The SALI Standard

June 2021
 

A lot has happened at The SALI Alliance^TM since we last shared a formal update. In this edition of The SALI Standard, learn about our new members and endorsers, our discounted membership rates, the latest on LMSS 2.0 and other technical updates, and more ways to connect as a community (virtual and in-person!), as we move the industry forward, together.

The momentum for standardization is building in the industry, as more law firms, clients, and service providers are turning to the Legal Matter Specification Standard to replace outdated nomenclature and fill gaps in their enterprise data. The SALI Alliance is proud to welcome the following new members:

• Attorneys’ Liability Assurance Society (ALAS)
• Bond, Schoeneck & King
• Fredrikson & Byron

We are also delighted to share the following endorsements:

• Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC)
• NetDocuments
• Pragma International Network

At the outset, we committed to running The SALI Alliance as lean as possible, relying on our volunteers along with support from the Legal Marketing Association, the Association of Legal Administrators and the International Legal Technology Association. Because we have run the organization efficiently and are in a solid financial position, the Board voted to reduce our membership dues by 50%.

This reduction will allow many more organizations to become participating members of SALI, furthering our mission of driving effective standards for the legal industry. The benefit to membership is in having a voice as it evolves – including being a part of the discussion on priorities, data points, technology advancements, and geographic focus.

The new dues are as follows:

• Products & Services Provider: $1,750
• Law Firm, Consulting Firm, & Associations: $950
• Clients & Schools: $150

We will be sending out our 2021 dues invoices soon, so please watch for those. Thank you for your support!

You’ve heard about the LMSS. Have you wondered:

• How others have implemented it;
• How they have obtained buy-in and adoption;
• How information is flowing between systems for reporting;
• How others classify certain types of work;
• Whether an area of law, service, or both are missing from the standard?

Join us on June 29 from 12-1 pm ET for our first open community drop-in session, moderated by Kelly Harbour, director of member engagement. A formal invitation will follow.

Have a question for the group to discuss? Want to reserve your place at the meeting now? Email kharbour@goulstonstorrs.com.  

There will be a hybrid in-person / virtual meeting open to members, endorsers, and anyone interested in learning more about the standard at ILTACON on Tuesday, August 24. Additional details to follow.

Legal Value Network will bring together leaders from across the legal industry for its inaugural LVN 2021 Conference Experience on October 6-8. These 3 days of education and discussion will focus on the business aspects of developing a successful law practice, including the disciplines of bold project management, pricing and process improvement.  Registration opens this month. 

Stay on the lookout for the next releases of the LMSS, which will build on and extend LMSS 1.0. Expect to see an interim LMSS 1.1 which will contain important tweaks to 1.0, and some very interesting new content as well. Following on that, we will be rolling out codes and categories for classifying data that are essential to matter definition, but until now have been largely overlooked in the market. If you would like to view our development site to explore the updates, please email driehl@fastcase.com or jhannigan@coblentzlaw.com.

After the success of our project to create a modified standard to fit the practice of law in Canada, we’re looking for other teams to help assess the LMSS’ fit for other jurisdictions. Please let us know if you’re interested in joining or leading a working group in your country!

SALI and its members have begun a project that solves a problem plaguing the industry for many years: How can we communicate data amongst stakeholders in a uniform way? Of course, the best way to do that is to standardize the communication method (e.g., API), which transmits SALI codes/fields. 

The problem described above is illustrated in the bullets and the following image:

Stakeholders (e.g., clients, firms, vendors):

• ...are counting the same things (e.g., items reflected in SALI codes/fields)
• ...but assigning different unique identifiers (e.g,. UUIDs)
• ...making APIs today an expensive, time-consuming process.

This current process is problematic and expensive for both:

• the API Requester (e.g., Clients, Firms, ALSPs), who must custom-develop API calls for the API Responder’s proprietary systems, and multiple that effort across various Responders (e.g., Vendors).
• the API Responder (e.g., Vendors) who must map the Responder’s fields to whatever the Requestor (e.g., Clients, Firms) might call the item (e.g., jurisdiction, legal document), and multiply that efforts across various Responders (e.g., Customers, Firms, Clients).

The SALI API project seeks to solve that.

• API Requesters can build once. 
• • If the API Requester builds a SALI-API-compliant query, the Requester will know that the query will work with any SALI API compliant Responder.
• API Responders can build once. 
• • If the API Responder builds a SALI-API-compliant response, the Responder will know that the response will work with any SALI API compliant Requester.

In short, the SALI API project seeks to allow data to flow more easily across all stakeholders in the legal-data ecosystem. Interested in (1) learning more or (2) helping build the standard?  Please let us know. We’d be happy to have you join us.