Following a bumper round of industry news in the May Legal IT Insider we have an, err, bumper round of different industry news this week. Don’t forget to check out our free Legal IT Newswire service, where you can load your own press releases and catch up on, you guessed it, industry news.
Wins and deals
First up is an acquisition from April that went largely under the media radar and is deserving of some extra profile.
Elevate Services, a global legal service provider to corporate legal departments and law firms, has acquired OnRamp Systems which provides products and services to corporate legal departments, has collaborated with organisations including Riverview Law, and counts organisations such as Cisco as clients.
Cisco’s VP of Legal Operations at Cisco Systems, Steve Harmon said: “From our perspective as a legal department driving innovation and operational excellence, Elevate and OnRamp are a powerful combination. We expect them to accelerate the adoption of new methodologies, tools and standards that will benefit both legal departments and law firms.”
Dr George Beaton from law firm advisory service Beaton Capital wrote about the acquisition at the time, you can read his blog here.
Out of Thomson Reuters’ VANTAGE 2016 conference in Nashville there were a number of hip hip hooray announcements, including the latest stat that more than 170 law firms worldwide have now selected 3E financial and practice management system from Thomson Reuters Elite, with more than 61% of firms already live on the system. An additional 31 firms are expected to go live on 3E before the end of the year.
In the past several weeks, firms that have gone live on 3E include Stinson Leonard Street LLP, which has 13 offices in the US; UK-based McMillan Williams Solicitors, which has also adopted MatterSphere across its 20 offices; Robins Kaplan, one of the top trial law firms in the US with 220 lawyers across six cities.
Eclipse Legal Systems has announced its integration with the Land Registry Electronic Document Service (eDRS) and implemented its Proclaim Practice Management Software solution at Essex law firm, ESW Legal. ESW Legal is an established solicitors practice operating from modern offices in Rayleigh, providing services across London and the South East.
An out-of-the-box hosted Proclaim Conveyancing Case Management solution is being implemented across the department. ESW Legal has also opted for Proclaim’s integration with the Land Registry’s Business Gateway, which is available to Eclipse clients within Proclaim’s Conveyancing Case Management Software solution. Users will be able to make an electronic application to change the register of a property, directly through the Proclaim desktop.
Firm Solutions, a leading consulting, outsourcing and technology company, is increasing its industry presence following the formation of a partnership with assure360, which provides full-service technology solutions to the mortgage default industry.
Firm Solutions, based in Tampa, Florida, will leverage assure360’s technology acumen to expand and enhance current service offerings. The company is in the process of modifying its Portfolio Guardian application to provide law firms and mortgage servicers daily updates regarding changes to court dockets.
In addition, Firm Solutions’ automated e-filing solution, CourtXpress, will soon be available in additional states, thanks to the partnership with assure360.
AdvoLogix, a leading provider of cloud-based law practice and legal matter management solutions, has joined OmniVere, a global legal technology firm, in announcing a new offering of comprehensive managed services to help clients cost-effectively streamline legal operations and gain full value of their AdvoLogix platforms.
Through this partnership, OmniVere will leverage their extensive expertise in the legal industry along with in-depth Salesforce experience to provide unique managed service offerings that go beyond the standard support concept.
TransPerfect Legal Solutions, a leading global provider of litigation support and e-discovery solutions, has hired former Stephenson Harwood senior commercial litigation associate Al-Karim F. Makhani as a European senior case consultant.
At Stephenson Harwood, Makhani’s practice focused on complex, high-value disputes where he often integrated legal technology to improve his clients’ position. Highlights include a London arbitration relating to a US $2 billion African urban project, a landmark decision on legal professional privilege in Hong Kong’s highest court after a document summons by the HK Secretary for Justice, a £1 billion joint venture dispute between two global oil companies, and action against various defaulting clients of a renowned English financial institution.
“With his experience managing cases from start to finish and maximizing the use of legal technologies therein, Al will have an immediate impact by enabling our clients to optimize their use of the best technologies available,” said Liz Elting, Co-CEO of TransPerfect.
