Headlines

Levison quits Baker Robbins
Andrew Levison, generally recognised as one of the UK's top two most influential independent legal IT consultants, has quit the Baker Robbins & Co consultancy after successfully building up their UK and European operations (the company has just reported its best ever figures for its UK operations including a 27% increase in turnover) over the past three-and-a-half years since his team joined BRCO from Grant Thornton. Levison says he wants to offer a broader base of management services to a wider group of clients and for this reason is leaving Baker Robbins to concentrate on something "new and different" from the New Year. Levison (07860 584812) will be available to work with Baker Robbins on future technology projects but will also be able to offer other management services directly to law firm partners and managers.

Baker Robbins may be well known in the USA but in the UK its operations were synonymous with Andrew Levison so while Levison prepares his plans for the future, the big unanswered questions are: what impact will this have on the UK legal IT consultancy market? Does Levison's departure leave no serious competition to the Neil Cameron Consulting Group? Does it open up the sector to the likes of Allan Carton's Practical Solutions and PA Consulting? And will Baker Robbins be able to hold on to its systems integration and implementation business or lose out to competition in the shape of Tikit and ResSoft?

And Longhurst joins Ressoft
Talking of ResSoft, the company this week announced that Paul Longhurst will be joining the company on 1st November to take up the position of Head of Consulting. Longhurst has over fifteen years experience of the legal IT sector, having held senior positions at Allen & Overy and Herbert Smith - his responsibilities at the latter for business integration and strategic services allowed him to develop a deep understanding of how IT can be used effectively to serve lawyers. During that time he also developed close working relationships with key technology suppliers including iManage, WorkShare, Interface Software and Metastorm. Commenting on the appointment, ResSoft managing director Neil Renfrew said "It is a compliment to the progress that ResSoft has made in the last few years that an individual of Paul's calibre and experience should choose to join the company. We look forward to Paul serving our current and future clients."
http://www.ressoft.co.uk

Litigation support: Ringtail to offer integrated concept search engine
KM and litigation support specialists Ringtail Solutions has entered into an agreement with SER Solutions Inc of Virginia to offer SER's globalBrain as an integrated concept search tool within the Ringtail suite of legal applications. The SER technology will be used to search all work product and information uploaded to Ringtail databases, including electronic discovery, OCR and other litigation-related documents.

Commenting on the agreement, Ringtail president Eddie O'Brien said "Ringtail selected SER globalBrain after evaluating a number of other industry leading 'concept' search engines. We are delighted with the power and scalability that the SER technology will deliver to our clients. We think SER's user-friendly tools will be will make a significant impact in the management of electronic discovery where the corpus of documents can be overwhelming."

Ringtail say the implementation of SER globalBrain will allow attorneys to begin significantly enhanced analysis of discovery information, depositions, transcripts and case law as soon as they become available. The need for document coding is significantly reduced and might be eliminated altogether in some cases. The solution offers search capabilities on subject matters and context. Using simple natural language queries, attorneys can immediately find the pertinent details they need, regardless of the size of the document collection. Documents can also be quickly searched for specific issues using natural language sentences and even paragraphs, rather than simply using keywords.

A beta version of the integration is being used at Fulbright & Jaworski where attorneys and paralegals will use the SER technology to run concept searches across the firm's existing Ringtail case databases. The firm's chief technology officer Scott Preston, conducted an extensive evaluation of SER globalBrain and other competitive search tools, including those from Autonomy, DolphinSearch and Verity. Preston tested the application with a group of techno-savvy attorneys who were delighted with the confidence rankings returned with SER globalBrain's search results, a capability not offered by traditional tools. Additionally, SERglobalBrain was found to be ideal for integrating with the firm's document management applications.
http://www.ringtailsolutions.com

CRM - Interface unveils upgrade to Interaction
Interface Software this week announced the availability of InterAction 5.1, the latest version of the company's market leading CRM/relationship intelligence system for law firms. The company also announced the introduction of a new professional services offering: Data Quality Services, and a new optional module: InterAction Contact Verifier.

According to Interface Software's director of product management David Cutler "Poor data quality is frequently cited as one of the primary reasons for CRM implementation failures. InterAction 5.1 and the related offerings will extend our lead in CRM data quality by reducing the time and expense associated with maintaining a high quality database both initially and on an ongoing basis.

