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Legal IT Blogs
New Client Development Specialists Bring 20 Years of Legal Technology Expertise to Client Profiles
With a combined 20 years of business development experience in the legal technology industry, Karen Clifford and David Grabner bring expert insights to Client Profiles after joining the company as regional sales managers.
"Karen and David have each spent the last decade working closely with law firms across the country," said Dave Hutchinson, executive vice president of sales and marketing. "Their solid past performances and in-depth knowledge of the services our clients need make them the perfect new additions to our growing team."
Legal IT Professionals welcomes new columnist
Legal IT Professionals is proud to announce that Jan Berinstein has agreed to join the panel of colmnists. Jan Berinstein, Ph.D. runs her own software-training company, CompuSavvy Computer Training & Consulting, which caters to the legal profession. Over the past 15 years, she has trained staff at numerous law firms, government agencies, corporate legal departments, and various other organizations throughout California. Via her company, she teaches computer lab classes as well, most of which are tailored for lawyers, legal secretaries, and paralegals. She provides her training clients and her students with copious handouts that she writes herself.
Am Law 20 Firm Revolutionizes Information Access With Recommind’s MindServer Search
Firm Uses Industry’s Leading Enterprise Search Platform to Provide Employees with Instant, Accurate Access to Information
Recommind, the leader in search-powered information management solutions for enterprises and law firms, today announced that a leading global law firm with more than 1,000 lawyers in 12 offices across the United States, Europe and Asia has selected MindServer™ Search to power its knowledge management needs.
The Skemp Partnership Solicitors Selects LexisNexis Solutions to Comply with MoJ’s RTA PI ...
Personal injury firm to reduce claims processing time by a third, grow claims handling volume by more than 65% a month
LexisNexis® UK, a leading provider of content-enabled workflow solutions including legal enterprise software, today announced that personal injury practice The Skemp Partnership Solicitors has selected LexisNexis® Visualfiles® case and matter management system and LexisNexis® PIP Broker, a cross platform application-to-application interface module, to comply with the Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ) Road Traffic Accident (RTA) Personal Injury (PI) claims reforms, reduce operational costs and grow its business.
Will Legal Outsourcing Drive Large Law Firm Innovation?
Innovators at the Barricades by Bruce MacEwen at Adam Smith, Esq. argues that legal process outsourcing (LPO) is a disruptive force for law firms, citing Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma.
“Outsourcing is here to stay” writes MacEwen. He describes different flavors using a 2 x 2 grid: location on the x-axis with offshore or onshore ("foreign” or “domestic"); ownership on the y-axis with captive or 3rd-party ("owned” or “rented"). MacEwen notes that this model is “by no means exhaustive; it’s merely indicative and representative”. This is a good model for thinking about centralizing support services.
LPO will have a big impact: “Once clients begin to get accustomed to the notion of being able to unbundle, or unchunk, legal engagements - be they disputed matters or transactional ones - there’s potentially little end to it.” MacEwen argues that LPOs are likely to go upmarket, meaning they perform higher value work, which will threaten law firms - and also force them to innovate and move up the value chain.
Working for an LPO, my view is that there is a clear line between legal support and law practice. An LPO cannot practice law so I think there is a clear limit to how far “up the value chain” an LPO can go.
Turning the “LPO moving up the value chain” idea on its head may well be a more helpful way to think about the legal market. The very forces that enabled the birth of the LPO industry - globalization, technology, and shifts in buyer attitudes - continue to push legal work toward standardization and systemization (as Richard Susskind discusses in The End of Lawyers?). That means work once done only by associates can be performed by more efficient operating models offered by alternative sources such as LPOs, contract attorneys, virtual law firms, online legal resource providers, and still-to-be-invented providers.
So it is likely that repetitive tasks once the exclusive domain of partner-track associates will continue to be unbundled and move to more cost-effective approaches. Document review in litigation is the classic example. Even without LPOs, law firms’ ability to offer this service at associate billing rates is already threatened by corporate clients contracting directly with contract lawyer staffing agencies. An innovative law firm might even decide it makes sense to partner with an LPO to do the high volume, routine work.
Given this shift, MacEwen questions the fundamental premise of large firms, citing Ronald Coase’s Nobel Prize winning The Nature of the Firm. He suggests that LPO-enabled unbundling calls into the question the “why” of law firms: “Why create the management overhead, bureaucracy, and administrative friction entailed in any firm of scale? Why not just purchase whatever is needed, when it’s needed, on the open market?”
That is a good question indeed, but LPO is symptom, not cause. The cause is corporate client price sensitivity and quest for value. These have changed buyer (general counsel) behavior, which in turn has propelled growth of law firm alternatives. Smart large firms can still profit from their scale. For example, they can
- Coordinate across practices and geographies to serve global clients. Cross-selling is not only a profit lever, done correctly, it is a service enhancer.
- Assemble large teams of highly skilled and experienced lawyers to work on tough, big cases or deals.
- Serve as expert general contractors with project management skills to ensure the swift and cost-effective resolution of client matters. Many general counsels will happily delegate that function.
