SharePoint DMS in Legal

After a few "yeah but, no but, yeah but" conversations being witnessed on various LinkedIn forums, it looks like the competition is now really hotting up with a number of announcements around MS SharePoint being (finally) used (really, actually used) in private practice and in-house legal departments as a DMS platform.

This just in from the team at ClearPeople in London:

"ClearPeople is proud to announce the deployment and go-live of their SharePoint-based Document Management Solution (DMS) for law firm Winckworth Sherwood LLP. The DMS, which went into production in July 2010 for one of the firm’s departments, combines SharePoint with MacroView DMF and Winckworths’ own bespoke WS-eOffice system. The remaining departments within the London office are being transitioned to the new solution over the next three to six months."

Expect to hear much more in the coming weeks and months around the MacroView product and the primary competitors - particularly out of the UK....and no, this is not necessarily the bells of doom for Autonomy or others in the market. Everyone is different, everyone has different needs, and we see room for both of these platforms. See here for our thought leadership on application selection.

Recommind Sign Freehills

Press release just out in the past few minutes with the news that Freehills has agreed to purchase and deploy Recommind's MindServer Search Solution to provide staff with instant and accurate access to knowledge. The release states the following:

Top-5 Australian law firm Freehills has selected Recommind’s MindServer Search to deliver next-generation information access across the firm. Based on Recommind’s CORE (Context Optimised Relevancy Engine) platform, the MindServer Search deployment will form the backbone of Freehill’s knowledge infrastructure.

Implementation of the solution across its network of 2000 lawyers and support staff, will provide Freehills with capabilities to instantly crawl, index and access information from its Autonomy Worksite document management libraries, Microsoft SharePoint™, Aderant Expert PMS and additional sources, as well as Matters & Expertise. Freehills will deploy MindServer Search as the primary search technology making firm information and work product exponentially more usable and actionable across the organisation.

“Our first priority will be to utilize the benefits of MindServer Search across our intranet and knowledge repositories, thereby maximizing the significant investment that we have made to date in these areas,” commented Janet Young, COO / CFO at Freehills. “We believe the ability to find the right information just when you need it is essential for delivering a high quality and timely service to our clients.”

“Freehills is a leading blue chip law firm in the Asia Pacific market place and a very welcome addition to the growing Recommind client base in the region” added Grant Watt, Director of Channels at Recommind. “We are very excited about working with the firm to further consolidate our leadership position within this important market.”

To further supplement its information access and knowledge management efforts, Freehills will also implement Recommind’s QwikFind search bar. Recommind’s unique QwikFind search bar provides instant access to MindServer Search from within Microsoft Office applications (i.e. Word, Outlook, Excel) or from the Windows desktop toolbar, negating the need to launch a separate window or application in order to perform a firm-wide search.

Law Firm Innovations - Monitoring Money (ReedSmith)

Never far from the words "law firm", "technology", "leadership" and "innovation", you will find the words "ReedSmith" and "Tom Baldwin". This article in Law Technology News is another great example of leadership and innovation from within a law firm (rather than the innovation coming from the outside world of a vendor's R&D team).

We've been fortunate to take an exclusive look into the next phase of the RS portal project, and to hear from Tom on the project's design, objectives and true value add to the firm. It is worth noting that this truly is an innovation, and the design and features are both intuitive and technically brilliant. Moreover, it is real product being used today within the firm, and constantly driving ReedSmith towards greater profits.

Over the past six months we've heard from a variety of vendors (including large combined software/publishing/consulting companies) who are trying to push into this space with nothing but buzz words, vapor and the odd MS PowerPoint screen (or badly produced videos with voice over). What we've seen are poorly designed and thought through concepts with nothing but pretty graphs, not very Engaging at all really - proving that innovation comes from the coal face, from those doing the real daily work, and rarely from those hanging on the sidelines.

Technology Selection Advice - Janders Dean Throws Some Thoughts Down

Many thanks to Mark Gould for pulling one of our recent comments from out of The Orange Rag and adding it to his blog.

What we said was as follows - the caveat is that it is informal piece from us in response to a few stirring software vendor comments regarding which "system" is "better". So we thought we would throw in some common sense to give back to the community, and in doing so, share the Janders Dean "All About the Letter P" Selection Matrix.

Here you go...

Selecting a practice management system (or almost any other system) obviously comes down to a number of factors which should be weighted differently for each firm based on their technology adoption position, their history, their investment appetite, and their requirements. Which "product" is "better "is rarely what defines a success or failure when shooting various products off against each other.

We believe that the following is a useful guide, and one that Janders Dean use with all clients when walking them through selection issues (we call it the P matrix - every consultant needs a good matrix).

Product - yep, product is important, but given that we all know the industry usually has a selection of Product A or Product B (with Product C thrown in as a stalking horse), we all know that they can do the same job. It comes down then to which company presents better during the long weeks of demonstrations to users, and which answers the 800 line RFP with the most imagination. Not many firms we work with put the highest importance or priority on this area.

Price - not only in relation to the software, but the professional services, the third party professional services, the internal costs, the impact costs, annual money for nothing costs, the costs of training, servers, etc, etc. This is where the creative discounting comes in, and the negotiation powers of the procurement departments. Not all firms have the same budget year on year, and not all have the same managing partner or Finance Director. In the same way, not all have the same PPEP each year.

Platform - does the technical infrastructure and architecture of this product integrate seamlessly with my firm's? Will I be left out on a technical limb in 5-10 years time by purchasing this? Does the platform require unique skills to be kept in house forever?

Peers - who is using what and how are they going with it is important. Not just from a "keeping up with the industry/Joneses" but also from a "who will have input into the development roadmap of this product", and a "how short staffed or not is the industry in the application skills", not to mention a "how productive and useful is the wider user community in helping each other".

Parent - how has the parent company performed? What are their plans for building or dumping this particular product or (worse) industry vertical? What other areas do they focus on? Where are they based? What has been their track record in buying, building, supporting? Are they committed to this geographical region?

Performance - similar to the above - what has the performance of the product and the vendor been like in the past 3-5 years in our region?

Position - what is the technology adoption position of the firm in relation to being either an early adopter, fast follower or "I'll go last thanks" perspective? Will a decision between Product A and Product B go against the firm's adoption position?

Professional Services - are they indeed "professional" services? Where are they based? What are their skills? How long have they done this for, and at which peer firms? How much do they cost? Do they know the behaviours of lawyers and support personnel enough? Can we get a reference for each individual one of them? Will the vendor place their names in the contract? Do my people get on with their people? Are they bullies, trusted advisors, or "yes" people? Do they add value?

People - are the other "people" within the vendor organisation up to scratch? Do we trust and like the sales team, the support team, the management team (domestic and international)?

That was it folks. Thanks again to Mark for the Tweet and blog mentions. The full piece can be found here with the thread of all comments from The Orange Rag here.

Tweet From Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference

For all you 'Twits' either attending or following the confernce and awards next week in Sydney, you can follow and tweet from the 3rd Annual Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference & Awards via #JDKMConf.

Freshfields Knowledge Management - Five Year Plan Completed

News has been leaking in for the past three weeks regarding the unconfirmed departure of Michael Hertz from his role of global Chief Knowledge Office at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

It appears that after five years (almost to the day given that Michael started running the ship there in June 2005), White & Case is about to get a new Chief Marketing Officer in the US as Michael heads back home.

During his tenure, Michael resided over a number of restructures within the department (via which the firm inadvertently and unfortunately lost a majority of the shining lights that they needed to retain, with most being snapped up by peer firms before the dust settled), and also the controversial merging of the Knowledge function with the Business Development function.

