About Ross Kodner
Atty. Ross L. Kodner
is the President and founder of MicroLaw, Inc., a 20+ year
old
Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based legal technology consultancy and
turnkey legal automation system provider. He is a 1986 graduate
of Marquette University Law School where he was a member of the
Law Review and both a St. Thomas More Scholar and Milwaukee
Lawyer Scholar. He also received an American Jurisprudence Award
in Unfair Trade Practices.
Ross was honored as the “Legal Technology Consultant of the Year
1999, " a lifetime achievement award by The Technolawyer, Inc.
The Technolawyer is the largest legal technology online
discussion service in the U.S. with nearly 5000 subscribers.
Further information is
at http://www.technolawyer.com. He was
also honored as the “Technolawyer Contributor of the Year” for
2001 and repeated again for 2002.
He is a very active member of the ABA and its Law Practice
Management Section, having served an unprecedented four terms as
Chair of its Computer and Technology Division. He also served as
a member of the ABA TECHSHOW 1998, 1999, 2000 Executive Planning
Boards (http://www.techshow.com). He served again on the Executive
Board for ABA TECHSHOW 2001 where was responsible for the
most-attended General/Solo & Small Firm Track. He Co-Chairs the
CLE planning at all U.S. LegalTech conferences (www.legaltechshow.com
- New York and Los Angeles events each year). He is an active
member of the ABA's General Practice/Solo & Small Firm Section
serving as a Technology Board member as well as an Editorial
Board member of the “Technology & Practice Guide” magazine.
Ross is a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin where he was a
senior member of the pioneering former Technology Resource
Committee. He was a long-time member of the Law Practice Section
Board, serving as its Secretary, as Co-Chair of all the
Section’s convention technology CLE presentations since 1989,
and as official Liaison to the ABA Law Practice Management
Section. He is also very active in the Milwaukee Bar Association
and serves as a founding member of its Technology Committee. He
was also the Chair of the MBA’s annual Wisconsin Law &
Technology Show for 2002, 2003 and has been reappointed as Chair for
2004/2005. He is the Co-Chair of the
Midwest Law & Technology
Conference - from 2002 through 2005 - a new regionally focused
educational conference and exposition.
One of Ross’ most profound contributions to the legal technology
market is the creation of the “Annual Consultants and
Technologists Dinner.” This annual, invitation-only event is
held every Spring in Chicago at the same time as ABA TECHSHOW.®
“The Dinner” as it has come to be known, is the only function in
the legal technology world that brings together virtually all
key personalities in the industry - the top technology-focused
lawyers, legal vendors, legal publishers, consultants, Bar
executives, speakers and authors receive the coveted invitations
to this function every year. Information on this event is at
www.TheDinner.net.
Periodically he teaches courses as a Visiting Professor on Law
Practice Automation to third-year law students at both Marquette
University Law School and the University of Wisconsin Law
School.
He has been a frequent national speaker appearing at ABA events
including ABA Annual Conventions for the last five years and at
the ABA TECHSHOW as a regular speaker, in addition to serving on
the planning board for Glasser LegalWorks. Along with well-known
technologist Andy Adkins, he has developed new CLE Tracks at all
Legaltech conferences across the U.S. He also speaks at many
State Bar events around the U.S. including Arizona, Wisconsin,
Mississippi, Illinois, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Minnesota,
Kentucky, Alabama, New York, Nebraska, Massachusetts,
California, Ohio, Georgia, Hawaii, Texas, Virginia, Connecticut,
Nebraska, Tennessee, Maine, Missouri, Oklahoma and Oregon among
many others.
He has presented over 1200 presentations on legal technology and
law practice management topics and has a busy schedule already
booked throughout 2004.
Ross is also a frequent author on legal technology subjects
appearing in Law Office Computing (was a long-time columnist for
“The Circuit Court” along with Bruce Dorner, Daniel Coolidge),
The Lawyer’s PC, Law Practice magazine (an ABA LPM Section
publication), GP/Solo (a publication of the ABA General
Practice/Solo and Small Firm Section), Law Technology News,
Wisconsin Lawyer, The National Law Journal, Iowa Lawyer, The New
York State Bar Journal General Practice Newsletter, Pennsylvania
Lawyer, Legal Tech (member of the Board of Editors), The New
Mexico Bar Bulletin, The New York Bar Journal and many others.
In 1996 he received national attention, along with co-author,
Atty. Daniel Coolidge for his exposé article "Unwilling Beta
Testers: It's Time to Rally!" focusing on shoddy PC support and
lax PC product quality which appeared first in the ABA's
"Network 2d" and has been reprinted multiple times. The article
is at
www.abanet.org/lpm/newsarticle11571_front.shtml and the
“Legal PC User’s Bill of Product Rights” that is part of it is
at:
www.abanet.org/lpm/newsarticle11572_front.shtml.
Ross was honored as “Chairman of the Day” when he spoke at the
Asia Legal Systems & Technology Conference, in Singapore in
December 2000. The event was jointly sponsored by the Law
Society of Singapore, The Bar Association of India, The
International Association of Korean Lawyers, The Phillipine Bar
Association, the Inter-Pacific Bar Association and the Hong Kong
Bar Association.
Ross developed and has subsequently written and presented
extensively on “The Paper LESS Office™”, a revolutionary
common-sense approach towards managing paper in a law practice
including presenting on this topic at over 150 State Bar and
national bar association events across North America and Asia.
MicroLaw.com, Ross’ company’s website, has become one of the
world’s largest repositories of online legal technology CLE
materials and articles. Ross’ key articles and presentation
materials are located at this site and are available for free
online viewing and downloading.
More recently, Ross has been sought out as a legal markets
consultant by many leading legal hardware and software product
vendors, helping them with vertical marketing, positioning and
branding and product development strategy. These include
Thomson-West, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Visioneer,
LawCommerce.com, Corel, and Software Technology, Inc.
His firm, MicroLaw, Inc., has provided legal-exclusive
automation consulting, law office management consulting,
technology “visioneering”, legal PC systems design and planning,
specialized lawyer and law firm staff training and support to
over 675 law practices throughout the U.S., Canada and the
Caribbean.
