Michael Ferguson

Apple News, unlike Facebook and Google which use AI and algorithms to curate the news for readers, does things the old fashioned way – with humans selecting the news. If you’ve been following along, you know that LexBlog is creating the largest legal news and commentary network by curating the valuable contributions of legal bloggers, worldwide.  Right now, we’re featuring stories on the “front page,” changing things out a couple times a day. Channel pages are created dynamically. We have plenty of room for improvement, but it’s a start. The New York Times’ Jack Nicas detailed in last Sunday’s paper Apple News’ approach of humans over machines.  One morning in late August, Apple News’s editor in chief, Lauren Kern, huddled with a deputy to discuss the five stories to feature atop the company’s three-year-old news app, which comes preinstalled on every iPhone in the United States, Britain and Australia. National news sites were leading that day with stories that the Just...

When an employee in Texas believes that he/she has been discriminated against, he/she must file a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and/or Texas Workforce Commission (TWC).  A charge of discrimination is an administrative prerequisite to being able to file a lawsuit against an employer based on allegations of discrimination (based […] Read More Here: The EEOC Issued a Notice of Right to Sue – Now What?

I am off to Boston for the College of Law Practice Management (COLPM) event on Friday evening, the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) Conference on Thursday and Friday and to meet with a few Boston folks before heading home on Saturday – hopefully before the nor’easter they’re predicting to hit Boston this weekend. I don’t know much about COLPM, other than folks appear to like to dress up in Tuxedos and fine dresses for pictures to be shared on social media. I’ll confess I turned my tuxedo in after my wedding thirty-sum years ago. Seriously though, I was asked to join COLPM by my friend and long standing LexBlog customer, Patrick Lamb, who is one of the real forces in innovation and change in the delivery of legal services. When Pat says COLPM members can be agents of change in the business of the law, I am all ears. In addition COLPM members include some real fine people, many I know and others I’ll have the privilege of getting to know. Their Futures Conference on Thursday will ...

A snappy 10 hour flight yesterday and I was back in Seattle from London where I attended the Legal Geek Law Tech Conference, met with law firms and introduced LexBlog to The Law Society . I said it last year, and this next year I’ll follow through on it — that being to get to London, regularly, to expand LexBlog’s international reach and influence. It’s important not only for LexBlog to expand markets globally, but for LexBlog to evangelize the cause of legal blogging, worldwide, for both the democratization of legal publishing and making legal services more accessible.  The UK, and I suspect the rest of the world, is dealing with the same crisis in access to legal services as the States. Lawyers/solicitors are becoming irrelevant to the majority of consumers and small business people. This erodes not only citizens’ legal rights but the very business of lawyers. Legal blogging establishes trust and communication between lawyers and people narrowing this divide. UK based large...

Social media usage has become deeply ingrained in American life.  According to the Pew Research Center, “74% of online adults use social networking sites,” and more than half of online adults now use two or more social media sites.   More than half of online adults are Facebook users, and 70% of Facebook users engage with the site daily.  Nielsen reports that 64% of overall social media users

This Wednesday, October 17, marks the the third annual Legal Geek Law Tech Conference . What started out as 30 people eating pizza and drinking beer in the basement of a startup warehouse in San Francisco, Legal Geek has grown into one of the largest legal tech conferences in the world with over 2,000 attendees from 40 countries coming this year. They’ll have over a 100 speakers from US, Canada, Russia, Singapore, New Zealand, Spain, France, Netherlands and Israel. Legal Geek’s new In-House stage hopes to make legal tech more relevant for general GC’s. Founded by Jimmy Vestbirk , Legal Geek is a startup community with over 6,000 members. Like organizations and startups in the States, they see their members, “Friends of Legal Geek” changing the legal profession forever. I have been following Legal Geek and Vestbirk for a couple years and been drawn to the fun they they have, the passion they bring and to the people and companies they cover. Road trips in the orange V...

I came home from Clio’s annual Cloud Conference (Clio Con) in New Orleans on Saturday a little tired and a little hoarse. Little question that Clio Con is solidifying its place as one of the best, if not the best, legal conference. A big thanks to  Jack Newton  and the entire Clio team. 100 Clio team members traveled from Vancouver to work the conference so the commitment to over the top customer service was evident everywhere. Four big takeaways for me. One, the impact of Clio’s integration program; two, the relevance of Clio Con for all lawyers and legal professionals, young and old; three, Clio’s recognizing the good work of lawyers; and four, the growing group of good friends I have in the legal tech community. Clio has talked integration with third party solutions for a couple years, but boy has integration arrived. Over 150 apps, solutions and products now integrate with the Clio platform. People are quitting their jobs to work on new companies they have founded...

I worked for an attorney who would say on a weekly basis, “This is not an emergency room. We are not performing life and death surgery.” He used this statement any time someone in the office hit the panic button. I'll admit that he had a unique perspective because his wife was an emergency room physician who dealt with real life and death situations on a daily basis. He's the only attorney I

Harassment in the workplace is an all too common experience for employees across the country.  And that reality is no different for employees in Texas.  When faced with harassment for the first time, many employees are confused about their legal rights and don’t know what they should and shouldn’t do.  At times, employees can freeze […] Originally Published Here: What do I do if I am Being Harassed at Work?

LexBlog is announcing today a national campaign to help bridge the legal services gap in this country. The legal profession and the people we serve in this country face a two-sided legal crisis. Consumers and small businesses, most of whom can afford a lawyer,  are less likely than ever to seek help from a lawyer and more likely than ever to handle legal problems themselves, or to take no action at all. Caring and experienced lawyers who would welcome helping these people as clients do not have enough work. A 2017 Clio study found that small firm lawyers perform only 2.3 hours of legal work a day — and bill only 82 percent of that. Lawyers have become irrelevant to the majority of Americans. The reasons for this legal services gap are varied and complex, but two prevail over all others. People do not understand what lawyers do and they distrust that lawyers will represent them well and at a reasonable cost. It is a crisis of communication and of trust. Building trust and real...

Harassment in the workplace is an all too common experience for employees across the country.  And that reality is no different for employees in Texas.  When faced with harassment for the first time, many employees are confused about their legal rights and don’t know what they should and shouldn’t do.  At times, employees can freeze […] Originally Published Here: What do I do if I am Being Harassed at Work?

We’ll take LexBlog’s Legal Tech Founders  series on the road this week to New Orleans for the annual Clio Cloud Conference. For this series, I get behind press releases, funding announcements and new products to capture the story of a legal tech founder – so you can see what it’s all about, and maybe join them as a founder. Why start a company? What was the problem you saw that needed solving? What gave you the courage to quit a day job and give up a regular paycheck? How did you get by without a paycheck? Bootstrap or funding? When did you think you could pull it off? What was the absolute low point? What would you tell some crazy enough to think they want to be a legal tech entrepreneur? A couple months ago, I hosted about a dozen legal tech founders for video interviews at ILTACon in D.C.  The stories – outstanding. The people – outstanding. Totally enjoyed it – and so did they. Check out the Legal Tech Founders site to catch the interviews, along with a trans...