The Orange Rag

New research suggests law firms pay too much for ICT

New research conducted by Mercato ITelligence on the purchase price of standard ICT products has revealed that law firms are paying margins of anywhere up to 145% when buying from suppliers. The average margin paid was 23% – considerably higher than the industry best practice rate of 3% recommended by SOCITM. With Gartner predicting £493 billion will be spent on ICT in Western Europe this year, it is clear many millions are being wasted by purchasing products at excessive prices.

The one consolation law firms can take is that there are other sectors where even higher margins are being paid. Here is the Top Ten (and apologies for formatting)…

Sector                                    Average Margin            Highest Margin
Housing Associations            36%                                           731%
Retail                                         35%                                           225%
NHS                                           28%                                           231%
Pharmaceutical                       28%                                           60%
University                                27%                                            557%
Legal                                      23%                                        145%
Insurance                                 22%                                           368%
Telecoms/Media                     19%                                           506%
Banks                                        19%                                            82%
Utility                                        17%                                            393%

Mercato research shows that 81% of organisations do not secure best value when they make investments in ICT.  Volatility in the market makes it difficult for buyers to gather data and find the optimum price. Mercato ITelligence has been proven to save organisations up to 24% on their IT spend. It is the only benchmarking tool approved for the government G-Cloud and is used by 30% of UK Police Forces, a number of Local Government organisations and an extensive amount of private sector businesses. www.mercatoITelligence.co.uk

Stobart Group drives into legal services market

The UK logistics business, the Stobart Group (yes, the Eddie Stobart trucking group) has launched a new service that will link members of the public and businesses direct to a barrister without needing to employ a solicitor.

Stobart Barristers, which offers access to a UK-wide network of specialist barristers for any area of law, uses a pricing model under which its clients agree and pay a fixed-fee through a ‘pay-as-you-go’ model during the litigation process. The new division, headed up by the Group’s legal director Trevor Howarth, has been formed following Stobart’s decision to employ its own barristers without a solicitor in 2008, a move which has created significant savings on the company’s annual legal fees. (Members of the public, or businesses, have been able to engage direct with barristers since the introduction of Direct Public Access (DPA) legislation in 2004.) Stobart Barristers says its fixed fee model will help it unlock a latent demand for barristers’ services.

Once its clients have received a barrister’s opinion, which the service would typically look to deliver in under seven days, its sister company Stobart Barrister Support Services can provide the necessary paralegal support to help a barrister prepare their case instead of a solicitor.Overall, Stobart says that its fixed fee model of delivering barrister’s services will be up to 50% cheaper than if provided via a solicitor. Stobart Barristers also provides one of the few ways for members of the public to pay for a barrister’s service as despite the introduction of DPA legislation barristers are still not allowed to accept fees direct from members of the public.

Trevor Howarth, Stobart Barrister’s managing director, said: “This is a new market for the Group and one where we see significant potential to grow by offering the public the chance to benefit from a model we have successfully honed for our own business over the past few years. The legal services industry continues to undergo significant changes that are allowing new entrants to the market with innovative business models to provide faster and less expensive services than those offered under traditional models.

“DPA has been around for around eight years now but it hasn’t been widely adopted because consumers and businesses don’t know where to look or which barrister to pick, leaving many to still having to rely on the advice of their solicitor. But in doing so they are forced to pay significant fees. Our model cuts out waste and opens up access to a national panel of barristers that are selected for their ability to meet our clients’ needs.

“People want assurances over what financial liabilities they may have if they were to pursue a litigation process but typically face an open ended process where costs remain unknown. Through providing a fixed-fee service we can help give people greater clarity over what level of exposure they face.”

The service will operate a confidential call line seven days a week from 8am to 10pm.

Consumers can call the helpline direct on 0845 287 4735 or visit www.stobartbarristers.co.uk

SNR Denton launches privacy and data security blog

In order to provide a continually updated source for high quality analysis and commentary on the subject, SNR Denton has launched the Privacy and Data Security Blog. The blog will be written by SNR Denton’s global team of top privacy lawyers led by SNR Denton Washington, DC-based partner Todd Daubert, head of the firm’s Communications and Technology practice, and Nick Graham, SNR Denton London-based Privacy partner.

Leveraging Daubert’s unique educational background and strong understanding of both the business and engineering aspects of the communications industry, and Graham’s insider view from his positions on the UK/EU Panel of Experts for Data Guidance and on the editorial board for the journal Privacy and Data Protection, SNR Denton’s Privacy and Data Security Blog will also tap the firm’s global resources with contributions by lawyers from and covering regional issues spanning Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East.