With Matthew Parsons having left Linklaters, David Jabbari leaving Allen & Overy, and now Michael leaving Freshfields, who next and what next for Knowledge Management strategic leadership in law?

Alternative Fee Innovation - CMS Cameron McKenna

CMS Cameron McKenna today announced details of the Alternative Billing & Fixed Fee programme that the firm has been working on behind the scenes for some months, with some very interesting aspects to it - some that will make peer firms sit up and listen.

The information released today outlines numerous possible models that a client can adopt including fixed fees, hybrid fixed-fee and capped-fee deals, added value rate models and models specific to client loyalty. As reported today in Legal Week, CMS Cameron McKenna is also offering a "no questions asked" fixed-fee/monthly payment arrangement to those clients who qualify.

How does a client qualify we hear you (and the 3,500 clients and contacts who were today issued with the details of the offer) ask? Well, you follow four simple rules around housekeeping, loyalty and balancing your demands as a client:

1. You pay your bills within 14 days;

2. You give the firm more than 33% of all legal work (although not sure how this can be accurately measured unless on volume of legal fees reported by publicly listed companies);

3. You are to supply the firm with work across multiple practice groups;

4. You agree to an associate as being the main point of contact between you as the client and CMS Cameron McKenna (rather than a partner). Legal Week reports that both Richard Price (Senior Partner) and Duncan Weston (managing Partner) will "personally visit clients to discuss fee arrangements". One wonders wy the associates aren't making the visits too!

It is also reported that a major utility has signed up to the arrangement for a capped period of one year, while also reporting that the firm has also said it has offered a major oil client a fee cap tied to the price of oil. Dangerous? Odd? There is most likely method to the madness.

Law Firm Knowledge Management Awards Launched

We are pleased to introduce three new award categories as a way of recognising outstanding achievement in law firm Knowledge Management in the APAC region. All awards will be presented during an exclusive evening cocktail reception at L’Aqua at the conclusion of the Knowledge Management conference. The three new Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management Award categories are as follows.

Knowledge Professional of the Year

This award will be presented to the individual Knowledge Professional who has demonstrated a clear commitment, innovative vision, strong leadership and valued delivery of service in the area of legal Knowledge Management across the course of the year.

Judges will be looking to identify those nominees who have brought personal initiative and commitment to take their firm’s Knowledge Management efforts beyond the assigned, expected or common level, and those who have gone beyond a specific project or task to deliver value.

The award is open to all levels of knowledge workers and is not aimed only at senior management personnel. The knowledge worker may be a representative of the firm’s professional support lawyer network, the firm’s library and research team, the central Knowledge Management or information management delivery team, or the firm’s management.

Nominations for this award should outline the activities undertaken by the individual which clearly provide knowledge value to colleagues and management.

Knowledge Team of the Year

This award will be presented to the team that can demonstrate both tangible and intangible results from a full programme of Knowledge Management initiatives.

The team’s activities must be able to clearly demonstrate innovation and value delivery, while also showing that the team can act as knowledge sharing advocates and catalysts for change.

Judges will be seeking to identify teams that have contributed to the broadening and strengthening of firm wide expertise and learning communities. Activities such as the creation of new knowledge, the capture, sharing and reuse of existing knowledge, and the provision of tools to enable others, should be shown to clearly contribute to increased lawyer efficiency, the reduction of firm risk, or cost avoidance.

Knowledge Management Project of the Year

This award will be presented to the team that can demonstrate both tangible and intangible results from a specific Knowledge Management initiative or implementation.

The initiative should be innovative and demonstrate the engagement of senior management as well as colleagues. The initiative should demonstrate a new or creative way of thinking, should have delivered savings in terms of employee productivity or cost-efficiencies, or alternatively should have delivered positive cultural change.

Nominations for this award should outline the actions taken to ensure engagement of colleagues and management, and should detail how the initiative was kept on time and to budget (or alternatively should indicate how any failings in the project were overcome to deliver a positive end outcome).


How to Nominate

Nominations for all awards are currently open to all Australian and New Zealand private practice law firms, and will close for all awards on 6th August 2010.

Entries are to be made by submitting an A4 page MS Word document/.pdf to the email address info@jandersdean.com addressing the above criteria. The statement may be supported by a maximum of 15 PowerPoint slides illustrating (visually where possible) the results attributable to the entrant’s actions and influence. Digital video attachments are also acceptable.

Submissions will not be shared, published or distributed outside of the awards team and judging panel without prior consent from the nominating organisation. Entry is only open to delegates attending the 3rd Annual Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference. Only entries received by 6th August 2010 can be put forward to the judging panel for consideration.

An independent judging panel consisting of a selection of corporate knowledge workers, in-house legal representatives, and industry analysts has been commissioned to assist with assessing individual award nominations. Neither Janders Dean nor the conference sponsors will be participating in the judging process.

Get in there!

(Finally) Confirmed: Blake Dawson Move to Elite 3E

As eluded to in early May this year (see here) news has finally hit the press regarding one of Janders Dean's clients Blake Dawson and their commitment to the Elite 3E platform.

The formal press release out today from Thomson Reuters states that Blake Dawson is "the largest firm in the region to partner with Elite to upgrade its technology platform and enhance internal processes".

That makes the score 1-1 when it comes to Keystone legacy swap outs at the very top end of the APAC market (Allen Arthur Robinson swapped their Keystone application out for the Aderant upgrade path).

“The level of flexibility and sophistication in 3E gave our entire team the confidence that we were making the right long-term decision and we look forward to successfully implementing the solution across our offices throughout Asia Pacific,” Helen McKenzie (Deputy Managing Partner) stated.

Kim Massana (interim president and general manager of Elite) chimes in to say that "we are pleased to welcome Blake Dawson to the Elite community in Asia Pacific. With the decision by Blake Dawson to select 3E in the region, Elite has clearly reinforced its position as the solution of choice for intelligent law firms everywhere.”

Full press release from the Elite team here.

Best wishes to Chrissy, Larry, Bernadette, and the team at Blake Dawson. We're looking forward to catching up with you all again in August on unrelated cocktail activities!

Legal Process Outsourcing - Smoke Clearing & Mirrors Cracking?

After two years of hype, press releases, and marketing materials based around the Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) trends hitting international firms, are we now seeing real cracks in the revolution appear (backing up some of those who doubted the industry's ability to embrace such a change with any real commitment)?

The Lawyer Magazine in London has this week run with three news pieces which indicate that all is not necessarily wonderful in the land of the LPO.

The first is an overview of Integreon's (the leading vendor in this space) projected 26% losses in the UK. The cause of these losses is thought to be a reluctance on the part of law firms to actually send work offshore. Full story here. According to Margaret Taylor of The Lawyer, Integreon's operation in Bristol keeps the bulk of its work (90%) on-site rather than sending it to lower-cost offices in Asia or Africa. It also currently pays out the bulk of its revenues in salaries.

While Taylor notes that Integreon have refused to discuss financial figures with The Lawyer, a related research article in the same edition of the magazine states that in the five months from January to May this year the 17 members of staff working in the Bristol professional document services team generated revenues of $217,733 (£141,624) and were paid $267,772. Similarly, the 58 staff members working in the business solutions team, which focuses on services such as IT and procurement, generated revenues of $1.2m and received salaries of $1.1m.

The second piece is a detailed analysis of the current state of the LPO market in the UK with specific coverage of offshore versus onshore. The article states that "according to data from outsourcing consultancy Fronterion, 44 per cent of legal process outsourcing (LPO) vendors were aiming to increase the number of onshore personnel and lawyers they employ, with law firms indicating that they were more comfortable outsourcing locally than internationally. This was despite the fact that cost ­savings from sending work to offshore centres such as India or South Africa are typically twice as great".