"Many CRM products integrate with Microsoft Outlook and other personal information managers (PIMs) and PDAs. However because end users' PIM and PDA use is not regulated by business rules, the data they contain ordinarily falls well short of corporate data quality standards. Accordingly, with hundreds or even thousands of users synchronizing their PIMs or PDAs with the centralized database, integration of these devices has emerged as one of the primary means by which bad data infiltrates the system, thereby threatening CRM's success. InterAction 5.1 overcomes these challenges by incorporating data change management functionality directly into the PIM/PDA synchronization process.

"Moreover, because InterAction 5.1's data change management and optimization features are transparent and don't require any action on the part of end users, the CRM implementation is much more likely to succeed. For instance, the system enables you to categorize collections of contacts, such as: Top 100 clients, key prospects or important referral sources, and apply business rules to manage them. So, if a professional adds a new client contact to his PIM or PDA, upon synchronizing with InterAction 5.1 the system's new Smart Connect feature will automatically know that the contact is a client, and subject it to the appropriate business rules in the centralized database. End users don't have to do anything except store their contacts in Outlook, Lotus Notes, GroupWise or their handheld device of choice, as they always did," adds Cutler, InterAction's data change management tools take care of the rest."

To complement InterAction 5.1's core data quality and data change management functionality, the new InterAction Contact Verifier module lets the organization request updates directly from their clients or contacts. The module allows organizations to send contacts customized communications that display core business card elements including name, company, address, etc. Recipients are directed to an editable secure web page that allows them easily to update their existing contact details and submit any changes directly to the InterAction database for real-time automatic updates.

Significantly, InterAction Contact Verifier is different than other verification products because it enables organizations to centralize the contact verification process. For example, even if a particular contact resides within hundreds of users' PIMs, the contact will nonetheless only receive a single communication requesting contact verification. "Clients become extremely annoyed when they receive multiple emails from people within a single firm requesting contact updates," says Cutler. "Contact Verifier avoids this annoyance by ensuring that a single verification request is sent on behalf of all users."

To complement these product enhancements Interface Software's new Data Quality Services offering reduces the initial data-cleansing burden required for a successful CRM implementation using proven methodologies cultivated from the companyís more than 350 customer base. The professional services offering leverages InterAction 5.1's data quality functionality and includes identification and reporting of data anomalies, standardization of company and people names, and contact duplication detection and merge functionality. "Our professional services group has a deep knowledge of the people, processes and cultural challenges faced by relationship-based services organizations that are implementing CRM solutions," says Mitch Grossbach, Interface vice president of business development. "By putting this expertise to work, our Data Quality Services offering will save organizations substantial time and money as they undertake their initial data cleansing and load efforts."

In addition to these significant data quality and data change management upgrades, InterAction 5.1 introduces "a myriad of features and functionality" that significantly enhance usability and end user acceptance and participation. Simplified Web Client navigation and searching promotes easy and quick access to the most critical information. Further, enhanced user control over contact updates provides greater flexibility as to whether and how updates to contact information made in the centralized repository will flow down to lawyers' own versions of contact information stored in their PIMs or PDAs. For instance, users can now automatically accept updates made by others, or they can receive notification of updates and decide manually whether or not to accept them. "These and other enhancements not only make it easier for professionals to use and derive value from the CRM system, but they also promote greater sharing of data by giving professionals more control and confidence that other users cannot corrupt their data," says Cutler.

Southall voted online legal services champion in e-LOTIES awards
Wragge & Co's head of strategic development Derek Southall was voted Best online legal services champion at this year's e-LOTIES awards. Southall, a long-time advocate of bringing a lawyer's perspective on client service to the IT function, to allow firms to focus technology resources on specific initiatives that have the maximum impact upon client satisfaction, came in ahead of Kevin Doolan of Eversheds, a partner and now head of business development, and Jonathan Maas of Simmons & Simmons, the man behind the firm's Elexica web portal, who took third place. Wragge & Co also won the award for Best knowledge management/information portal.

The e-LOTIES awards, which were announced last week at the increasingly popular venue of Madame Tussauds in London, are organised by In Brief magazine, in association with Legal Technology Insider. And, unlike some other awards, with the e-LOTIES (a spin-off from the main LOTIES awards in November) it is a public vote that decides the who the winners are, with over 12,000 votes cast this year. Among the other winners were iManage, who took the e-LOTIES Vendor of the Year award and Tikit Granite & Comfrey who won the award for Best knowledge management/information portal supplier. Martindale-Hubbell, which over the last few years has been responsible for creating the Lawyer HomePages and LawyerLocator online directory for over one million lawyers in 160 countries around the world, won the Best web site/online legal services developer award, and PLC beat both LexisNexis and Lawtel to take the Best online legal information provider award.

