Part of the broader group of May events to recognize Asian Heritage Month, and organized by the Asian Heritage Employee Resource Group, last week’s event focused on some of the unique areas of Hmong culture, such as their traditional lengthy New Year’s celebration and their customs surrounding weddings and marriage rituals.

Ms. Xiong spoke of her family’s legacy with Thomson Reuters – several members of her family are long-time employees of the company – and about the next generation of Hmong people in the United States.

The survey found that eight percent of Americans admit to embellishing their resume.

10. Batter up!  Who knew that baseball would be a central metaphor for this year’s Summit? Discussions about shrinking legal budgets and “doing more with less” led many speakers to evoke Michael Lewis’s Moneyball, a story about Billy Beane, the statistics-driven and unconventional general manager of the Oakland A’s, who built a competitive team on a fraction of the budget of other MLB teams. Very few legal departments have a New York Yankees-sized budget to spend on internal resources and outside counsel. But like Beane, Serengeti legal departments use statistics and benchmarks mined from Serengeti Tracker to obtain additional value and achieve better results. 

9. Strength in Numbers. Speaking of data and statistics, did you know that the almost 500 Serengeti legal departments share industry benchmarks through the Serengeti Analytics functionality on Tracker? Want to know the average hourly rate of a 16-year partner doing patent work in Dallas? Ever wonder if you are paying too much for that litigation associate in Philadelphia? Can you validate the hourly rate you are currently paying your outside counsel? The Serengeti Index Rate, based on the billions of dollars of invoices submitted through Serengeti, can tell you. Even better? The more legal departments that join Serengeti, the richer the data pool for the entire Serengeti eco-system. That’s real strength in numbers.

8. That would “B” as in Billions. Eric Laughlin, managing director, Corporate Counsel for Thomson Reuters, shared this jaw-dropper of a statistic: since the company’s inception in 2002, Serengeti has saved more than $3 billion for legal departments through the audit and enforcement of billing guidelines through Tracker’s electronic billing functionality. And that number doesn’t even include savings realized through budgets and other Tracker functionality.

7. I paid for what?! So what’s behind the $3B in costs savings? Some of the Serengeti legal departments entertained each other with a few of their favorite charges found on invoices from outside counsel, including:
- Three movies rented by outside counsel during business trip (cost: $29)
- Stapling and delivering cases to Partner (cost: $240)
- Create .pdf of documents (cost: $190)
- Printing documents from XYZ system (cost: $1,900)

6. Something for everyone. The Summit offered tailored sessions for advanced, long term customers as well as more recent, newer users of Tracker. The 150 attendees included members of the legal teams hailing from Nike (on the system for almost a decade) and American Airlines Mexico, Caribbean and Latin America (MCLA) Division (on the system for a mere 2 weeks).

5. Why I went to law school: I was told that there would be no math. Thought-leader and former general counsel of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), Susan Hackett, opened her keynote address with the differences between the “Old Normal” and the “New Normal.” How to thrive in the New Normal? DATA. According to Susan, “Data drives demonstrable value.” It also drives continuous (and measurable) improvements, not to mention the power that data has to change behavior (both internal team members and outside counsel). Also discussed? How data and statistics can make lawyers, who are not known for their strong math skills, uncomfortable.

4. “Take small bites and breathe through your nose.” This was the advice that client relationship manager Derek Howell shared with attendees undertaking a global deployment of Serengeti during his session entitled “Rolling-Out Tracker Internationally: Don’t Go It Alone.” Other advice for going global? Build an “A-Team” comprised of representatives from the C-suite/executive team, corporate finance and IT. Maybe “A” in A-Team should stand for “Advocates”, which is especially important to have in a global deployment of Serengeti within a corporation.

3. Thomson Reuters debuts line of formal wear at Awards Dinners. This was the first year that Serengeti held its user summit since being acquired by Thomson Reuters in October 2010. Nothing embodied (literally) this “marriage” more than the tuxedo donned by long-time employee Drew Petty, the emcee of Thursday night’s “Golden Cheetah” Awards Dinner. And not just any tuxedo, but a bright ORANGE tuxedo. (Some might call it Thomson Reuters’ orange, but I’ll let our branding folks make the final judgment call.) The Golden Cheetah recognizes extraordinary achievements of Serengeti legal departments, like the lightening fast 12 day implementation of Sea World’s legal department onto Tracker. Who won first place at the Golden Cheetah? The legal department at Becton Dickinson, who was able to save an impressive $1 million before the first anniversary of their Serengeti implementation. 