The third is an overview of the financial pros and cons which is also worth reviewing.

There were always going to be cracks in the LPO model based on the change profile of the legal industry, and there will always be the buzz around the potential cost savings of LPO thanks to the marketing budgets of those in the market. The real impacts will only be known once clients fully understand and adopt, and then subsequently force their firms to behave differently (or the same).

Additional Delegate Passes Released - Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference

*** As a result of gaining additional conference space, Janders Dean has 15 remaining delegate passes for allocation to law firms and in-house legal departments. Please contact us at info@jandersdean.com to secure one of these passes. These will be allocated on a first come basis, and no further passes can be released due to venue restrictions ***

After an amazing response to the initial allocation of delegate passes for the 3rd Annual Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference in Sydney (12th August 2010), and subsequent negotiations with the crowd at L'Aqua, we have managed to secure an additional space for the upcoming conference.

We are pleased to announce that we now have 70 delegates representing organisations including Mallesons Stephen Jaques, Minter Ellison, Allen Arthur Robinson, Blake Dawson, Westpac, Austrade, Freehills, Maurice Blackburn, Gilbert+Tobin, DLA Phillips Fox, Corrs, Baker & McKenzie, Norton Rose, Allen & Overy, Simpson Grierson, Chapman Tripp, Sparke Helmore, TressCox, Hall & Wilcox and a number of other firms from across Australia and New Zealand.

With numerous speakers joining us from London, New Zealand and Australia, the full day conference agenda sessions will include topics such as:

* Knowledge Management Challenges in a Global Environment: Mark Andrews (Baker & McKenzie).

* The Evolution of Enterprise Search: Still a Knowledge Tool? - Felicity Badcock (Mallesons Stephen Jaques).

* Working Together: Business Development & Knowledge Management - a panel session involving representatives from DLA Phillips Fox, Gilbert+Tobin and Allens Arthur Robinson.

* The UK Magic Circle: Innovators, Disruptors or Just Different? - Stuart Barr (HighQ Solutions London)

* Government & Law: Knowledge Management Comparisons - Gail McGuckin Senior Global Practice Adviser (AUSTRADE)

* Can SharePoint be Knowledge Management's New Killer App - a panel session involving representatives from MacroView, Gilbert+Tobin, and Michael Sampson (Industry Analyst and Global SharePoint expert)

* The Practitioner's Perspective: David Kemp (Autonomy, Previous Legal & Compliance Manager at ABN AMRO/RBS)

* Developing a Knowledge Specific Technology Business Case: Dave Carson (Phoenix Business Solutions)

* In-House Knowledge Management Challenges - a panel session involving representatives from Westpac and ABN AMRO

* The Importance of Personal Communication, Assertiveness & Behaviour in Law - Peggy Forell (Advocality London)

The day's educational content will be followed by the opening of a unique vendor exhibit area where champagne will be served for the hour courtesy of FWBS. This will then be followed by a formal Cocktail Reception (Proudly Sponsored by Autonomy) and the presentation of the inaugural Janders Dean Australian Legal Knowledge Management Awards.

Agenda & Registration Released: 3rd Annual Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference 2010

We are pleased to announce that the agenda for the 3rd Annual Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference (12th August 2010, Sydney Australia) has now been released and includes presentations and panel discussions from a faculty which includes thought leaders representing leading firms and organisations such as:

• Mallesons Stephen Jaques
• Baker & McKenzie
• Gilbert+Tobin
• DLA Phillips Fox
• Australian Trade Commission
• Westpac
• Vodafone
• HighQ Solutions
• Autonomy
• Phoenix Business Solutions

Please note that delegate places are strictly limited to a capped number each year, and we expect the reach maximum capacity in the coming days. If you have any questions in relation to the event or would like full registration details, please feel free to contact Janders Dean at info@jandersdean.com.

Janders Dean Congratulates BAE Systems

Congratulations to Janders Dean client BAE Systems' global in-house legal team for being short-listed in tonight's award in London for In-House Commerce and Industry Team of the Year 2010 at The Lawyer Magazine's annual award event. You guys rock (and Sparkle)!

Big News From Autonomy

Chris Dale was first to draw our attention to this; however it now makes sense why we were missing a guest at our Royal Ascot event.

Autonomy have announced (via a short and almost coded press release on the London Stock Exchange site) that the company has received an order for its e-discovery and compliance solutions with an initial value of approximately $25 million over the next few years.

Rumour on Twitter has it that a very large petroleum company is behind the purchase.

Blow Your Vuvuzelas...Janders Dean Turns 75!

It is with great pleasure that we announce 2010 as the year Janders Dean turns 75!

Well, not really...that just happens to be the combined ages of Bevan and Justin this year as they both hit milestone birthdays; but it does makes for a good headline.

This year actually marks our third birthday here at Janders Dean, and we're still happy and healthy. With a growing list of clients in the APAC and UK regions, and a smattering of US firms joining the list this year, we are proud to continue our independence and thought leadership.

Our fabulous new clients this year have included Vodafone, Willmott Dixon and BAE Systems, while we've also continued to work with a number of our existing loyal customers including Freehills, Sparke Helmore, King and Wood, Hall & Wilcox, Barlow Lyde & Gilbert and many others (and more to come).

After a successful Law Firm Alternative Billing Breakfast Briefing at Becasse in Sydney last month, and a smashing first annual Janders Dean Royal Ascot Race Day in the UK last week, we'll be continuing the celebrations Sydney in August with a belated birthday bash for all our friends and family the week before our 3rd Annual Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference and Cocktail event.

We'll take this opportunity to thank all the groovy JD family members who make our lives a better place - Sparks, Bugs, the Sydney boys, the Brisbane girls, Tony & Bec, Nicole B, Gilly, Pedro C, and all our wonderful and loyal friends who are always patient, honest and supportive.

Here's to another 75 years!

HighQ Solutions Joins Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference (Sydney, 12th August 2010)

In line with Janders Dean's commitment to ensuring that our conference agenda includes globally recognised thought leaders, we are proud to announce that HighQ Solutions will be joining the faculty of the 3rd Annual Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference in Sydney (12th August 2010).

With a client list which includes all of the UK's Magic Circle firms, the team from HighQ Solutions are widely recognised as leaders in international law firm online innovation and knowledge platform development.

Director Stuart Barr will be travelling to Sydney from London to present and to provide delegates with an insight on global trends in knowledge management and related technology innovations.

As the team behind the award winning BLT Portal knowledge sharing and publication platform, HighQ Solutions are well positioned in this market, and we believe their presence will ensure that this year's event is the most informative and valuable knowledge sharing conference in the region.

Conference delegates will learn what law firms such as Allen & Overy, Linklaters, Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Simmons & Simmons, Herbert Smith and Norton Rose have been able to achieve in their online knowledge and collaboration strategies with the direct involvement from the HighQ Solution team.

The involvement of HighQ Solutions will also provide an insight into the various platforms that these firms (in addition to banks such as HSBC, Barclays, Credit Suisse, UBS, Deutsche Bank, and Citi) utilise for knowledge management, collaborative sharing, and content publishing purposes.

We welcome the inclusion of Stuart and the team from HighQ Solutions in the Janders Dean event, and we are excited by this latest edition to the conference faculty.

ILTA Joins Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference (Sydney, 12th August 2010)

We are pleased to announce that the third annual Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference (Sydney, 12th August 2010) will again be held in partnership with the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA).

