ISSUE No.118 - 30.10.2002 - Peapod survives near death experience - Brief Place aims to overcome crush at the Bar - Context & GammaSite in taxonomy deal - New online news filter - Nabarro Nathanson rolls out DDS - News in brief - What's hot in legal IT recruitment - Web site of the month

PEAPOD SURVIVES NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE
Peapod Solutions, best known in the UK legal market for its solicitors accounts and PrintaFORM electronic forms software (although it is also starting to make moves into the digital dictation systems arena with DigiScribe) has survived a corporate near death experience after it was reported that its parent company, the E-Initiative Group, was going into administration on 16 October.

In fact Peapod's management successfully negotiated a buyout from E-Initiative a fortnight earlier (on 4 October) when they acquired the name, business, goodwill, assets, contracts and liabilities of the old Peapod company. Other than a change of address (see below) and company registration number, there have been no changes to the management or personnel who remain the same.

In a business for sale ad that appeared in the Financial Times, E-Initiative (which also had a major firewall and security systems distribution arm) was described as having a turnover of £7m and recurring revenues of £2.5m pa. E-Initiative's problems are widely reckoned to have been caused by over-ambitious expansion plans in Continental Europe. Peapod Solutions' new address is: Unit 1, Castle Business Village, Station Road, Hampton, Middx TW12 2BX, phone: 0807 380 1122.

BRIEF PLACE AIMS TO OVERCOME THE CRUSH AT THE BAR
On Monday 4th November a new online service will launch that its developers hope will transform the efficiency of barristers' chambers in England & Wales. Most criminal and common law sets suffer from a situation whereby on any given day they either have too much work or too little.

The new Brief Place - www.briefplace.co.uk - service aims to help by providing a comprehensive a court listing (including Magistrates, Crown and County Courts) showing which chambers have barristers attending that court on a particular day. So, when chambers are trying to find counsel to cover a case at Highgate Magistrates court for example, instead of making dozens of 'have you got anybody to cover calls to other chambers, they can find counsel already at that court with one quick search on the Brief Place web site.

The service was originally conceived and run as a telephone based service, which worked well, however making sure information was up to date was difficult, given that chambers diaries change by the hour. The service has now evolved with the involvement of Bar IT systems market leaders Meridian Law so that non-sensitive information from chambers diaries (courts, court numbers and contact information for chambers) is now collected automatically from chambers servers several times a day and uploaded to the Brief Place web site. The service is also expected to be helpful for solicitors who on occasions need to find a barrister at very short notice to appear in court.

CONTEXT AND GAMMASITE IN TAXONOMY DEAL
Electronic publisher Context (+44(0)20 7267 8989) has become the first legal publisher to use GammaSite's GammaWare automatic categorisation software. The deal will enable Context to build and maintain legal information taxonomies (indexes) and in turn offer readers improved search facilities.

GammaWare automatically categorises documents using subject terms drawn from pre-defined taxonomies, enabling the quick and effective search and retrieval of critical information. The software also enables complete human editorial control of the taxonomy-building process. Context's initial project using GammaWare involves building a case law taxonomy in order to classify case reports. Context is categorising archive material, as well as all new cases as they are published. This process will provide, for the first time, a fully searchable subject matter index, which will be available through Context's new legal citator service, JustCite. Context's future plans for GammaWare include using the software to categorise its Justis UK Statutes database. As well as offering improved keyword searching, this will allow Justis subscribers to search for and browse statutes by subject, as well as by year.

NEW ONLINE NEWS FILTER SYSTEM FOR LAW FIRMS
Software developer Solcara has launched a new news filtering system which it hope will help law firms keep on top of the growing number of online information services now feeding content into their offices.

Called inTheNews, it is like the rival Vrisko NewsTracker system (now in use at Linklaters and Baker & Mckenzie) in that it can access content from a number of specialised providers however Solcara believe their's is a more flexible solution in that it can also analyse and filter results and then cluster news stories from multiple sources around identified topics such as, for example, a particular merger story.

The new system is based on the company's press & PR software product Solcara PressBureau which is already used by three of the UK's largest police forces, including the Metropolitan Police. For more details contact Robert Martin, Professional Services Director, Solcara on (+44(0) 1895 820950 ) or visit www.solcara.com

NABARRO NATHANSON ROLLS OUT DDS
Nabarro Nathanson is to implement BigHand's TotalSpeech software firm wide. The system will be rolled out to over 650 users in the London, Sheffield and Reading offices before Christmas this year. The initiative is expected to become one of the largest digital dictation workflow projects in Europe to-date

Commenting on the project, Nabarro Nathanson chief information officer Nick Taylor-Delahoy said: "The pilot that took place in June 2002 was an overwhelming success. It led immediately to greater secretarial efficiency, a marked increase in work sharing, and a tangible improvement in the turnaround time of documents in the departments involved. In this way the business case for TotalSpeech proved extremely strong. We aim to continue to use TotalSpeech to engineer the flow of work across the firm and impact the process side of document production, thus maximizing the productivity potential of each fee-earner and secretary.

