I mean, it is like really, like, it's so simple, you know, you're just like, but we, we did this in 2016 at the law school. Okay. We put in rideable surfaces in our study rooms for our students. Oh. And I was like, and they were using them.

I was like, I'm gonna do that in my office, . And so I did, and it's really improved how I operate meetings because I'm not searching around for things and I get to focus. It's all about focus. Right, right, right. So yeah. Another like, okay, headphones, whiteboard desk. Everybody's like, who is this guy? Yeah.

Like, who is this weirdo . So

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: I, not me, I'm going, I I [00:44:00] agree with you. You're

Kenton Brice: whiteboard desk guy. It'll change

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: everything. I, I personally use draft. The program drafts. Okay. Because it allows you to integrate to other programs. So Sure. It's, it's just, it's just a way for me to capture thoughts, or especially like during a meeting, if I just need to cut, put down a couple notes and deal with it later, it will always be there.

It sinks across my devices and it's backed up in the sense of everything that I have is backed up already.

Kenton Brice: So I'm gonna, I I'm gonna do four again because, you know, you bring up a good point and I, I use this technology all day and I have an iPad. Okay. And I have the iPad, I have the Apple pencil. Okay.

And, I don't take notes on paper anymore. Mm-hmm. cuz paper's easy to lose. Mm-hmm. and so meetings, whatever. Now I'll say this, I've had the iPad for years with, and the pencil when it came out five years ago. Mm-hmm. It was just revolutionary. I mean, it's the best writing. Says, man, I'm in the Apple environment.

I'll just be honest. I'll, I'll out myself right now. It's okay. Yeah. Ben Shores here from Microsoft showing off his surface, Damien R from Basque, showing off his surface. I was [00:45:00] like, that's great, guys. That's great. I'm already in an ecosystem, right? Sorry. So I would say find, I wouldn't say iPad specifically, but find a rideable digital device, whatever works for you.

Right. And one that I want to buy, but I will not buy right now because I, like I said, work for higher ed. Right, right. My budgets are limited, is the remarkable two. Yeah, I've heard a lot about that. I've got a couple of faculty members that are using it. They've showed it to me that let me play around with it, and I think I'd probably use that way more than my iPad for actually just taking notes and handwriting notes and marking up books and things like that.

Okay. Okay. So I would say a digital, Ridable surface, whatever that's gonna be. And I think the iPad and the Remarkable two and probably the Microsoft Surface is gonna be your your where you're gonna go for

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: that, for the iPad. Have you seen that new film that they, that you can put on top of? I don't mind.

Yeah. Okay.

Kenton Brice: The paper feel paper writing. How, how is that? It's great. I love it. So can you really tell a difference between Yes. Okay. Absolutely. Because a lot of people don't like the iPad cause they feel like they're writing on class. Right. And it's just weird [00:46:00] feeling to them.

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: I, I need to,

Kenton Brice: I need to get that myself.

Yeah. I have the paper feel. You go to Amazon mm-hmm. , we can maybe put a link in the show notes. Um, absolutely. But there's an, it's like a, one of those products that's got a really funny name on Amazon, you know, . So, but it works great. I will, I will email it to you Please. Cause I use it on mine and Yeah, absolutely.

So the fourth one again, going kind of old school, but also really practical Fair enough. Is a USB drive that's encrypted. But it has the U s BBC side and the U S B A side. Oh, that's a good idea. And I, I was digging around my bag. I can't find it with me, but it's about, it's about a half inch big. Okay. And it's got one side, it's just the u s BBC port.

Okay. And the other side is U S B A, which is great. If you travel or you're going to court, you need to plug in somewhere, take your presentation with you. You know, you never know. I live in Oklahoma. I get it. Rural courts don't have the best connectivity sometimes. And so you can just throw that on a key chain.

Right. And go. [00:47:00] And now you have 128 gigabytes on Right, right. Your key chain. Yeah. And it doesn't matter what the. What the destination device is. If it's a MacBook Pro from a couple years ago where all they have is u s, BBC or if is it's a PC and it's, it's 15 years old cuz you're in a courthouse, right?

it's like, just plug it in, you're fine. And it's encrypted and you have the password. That's the encryption key. So your data is safe. So that little device, I have one, it's probably up in my room, but that thing. I love it cuz it doesn't matter where I'm going. Mm-hmm. , I make sure I carry that with me with any presentation just in case wifi fails or cloud-based services fail.

I have the materials I need. That's super practical. But for a practicing lawyer, especially if you're a litigator, that is going to be a great little tool. And also if you're using the iPad, the US BBC works in the iPad as well as a external storage device for your mobile device.

