Who are you?  What firm are you with?  What is your role?
I’m Ben M. Schorr, the CEO and CTO of Roland Schorr and Tower. In that capacity I lead a team of talented and enthusiastic folks who love to solve problems for our clients. Aside from managing the team I also take a hands-on approach to some of our clients problems, and spend a lot of time listening to what their issues are and offering advice.

What is your firms’ specialty/niche?  
Our specialty really is in what is often called “Decision Support Systems” though I like to think of it more generally as “Helping our clients be more effective.” We help our clients not only with the technology (servers, network infrastructure, applications) but also with the procedures and techniques of using these systems to be better at what they do.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the legal technology industry now and in the upcoming year?
The move towards alternative billing has gained a lot of steam and this is invoking a serious shift in the mindset for a lot of firms. In the past there was a certain amount of complacency among firms when it came to making their processes inefficient because the billable hour was their stock in trade. There wasn’t as much incentive to finish a document in half the time because it meant half the money. Now the game has changed somewhat as clients increasingly insist upon alternative billing and are increasingly price sensitive. Now it behooves firms to be as efficient as possible and, in fact, it’s MORE profitable to do the same document in half the time because you can now do twice as many of them.  In an alternative billing arrangement that leads to a higher effective hourly rate and even more profits for the firm.

So legal technology has stepped right into the fray, providing firms with the tools to be more effective and more efficient. To accomplish more tasks, with consistently higher quality, using fewer staff resources in less time. The challenge for us is to continue to refine those tools and processes to make them as good as they can be, but also to help lawyers and legal staff use them to the best of their abilities.  The training issue has hovered over us for decades – getting attorneys and staff to use the tools well.

How can the legal vendor community work with you best?
Content is king. If a vendor wants to work with us or our clients they need to convey clearly, completely and concisely how their product or service is going to help our clients be better at what they do and that there is a clear return on investment for going with them. Vendors need to be accessible and candid.

What advice would you have for legal vendors trying to compete in this crowded marketplace? 
You’ve got to have a message and you’ve got to get that message out. Events like TECHSHOW are a great way to showcase your firm and your product. Social media can help to get your message out – blogs are still valuable, Twitter, LinkedIn and even Facebook. Learn from folks like Rick Borstein at Adobe who gets out there and makes himself a valuable resource for firms. Don’t make your customers or potential customers have to work too hard to figure out what you do and how you do it.

What associations are you active in?

American Bar Association; I’m a Microsoft MVP; and an active member of the Mid-Pacific Road Runners Club and USA Triathlon.

What online resource (website, blog, etc.) is most useful to you (i.e., you use it everyday)? 
I’m a black belt in Google-Fu; I probably do more searches a day than any human alive. That said the sites I find most professionally useful are probably Slashdot.org; you get a lot of interesting insights from a lot of smart nerds, and Microsoft Answers.

What are you speaking about at TECHSHOW?
I’ll be presenting a session called “ESQ Anywhere” with Sonnenschein’s Eric Anderson about technology for lawyers to use on the road. Also I’m co-presenting a session called “Power Users: Outlook” with Xavier Beauchamp-Tremblay, the man with one of the coolest names in law technology. We’ll be offering some more advanced tricks, tips and techniques for working with Microsoft Outlook.  Finally I’ll be doing a “Meet the Author” session where folks can come and talk to me about either of my books: “The Lawyer’s Guide to Microsoft Outlook 2007” or “The Lawyer’s Guide to Microsoft Word 2007”. Other than that I’ll be around all weekend, probably at the Conference Concierge desk most of the time and I’m happy to meet any conference attendees and talk about anything they’d like. Folks who know me know I rarely turn down a question on law technology. Or triathlon.

Ben Schorr, CEO & CTO

Roland Schorr & Tower
808.782.6033
Email Ben
Roland Schorr & Tower's Law Office Technology Blog
Twitter @bschorr

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