MacEwen raises provocative questions that large firms need to consider carefully. I have never been persuaded that “big is better”. Big is only better if size really confers benefit and the organization actively takes advantage of its scale. Big firms that adopt sound strategies and execute effectively will continue to thrive. Those operating on auto-pilot may indeed lack a good answer to the question MacEwen / Coase asks.
[Note: above is a modified version of my Integreon blog post, LPO as a Driver of Law Firm Innovation]
Legal Industry Veteran Colleen Freeman Joins Document Technologies
Document Technologies, Inc. (DTI), the nation’s largest independent provider of comprehensive discovery and onsite facilities management services, is pleased to announce that attorney and legal support services industry veteran Colleen Freeman has joined the company as a senior manager of client services for DTI’s Boston office. In this newly created role, Ms. Freeman is responsible for leading DTI’s effort to expand its market share in the Northeast e-discovery and litigation consulting market.
Accola Launches DMS4Legal to the North American Market
Company brings first document management system to the legal industry powered by Microsoft SharePoint 2010
Accola, a legal technology and IT services company, today announced the release of Epona’s DMS4Legal to the North American legal industry. DMS4Legal brings the first document management system powered by Microsoft SharePoint 2010® to law firms across the U.S. The product was first released in Europe in early 2010 and has garnered much interest from firms for the functionality and capabilities it adds to their practices.
TikitTFB to Replace BBE IRIS AIM System
Barker Booth & Eastwood, a long established firm of solicitors based in the North West, has chosen TikitTFB as their official solutions partner to replace their existing IRIS AIM Evolution Accounts system and introduce a comprehensive case and document management system firm-wide.
The 50 user system will be deployed in phases with the accounts and desktop components scheduled to go-live during September. The second phase will concentrate on developing the case management system including the creation of caseflows for their Personal Injury and Conveyancing departments, and is expected to be completed before the end of the year.
The firm had been using AIM for a number of years with many of the precedents and processes unchanged since it was first instated. Tracy Kirkland and Sue Pilkington, Practice and Accounts Manager respectively, felt there was a need to move the firm forward and provide an improved way of working. Following a visit to the 2010 Legal IT show, they reviewed the upgrade path being offered by IRIS as well as a number of other vendors including Eclipse and Linetime before selecting TikitTFB and Partner for Windows as their preferred choice.
Anne Morley, Matrimonial Partner at the firm comments, “This kind of investment requires a great deal of trust in your chosen supplier and confidence that the system is going to deliver as promised.
“We see Partner for Windows and our relationship with TikitTFB as a long term commitment and we look forward to working with them to develop an advanced system that will allow us to improve the way in which we operate and manage processes on a day-to-day basis, compete more effectively in the market place, and most importantly provide a higher level of customer service to our clients.”
Partner for Windows will provide the firm with a fully-flexible and comprehensive solution that can be used across all their practice areas including Personal Injury, Conveyancing, Employment, Family Law, Commercial Property, Wills & Probate, and Civil Litigation. As Partner for Windows is fully-compliant with LSC requirements, the firm will be able to manage their Civil LSC contracts more profitably utilising functionality such as SMP reconciliation, and bulk export to the LSC website. The firm have also chosen to implement PartnerMail, an intelligent email management tool that helps to file emails to and from your inbox to the relevant case file in Partner for Windows, and the SMS module, which will allow them to communicate with clients and third parties quickly and discretely via text message.
Bridging the Gap Between Legal and IT (Part 1)
Legal discovery, or ediscovery, has become a normal business process in most organizations. Perhaps not as frequently used as a sales force automation tool, but at times perhaps more important. With increasingly demanding rules for legal discovery and production, there is a critical need for what is becoming a near constant proactive review of the information held within the enterprise. Given the exploding amount of information and the growing number of sources where business information can reside, the legal discovery business process is now much more than a “sideline” activity that can be run from some small scale appliance under the desk of a legal professional.
Microsoft Worldwide Conference Closes With Multiple Honors for Client Profiles
The partnership between Client Profiles and Microsoft Dynamics has been highly successful for both companies, a fact that was on display at the annual Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington, D.C. In front of a crowd of 14,000 people, Client Profiles' president and CEO Whit McIsaac took the stage to accept the 2010 Partner of the Year in Professional Services award. This is the second year in a row that the company has earned that distinction, an accomplishment that only a handful of companies achieve.
TikitTFB to replace BBE Iris AIM system with complete case and practice management solution
Barker Booth & Eastwood, a long established firm of solicitors based in the North West, has chosen TikitTFB as their official solutions partner to replace their existing IRIS AIM Evolution Accounts system and introduce a comprehensive case and document management system firm-wide.
The 50 user system will be deployed in phases with the accounts and desktop components scheduled to go-live during September. The second phase will concentrate on developing the case management system including the creation of caseflows for their Personal Injury and Conveyancing departments, and is expected to be completed before the end of the year.