2. It does take a village. The summit concluded with a panel discussion of Serengeti legal departments, including Nike, Intuit and Albemarle. Each legal department represented a common pain point experienced by Serengeti users: a decade-old implementation didn’t reflect the new realities of the legal department; lack of resources to deploy Serengeti to all practice groups within the department; and reports still being produced in a time-consuming, manual process. The answer to all of these problems:  Serengeti’s new professional services team. Each legal department on the panel took advantage of expert advisors who were deployed onsite to optimize the department’s use of Tracker. The new conundrum for these Tracker users: now that Serengeti is optimized, what are they going to do with all the extra time on their hands?

1. Stay connected to the village. Want to learn more Serengeti-related news, events and best practices? You can visit Serengeti’s recently re-launched website. Alternatively, boost the number of participants on the active Serengeti Law User Group on LinkedIn, or like Serengeti on Facebook or follow the company on Twitter (@SerengetiLaw). 

These are just a few of the newsworthy numbers, data points and anecdotes shared at the 2012 summit. Will you be at the next user summit? Stay connected to see when the next summit will be held.

In earlier posts, Hackett shared her thoughts about the tools and language that lawyers are going to need to succeed in the future, and also discussed the variety of companies and business that offer legal-based solutions, and how client legal services are changing.

New York judge with cancer makes case for marijuana
Gustin Reichbach has become an unlikely voice in support of legalizing the use of medical marijuana with the admission that he smokes pot to ease the side-effects of his treatments.

MF Global clients bash fat fees, seek quick wind-down
A customer group plans to ask that the brokerage’s bankruptcy case be streamlined so that estate trustee Louis Freeh and his team receive less and customers receive more.

Mississippi high court declines to rehear pardon case
The state Supreme Court rejected a motion to reconsider its approval of 10 pardons issued in January by then Governor Haley Barbour.

Alabama lawmakers added a year to Jeffco bankruptcy, lawyer says
The state’s House of Representatives skipped a vote on a bill that would have restored an occupational tax worth $60 million annually to debt-ridden Jefferson County.

Appeals court revives POM lawsuit versus Coca-Cola
POM initially sued Coca-Cola, saying that it misled consumers to believe that their drink consists primarily of pomegranate and blueberry juices. The 9th Circuit returned it to a lower court.

‘Neither admit nor deny’ unlikely to be changed by Congress
Officials from four agencies told lawmakers that requiring admissions of misconduct would hurt regulators’ ability to bring cases and would soak up limited resources.

For more legal news, check out Thomson Reuters News & Insight.

In an earlier post,  Hackett shared her thoughts about the critical tools and language that lawyers are going to need to succeed in the future

Greg Shriber, director of Product & Community Strategy at Thomson Reuters, took some time during the Serengeti Summit to share how Serengeti Tracker offers customers the ability to compare their information and analyze trends over time within their organization. He also discussed how users of Serengeti Tracker now have the opportunity to compare themselves with peer groups in the marketplace.

For additional information on Serengeti Tracker, Serengeti Intelligence or to see the products at work, visit serengetilaw.com.

During her presentation, Hackett discussed the importance of data, various methods of providing value and using resources available to improve efficiency.

In the first of a three-part interview, Hackett shares her thoughts about the critical tools and language that lawyers are going to need to succeed in the future.

We’re Listening @ WestlawSmallLaw is our program to inspire this conversation. We want to hear what you like about our products, what we need to improve, and also what new products and solutions you’d like to see us create to help your firm work better and smarter. 

Please look for our team at the We’re Listening @ WestlawSmallLaw booth #209 in the exhibit hall– you can’t miss it. While you’re there, don’t forget to pick up your free “ear buds.” 

You will have the opportunity to provide your feedback directly to our team, as well as on one of our many other channels.  So tell us what you think!  We’ve made it easy: 

Write it.
Post feedback on the message board at our booth. 

Say it.                  
Talk directly with our booth representatives or make a video recording at our booth. 

Tweet it.             
Use Twitter^® hashtag #NJSBAAC and follow us @WestlawSmallLaw throughout the conference to join in the live discussion and tweet your questions, comments, and feedback. 

We’re looking forward to hearing you there!

-The Westlaw Small Law Team

The result is often higher productivity for the firm, and lower costs for the client, creating a win-win situation that strengthens the firm-client relationship and can result in more business for the firm.

In a recent post on the ABA’s Legal Rebels blog, Allison Guidette,  senior vp and general manager, Large Law Firm Segment, discusses how technology can help firms achieve greater efficiency.