The blog address is: www.privacydatasecurityblog.com

Recent news topics that the blog will be analyzing include:

• Latest news on the new EU Regulation and on US developments
• Commentary on new data privacy guidance as it happens
• Data breach and cybercrime
• Information Governance strategies
• International data transfers
• Use of customer data
• Data audits
• Online/Internet concerns, including collecting, transmitting and storing user-generated content, and implementing and complying with data-centric laws.
• Outsourcing

“Privacy and Data Security are ‘top table’ issues. Every single day, a major corporation is in the news to report a data breach or website attack. For businesses, these data breach or privacy issue failures can have a direct, and at times catastrophic, impact on share price and reputational risk,” said Daubert. “Companies need to know how to best protect their ‘information assets’ and ensure databases and products are privacy compliant. We intended to use the blog to look at these issues in depth.”

“Global data privacy laws are constantly being ratcheted up. The new EU Regulation proposes a 24 hour data breach notification rule and fines of up to 2 percent of worldwide turnover, which is a significant change for how companies operate. Businesses need to know how to navigate these laws and need to be aware of their impact before they are adopted. Our blog will cover these issues and help make sense of the global complexities of privacy and data security,” said Graham

Ten Top Tips for a Successful Document Review Team

Guest article by Saida Joseph – International Director, Document Review Services, Epiq Systems

Meeting tight deadlines and disclosure orders can depend on putting together the right team. In addition to selecting the right technology, project manager, vendor, and platform – selecting the right document review team can make the difference between going before the judge with the proper arguments or barely making a regulatory production deadline – with potentially privileged documents intact.

The team of people that you put together may comprise the largest single expense in any litigation or regulatory inquiry. The legal review team accounts for 80 percent of the cost of any e-disclosure exercise1 and e-disclosure takes up close to one-third of total litigation costs.2 In addition, litigation takes up 50 percent of a corporation’s legal budget.3 In sum, you do not want to stake 12 percent of a corporation’s annual legal spend on an ill conceived or prepared document review team.

1. Interview each reviewer personally

The initial interview is the best place to set expectations and goals for the project. In terms of successful project management, it is the first opportunity, not only to understand and vet the team members, but to instill in them the objectives and expectations for the successful completion of the matter.

2. Include team members with substantive industry knowledge and experience

Every industry has its own special language, jargon, acronym soup and peculiarities. By hiring lawyers with experience in that industry, you are hiring people who can cut through the slang and educate their fellow reviewers about the nuances of that business sector or industry. Again, too many lawyers with this type of experience, and you may get a team that cannot see the wood for the trees — it is all about the proper balance.

3. Don’t be afraid to move people around the review room

Sitting the Chatty Kathie next to another Chatty Kathie is a recipe for disaster. While you want the review team to discuss the merits of the case and what interesting evidence they are finding, you do not want two reviewers regaling each other with what they ate for lunch. Not only are they not working, but they are distracting the stoic sitting opposite them.

4. Provide ergonomic seating, dual monitors, natural lighting

Packing a review team into a windowless basement, sweltering attic or warehouse accommodation is the quickest way to advertise to the review team that you don’t value the work they are doing. A case can be won or lost on a single email – you want the review team to care as much about the outcome of this matter as the senior partner.

5. Insist everyone wear business attire at least once, and then business casual as appropriate

Now is not the time for sweatpants or ripped jeans. If you want people to take this job seriously and provide a quality work product, remind them that they are lawyers – and that what they think counts.

6. Allow a substantial amount of time for training, Q&A, and feedback

There is always going to be the matter where a two-page memo will suffice for training, but don’t be afraid to give the review team the entire picture. Have them read the briefs and court filings, the arguments and defences, and the background history. The more information they have, the better armed they are to make the correct analytical decision.

7. Allow time for ‘dummy’ coding

Everyone has a different learning style. Some people learn by reading and some learn better in a lecture-style environment. But most people learn best by actually doing. Ask your e-disclosure vendor to create a small set of dummy batches and have the review team work through them as a whole. Allow time for another question and answer period while the review team is actually in a dummy batch. Then have the vendor wipe the dummy sets and begin the review in earnest. The accuracy and learning curve will be that much better from the outset.

 8. Engage reviewers in the process – be transparent

Set deadlines and reasonable work schedules. Professional document review lawyers know when they need to power through a matter to hit a disclosure deadline – furthermore, let them know if there is a hold up with the data and they will have an afternoon off. An open dialogue goes a long way to building a long-serving team.

9. Measure, measure, measure

The review process is just that, a process. It should be measurable, quantifiable, and repeatable. Set reasonable goals and expectations about how many documents can be reviewed per hour, per day, per reviewer and then look at the outliers for quality assurance purposes.

10. Refer to the Data as Evidence

Even though the data is just a collection of ones and zeros, it is still evidence in someone’s incredibly important matter. Don’t forget to refer to it as such – it helps crystalise the review team’s mind around the facts and issues and away from the dehumanising gigs and bytes.