The award for Best knowledge management team was won by Eversheds with Richards Butler and the Engish Law Society as runners up. However, having been pipped at the post in the previous category, in the Best law firm library/information services team category it was Richards Butler that came in first, followed by Linklaters and Allen & Overy. The award for Best legal e-commerce/online legal services project which was won by Masons OUT-LAW.com (http://www.out-law.com). And the award for Best online legal services site went to Divorce Online (http://www.divorce-online.com) ahead of TransactDirect (http://www.transactdirect.co.uk) as runner up and Can-I-Claim (http://www.caniclaim.com) and Legal Budgets (http://www.legalbudgets.com) in joint third place.

Finally, when it came to the awards for the Best law firm web sites, the winner in the small firms (20 partners or less) category was Woolley & Co with its http://www.e-lawfirm.co.uk site, followed by Memery Crystal (http://www.memerycrystal.com) and Alexander Harris (http://www.alexarharris.co.uk). In the large firms category, the winner was Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (http://www.rpc.co.uk) with Hill Dickinson (http://www.hilldickinson.co.uk) and Lewis Silkin (http://www.lewissilkin.com) occupying the second and third places.

DMS - iMmanage launches Worksite Version 8
iManage has just announced details of the latest version of its Worksite DMS/content management system, which the company believes is the most important upgrade in recent years as it takes the product into a whole new league and - by implication - further distances itself from Hummingbird, its major competitor in the legal market. Worksite Version 8 is scheduled for general availability in Q4 this year.

According to iManage "With the introduction of WorkSite 8, iManage is redefining the role of document management in law firms and corporate legal departments by providing the industry's first solution to support matter centric collaboration (or MCC), a new paradigm that more closely supports the way lawyers actually work. MCC creates the true electronic equivalent of a case file, providing an integrated view of documents, events, tasks and contacts for any given matter and using familiar case file and folder metaphors to help users easily contextualize, organize and access information in the flow of work in progress. By using MCC to support work processes already in place, firms can increase utilization, provide better service to clients and gain competitive advantage in the changing legal landscape." Features of Worksite 8 include...

Practice Group Collaboration: The adoption of firm-wide practice groups that span multiple offices is a shift that helps firms better leverage their collective expertise but also places new importance on enabling distributed groups to work together effectively. Traditionally, even lawyers whose firms have adopted basic document management had to rely on physical files for their information, printing out the documents, emails, notes and other content related to a given matter so that it could be filed together. These paper files remained isolated in individual locations, hampering collaboration by virtual matter teams. WorkSite 8 for the first time provides firms with a single online workspace where all such information can be stored, including documents, bills, attorney notes, memos, email and other correspondence. Unlike paper files, this virtual case file can be shared and accessed securely by clients and remote colleagues, eliminating the delays and costs associated with emailing and shipping content to collaboration on, as well as the bottlenecks resulting from missing or checked-out files. A 'My Matters' list is used to organize the workspaces each individual practitioner is working with, and shared by assistants and other lawyers as needed, providing one click access to recently visited workspaces.

Email Management: WorkSite 8 addresses email management through full support of iManage's Email Management solution. WorkSite 8 enables outbound and inbound emails to easily be shared, stored, collaborated on and captured as records in context alongside other forms of correspondence and communication within the virtual matter file. This functionality provides support for effective records management by capturing every email within the matter to which it pertains.

Data Centralization: In a survey conducted by iManage among the CIOs of major law firms, more than 50% said they were creating data centres to make content more easily available and recoverable. Traditional document management systems force firms to choose between centralization and speed of access by local users, making business continuity difficult to achieve across a multi-geographic organization. WorkSite 8 features iManage's new caching server, which allows firms to centralize their systems and create a single place for all of their content while giving users LAN-like performance and transparency even when accessing documents stored in remote libraries.

Intranets & Extranets + support for .NET: iManage has adopted the Microsoft .NET framework, C# and ASP.NET for WorkSite 8 Web applications to provide a platform for intranet and extranet creation - the WorkSite SDK is also now fully .NET compliant. With the move to .NET, WorkSite users can expose web services for workspace creation. Tight integration with Microsoft Office applications also enables users to capture content in context and tag it for inclusion in an extranet with no extra steps. The same platform also provides a simple way to move content such as best practices and matter files onto a firm intranet for access from any location.

Knowledge Management: WorkSite 8 helps make KM more user-friendly by automatically capturing searchable metadata such as client, matter, industry and jurisdiction based on the folders in which documents are stored, with little or no profiling required of the user.

