Episode 29: Ed Walters - Bringing Sexy Back… To Legal Publishing

The rumor that "print is dead" may have been a bit premature. In this episode we talk with Fastcase CEO and co-founder, Ed Walters about his vision of why print titles are a vital component of a legal publishers arsenal and how Fastcase is using its new Full Court Press imprint to make his company even more competitive. Walters also reveals that Fastcase 7 will soon be making its journey through space, and move from its beta "Mercury" release, and progress to the beta "Venus", and is making its way toward the fulling functioning "Earth" release this summer. And if your were curious… Pluto is a planet. Fastcase is also looking to leverage its 2018 acquisitions of Docket Alarm and Law Street Media to push the company into the future of legal analytics and advancing legal news reporting. If geeky and nerdy are the new sexy… Walters and his group at Fastcase are bringing it back.

We also talk with American Association of Law Libraries Director of Government Relations, Emily Feltren, about the status of making PACER free to all users. The bills are filed in the US Congress, and the amici briefs are filed (including one by Fastcase and Ed Walters) to bring down the price of PACER, or make it completely free. Feltren teaches us more on that topic.

Information Inspirations

Greg had traveling difficulties last week and couldn't make it to the ARK conference on law libraries. Well, he couldn't make it physically. He did, however, get to use zoom to make his presentation to the roughly 100 attendees. And, of course, it couldn't be just any old video presentation. Greg found a way to bring in some green screen action through zoom's background features. Not sure if that counts a sexy, but it was definitely geeky.

Without Fail Podcast - Alex Blumberg, who recently sold Gimlet Media to Spotify for $200M, has a podcast where he interviews entrepreneurs not only about their successes, but also about their failures. On a recent interview with brand revitalizer, Sharon Price John, the CEO and President of Build-A-Bear Workshops, she discusses the vision that change agents need to bring brands back to life. If you're going to turn things around, you have to accept the problems that come with it. You need to embrace that "it might not not be your fault, but it is now your problem."

Herbert Smith Freehills gives its employees ten days which they may focus entirely on innovation. Marlene discusses what that means, and that while this is a great concept, it is important that the employees be given the flexibility to be creative everyday. Perhaps that should also mean more flexibility in when and where they work, and that they be encouraged and supported in traveling more often.

Gen Z's are in college, in law schools, and are entering the workforce. We've talked about them before, but we're not sure that previous generations are really ready to work side-by-side with this "brutally" honest generation.

Are Lawyers Ready to be Managed by Metrics? (American Lawyer) - If you think that legal work is so unique that it cannot be measured, analyzed, predicted, and have a value metric placed upon it… then your days may be numbered. (more…)