LexisNexis sets date for IT systems conference

This year’s LexisNexis Enterprise Solutions User Conference – Vision 2012 – will be held on the 7th & 8th November and take place at Whittlebury Hall in Northamptonshire. Further details to follow but in the meantime contact Heidi Cranfield on +44 118 960 2627 or Heidi.Cranfield@lexisnexis.co.uk

Stephenson Harwood go with Recommind for search

Recommind today announced that international law firm Stephenson Harwood LLP,  has chosen Recommind’s Decisiv Search as its unified search solution to access documents, matters, expertise across the firm and other media. Based on Recommind’s CORE (Context Optimized Relevancy Engine) platform, the new solution will become the central focus of Stephenson Harwood’s legal know-how environment.

Recommind’s Decisiv Search will provide access to the firm’s distributed information through a single enterprise search platform that is based on powerful and unique concept-based search technology. Stephenson Harwood will also use Recommind’s Matters & Expertise module of Decisiv Search, allowing all partners and staff worldwide to not only quickly and seamlessly search for content, but also to locate colleagues with relevant experience and knowledge of particular subjects within the firm.

“We chose Recommind after a thorough review of the market. Decisiv Search is intuitive and easy to use, and we particularly liked the document preview functionality. We are also   impressed with the Recommind team, and the fact that they will be giving us ongoing support gives us confidence about its success. Decisiv Search will help us tie together all these various information sources and provide a more aggregated and efficient work environment that will enable us all to quickly find exactly what we are looking for from one, simple search interface” comments Myra Raggett, Director of Legal Information Services at Stephenson Harwood.

IRIS Legal says it is bucking the trend

IRIS Legal says it is bucking the trend of the current economic downturn by growing its customer base and investing in new people, products and infrastructure. Over the past twelve months IRIS Legal has increased its customer base with more than 150 new contract wins, with 37 of these for IRIS Law Business, the company’s next generation practice management solution.

Notable new wins include Atteys Solicitors and Bonnar & Co. This is in addition to existing customers who have enhanced their systems and extended their contracts with IRIS Legal for many years to come. As a result,  its customer retention rate soared month-on-month to 95.5%, a figure it says is world class and supports the underlying confidence amongst IRIS Legal customers in both its products and its plans for the future.

This growth and success is in part attributable to an extensive recruitment programme which has seen the company attract high quality talent from some of its closest competitors. The sales team has been boosted by arrivals from Pilgrim, Eclipse and Lexis Nexis/Axxia, whilst the repatriation of the development team has resulted in over 20 new hires across its centres of excellence in Cheshire, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.  The marketing and product management teams have also grown and further hiring continues to support the success.

IRIS Legal is also pledging to invest £5m per year in product development over the next 5 years, to continue to enhance its flagship products like IRIS Law Business and Meridian Law Connected (the next generation barristers chambers management solution) and keep it ahead of the competition and deliver  ‘Best In Class’ solutions across the legal marketplace.

Jitendra Valera (JV), Chief Marketing Officer at IRIS Legal, said: “Most of the products for the legal market have been around for many years and are based on older technology. Our products have been built from the ground up with the latest Microsoft technologies. This, together with our move to ‘value driven development’ using agile processes in which we involve customers directly, will not only help us continue to build products that are relevant and deliver them faster, but will also provide existing and prospective customers with confidence that they can rely on IRIS Legal to support their growth and secure their investment for the future.

The company has also invested significantly in new facilities; offices, a state of the art telephony system, and a company-wide CRM system that will help improve efficiency and customer service.

Doug Hargrove, Managing Director of IRIS Legal, said: “Our decision to develop everything in the UK taken back in 2011 is really paying dividends. Investment in good people is important to our future growth strategy and we believe the best developers are right here in the UK. We’ve attracted people in all areas of our business from rivals in our sector because they share our vision. We’ve worked hard on developing our strategy and mission internally and we’re pleased it is getting out into the marketplace.

“The recruitment drive we undertook in 2011 continues apace and we’re looking for more staff in marketing, sales and development across our three centres of excellence. It signals our intent to strengthen our customer base and continue to build close relationships with all our existing customers. Our customers trust our products and this is evidenced by our world class retention rate. However, we’re not resting on our laurels and recognise that the market is a competitive one and we have to help our clients remain future-proofed and support them through the huge changes in the legal sector affecting solicitors and barristers.

“The backing we have from our owners, HgCapital, is extremely important to our success. They can see we’re geared up for growth and we’re shaping up well to protect their investment. We’re implementing a specific growth plan which includes bringing new products to market through partnering, building and acquiring. We’re currently preparing our end of year figures and we’re confident we’ll be able to share more good news very soon.”