This year's partnership marks three consecutive years of the relationship between ILTA and the Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management conference.

We are proud to continue this association with the global leaders in law firm and in-house legal peer-to-peer collaboration, and to have the ILTA management team in the United States again recognise the Janders Dean event as a valuable and innovative offering worthy of the ILTA community.

Full conference agenda details and registration information to follow in the coming days.

*** SAVE THE DATE *** 2010 Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference - Sydney 12th August 2010

We are pleased to confirm that the third annual Janders Dean Law Firm Knowledge Management Conference will be held at L’Aqua in Sydney on 12th August 2010. Please register your interest immediately to avoid missing out on this unique event.

After two highly successful years where national and international speakers and knowledge thought leaders openly shared case studies from firms such as Linklaters, Simmons & Simmons, Freehills, Blake Dawson, Gilbert+Tobin, Macquarie Bank, Telstra, Australian Taxation Office, Headshift, Autonomy and Recommind, this year’s conference promises to be the most innovative and unique yet.

The exciting 2010 event will again be aimed at law firm knowledge and information professionals, senior firm management personnel, in addition to private practice lawyers and in-house counsel representatives. The agenda will include coverage of traditional themes and emerging knowledge management trends inside law firms and corporate legal teams, while also introducing best practices and practical case studies from other across industries.

This is also an excellent opportunity to hear from leading and innovative supporting vendors in the knowledge and information technology management space, with topics and testimonials ranging across areas such as the growth in MS SharePoint utilisation, enterprise content management, social media, matter management, workflow automation, document management and conceptual search, outsourcing, and the evolution of the traditional knowledge subscription provider.

Registration and further details will follow in the coming days. We are pleased to confirm that the price of the conference will remain static at the 2008 and 2009 delegate rate of AUD$990 (inclusive of GST), with similar incentives again being offered to allow multiple attendees from the same firm to participate at a reduced rate.

PLEASE NOTE: As per previous years, places are strictly limited and will be capped. Delegate positions are allocated on a first come basis. We look forward to your participation in this exciting event, and to welcoming you to the only dedicated Law Firm Knowledge Management conference in the APAC region.

Please register your interest as soon as possible to avoid missing out on this exclusive event.

Alternative Billing Trends - Janders Dean & Phoenix Business Solutions Exclusive Event

"The best session I've ever been to on this topic. Well done to the team" (Chief Financial Officer, Top 10 Australian Law Firm)

We want to extend our sincere thanks to all who braved Tuesday’s rain in Sydney to attend our breakfast briefing on Alternative Billing Trends. We had a full house on the day, and the rain was soon forgotten as the excellent coffees and breakfast by Becasse started to warm the morning chill.

The event was a great success due to the combination of an excellent panel (Bill Leonida from Westpac, Tim Gole from Gilbert+Tobin and Telstra representatives), the open participation of all who attended, and the informal nature of the session which led to the valuable exchange of ideas and experiences on Alternative Billing in Australian law firms.

"Great event. We could have spent another hour covering this. This session was excellent which was to be expected." (Senior Operations Manager, Top 20 UK Law Firm)

Our attendees included partners, CFOs and CEOs from firms including Freehills, Blake Dawson, Minter Ellison, Clayton Utz, Corrs, DLA Phillips Fox, Sparke Helmore, Baker McKenzie, Allens Arthur Robinson, Gilbert+Tobin, Norton Rose, Allen & Overy, Hall & Wilcox, Maurice Blackburn, Moray Agnew, Maddocks and others. The feedback from attendees so far has been great, and we're glad that the session was so well received.

Thanks also to the Phoenix Business Solutions team for their involvement in the session and subsequent "off agenda" discussions that have followed in the past few days.

We will hopefully be sending a debrief note to the group covering off some of the topics and discussion points in the coming week or two to all attendees - the most common topic being "it is all about the relationship, with concerns over the six minute unit not actually necessarily being that high on our minds".

We will also let you know of any additional coverage from this event (keep your eyes on Lawyers Weekly and The Financial Review) or future events that are scheduled in Sydney if you would like to be involved in these.

Again, please accept our thanks for your participation and involvement. It was great to see so many old friends and to also meet some new ones. As always, please feel free to drop us a line if you have any questions or comments.

Legal Issues Around Twitter

Great thoughts and links from the gang at Recommind on the legal issues around Twitter.

Taken from their recent posting, "The Library of Congress recently announced they are archiving every single tweet ever posted on Twitter. Suddenly the post and comments we make have become set in stone, to be forever logged into the public record. It makes you wonder, if the information held in social networking sites is so important that it is being added into the history books of the United States, how long until it becomes important to the legal system? When does it become discoverable information in a case?"

As Neil says, "Companies are waking up to the reality of social media and the need to put a corporate policy in place."

For those who are interested in future thinking in this space, Denise Backhouse, Associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius and Craig Carpenter, General Counsel at Recommind will be presenting a webinar on this topic on Wednesday, May 5, 2010.

The webinar is titled “Tweet This: How Social Media Could Land Companies in Hot Water” and is being hosted by Inside Counsel Magazine. Full details on the session can be found here.

Big Firm - Big Announcement

Get ready for the wave of press and associated comments to come out relating to a major Australian firm signing up for a new Practice Management System. Great to see that the market is heating up again. No spoilers available, so you'll just have to wait until it is all official.

The Lawyer Awards - Shortlist Announced Today

The UK's Lawyer Magazine today announced the shortlisted firms and corporate in-house teams for the 2010 Lawyer Awards to be held on June 22nd 2010. The list can be found here. Congratulations to all those who have made the cut, including the team at BAE Systems. See you all in June dressed to the nines.

IntApp Snares Allen & Overy

Recent press release from IntApp which may interest some states today that "IntApp, Inc., the leading provider of risk management software for the legal industry, today announced that Allen & Overy, an international legal practice with approximately 2,700 lawyers and 5,000 total staff working in 34 major centres worldwide, has selected IntApp Wall Builder to enforce confidentiality policies and track compliance across the firm.

Wall Builder is a web-based confidentiality management application that enables organisations to centrally control, monitor and report on user access permissions across multiple applications including document management, accounting, portal, CRM, time entry and records management systems. It also automates notifications to individuals subject to specific policies and tracks acknowledgments for compliance purposes."

Full release here.

Legal IT Leaders Think Tank - London (18-19th May 2010)

The Legal IT Leaders Think-Tank is coming to London. This is an excellent opportunity for leading legal IT executives who share common goals to make a positive impact on their organisation through technology; to congregate in a congenial environment to learn, share and discuss current issues amongst peers.

The event will be an opportunity to hear from leading thinkers and innovators of technology and strategy who will discuss ways to manoeuvre beyond short–term tactical needs to long-term strategic goals. It will be a unique and rewarding way to learn valuable lessons, to share advice you can use, and foster peer relationships for the future.

Topics will include the following:

* Future Technologies And Future Risks Facing The Firm: What’s Over The Horizon?

* Electronic Discovery – Developments From The UK & USA

* CIO – Collaboration, Innovation, Opportunity- A Discussion

* 2010 And Beyond: Exploring Sharepoint 2010

* Why Law Firms Need An Information Systems Strategy

* Legal Technology & The New Normal

* Cloud Computing – What Does This Mean For Law Firms

* Legal Process Outsourcing –Models And Implications

* Knowledge Management In The 21st Century

* Mobile Computing –Security And Other Issues

* The Use Of Web 2.0 In Law Firms?

The full brochure for this event can be found here. LegalIT Professionals has five guest passes that you may wish to chase here. These guys know how to put a conference on, so we at Janders Dean strongly recommend getting along to this one if you can.

