May 18, 2006 Host: Charisse Dengler Guest: Tom Mighell
Charisse Dengler interviews attorney Tom Mighell on technology in the world of law and about his blog, Interalia. Duration: 0:15:58
Tom Mighell Podcast
Tom: I have been a lawyer...I was licensed in 1990 so this is my 16th year of practicing law.
Charisse: Tell us what first got you interested in law.
Tom: Well, if you ask my parents, they will tell you that when I was 4 years old, I told them that I wanted to be a 'Yawyer,' but I think probably when I first really got interested in being a lawyer was in high school when I was on the debate team. Some would say that I like arguing a lot. I prefer to think of it as advocacy; advocating a position and working to help solve problems. That was sort of the thing that got me hooked in high school and it kind of has never really left me.
Charisse: Tell me a little bit about your work for Cowles & Thompson?
Tom: I started out...Cowles & Thompson is primarily, and has in past been primarily, known as an insurance defense law firm. Most of our clients have been insurance companies, and we do personal injury defense work for them. My practice has sort of been set in the area of daycare liability. I have represented lots of daycare facilities, camps, gymnastic studios, and karate studios; places where kids are usually involved and might get hurt. That has sort of been my little niche practice, but I generally have had a practice that has been a defense practice and personal injury cases pretty much the whole time.
Charisse: Ok, so how did you first become interested in that area?
Tom: Well, it actually came about through a lawsuit that we had. One of the largest daycare facilities in Dallas was sued in a child molestation case that was really what I would call a trial by fire for a young lawyer. It started in '91 so I was about a year or two out of law school, and just about everything that could happen in a lawsuit got thrown at us. I really learned a lot about it and kind of got my interest in doing that. One of the things that has kind of increased my interest in working with daycares, and things like that, is in addition to representing them in cases, I also go and train-I do not do that as much-but I go to daycare centers and talk to them about how they can avoid lawsuits and how they can better protect themselves and the children they are taking care of so that there are fewer injuries and as a result, fewer claims.
Charisse: What would you say you most enjoy about your job?
Tom: Well, I guess I have to tell you that my job right now is probably only about 20% lawyer, and that is because I have been slowly transitioning myself to less of a lawyer position and more of a technology position. To really answer your question correctly, I have to say that the thing I like the most about it is doing technology work and my official total right now—I am senior counsel of the firm, but I am also the litigation technology support coordinator, which means I work with all the lawyers on dealing with technology and using technology in their practice. I go to trial with them if they go to trial, and I present all of the trial technology. I train them on software. I help them use the software that we have, and I evaluate new software to see if it is something we might be able to use. I am also responsible for maintaining the website for the firm and doing any electronic marketing type things that we would do. That is—if you ask me—what I enjoy the most now. I enjoy helping lawyers use technology to better serve their clients.
Charisse: So, have you always been up on new technology?
Tom: I have always-ever since law school. I would say, I do a lot of speaking on the Internet on legal technology, and I usually start out my speeches by saying, "Hi, my name is Tom, and I am an Internet addict" because I really have been on Internet since about 1990-not as long as it has been around, but for quite a long time. I have—ever since then-kind of been hooked on technology and on the ways it can help not just lawyers, really anyone, but primarily lawyers, do their job.
Charisse: Can you tell me a little bit about your blog then?
Tom: I have a weblog. It is called Inter Alia, which is Latin for "among other things," which is why I call it "an Internet research weblog, among other things." Since I have been very interested in the Internet and doing research on the Internet, I started up a weblog about almost four years ago now, and I try to talk a little bit each day about new sites on the Internet that I find are interesting. It has kind of evolved a little bit. It is not so much about legal research anymore. It is more about legal technology; protecting your computer and your technology's security issues, how to take care of your computer, those types of things. It is more in the realm of law practice management now more than anything else. I publish that everyday—try to publish something everyday—and I have been doing that now for almost for four years.
Charisse: Right. I have noticed that you have a "Blog of the Day" and you talk about something that is happening in a blog. How do you decide which one to include or how much time do you spend reading other blogs and things like that?
Tom: Well, you know, I probably do not spend as much time as I should reading other blogs. One thing I started doing a while back, when law-related weblogs first started to appear on the Internet, was I kind of got interested and started tracking them and featuring them on my weblog, and now I feel it is more of a compulsion than anything else. I feel like I need to keep doing it, and literally, I have enough new-there are enough new law-related weblogs-to do one a day for probably the next year or two. There are so many out there, and really what I want to do is to introduce people to the fact that there are other types of law-related weblogs out there, and let them make their own decisions whether this is something they may or may not want to read. It is more of a pointer than a review of it, but hopefully I am getting people out there to look and see all of the different ways that lawyers are making use of weblog technology.
Charisse: So, how did you first get into blogging?
Tom: I think I became aware that the people were interested in blogging back in 2002, which was certainly not-weblogs actually came into being somewhere around 1999 or 2000, as we would call them weblogs, but lawyers did not start working on them until 2002, and I started noticing that they were popping up. I just wound up purchasing some software and diving in and learning how to design a website. It was just something I had to dive in and do.
Charisse: So, do you think that your blog meets a specific need or did you have to stop and think, "What am I going to focus mine on?"
