One hugely important lesson branded into me from analyzing data is the importance of step-by-step procedures. This may sound elementary, but when you start with an Excel file of data from a client, it is crucially important to keep an audit trail of each step of your transformations and calculations.…
Two very common steps for a data analyst are to subset data or to aggregate data. When you write code that subsets data, you instruct the computer to pick out a portion of the data and work with that smaller set. For example if you have data on law firm…
I had just written about levels of state regulatory burdens when I read two editorials in the New York Times, July 7, 2014 at A17. One of them describes four ways that GDP calculations mismeasure the size of our economy. For example, the author writes “In its first 20 years,…
I am deeply invested in this topic, but I am struggling. And, this is a huge topic that deserves multiple thoughtful posts. But I will stick my toe into the water because of a piece in MIT Tech. Rev., May/June 2014 at 10. A professor of political science and computer…
When something increases the same fraction or percentage, rather than the same amount, during each period of time, the numerically savvy call it exponential growth. It would almost certainly be inaccurate for a general counsel to announce that outside counsel spending by her department, for example, has grown exponentially for…
Rick Klau has spent most of his professional life with Internet startups. Now with Google Ventures, Klau keynoted this year’s ABA Techshow. The ABA Journal, June 2014 at 37, summarized three lessons Klau offered for the legal industry. His first lesson “emphasized the importance of using data to make decisions.”…