Gilbert+Tobin's Tracey Vitnell Wins 2010 Australian Law Librarian’s Association Scholarship

We extend our warmest congratulations to Tracey Vitnell from Gilbert+Tobin who has been awarded the 2010 Australian Law Librarian’s Association Scholarship.

The scholarship is awarded by the Association to a professional who has demonstrated a commitment to law librarianship. The scholarship entitles Tracey to attend the British and Irish Association of Law Librarian’s Conference to be held in Brighton in the UK in June 2010.

An amazing achievement and a truly deserving recipient. Congratulations to Tracey and the team at Gilbert+Tobin. Excellent news to start the weekend.

Janders Dean Royal Ascot Race Day - June 17th

We're pleased to be in the middle of the planning for Janders Dean's first (and hopefully annual) Race Day at Royal Ascot on June 17th. Stay tuned for more news and (if you're lucky) your exclusive invitation.

Phoenix & Janders Dean Breakfast Briefing - Sydney, Australia

There has been huge interest expressed in the Phoenix Business Solutions and Janders Dean International breakfast briefing around Alternative Billing to be held in Sydney at Becasse on May 18th since we sent the save the date notifications last week.

Representatives from in-house counsel at Telstra and Westpac will be joined by CFO and CEO level attendees from law firms including Blake Dawson, Clayton Utz, Freehills, Gilbert+Tobin, Minter Ellison, Sparke Helmore, Norton Rose, DLA Phillips Fox, Baker McKenzie and numerous others to discuss the trends and issues surrounding this area.

We're looking forward to seeing everyone back in Sydney in the coming weeks for this exclusive event.

ClearPeople's Microsoft SharePoint Event

Our friends at ClearPeople will be hosting an event at the Microsoft headquarters in London on 13th May 2010. Attendees can expect live demos, client speakers and real life scenarios of SharePoint 2010 in action.

The timing of this couldn't be better, as it directly follows the official launch of SharePoint 2010 by less than 24 hours! Spaces are limited and registration is accepted on a first come, first serve basis.

Full details (including registration) can be found here.

DataCert Launch Passport

One for the in-house legal teams and General Counsel to take note of. DataCert today announced the upcoming release of Passport, its new patent-pending platform for legal departments. Keep up to date and get a peek at the future on offer here.

Jim Tallman (president and chief executive officer of DataCert) says that "Passport is the culmination of more than 18 months of collaboration with our clients from both the corporate legal and law firm markets and they have been instrumental in providing development input, guidance, and testing of Passport throughout the process."

"The reaction has been incredible. Clients are telling us that Passport is truly game-changing in the way they will implement legal solutions and is entirely different from anything else in the market today. The possibilities it presents for them to consolidate, integrate, and evolve their portfolio of legal applications, without requiring the traditional programming and technical staff, change the way they will buy solutions. We already have legal software vendors re-building their applications on Passport because of the ability to plug and play within a large solution offering and the value proposition to our mutual clients."

Janders Dean had a secret taste of Passport in London recently, and we would agree that there is the potential there for this to be game changing.

Full details in the press release here.

ILTA Insight 2010 - London

Thanks to the ILTA team for hosting the annual Insight event in London yesterday. An impressive turn out of delegates, speakers and sponsors.

A lack of dedicated SharePoint related sessions and/or discussion from those firms who are currently looking into the capabilities of the product for future implementations - needs a stronger, more challenging and innovative agenda for next year to differentiate it from other years.

The eight sessions from the day are outlined below, with the keynote address being delivered by David Morley of Allen & Overy.

* The Evolution of Office
* Traversing the Generation Divide
* Business Processes (BPM, BPA and BI)
* The Future of the Traditional Desktop
* 21st Century Collaboration
* The Electronic Working in the RCJ
* Electronic Evidence – Preservation to Production
* Presentation by LITIG on their Review of Case and Matter Management Systems

As for speakers, our top marks went to Jason Haines (CIO of Allen & Overy), Paul Domnick (CIO of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer), and Eric Hunter (Director of Knowledge Management at US firm Bradford & Barthel) for content and honesty.

The brochure for yesterday's full event can be found here.

Janders Dean on Twitter

It had to happen...we've been pushed to twitter in the past week. For information on law firm management, technology and knowledge trends across the United Kingdom, Asia and the United States (in addition to our regular cocktail leadership rants and raves) feel free to follow us at #jandersdean.

While you're at it, check out the new twitter application for BlackBerry which is a very useful mechanism for consolidating information feeds.

We'll try to keep it real...

Exclusive Janders Dean Breakfast Briefing: Sydney 18th May 2010

Janders Dean is pleased to be facilitating an exclusive breakfast briefing on Alternative Billing Trends in Sydney, Australia on 18th May 2010 sponsored by the UK team at Phoenix Business Solutions.

The event (aimed solely at law firm Chief Financial Officers and Chief Operating Officers) is by invitation only and will feature an informal panel of experts representing Australia's leading law firms and corporate counsel.

For further information or to secure your place at this event, please email Justin North at Janders Dean on justin.north@jandersdean.com.

Litigation Management - Proactive Early Case Assessment

Two worthwhile (but frightening) articles outlining the power of proactive early case assessment when managing litigation and electronic information, the issues that can be faced when not done (or not done correctly), and the power of employing powerful search technologies during or before such litigation.

Timely use of the Toyota case study. Articles here and here.

In-House Knowledge Management

Nice summary article from LegalWeek UK out today mentioning our friends at BAE Systems plc and the strong internal emphasis placed on Knowledge Management within the in-house legal team, their achievements in transitioning the in-house function to be similar (from an expertise, knowledge, training and lawyer support provision/management perspective) to private practice firms - and the critical importance of the "value added services" expected from their external law firms.

Details here.

Gurteen Knowledge Cafe - London (Deloitte)

An excellent Gurteen Knowledge Cafe held at Deloitte's offices this week in London attracted close to 80 people (with places filling up in a single day).

The topic was around the history and future evolution of Communities of Practice, with the core cafe question being "How will the emergence of new social media, current organizational dynamics and social change shape the role and impact of communities over the next 10 years?"

The cafe kicked off with an excellent presentation by leading thinker and CoP expert Richard McDermott.

We particularly enjoyed Richard's discussion around the realisation that CoP's would thrive more when given formality, structure, leadership and goals and objectives - rather than the traditional view that informality allowed communities to thrive and be effective.

What was also exceptional, was the discussion around the fact that face-to-face allowed for greater success than "on-line", which was a nice introduction into the group discussion around the evolution of social media and the rise of the Google generation - will they (or the tools they use and the way they use them) change the face of communities of practice, and/or change the very nature of organisations in the future?

Richard's research also points to the fact that the less sophisticated the technology - the better the adoption and greater the chance of success - and that too few organisations put enough emphasis on the design of the 'social' side of the community, focusing rather on an over design of the technology to support and enable them.

There was some great discussion across the groups at the cafe, but what it didn't explore enough for us was the individual human motivations associated with community memberships - what are the reasons an individual seeks, joins, starts, participates or consumes from a community? Do these motivations change over time? Is there a link to our old pal Maslow? Do the motivations differ if the group is internal or external to the organisation? Do these motivations match other members or conflict with other members motivations - and does the conflict or co-operation of individual motivations contribute to the ultimate success of the group.

For those in the know, you'll understand the value of having Richard present. He is a founding thinkers on communities of practice, co-author of Cultivating Communities (Harvard University Press) and author of over 3 dozen articles on communities of practice, expertise development, and sharing good practice.