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: Well, you know, it's funny that you bring that up because I did a presentation at a law school like [00:48:00] a year and a half ago, and I brought my USB device, Uhhuh

And I also had a, like I sent it to whoever and I think I had another copy of it somewhere. But for whatever reason, their whole system just wasn't working. And this sort of brings me back to my first guest, judge Dixon from like three plus years ago, who of course was a, a former chair I believe, who's not, he was a chair or was the board member on the tech.

Body. I do not know. I do know he's presented here and you know, the whole thing comes down to that, regardless of all the technology, if you don't know your case, no technology's gonna help you. That's right. And because, so even though my whole presentation slides were not available, I knew everything that I'd put on there and I was able to wing it and I got like 80, 90% of the stuff out just by talking.

You know, I'm not sure if the students were excited about not seeing anything on the screen, but hopefully it was animated enough to, to get the point across.

Kenton Brice: I'm sorry, you gonna say something? No, no. This [00:49:00] is great. I was just gonna, I was thinking like, man, it's really hard to give a technology demo without technology.

Just, yeah. If the technology's not working, you have to do a session on how to use Microsoft Word and you're just like, okay, just imagine with me for a minute. layers of menus. .

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: So, so I, I have to ask you, you, you brought up Microsoft Word, and that's been a pet peeve of mine over the years, that a lot of students that, you know, I hire students, law students as part-time clerks to help out, gives them a chance to learn, gives them a chance to create a writing sample, helps me out, et cetera.

But I've noticed that law students seem not to know how to use the formatting and the functions and the, and the titling and, you know, the table of contents and the table of authorities Next pages, page breaks. Mm-hmm. , I mean, where is that disconnect? Wh what am I missing? That, that they're, because [00:50:00] like, like, I can't picture them just typing everything in 12 point times font.

and just using spaces constantly to do the indentation because, correct. I mean, I used to collect comic books way back when, and I used to be like really big at finding the right comic book without any of the creases and making sure no pages were bent, et cetera, et cetera. And I could see on a screen whether you have the little paragraph show functions or not.

I could see where someone's used spaces or something's done something or your case tables don't automatically update because somebody didn't use the table function on that,

Kenton Brice: please. So many thoughts. Okay, so let's limit it to three. How's that? Let's go three and then we'll have to wrap up. So yes, here's the thing.

All right, so a couple, this is layered. First, most law students are coming through a K through 16 education system, right? And their first exposure to [00:51:00] Microsoft Word is in law school.

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: How are they doing their high school papers?

Kenton Brice: Google Docs. . So here, here's the thing. So Google has found ways to market themselves as a collaborative platform in the K through 16 market.

So there's Okay, whole school districts that adopt Google. There's universities that adopt Google, and everything's done in Google Docs, right? Law schools are professional schools. We are not K through 16. We are professional schools creating professionals for the advancement, democracy and the protection of society.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we have to use professional tools. If you're an English major, you're probably using Google Docs. If you're a political science major, you're probably using Google Docs. And so most lawsuits, I actually have this just three weeks ago, cause our our students right now at the recording of this podcast ad tech show, my one Ls, my one Ls, our one Ls at University of of Oklahoma are in the middle of writing their appellate.

Right Capstone project for legal writing in the [00:52:00] first year program. And I had a student reach out to me a couple of days a couple weeks ago, needed some help with something and I teach Microsoft Word sessions and workshops at the university. So I would say if they're my students, let me know because I'm gonna go probably go find them.

And like you may have paid more attention in these workshops. But yeah, I had the student and she needed help and she had not attended one of the workshops I did, and she's like, this is the first time I've ever used Microsoft. . So you're getting that and you go talk to any other person in higher ed, they're

probably

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: gonna tell you something similar.

But doesn't Google Docs at least have tabs and page nations and tables of contents? Or is it just automatically done for them? Sort of. And you know, I'm

Kenton Brice: gonna say this sort of, because the one thing I I, this is why I tell my students, like build me a table of authorities in Google Docs, okay? And they say, what's a table of authorities?

So, I mean, obviously they're one else. When's the last time a non-law student that has not a lawyer built a table of authorities? Never. It is something that's a product of the legal [00:53:00] industry for legal briefing. Table of contents is different, but table of authorities, no, no, no. Like show me where all the authorities of state statutes show up on a pay like throughout your Right.

Right. I, I'm tracking. So here's the thing. So it's that, that's one headwind. Okay. Right. The other headwind is for the students that use Microsoft Word that think I keep on interrupting myself. Uh, so I did this survey in 2017 of one Ls. First year students. I had been working at the university for about two years and I wanted to, I was just curious.

So all one else had to take this survey. And first question is a three question survey. First question, rate yourself on how proficient you think you are with Microsoft Word. Second question, how often do you use styles? Third question, do you know how to modify a style? Okay, now the second question is a trick question.