4th Legal Technology Exchange
Legal IT Professionals selected as Media Partner
As legal executives work to comply with increased regulation and reduce cost for the department they are scrutinizing budgets, re-defining vendor relationships and implementing new technology to better manage workflow and data. Join a selection of your most respected peers at the 4th Legal Technology Exchange, October 3-5, to develop a new approach to technology planning that will bolster your organization's legal department with more pointed use of technology.
Worldox® Upholds Winning Track Record
Besting Legal DMS Competition in 2010 Law Technology News Technology Vendor Satisfaction Survey Results
World Software Corporation®, the company behind the award-winning Worldox® Document Management System (DMS) software, today announced that Worldox has scored the highest among its competitors in the 2010 Law Technology News Technology Vendor Satisfaction Survey, conducted by ALM Legal Intelligence. Worldox bested its DMS competition in 8 out of 9 categories and had the highest overall average % for vendor satisfaction. Also, Worldox/Web Mobile attained top marks in the Mobile Tools/Devices/Services category.
nQueue Billback Celebrates First-Year Success
Four of Top Six Firms in AmLaw 100 Survey Are Now Clients
nQueue Billback LLC, the leading provider of software-based information accountability, expense management and cost recovery systems today announced continued growth in the second quarter of 2010 and outstanding results overall for the one-year period since its formation by merger. Based on the second quarter results and the 2010 AmLaw 100 list of the top-grossing firms in the United States (released in May 2010), the company can count four of the top six firms as clients. The company has added 30 new clients in the past year and now more than one-third of the AmLaw 100 firms are nQueue Billback clients.
Outlook 2010: a legal viewpoint (part 1)
I’ve been running Microsoft’s Office 2010 on my home PC for about a month now and have to say I’m impressed. Well as impressed as you can be with an email client, a word processor and a spreadsheet application!
I thought I’d share in a few blog posts some of the really nice features of Outlook 2010 that I think will be useful for lawyers. For the first post I want to take a look at a couple of nice ways in which Outlook 2010 helps you organise and find email.
1, 2, 3, RESET! The 2010 Futures Conference and Symposium - Coming in October
The College of Law Practice Management and The American University Washington College of Law are hosting “1, 2, 3, RESET! The 2010 Futures Conference and Symposium” on October 22-23 at AU in DC. I encourage anyone interested in the future of the legal market and law practice management to attend. (I am a COLPM Trustee.)
This conference is for law firm leaders, managing partners, executive directors, c-suite law firm officers, consultants, law school deans and anyone else who plays a leading role in the business of practicing law. Click here to download the PDF program. Topics include The Impact on the Legal Business of Capital Markets’ Growing Interdependence, A Sea-Change in London (re equity investments and alternative business structures for law firms), and a wrap up session Now What? led by American Lawyer editor Aric Press. Other speakers include Peter Zeughauser, Simon Chester, Steve Matthews, Tim Corcoran, Marc Lauritsen, and Patrick Lamb.
I’ve attended many College meetings and they are outstanding. Unlike most conferences, vendor sponsorships play no role in the program or speaker selection. A committee of College Fellows works hard to identify topics and speakers based on the issues most likely to affect law practice management in the coming years. We are limiting the conference to 150 attendees so that we can ensure high quality discussion.
I hope to see you there.
Will Office 2010 "Make it Great" or Crash and Burn at Your Firm?
Make it Great. Yes, that’s the vanilla marketing tagline Microsoft came up with for promoting Office 2010. This begs the question that’s on legal IT’s collective mind these days: is 2010 actually great, or is it chaos and misery stuffed into a shrink-wrapped box?
On May 12, 2010, Microsoft announced worldwide availability of Office 2010, so the product is officially out of the gate…and running? The issue is: will it run well, will it be in the running for your firm, or will it run you over? Microsoft dominates the legal market and is part of the woodwork of most law firms by now, so many sites are likely to be impacted by this new release, for better or for worse.
H7b1 Group Strengthens Paris Operations with French Subsidiary
European Litigation Technology Service Firm H7b1 expands French presence with wholly owned subsidiary
Swiss Group H7b1, the forerunner of the litigation technology practice on Continental Europe, announces today that it has added a French subsidiary, H7b1 Eurl.
Created in November 2009, this new subsidiary is managed from the Group’s Paris office located at “La Défense”, which is in the heart of the city’s business sector. Being a wholly owned subsidiary, it directly benefits from the longstanding experience and technology of the Swiss group.
Marketing your law Firm using Social Networking Technology
Social Networking continues to grow and although there is a lot of trivia being discussed, there are also some serious business discussions and related business information being passed around. We should not ignore this information as it may be useful to our business and I don’t believe the phenomenon (if that is what it is) of Social Networking will go away. If anything, we will see more people joining in the discussions and more products and innovative ways of communicating coming out of it, so if you don’t engage early then you may be in danger of missing out on any opportunities that evolve.
Nextpoint Recognized by AlwaysOn as an OnDemand Top 250 Global Winner
Company selected for innovation and progressive technology serving the legal community in cloud computing and SaaS
Nextpoint Inc., the nation’s leading provider of next-generation litigation support services to law firms and corporate law departments, announced today that the company has been selected by AlwaysOn as one of the OnDemand Global Top 250 Private Companies.