His articles have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, the California Management Review, the Journal of Knowledge Management, the Cutter IT Journal, The Knowledge Management Review and others.

If you've not yet been to a Gurteen Cafe, we would strongly suggest jumping in and getting involved, as it is an excellent way to hear cross industry experiences in the world of Knowledge Management. Well done Dave.

Lewis Silkin & Sword's MS SharePoint Demonstration

Many thanks to Jan and Carol for their time today in London demonstrating the MS SharePoint document management solution to be deployed at Lewis Silkin later this year. This will be an interesting piece to watch and also to reflect on in five years time from a trend perspective. For more details on this, see Charles's info here and further information from Sword here.

Phenomenal Law Firm Time Capture (Not Just Recording) Tool

Just came back from a private viewing of the latest version of the APS DTE time capture tools and BlackBerry integration via the team at Phoenix in London.

The new features coming out are mind blowing, and will be a must see for those who still rely on the standard out of the box time entry features of their current practice management systems (this release does so much more than even the newer ones such as 3E) or the legacy Carpe application. See here for the video.

We loved the fact that DTE InHand allows users to very intuitively bill calls telephone on the BlackBerry (as well as an option for billing email traffic), while also giving the lawyers a tool for generally updating their time recording history while out of the office (and not necessarily while in range of a signal).

Eversheds and LG are the latest firms to be running with this product, and we won't be surprised if more firms also go down this path (quite rapidly). Hats off to the APS and Phoenix teams for incorporating such a high level of user feedback into this new look, feel and functionality suite.

There is a public event for this being held for those in London on 11th March. See here for details.

Legal Leadership Forum - Sydney

Janders Dean will be speaking at the Alphawest Legal Leadership Forum in Sydney (9th April 2010) on the topic of "The Evolution of Search and Retrieval Technologies - Inside Law Firms and Across The Real World". Attend this timely forum to hear Justin North explain how search and research technology can help law firms improve client relationship management, productivity and most importantly your lawyers’ needs. Topics covered will include:

* How search and retrieval technologies have evolved within the global law firm environment

* How search engines will be able to connect lawyers to documents that are conceptually related

* How to incorporate informal information into your current knowledge management system to help improve your client relationships

* The current state of the Enterprise Search market across law firms in the US, UK and Australia.

* The newly emerging applications, technologies and presentation/flotation designs and functionality which we can expect to see adopted in law firm applications in the future.

We're looking forward to seeing old friends and new when we land back in Sydney this April to share our experiences after a cold winter in London. Touch base with the team from Alphawest if you need access to the event, or drop us an email at the usual address.

London SharePoint Event

Interesting and valuable event for those in London this week around MS SharePoint framework from the ClearPeople people. The event will be held on Thursday 11 February 2010 from 9.00am to 1.00pm at the central London Microsoft Offices (Cardinal Place, 100 Victoria Street, London SW1E 5JL).

See here for full details.

Allen & Overy - Welcome to Australia

London giant Allen & Overy is to open doors in Australia from 1 March 2010 with a practice consisting of 17 partners. The firm will target the country's lucrative mining market to begin with, with offices located in Sydney and Perth.

Full story here. Welcome to Oz!

Autonomy Sales & Profits Jump

Old pals Autonomy saw a 53% jump in fourth quarter sales, with gross operating margins recovering after the third quarter to 44%. Full year pre-tax profits were up 55% to USD$323m. Full year revenue rose 47% to USD$740m, with 16% of this being credited to 'organic growth' and the rest coming from the buy out of another old pal - Interwoven.

Alternative Billing Arrangements - To The Disruptors Go The Spoils

"Disruption is a positive force. It is the process by which an innovation transforms a market whose services or products are complicated and expensive into one where simplicity, convenience, accessibility, and affordability characterize the industry."

Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen (in the text "Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns" co-authored by Michael Horn and Curtis Johnson) stated the above without direct reference to the legal industry (it was the education system in the United States that was the focus of numerous references in his book), but how apt is the text when read over and over with your law firm management hat on.

A useful summary article from the ALB on the trend towards the desire by corporate counsel for more standardisation in alternative billing arrangements, with a case study of the innovation and leadership shown in this space by Gilbert+Tobin (specifically in relation to Telstra).

In the article, Gilbert+Tobin's Managing Partner Danny Gilbert sums up the win-win scenarios available through such innovation saying that "When you've got clients that just want to win all the time on pricing, it just won't work. Where you've got clients who just want to absorb your entire margin either through discounts or fixed-price arrangements then nobody wants to do their work - the relationship can't blossom in those circumstances".

In a sign that Gilbert+Tobin's innovation mojo is still in tack, Telstra General Counsel Will Irving nicely defines the G+T approach not only as innovative, but also makes suggestions towards the power of 'disruptors' in determining the future of the long term market.

"You bring a disruptive player into any market and you will change the economics for the whole lot, and you will give people the incentive to find better ways of doing things" Irving states in the article.

Irving and Gilbert stand validated as news comes in that the Department of Defence has called for similar styles of billing arrangements during its current panel review - stating that they are likely to be the first of many federal government agencies to go down this path.

The Harvard Business School has a nice piece on the power of disruption from 2007 entitled "Jumpstarting Innovation: Using Disruption to Your Advantage" here.

Full article from the ALB re Telstra and Gilbert+Tobnin here.

GoogleLaw

As we mentioned back in November 2009, Google is pouncing like a hungry tiger on all things law. The beta of GoogleScholar continues to be a massive hit around the globe, and LexisNexis and WestLaw are taking the threat seriously with the revamp of their products.

An interesting article from the Business Insider entitled "Welcome to the 21st Century - Lexis Realising Their Power Might Not Last Forever" also follows on from a recent New York Times article of a similar theme.

2010 is shaping up to be the start of something fun for those watching this space...

LegalTech New York - Awards

Although announced late last year (2009), the annual LegalTech awards were presented to the winners last night in New York, and there is some interesting observations.

As we mentioned in previous blogs from 2009, Tom Baldwin of ReedSmith has a win in two categories (Most Innovative use of Technology by a Law Firm and Champion of Technology). Autonomy has taken out the Gold award for Records Management, Recommind took out the Gold award for Knowledge (i.e. search), and Index Engines Unified Discovery Platform taking out New Product of the Year.

The vast number of litigation related awards and winners indicates an industry within and industry, with the traditional document management and practice management applications and vendors holding less of the marketing buzz/power from previous years.

The full list of winners is below:

Law Firm and Legal Department Awards winners:
IT Director of the Year
Steve Fletcher - Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein

Champion of Technology
Tom Baldwin - Reed Smith

Most Innovative use of Technology by a Law Firm
Tom Baldwin - Reed Smith

Most Innovative use of Technology by a Law Department
Chad Anson- Dell

Most Innovative use of Technology during a Trial
Khmer Rouge Trial Team - Cambodia Tribunal

Most Innovative use of Technology for a Pro Bono Project
Lynn Burns - Pro Bono Law Ontario

Consultant of the Year
Craig Ball

2009 LTN Lifetime Achievement Award
John Alber - Bryan Cave

Vendor Awards winners:

New Product of the Year
Gold - Index Engines Unified Discovery Platform - Index Engines
Silver - Tabs3 & PracticeMaster Version 15.2 - Software Technology, Inc.
Bronze - PC Postage Version 8.0 - Stamps.com

Case Management Software for Large Firms (100+)
Gold - CaseMap 8 - LexisNexis
Silver - Document Mapper for Ringtail Legal - FTI Technology

Case Management Software for Small & Mid-sized firms (up to 99 attorneys)
Gold - CaseMap 8 with DocPreviewer - LexisNexis
Silver - PracticeMaster Software - Software Technology, Inc.
Bronze - ProLaw Software - Elite, A Thomson Reuters business

CRM System
Gold - InterAction- LexisNexis

Collaboration Tools
Gold - Workshare Professional 5.2 SR2 - Workshare
Silver - Martindale-Hubbell Connected - LexisNexis
Bronze - Ontrack Shareview - Kroll Ontrack

Dictation Systems
Gold - BigHand for BlackBerry - BigHand Inc.
Silver - Winscribe Dictation - Winscribe
Bronze - Digta 420 with Easy Mode - GBS North American L.L.C.