Tom: Well, sort of like how I like to help the lawyers here with technology, I like to help other people with technology, too. The need that I find is that lawyers are very busy. They are very busy representing and serving their clients so they may not have as much time as I do, or as others do, to learn about technology and what is the latest and what is the great, new website to go to or what is the new software tool to use and so that is sort of the niche that I provide, helping other lawyers learn about these things.
Charisse: Ok, so would you say that is one of the major benefits-learning from each other? Is that why blogging has caught on so big in the legal world, do you think?
Tom: Ok, there are a couple of reasons why blogging has caught on. From a pure lawyer-to-lawyer standpoint, it does help lawyers learn about things. You know, I speak to a lot of lawyers on-I speak to a lot of lawyers on if they are interested in starting their own weblog, and the way that I describe it is "you have to think about who your target market is." There are, I think, really four different targets that you need to think about. One does not have to do with lawyers at all. It has to do with clients-your current clients. A weblog is terrific to provide current value to the clients that you are already serving. You do not have to send a newsletter out. You do not have to-if they are receiving something on the regular basis of value from you, they will really appreciate that. It is also good to market yourself to prospective clients. If a client is saying, "I need to look for a tax lawyer in Dallas," and they look up and find your blog-you happen to have a tax weblog in Dallas—they might be willing to look at you as sort of an expert on the subject because you are putting yourself out there on the Internet. The reason why you want it to be able to communicate with lawyers is one, lawyers in your practice area will appreciate it because they will learn new things. It will almost be like continuing legal education for them, but also, let us continue the tax analogy and say that there is a tax lawyer in Utah who has to refer a client to someone in Texas. Because they know you have a blog, and you are out there and more visible, that person may be more likely to refer to you; same for lawyers who are not in your practice area. Because Google and search engines absolutely love weblogs for some reason, search results wind up-weblog entries come to the very top of search engine results for some strange reason and so lawyers who are not even in your practice area may be able to find your weblog and see you as the go-to person in that particular area of the country or in that particular area of l aw. As a result, you might get more business from that.
Charisse: So, I also read that you won one of Dennis Kennedy's Bloggie Awards in 2005.
Tom: Well, yes, I did win that award, and I have to give the disclaimer that Dennis and I are good friends, and I think that he winds up giving those awards to those friends of his who he feels deserve attention that do not otherwise get it. I appreciate the honor. I think that nowadays, there are so many, many valuable law-related weblogs; it is hard to really have a good award that does justice to all the good ones.
Charisse: So, what was the one that you won? Was it for legal research blog or...
Tom: No, I think that he named me in 2005 the law-related weblog of the year. I think the reason that he did it is because everyday he can find-he can learn something new from the weblog, whether it is about a new law-related "Weblog of the Day," some new legal technology tip, website, or something like that. He found he was always learning something new.
Charisse: Do you think that-Ok, obviously the Internet has brought about lot of changes in the practice of law, but do you think all of them are good?
Tom: It is a double-edged sword. One of the things that I notice from the Internet-and it is not so much from the web and the Internet, but it is more the nature of online communication. You know, it used to be that, you know, when the telephone came along, then you were expected to get in touch with your client much more quickly than when the only means of communication you had was a letter, and then when the fax came along, you had to get back with them even quicker. Now that email is there, clients are literally expecting responses for you 24/7-on the weekends, anytime. If they do not get it, then they may be unhappy about that so I think that it is a real double-edged sword because on the one hand it is tremendously powerful and it allows you to keep in contact with your clients, but on the other hand, it allows you to keep in contact with your clients during times when you maybe do not need to be working, or you need to be concentrating on other areas of life.
Charisse: I also read that you started publishing on the Internet Legal Research Weekly Newsletter in 2000.
Tom: I actually did that before the weblog. It came along with my interest in Internet legal research and the fact that most lawyers really do not know how to use the Internet effectively. Most people nowadays will just go to Google or Yahoo and plug in some search terms and hope that they find what they need, but most of them do not know that it is relatively simple to find lots and lots of comprehensive, important information and a lot of it for free, if they only know the right way to do it. That is what I am hoping to do with the newsletter; to provide lots of resources that lawyers can use to make their experience, I guess, more efficient and easier so they can spend more time actually representing the client.
Charisse: Do you have any sort of advice for law students just on maybe how to make it through school or what to focus on or how to decide what to do after school?
Tom: I was just actually having a conversation at lunch with some folks who are doing a seminar down here for law students and new lawyers about the balance of work and not work. They call it the balance of work and play and how to strike that balance, and the one thing that kept coming back was "learn to prioritize." Learn to understand that it is not all about the work, unless you want it to be all about the work. If you are having a social life or if having a life outside of law practice is important to you, then make sure that you have that going into whatever type job you plan on having after the law school because once you get into that job, it is often more difficult to get out of it easily. The handcuffs can be quite tight once you get into a situation, and if you sort of try to go into it with an open mind and think "well, here are the things that are important to me, and I am going to try and prioritize this," it is a lot easier to stay mentally healthy about both sides of your life; the work part of life and the other part that you really need to keep your mental health.
Charisse: Thank you so much for talking with me today.
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