Special Announcement: ILTA and Recommind To Present At Janders Dean Knowledge Management Conference

*** Click here for pre-registration reservation requests ***

(Prior to the official circulation of registration instructions)

After confirming the attendance of Headshift last week, Janders Dean are proud to announce that both ILTA (International Legal Technology Association) and Enterprise Search market leaders Recommind have confirmed their involvement in the upcoming Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management conference to be held in Sydney on May 7th 2008.

Simon Price of Recommind (London) will be traveling to join the faculty in Sydney, and will be on hand to discuss the recent trends in Knowledge Management technologies and enterprise search across Europe. Brent Snow (Baker & McKenzie and APAC Regional Director for ILTA) will be available to discuss the role and growth of ILTA in this region, and the benefits of involvement in the peer-to-peer network from both a technology department and knowledge management department's perspective.

These additions continue to strengthen the faculty and agenda for this event, adding to the existing conference speakers including David Fitch of Simmons & Simmons (London), Bernadette Jew of Gilbert+Tobin (Sydney), Livio Hughes and Anne Bartlett-Bragg of Headshift (London), and Nicole Bamforth of Freehills (Sydney).

We are also pleased to announce the official media partner The Legal Technology Insider, and confirm the official benefiting charity for the event Committee Assist. Additional information for the event will be circulated in the coming days, with allocation of final delegate and attendee spaces occurring in early April.

There is strictly limited availability for this event, so please send any expressions of interest to info@jandersdean.com prior to the official circulation of the agenda and registration instructions.

*** Click here for pre-registration reservation requests ***
Please mark your diaries and circulate this SAVE THE DATE to your team

Special Announcement: Headshift To Present At Janders Dean Knowledge Management Conference

*** Please mark your diaries and circulate this SAVE THE DATE to your team***

Janders Dean are pleased and excited to confirm that international Knowledge Management technology thought leaders Headshift will be travelling from London to present at the upcoming Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management conference in Sydney on May 7th. This is one of the first times the team from Headshift has presented in Australia, and we are pleased to introduce them to the Australian law firm Knowledge Management community.

Headshift are well known within the Knowledge Management and IT teams of the world's leading law firms for their social media innovations - with their early adoption and expertise of Web2.0 technologies at firms such as Allen & Overy (see case study) and Freshfields Bruckhaus Derringer being regularly recognised as the benchmark for next generation Knowledge Management technology.

David Fitch (Global Director of Knowledge Management at Simmons & Simmons) will also be on-site from London and has been confirmed as keynote speaker. The full conference agenda, list of speakers, and registration instructions will be circulated this week.

Additional speakers confirmed for the event include Nicole Bamforth (Director of Knowledge Management at Freehills) and Bernadete Jew (Parter at Gilbert+Tobin)

With a blend of leading international and domestic speakers and thought leaders, this is set to be one of the most exciting and informative legal KM conferences in the region for both KM and IT management, and also PSL and support personnel. Limited places remain for this unique event.

Additional information for the event will be circulated in the coming days, with allocation of final delegate and attendee spaces occuring in early April.

*** Please mark your diaries and circulate this SAVE THE DATE to your team***

Sydney Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference Announced - SAVE THE DATE

Janders Dean are set to host a leading law firm Knowledge Management conference in Sydney on May 7th 2008, with some of the most innovative and experienced global speakers and content on offer.

We are pleased to announce that David Fitch (Global CKO of Simmons & Simmons) will be on-site from London and has been confirmed as keynote speaker. The full conference agenda, list of speakers, and registration instructions will be circulated in the coming weeks.

This is set to be one of the most exciting and informative legal KM conferences in the region for both KM and IT management, and also PSL and support personnel, with thought leadership and experience from across the globe being on offer.

*** Please mark your diaries and circulate this SAVE THE DATE to your team***

Bevan Read Joins Janders Dean

Janders Dean are pleased to announce that Bevan Read has recently joined the firm as a Director. In his previous role Bevan was an Associate Director for LexisNexis within the Total Solutions Group, having joined LexisNexis following the acquisition of Visualfiles.

With 5 years experience as a practicing lawyer, and a further 10 years in many different capcities within Visualfiles, Bevan will continue providing leading consulting and thought leadership services to the legal sector in the areas of process engineering, automation, workflow, and matter management.

In commenting on his move to Janders Dean, Bevan says, "Over the past 15 years I have been exposed to, and involved with, the various tools a lawyer is exposed to, and have gained great insight into the day-to-day working practices across all legal practice areas. I am passionate about making the lawyer's working environment as functional and seemless as possible, whether it be functionality and process improvements in areas related to document management, financial management, information searching and retrieval, reporting, or within areas of matter and case management and tracking."

Justin North of Janders Dean commented that "In addition to the work currently being undertaken for international law firms, Janders Dean has recently launched into the APAC market with amazing success, working with a majority of the top firms in Australia and New Zealand."

"Bevan's move to Janders Dean will ensure that we continue to be positioned as the leading team in this region. Bevan's market leading expertise in process and matter management, and his ability to translate his own hands on experiences as a practicing lawyer into the consulting services he provides to our clients is unmatched in the Australian market."

Legal OnRamp

An interesting link from Mr.Fitch this week in London - an invitation to join the new Law Firm specific online community site - Legal OnRamp. Simmons & Simmons, Allen & Overy and Eversheds here are significant members of this heavily used US site. A combined approach with this functionality on top of ILTA style content is a potential future direction for our global community.

Floodgate Warning?

For those who are keeping an eye on the 3-5 year law firm systems retirement cycles and re-investment horizon (especially in the APAC region), our friend Charles Christian reports something interesting this week. This could be nothing more than a fortunate win for the often confused SAP legal offering's positioning, or an interesting early warning sign.

International firm Cuatrecasas (with 22 offices, 193 partners and 1368 fee earners) has just placed an order for SAP "to handle finance, practice management, analytics, HR, workflow and elements of CRM.

Giant Spanish law firm Garrigues followed the Linklaters approach by investing in SAP as their new practice management/ERP application last year. Rather than adopt the traditional model of using the software vendors' direct implementation services teams (who can sometimes be left wanting in terms of capacity and experience on firm implementations of such size), the Garringues' implementation (like others of such size and significance) was undertaken by Accenture. Linklaters used Deloitte and their own expert resources heavily during their SAP project.

Charles notes that "SAP say the contract was won ‘in a competitive engagement’ against the Thomson Elite 3E product." The best possible response from Thomson now needs to be a firm of similar or greater size going live with (not simply purchasing) the 3E product - which was released to the market back in 2006 and is yet to be road-tested by a firm of such size.