Docketing & Calendar Application
Gold - ProLaw Software - Elite, A Thomson Reuters business
Silver - eDockets by American Legal Net - American Legal Net
Bronze - Time Matters - LexisNexis

Document Management System
Gold - Worldox-Worldox GX SRI - World Software Corporation
Silver - Fusion Genome - Exterro, Inc.
Bronze - iManage WorkSite - Autonomy

EDD Services Analysis
Gold - CT Summation Enterprise - CT Summation
Silver - Autonomy Investigator & Early Case Assessment - Autonomy
Bronze - Ontrack Advanceview - Kroll Ontrack

EDD Services Collection
Gold - LAW PreDiscovery 5.3 & 5.4 - LexisNexis
Silver - Kroll Ontrack Data Collection Services - Kroll Ontrack
Bronze - Trident De-Duplication - Wave Software, LLC

EDD Services Identification
Gold - Kroll Ontrack ESI Consulting Group - Kroll Ontrack
Silver - Autonomy Investigator & Early Case Assessment - Autonomy
Bronze - Trident Near Duplicate Detection - Wave Software, LLC

EDD Services Preservation
Gold - Simpana 8 software - CommVault
Silver - Kroll Ontrack Data Collection Services - Kroll Ontrack
Bronze - Autonomy Legal Hold - Autonomy

EDD Services Processing
Gold - CT Summation Discovery Cracker - CT Summation
Silver - EDD & Consulting service - Altep
Bronze - LAW PreDiscovery 5.3 & 5.4 - LexisNexis

EDD Services Production
Gold - CT Summation CaseVault Services - CT Summation
Silver - Kroll Ontrack Discovery Services - Kroll Ontrack
Bronze - The Cerulean Engine - Planet Data

EDD Services Review
Gold - CT Summation CaseVault Services - CT Summation
Silver - Concordance 10 - LexisNexis
Bronze - Kroll Ontrack Document Review Services - Kroll Ontrack

Knowledge Management System
Gold - MindServer Search - Recommind, Inc.
Silver - iManage Universal Search - Autonomy

Mobile Tool/Device/Service
Gold - CT Summation WebBlaze - CT Summation
Silver - BigHand for BlackBerry - BigHand Inc.
Bronze - Worldox/Web Mobile - World Software Corporation

Litigation Support Consultant
Gold - EDD & Consulting service - Altep
Silver - Litigation Solutions Jumpstart Consulting - LexisNexis
Bronze - Kroll Ontrack ESI Consulting Group - Kroll Ontrack

Litigation Support Software
Gold - CT Summation iBlaze - CT Summation
Silver - Index Engines Unified Discovery Platform - Index Engines
Bronze - Concordance 10 - LexisNexis

Practice Management System
Gold - Tabs3 & PracticeMaster Software - Software Technology, Inc.
Silver - LexisNexisTotal Practice Advantage - LexisNexis
Bronze - Clio - Themis Solutions

Records Management Software
Gold - iManage RecordsManager - Autonomy
Silver - Index Engines Unified Discovery Platform - Index Engines
Bronze - Unified Archive - ZL Technologies, Inc.

Risk Management Service/Consultant
Gold - Kroll Ontrack Secure Information Services-Kroll Ontrack

Time and Billing for Large Firms (100+ attorneys)
Gold - Elite Billing Manager-Elite, a Thomson Reuters Business
Silver - RainMaker Platinum- RainMaker Software, Inc.
Bronze - DTE Axiom- Advanced Productivity Software

Time and Billing for Small and Mid-sized firms (Up to 99 attorneys)
Gold - Tabs3 Billing Software - Software Technology, Inc.
Silver - Rocket Matter - Rocket Matter
Bronze - PCLaw - LexisNexis

Trial Presentation Software
Gold - TrialDirector v5.2 - inData
Silver - Sanction 2.9 - Sanction Solutions

LexisNexis & WestLaw Revamps - More Information

Law.com technology editor Sean Doherty has the latest (and most comprehensive to date) write up of the new changes to the LexisNexis and WestLaw interfaces. His article (found here) includes good screen shots of both, and an excellent write up.

We strongly recommend a read of this, and that you get your head space fixed on these so that you can place the enhancements on your roadmaps - these are changes that will positively impact the user community, and we encourage you to clearly understand them as soon as possible.

These new releases are causing the most buzz at LegalTech New York this week, and it is great to see these two organisations trying to evolve their offering further to really address and recognise the way in which lawyers actually work.

Something Useful From LexisNexis

At LegalTech in New York today, the world was introduced to LexisNexis for Microsoft Office. In an attempt to jump in on the "single search box" inside Microsoft Office applications, and the enterprise search wagon, LexisNexis may have just stumbled on something that will keep it in the game a little longer. The following is taken directly from their material:

How it Works

While reviewing a Word document or an Outlook e-mail message, Lexis for Microsoft Office users can seamlessly access content and resources from LexisNexis, the open Web, or their law firm or corporate files. Key features include:

"Search" - A single search box that delivers one-click access to the vast collection of legal content from LexisNexis, the open Web and the user's internal company information database. Results from all sources are displayed in a window next to the active document.

"Background" - This function provides background information on "entities" such as people, companies, organizations and cases mentioned in the text of a Word document or Outlook message. It automatically indexes the working document with hyperlinks to relevant information from internal, LexisNexis and Web resources. Upon clicking the hyperlink, the information is displayed in a side pane within the Microsoft Office applications. The Background feature will also display full Shepard's® reports and apply Shepard's® SignalTM indicators directly to the cases cited within the text of the document. Full text versions of case law, news and information cited within an e-mail message or Word document can also be accessed through the lexis.com® resources directly within the Microsoft software application.

"Suggest" - Similar to the Background function, this functionality interacts with any text in a Word document or Outlook message. By manually highlighting text, the user can prompt a search that will pull up relevant information from internal, LexisNexis and Web resources. The content is displayed in a side pane within the application.

The critical factor in all of this of course (and where LexisNexis typically stumbles) is....cost and pricing models. We'll wait to see what the strategy is across the globe with this, while also being interested to see what actual search technology is behind the scenes.

This will either be seen as a useful addition, or yet another search tool fighting for the attention of the firm's wallets. The product ships for Microsoft 2007 later in the year and is only available to those with LexisNexis subscriptions.

What it isn't though is innovative - remembering that other search engines who focused on the lawyer experience and knowledge related working practices within law firms (such as Recommind and Autonomy) have embedded single search boxes with Microsoft Word for a number of years. The difference is that subscription services historically made it difficult for firms and vendors to access their content.

Looks good - and can

Phoenix Arrive in Australia

We welcome the boys from Phoenix Business Solutions to the sunny shores of Australia. For those in the law firm IT and KM space who are in Oz and have not yet had a chance to become familiar with the UK headquartered company, we suggest taking a look at their solution offering.

In a similar approach to our old favourites Baker Robbins, the team from Phoenix have developed a series of add-on tools around the Autonomy Interwoven platform, while also having (in the UK at least) the relationship with our London friends at HighQ.