It should be 100% of people answer yes. Right? Because you're always using styles in [00:54:00]Microsoft Word, there's no way not to use styles, right? Because even if you direct format something, you're still just direct formatting over the normal style, right? Right. And so I think it was about like 67 to 68%, about two-thirds of students said they were proficient or highly proficient in Microsoft work.

Okay, next question. How often do you use styles? About 80% of people say never. Mm. So there's a big disconnect right. Between what students think they know in Microsoft Word. Mm-hmm. and what they actually know in Microsoft Word. Right. And for lawyers, that's true too. That's why a tech show, we have Baron Henley yelling at everybody about Microsoft Word.

If you go to any of his sessions, you just feel he is being super aggressive about Microsoft Word, but it's trying to get through to people that have been doing things for a long time. So there, there's that headwind. We think we know more than we do when it comes to this technology. What Maya usually say, and what a lot of people hearsay, is you're generally just using Microsoft Word as an [00:55:00]electric typewriter.

Right. You're not using as a word processor. Right. So, and some of it is, I mean, I'm gonna go back to the K through 16 education. No one's ever sat down with a law student and. Hey, let me show you the better way. Right? And so, and it was not happy in law school, they're just gonna continue thinking they're awesome at it because they know how to make something bold, right?

And so you say, Hey, build for me a table of content. They're gonna ride in the heading and they're gonna go, if you can hear this on the podcast, oh yeah, page number, they're gonna do it again. Press answer, do it again. And instead of, Hey, I'm leveraging a heading in Microsoft Word as a style, and I'm gonna build my table of contents off these, these headings.

They, no one's ever shown 'em that, that's a possibility. So how do they know? And so it is kind of a disservice to the profession when law schools say, we're paying broad brush here. Cause not all law schools are like, our law school's not like this. There's a lot of law [00:56:00] schools that are really trying to think through how do we develop these skills in our students.

You know, there's, and that, that is growing. It is growing because we realize it's needed. It's needed.

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: Exactly. It's needed. Cause I, I, I've trained many students

Kenton Brice: on how to do this well, and some of the, I mean, , no schools by name, broad brushes. Most law schools would say, we are not that type of school. We are not a trade school.

We are not going to, for lack of a better term, whoever's listening to this podcast. Right. Please don't email me. Hey, mail. We're not gonna debase ourselves to teach software skills. That's a typing school. Right? That you should have learned that in high school. Guess what? They're not learning it in high school.

No, not at all. You take a typing class, they're not telling you how to leverage styles of Microsoft Word. They're teaching you how to do a query keyboard maybe. Right? Right. I did that in 1996. And so the, we've gotta have a little more humility in [00:57:00] how we design our education systems to actually best serve the people that we're trying to educate and the profession as a whole.

And Microsoft Word is a part of that cause it's such a. A car like everyone uses in legal profession. Go look at any survey. Like I know people are like, well, Google Docs is the next thing. Go look at the information. You, you wanna use Google Docs, awesome. Your first job. They're gonna be like, no, you're not using Google Docs.

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: And that's what I, I would tell any

Kenton Brice: Clark that would talk exactly me, and that's what every firm's gonna tell me. But you need

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: regarding about the, the, the school thinking versus, you know, we're not a trade school, we're this, and I mean, think about like a particular Ivy League law school. No names. No names.

I said Ivy League that I said, they're like, we'll never have like a working student. . But I think they're doing that now where, you know, they have the ability to do internships and externships during the school year to actually get practical experience that the name of the school, and again, no names is not enough to get you [00:58:00] through the door.

Right.

Kenton Brice: And you're seeing that more and more. And that's why I say like we're seeing, we're seeing efforts by schools around the nation to really start thinking through how do we, how do we start integrating some of this in our curriculum? And I'll tell you, it's hard because if you're a law professor and you're already like, have a full course load, right, right.

And you're now being told by someone like me, like, you've gotta adopt this extra thing. They're like, I have no time to adopt this extra thing. And so what we're seeing a lot in the past five, 10 years, And this is just kind of self aggrandizement as well. Mm-hmm. is you're seeing law librarians really step up and they're saying, Hey, we are going to assist in this work that needs to be done.

We are peer professionals, we are legal information professionals. We know how to do skills development in legal research. Let's do skills development and technology as well. That includes Microsoft Word. And so we know how to talk to vendors. We've been doing it for years with research [00:59:00] vendors. We know how to go understand like what that market looks like to bring it into a classroom environment and where the pain points are.

