LexThink is a bit like Ted Talks for lawyers. Ten speakers get six minutes and 20 slides to “prescribe their cure for the legal profession in uncertain times.”
Six minutes is not a lot of time to present a complex idea, but as Mark Twain is so commonly attributed as saying, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
Sam Glover of Lawyerist wrote it “is just long enough to get out a single idea – if the presenter is any good. The idea is to be entertaining and clever, not comprehensive.”
This year’s theme is “the end of irrelevance.” There are currently 24 proposals on the table and winners are selected by popular vote. Voting is a click away.
LexThink Origins
LexThink, LLC was founded by Matt Homann, who describes his company as a “consultancy that delivers conferences, retreats and workshops for lawyers and other professionals who want to embrace creative ways to grow their businesses and serve their clients better.”
Allison Shields of Legal Ease Consulting noted in a post last year the “event that is usually held in conjunction with the ABA TECHSHOW. LexThink.1 takes place the evening before TECHSHOW begins.”
The original concept started as Ignite Law but in 2012, Mr. Homann teamed with JoAnna Forshee of InsideLegal and re-branded to LexThink.1. She wrote about it then indicating LexThink.1 is “a name which reflects not only the way lawyers bill (in 1/10 hour increments), but also the six minutes each presenter is given to speak.”
The 2012 event included a session by Mark Britton on social media and lawyers “fear of community,” titled: Back to the Future.
A LexThink Pitch of our Own
Our own Christopher T. Anderson, an attorney and legal technology product manager, has submitted a pitch this year: People Don’t Have Legal Problems – Lean Startup for Lawyers.
Mr. Anderson has served in a range of roles over the course of his legal career, but his style, perhaps from his role as a prosecutor, often comes shining through in his presentations.
“‘ Lean Startup’ has transformed the way entrepreneurial businesses discover problems and deliver more focused solutions to market faster, with far less risk,” he writes in his submission. “Applying this to the legal marketplace will represent, for lawyers who do, the ‘End of Irrelevance.’”
He breaks down the methodology of lean startup as having a “hypotheses about what problems the legal market has for us to solve. Design solutions to meet those needs. Test them. Then listen, adjust, try and listen again.”
Chris (and the team) used lean startup principles in driving the complete re-design of LexisNexis Firm Manager, a cloud-based law firm practice management software product that is entirely new and recently re-launched at LegalTech.
If you are attending the ABA TECHSHOW later this month, or have an interest in the LexThink presentations, we’d appreciate it if you’d consider voting for Chris’ session this year.
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