DLA advises on first major IT procurement to speed up criminal justice in Northern Ireland
The UK law firm DLA has advised on the largest public procurement programme to integrate the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland. Called the Causeway Programme, it is a joint enterprise by the six main Criminal Justice Organisations (CJOs) in Northern Ireland to improve their performance by enabling information to be shared electronically. Causeway will enable staff across the agencies who are managing criminal justice processes to have immediate electronic access to accurate, up to date and comprehensive information on criminal cases. The system will replace current paper-based arrangements.

The DLA team, led by Stewart James in DLA's Technology Media & Communications (TMC) group, has been advising the Northern Ireland Office on the programme since the commencement of the project in February 2001. The team has been advising on the legal aspects of development, implementation and running of the IT services aiming to exploit the best technology.

According to the Northern Ireland Secretary of State: "When fully implemented Causeway will deliver far reaching benefits. Staff will have rapid and secure access to all the information they need to do their work. Victims and witnesses will see their cases dealt with more promptly and will have easier access to accurate information on the progress of their case. Lawyers, Judges and Magistrates will see fewer cases adjourned because of incorrect or late information and the general public will benefit through criminals being punished more quickly, and through reductions in the costs of administering justice."

The six CJOs involved in Causeway are: the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Forensic Science Northern Ireland, the Department of the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Court Service, the Probation Board for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Prison Service. Causeway is being funded and sponsored by the Criminal Justice Directorate of the Northern Ireland Office. Development work was supported by the Capital Modernisation Fund. The programme will begin to deliver new information services in spring 2004 and will be completed in 2006. It will cost £35m over 10 years.
   
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................top
News in brief

Immigration appeal authority goes with speech recognition
Approximately 120 members of the judiciary from both the UK's Immigration Appellate Authority and Appellate Tribunal are currently undergoing training in the use of speech recognition technology to help improve adjudication document turnaround times. The IAA is using a solution developed by speech and DDS specialists SRC which incorporates Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition software. SRC has also developed an additional 10,000 item vocabulary of IAA specific words and phrases to help increase recognition and transcription speeds.
http://www.src.co.uk

Australia: Sabine joins Timeframe
Timeframe Systems in Australia has appointed Chris Sabine as a Senior Consultant. Sabine join from Appleby Spurling & Kempe's head office in Bermuda. Prior to AS&K, he worked with Horwath Computer Systems in Australia and professional service firms in Toronto. Timeframe has also helped Abbott Tout in Australia to migrate from Sybase to Microsoft and then on to a Solution 6 CMS.NET practice management system. This is the first CMS.NET implementation in the Asia-Pacific region and only the fourth in the world.
http://www.time-frame.com

New book: Technology outsourcing
Law Society Publishing has just issued 'Technology Outsourcing - a practitioner's guide' (ISBN: 1 85328 832 2). The book's general editor is John Angel, a former head of online legal services at Clifford Chance, and it provides both lawyers and purchasing managers with a comprehensive guide to all aspects of technology outsourcing, a market that is predicted to be worth over $200 billion pa. The book, which is priced £79.95 (400 pages) also contains precedent clauses for outsourcing contracts. For details email r.james@lawsociety.org.uk

Calvis restructures
The real estate software group Calvis has restructured its operations along its two lines of business: consultancy and products. To achieve this, the product development & sales team will now operate in an independent company called Real Decisions and concentrate on products and services, thus allowing Calvis to pursue the Hummingbird and PISCES consultancy areas in which they currently specialise. Real Decisions' directors are Scott Hews, Nick Matthews and Viviane Morris while the company's product range includes: DMSLink - template & profile management within document management environments, Print·Path - printer & media management tool for central administration of printing environments including hot desking & home workers, smart-DOCS - a tool for marking up key Word documents, templates or precedents using PISCES data and, in the design stage, REDRoute, to assist real estate companies monitor progress with lawyers handling transactions on their behalf.
http://www.realdecisions.co.uk
 
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................top
Copyright © Legal Technology Insider. ISSN 1740-7664. All rights reserved. Published by Legal Technology Insider Limited. The contents of this email may be freely reproduced providing Legal Technology Insider is credited as the source. Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of all published information, the Publisher cannot guarantee accuracy and does not accept liability for any loff of damage that may arise from any errors or omissions. Please note that web site addresses can change. All trademarks and brand names are acknowledged. Privacy policy: We do not sell or disclose names, phone numbers, email addresses or any other contact details of our subscribers to anyone.
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................
© 2003 Legal Technology Insider | Site designed by Wirebox Designs