Interesting times ahead for all no doubt.

Yet Another Attempt...UK Legal Technology Awards

Nothing really new or exciting in the list of winners (or indeed the short list or the categories themselves) from the latest attempt at a UK "gala" legal technology awards event which was held in London tonight.

This is the third or fourth attempt at being able to sustain such an event, with a number of organiser holding onto it for two to three years over the past decade before the realisation of a profit/demand/relevance issue.

The list of "winners" follows:

Best Green Initiative: Lawrence Graham LLP
Best New Product: Vuture Group – Vuture Vx
Best Value for Return on Investment: Mimecast
Best CRM Solution of the Year: LexisNexis – InterAction
Best Legal Technology Event of the Year: International Legal Technology Association
Best IT Strategist of the Year: Abby Ewen, Simmons & Simmons
Best IT Team of the Year: Halliwells
Best Person of the Year: Peter Owen (Lights-On)
Best for Service Excellence: Mimecast
Best Project of the Year: Irwin Mitchell – LexisNexis

Good luck to Dan Brown and the team for their second year in 2011, and hats off for pulling at least something together.

SAP Trumps Elite 3E at Baker McKenzie

The worst kept secret in the history of law firm practice management/time and billing software replacements is about to be confirmed. A number of sources (including today's US edition of the Insider) have stated that Baker McKenzie has finally signed their contract to kick Elite Enterprise out the door and replace it with SAP (system of choice at Linklaters for some ten years now).

Although not unexpected, and a deal which has been a long time in the making, this will still be a crushing blow for our friends at Elite as they suffer the loss of not only a long standing and innovative Enterprise client (the biggest client in their stable), but also the loss of their biggest potential 3E client (not to mention the loss of 30 attendees at the annual conference).

Now that the news is out, it is a matter of sitting back and observing the project - one that will have numerous time and cost pressures no doubt in addition to significant feature and functionality challenges. We wish all the international teams at BM all the best over the next few years. Nil Sine Labore.

Anyone looking to jump in feet first as one of the project managers of this giant undertaking should check out the latest job specification here.

Knowledge Management & Succession Planning

A gin and tonic with Tony at our old plush curtained balcony bar in Sydney last week saw a conversation around succession planning and the impact of retirements, defections and/or the organic loss of staff on a firm's knowledge programme. Yep...exciting drinking conversation I know. No wonder we're both such a great catch...you should have seen the line of international super models lining up to hang off our every word.

Anyway, the topic of our conversation is obviously not a new problem, and indeed there are not that many new strategies or innovative approaches to tackle the issue. The very least one can do is to be aware, educate management on the risks, know when your partners are due to play golf and spend time with their grand kids, and also check each knowledge and training initiative to ensure that thought and consideration is given to the 'what-if' scenario.

A nice little paper from the antipodeans Janelle Pritchard and Karen Becker at Queensland University of Technology in Australia on Succession Management as a Knowledge Management Strategy. This paper is not necessarily focused on legal, but certainly worth thinking about as the gap between young and old members of the firm widens (if indeed it is at your firm).

Another older case study which is still worth reading explains how Boeing faced their demons in this area (first posted in InsideKnowledge in 2007 and highlighted on the knowledge thoughts blog started by Matthew Parsons). Article here kids.

2010 Litigation Support And eDiscovery Trends

While we're still in January (even though we did see an Easter egg at the store this morning), it is still the time of the year when we look into the trends for the upcoming year.

There is an excellent article by our old (yep...we're talking about his age) pal Bob Tennant who outlines the 2010 litigation support technology trends and emerging technologies.

Full article here.

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

For Friday cocktails this week we recommend a thick slice of blood orange in your gin and tonic....a nice change from the norm.

As usual - if you're looking at this post for intelligent conversation about law firm leadership, knowledge management, etc, then please look away now. This is for everyone who has worked hard all week and wants fifteen minutes of nothingness. For example - did you know that the oldest piece of chewing gum ever found is over 9000 years old. It was discovered near Ellos in southern Sweden in 1993. Amazing....we know!

Speaking of gum (and with our constant attention to all things environmental) we love the new concepts from Pepper Smith. Go here to see what they are doing with chewing gum wrappers.

Sorry...we're babbling already. Anyway, welcome to Friday. Welcome to 2010. Welcome to the five extra kilograms that seem to have been added to our scales without explanation (although I think I know who is responsible....I know the answer to the "who is James Boag?" question).

It has been a busy start to the year for your old pals at Janders Dean after a relaxing and rewarding December spent up and down the east coast of Australia.

Hang on. Before we go any further, let's talk about this 'Australia' thing. We've not been gone for long, but we've noticed a few things on our return that we need to bring to your attention. A Big Issue should not cost $5!

And when did it become the norm for people to own two pairs of 'thongs' (flip flops for all you non-antipodeans) - one pair for everyday use, and a 'good' pair?!

Actually....thinking about it....when did it become acceptable to wear thongs at all (again - we're talking flip flops). We've seen them pretty much everywhere, including in offices, and we are not happy about it. Not one little bit. Jimmy always has a sale on at this time of year, so go and buy yourself something better for goodness sake!

And another thing - drinking pre mixed spirits from a can is not cool. Never has been. Never will be.

Thankfully we've survived the trip so far but we did have to use this very valuable resource for translation. Now enough of that.

A great big hello to the Snow Princess who has left on a jet plane.

A wonderful thank you to Victoria, Louise, Justin and the Becasse team for the past few weeks. Hello to Tony and congrats on the new role. Another congratulations to Gilchrist for his 2009 awards. Thanks to Oz for pointing us to Google Goggles.

The Dolittle in us also says hello to the penguins on Phillip Island, "Colours" the noisy parrot from Neutral Bay, and our six new stuffed friends.

Credit to Bevan for finding the BBQ on eBay which is listed as "Real Man's BBQ - Not For Metrosexuals or Latte Drinkers".

No credit to Tetsuya's for serving us half a peach as one of their degustation dishes. Tutt tutt....very disappointed Mr Wakuda. Bravo to New Yorkers.

Hello to the team at Liberated Small Mountains, and thanks for the new engagement. Hello to Pedro at Sparke Less Heaven and thanks for brekkie, and finally hello to this little kid and his ukulele.

That's it for now. We're off to Melbourne for the weekend, back to Sydney next week, and then finally back to London at the end of January...enjoy your weekends, stop pretending to work, throw the flip flops away, and shout yourself some Jimmys and some Boags (rather than a UDL).

BANG! You need to pay attention to Legal Hold & Corporate Records Management

Craig Ball is...well...on the ball.

In what promises to get the global eDiscovery and Records Management tech vendors and their marketing teams all worked up and excited, news has surfaced today that US Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin (famous for the Zubulake decisions) has again pounced on corporate records management, discovery and legal hold practices.

As Craig says in his post (and as we should all be saying to our General Counsel first and RM/LH teams second) "while Judge Scheindlin isn't the first to state that the failure to issue a written legal hold notice is "gross negligence," she seems to afford no quarter to effectuating a defensible hold any other way. It appears a face-to-face meeting, phone call, voice mail or course of dealing won't suffice to deflect a determination of gross negligence. Too, that written hold notice had better be a strong, unambiguous directive to find, preserve and collect, coupled with close supervision of the effort."

The full 87 page opinion and order from Judge Scheindlin can be found here.

Read it and weep...

For those not fully aware of the original Zubulake decisions and Judge Scheindlin's five historical and ground breaking opinion, the team at Kroll have a summary here. Farella Braun + Martel LLP also have a useful and simple summary here.