"TotalSpeech itself has shown itself to be one of the most stable legal technologies our team has worked with to date. The scalability and flexibility of the system comes through its three-tier architecture and innovative design. We are committed to introducing cultural change, with a comprehensive development programme and utilising the latest technology. Our objective is to provide a flexible dynamic working environment for the benefit of both our clients and our fee earners and secretaries. BigHand 's experience has assisted us in achieving this, they have undoubtedly delivered so far and we look forward to continued success during the rollout."

Now here on the Insider we know some of you are sick of hearing about digital dictation systems (DDS) but the fact remains that over the next 12 months DDS is likely to be just about the only major investment in new technology that many larger (and a growing number of smaller) firms make.

NEWS IN BRIEF

QUORUM UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP - Quorum Litigation Services, probably the longest established litigation support company on the planet - it was founded in 1966 - has been acquired by ReacQuorum from Ricoh subsidiary Lanier Worldwide. Quorum Litigation Services will retain its name and continue to operate in the litigation support market where it has recently expanded into the electronic discovery field.

TSG GETS NEW WEB SITE - The Trainee Solicitors Group in England & Wales has launched its new and improved web site at www.tsg.org Features include a log-in system, whereby members can register to receive news updates direct to their own inbox.

SIFT IN PROFIT - The Sift Group - best known in the professional sector for its LawZone and AccountingWeb online communities - reports that six years after it was formed and two years after raising £5m from its VCs, the company turned a profit for the first time this September. With revenues of £320k in September, Sift is now on track to hit its budgeted revenues of £3.1m for the calendar year 2002, a 45% increase on 2001.

COLE VALLEY UPGRADES CONTACT EASE - Cole Valley Software has released ContactEase 9.10, a new version of its CRM and marketing system. New features include the ability to access ContactEase data directly from within Microsoft Outlook and GroupWise. Version 9.10 also offers closer integration with Lotus Notes and Crystal Reports. ContactEase is available in the UK through Perceptive Technology.

PERFECT ADDS WORD INTEGRATION - Perfect Information has added the ability to manipulate financial information at the desktop to its database of company filings by providing its documents in Word format. The ability to download, analyse, copy and paste information directly from a Word document is expected to have a significant impact on users in terms of time and productivity.

BAKER MACK UPGRADE TO HUMMINGBIRD DM 5.0 - Baker & McKenzie has purchased Hummingbird DM 5.0 document & content management system to provide a platform for Baker & McKenzie's lawyers in their European and Middle Eastern offices to share information and distribute the firm's "document based knowledge assets."

FINANCIAL REGULATIONS ONLINE - LexisNexis Butterworths Tolley has launched Financial Regulations Direct, a new service offering commentary and case materials to provide guidance on the new regulatory regime, supported by the latest policies and news feed, updated daily. Users can search the complete and unabridged text of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) Handbook along with hypertext links to internal references and associated legislation and materials such as the London Stock Exchange listing rules.

LEGAL IT RECRUITMENT - WHAT'S HOT ?
According to Mark Lennard of the JPL Group (+44(0)870 800 9494) - the company specialises in the recruitment of technical staff for law firms and legal software developers - although the economy may still be languishing under a dark cloud, there are still plenty of openings for IT staff with the right skills. Lennard highlights three particularly hot areas... "Case management systems are in vogue, and with good reason. The cost and time taken to turn around files are much reduced. We are currently providing case management developers to small and large law firms that want to develop their systems in-house. Teleworking is also an area in which firms are recruiting staff to deploy remote systems. Citrix technical specialists are in particular demand." Finally, Lennard says law firms are now realising the benefit of technical trainers and JPL Group has seen an upturn in demand for skilled trainers who have law firm application knowledge and training skills. www.jplgroup.com

WEB SITE OF THE MONTH - Ollerenshaw Solicitors www.ollerenshaws.com

This month we were bombarded by nominations for some complete dogs that broke all the rules of good law firm web site design. It was therefore with great relief that we lit upon the new site for Ollerenshaw Solicitors in Leamington Spa. It is short - only five pages, sharp and to the point. While its typography is far from leading edge, it does load quickly, there are no unnecessary gimmicks and, most importantly, it has been developed from the point of view of its visitors - the typical small business/private client of a High Street solicitors' practice. No legal jargon - talk of 'moving home' instead of conveyancing, the terms of business and range of services are spelled out clearly and it is sympathetic to the fact most people find using a solicitor intimidating. Also, as the site was developed using the Website IT self build system we suspect the firm paid only a fraction of the cost that most firms spend on web site projects.

To submit a site for consideration for next month's web site of the month, just email us here at websites@legaltechnology.com