ABA Techshow 2010

Techshow, the ABA Law Practice Management section’s annual legal technology conference, is one of my favorite conferences to attend every year, and this year was no exception.

The Techshow experience started early this year, with Ignite Law, an event sponsored and hosted and produced by Matt Homann of LexThink and Joanna Forshee of Inside Legal. The event featured 16 speakers doing 6 minute presentations apiece on the future of law practice (although I think Tom Mighell’s presentation was actually 10 minutes squeezed into 6 because he talks double-speed – perhaps that is because he’s used to listening to podcasts on double speed).

Unfortunately, I was late for Ignite Law because my plane arrived shortly before the start time. Luckily, the entire event was recorded, and you can see each of the presentations in full on video at the Ignite Law site. If you want to learn more, check out the ABA Journal’s coverage of Ignite Law, which also references additional links.

Although the whole event was great, some of my favorites from the Ignite Law evening were:

Larry Port (of Rocket Matter)’s presentation on the importance of project management for lawyers

Tom Mighell, who reminded us that law school doesn’t prepare lawyers well for the practice and suggested a model more like medical school, along with actual education (and bar exam testing) on practice management skills/issues.

Carolyn Elefant’s discussion of innovation and how small firms can compete with big firms.

Doug Sorocco discussing slaying the “beast” mentality – (although I wholeheartedly disagree that all consultants are useless).

Clio‘s Jack Newton, who told us that everything we need to know we can learn from Zappos and reminded us about having a service culture.

After Ignite Law, it was on to the conference itself, which will be covered in my next post.