And so I, I, you know, good example of this was at the American Association of Law Libraries annual meeting back in summer 2022 in Denver. We had a whole pre-conference workshop. It was all about training the legal tech teacher. Right, right. Who was sold out. These are all, all librarians sold out. Cool. Over 50 people are there from various institutions around the country.

Okay. Saying, how do we do this? We need to do this. And that's so encouraging. So 10 years ago, most people are like, no law schools do this. Now it's, Hey, there's a good chunk of law schools trying to figure this out. And it's not hard. It's not easy to figure out, even like how to integrate Microsoft or training in a legal writing curriculum.

You've gotta put some energy behind it. And now the librarians are starting to step up to that. Well, why

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: can, I mean, not to ask a silly question, but why can't you just put some sort of online course to make the, [01:00:00] make the students do that? So this way it's not interfering with the professor normal curriculum.

And they can do it at their own leisure, but it still has to be done by

Kenton Brice: a certain time. Yeah. You're seeing that develop. They're not here at Tech show, but Erti. Mm-hmm. . But Erti is one of those entities that's really tried to tackle this. You know, they're a great platform for training in Microsoft Word, right?

Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and, uh, PDF solution. And my institution, you know, we, we use peris. I, I make certain students go through it. It's voluntary in some other aspects. It, it needs to be mandatory. And it is. Here's the problem about making mandatory, though it's not free. And so if you're gonna go tell a smaller school with a cash strapped budget, right?

You gotta go pay an X amount of thousands of dollars extra to adopt this. They're gonna look at their budget and say, well, How, let me get a donor maybe or something like [01:01:00] that. Or you,

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: I mean, unfortunately may have to increase the tuition. I mean, I have to say this, like, because tuition is just skyrocketed and

Kenton Brice: that's the thing.

And so you were you, so this, oh man, there's so many. The larger conversations about higher ed in general because Yeah. Tuition issues, you worry about the value. Mm-hmm. of the degree you worry about student loan debt. I'm fortunate, I work for a best value law school. We've been best value law school for the past 15 years.

Congrats. And, and we wear that. I mean, it is like, it is part of the fabric of OU Law. We wanna make sure our students are getting best bang for their buck. And you know, we're not cheap either. That's what I'm saying. We're, and when I mean cheap, like we're not gonna say, oh, I'm sorry you wanna travel to this conference, you gotta take it outta your own personal funds.

Like we actually wanna develop our people, but we're very strategic about how we're spending our money. And we, and so we've been doing that for years. And it does help that we're in Norman, Oklahoma. The cost of living's not that expensive, [01:02:00] you know? So, you know, we, we have some of these other things at play.

So if you think about, Hey, I need to go pay X amount of thousands of dollars for this technology trainer and certification platform. Well, if you're not already strategic in how you're trying to think through spending your money, that's just gonna be another cost. Going back to cost versus investment.

Right? Right, right. And so that's why you say, in higher ed, we have these conversations, cost versus investment in my school. And so the technology is out there, the vendors are out there, but you don't have to do this, recreate the wheel kind of scenario all the time. But it does cost money. And higher ed is not a for-profit entity.

It's our bottom line is a very different bottom line than a law firm environment. And. . We have a lot of different pressures and that, like I said, bigger conversations could be had for more hours of podcasting on those. Fair, fair enough topics. Fair, fair enough. Ken,

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: tell us where people

Kenton Brice: can find you. Yeah, so I'm at the University of Oklahoma College of Law.

If you Google my name [01:03:00] or you search with Bing or Right. Ask js.com. Ask Js. Yeah. It's been dead for 20 years. Okay. As well. It was just a joke. Okay. Cause if someone

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: asks Js, I'm gonna go, well, first we're gonna ask, jeez, where are you? , because I think Js has been dead for

Kenton Brice: years, so Yeah, years. So yeah, if you, if you search for me, just Kenton, Bryce, OU Law, my, my faculty bio page will pop up.

Or you can just email me k bryce ou.edu. You can also find me at LinkedIn. I'm the only Kenton Bryce on LinkedIn, so just search my name. You'll find me Twitter at Kenton Bryce. Yeah, I'm everywhere. Or just come to text show, come hang out too. You know, I love to hang out with you here too. Well, unfortunately

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: people can't come to the 2023 Tech show cause we are on the last day.

But hopefully we'll see everyone at the 2024 Tech Show. And Ken, I want to thank you again for being. And it was a

Kenton Brice: pleasure. All right. Thanks, Michael. Happy me. Great. Thank you. Thank you.

Michael D.J. Eisenberg: Bye-bye. Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Tech Savvy lawyer.page podcast. Our next episode will be posted in about two weeks.

If you have any [01:04:00] ideas about a future episode, please contact me at Michael DJ at the Tech Savvy lawyer.page. Have a great day and happy lawyering.

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