Jitendra Valera, Chief Marketing Officer of IRIS Legal, added: “We’re proud to be at the forefront of the sector in terms of market share and developing innovative products. Great things are happening at IRIS Legal and the past twelve months is just the start of what looks like a continuing success story for us and those customers who have invested in us. ”

Confused by the Cloud – you are in good company

Confused by cloud computing? Here’s some new research statistics plus assistance from the Cloud Industry Forum…

VMware conducted research across seven EMEA countries including the UK. The survey found that:

·       31 per cent of IT budgets are allocated to cloud computing
·       84 per cent of enterprises across EMEA consider cloud computing a priority
·       56 per cent consider cloud a critical or high priority over the next 18 months.

Andy Burton, chair of the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), comments: “This research further validates the strength of the cloud proposition and its ability to provide greater flexibility, scalability and cost effectiveness to enterprise grade organisations. However, it’s important that, as firms take the plunge into cloud computing, that their migration or adoption of new services is well considered and appropriately managed and that the cloud industry assists this through a commitment to best practice and transparency.

“Organisations face a number of different options when migrating to the cloud and it can often prove difficult to know which service and/or deployment model will best suit the needs of the business. We also recognise  that the cloud won’t be appropriate for 100 per cent of applications, so end-users will need to be clear of their needs and requirements and then ascertain the vendors that best meet those needs.”

To this end, CIF has launched a series of white papers including guides to cloud computing and cloud procurement, which details some of the key factors that organisations must consider before using cloud services. CIF operates the only certified Code of Practice, based upon best practice for Cloud Service Providers with the aim of bringing transparency, regulation, and standards to the sector and to assist end users in determining the core information necessary to enable them to adopt cloud services.

For further information on the CIF Code of Practice or to download the CIF white papers, people can go to the www.cloudindustryforum.org website

Something for the (Devon Riviera) Weekend

The sun is shining – the temperature is rising – it has stopped raining – and Insider editor Charles Christian is at Foot Anstey’s marina-side offices in Plymouth talking to the Southwest Legal IT Forum and asking How difficult can running a law firm be ? In fact he’ll probably be on the slow train back to Norfolk by the time you read this post. However there are two serious points to be made here…

The first is that locations like this do highlight the choice commercial lawyers (and senior law firm management) now face: they can earn shedloads of money in a 24/7 environment in the City of London where the cost of living is sky-high and they have little time to enjoy life Or, they can earn less money but have a far higher quality of life. There’s even one lawyer down here who commutes by boat on a morning!

The second point is we really do like the Forum’s corporate logo – can anyone beat this?

Thomas Eggar partner with Kineo to deploy Totara learning management system

Thomas Eggar LLP has partnered with Kineo to deploy Totara Learning Management System (LMS), an open source LMS developed by Kineo with its partners Catalyst and Flexible Learning. Thomas Eggar  joins a community of corporate customers, including Vodafone, Sony and Tesco, who have recognised the benefits of using a commercial product based on open source technology.  The firm’s LMS called the TE Academy Online offers staff a fully functioning system, managing all their e-Learning and face-to-face training at a fraction of the price of some systems.  Kineo worked closely with the TE team to develop single sign on, a fully functioning CPD module, a budgeting module to track spend and modifications to allow us to filter our users by role, office, department and many other criteria.

Ann Hemming, Consultant and Head of L&D and Knowledge Management at Thomas Eggar said on the LMS system: “The Academy Online allows TE staff to be creative by producing quizzes and automate feedback processes, as well as group training together into meaningful programs.  This is really effective for rolling out risk and compliance programs and our nationally recognised, unique academy approach to training has really inspired our staff.  Totara also has all the social forums, RSS and discussions we need to allow for informal learning – and we have integrated it with Yammer”.

Thomas Eggar has six offices, which means that development of online communications is essential in maintaining excellent communications and opportunities for learning. The Totara system helps TE by integrating all webinar content; the Lync communications suite and online meetings to provide a self-service system that can support a geographically dispersed workforce. The next phase of the roll out will include development of the competency frameworks and individualised learning plans for staff . The LMS is hosted externally which means TE can offer their  staff,  trainers, alumni and new joiners access to the portal 24/7.

From a Knowledge Management (KM) perspective, the LMS is an essential part of the KM strategy as it allows the grouping together of know how and learning, giving the firm a full picture of the developing expertise of their staff. Ann Hemming, continues, “I have worked with a number of LMS providers over the years and always had concerns that the systems weren’t flexible enough to cope with the specific needs of law firms. Totara offers us all the benefits of joining a global user community who support the core open source technology, along with the advantages of having a responsive Kineo team who can tailor the latest developments to our specific needs. The LMS is integrated with our HR, DMS and other core systems and has been very well received within the firm – raising the profile and awareness of all our training initiatives.”