Product launches and upgrades
IRIS has gone live with IRIS PowerTools for iManage Work, aimed at streamlining day-to-day user and administrative tasks in iManage Work like workspace creation and management, folder-management, reporting and analytics, security, and server-side refiling, saving time and reducing costs.
IRIS PowerTools for iManage Work comes with a free version that includes functionalities like analytics, workspace overviews and an IT admin dashboard. A premium version is available, with additional functionalities and support options. The premium version can be extended with a range of add-ons, such as the Trashbin, Workspace Manager, and Security Console.
Visit www.irispowertools.com for more information and a free download request.
Probate Plus Version 5 from Law Systems is released on June 15th and is available as a free upgrade to existing users. The latest edition of this long established probate handling software comes packed with ever more features, including practice-wide financial analysis tools. These are aimed at compliance officers, who need to keep a tight rein on client money, reduce risk exposure and monitor the effectiveness of their probate departments in a competitive market place.
Epiq has released its DMX dashboard to provide clients with actionable business intelligence built upon DMXT (DocuMatrix®), Epiq’s full life-cycle eDiscovery management platform.
Offering end-to-end eDiscovery process transparency, the DMX dashboard gives clients a holistic picture of data flow: from raw sources and processed data to reviewed and produced deliverables. All of the information is displayed in an interactive and easy-to-use interface.
Dashboard users can pull valuable metrics from prior matters to inform decisions about future cases. The dashboard also shows users the stage in which their data resides, where each data source has been, the data and custodians included in the current set, and data size and document count—allowing users to interact with the data and find information that never would have been revealed otherwise, ultimately boosting work efficiency across case teams.
Prosperoware has released Umbria 3.0, featuring Umbria Arrangements, a new contract management module that combines tracking of fee arrangements including AFAs, Outside Counsel Guidelines as well as renewals. The introduction of Umbria Arrangements makes the terms of each arrangement actionable and, in conjunction with Umbria’s rich client and matter planning functions, empowers firms to understand their deals, easily model and price new matters, and sustain profitability.
CosmoLex, a leading cloud-based, law practice management software provider, has announced a major upgrade with its v4.1 release, said to bring their cloud-based total solution to the attention of larger law firms.
“Large law firms have complex needs that were not addressed with earlier, first-generation cloud-based systems. These include complex profit and fee sharing models, as well as billing requirements imposed by corporate and government clients,” said CEO Rick Kabra. “With the release of CosmoLex v4.1, we’ve taken a big leap towards meeting those needs with features not available in any other cloud-based system.”
To ensure proper courtroom training for young lawyers, Fish & Richardson, in collaboration with ChIPs and the Federal Circuit Bar Association, have created www.nextgenlawyers.com in support of the ChIPs Next Gen Initiative. The website is a resource for news, in-depth articles, seminars and judicial orders supporting the need for young attorneys to receive courtroom experience. The website is the brainchild of Fish principal Kathi Vidal.
“Our goal is to empower everyone in the legal profession by granting courtroom opportunities to the next generation of lawyers,” said Vidal, a former electrical engineer and leading patent litigator. “By encouraging and teaching our more junior colleagues, we boost the entire legal profession.”
Name changes (yes, there is more than one)
Global eDiscovery provider UBIC will change its corporate name to FRONTEO. The FRONTEO name will become effective July 1, 2016 pending shareholder approval on June 29, 2016.
UBIC, which is Nasdaq and Tokyo stock exchange listed, is headquartered in Tokyo and is best known for its innovations in Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) language processing, analytics and predictive coding. UBIC acquired TechLaw Solutions in 2014, and Evolve Discovery (EvD) in 2015.
TCDI, a leader in litigation technology and services for mass tort management, second requests, complex litigation and MDL case management, has announced that Fox has been renamed CVFox, to further showcase the relationship the product has with ClarVergence, the company’s flagship, web-based and sophisticated e-discovery solution.
Industry news
The Law Society’s controversial endorsement programme continues unabated, with the news that Wesleyan Bank, a leading provider of financial solutions to the legal sector, has signed an exclusive partnership with the Law Society. Under the terms of the agreement, the Law Society of England and Wales and the Law Society of Scotland have chosen Wesleyan to be the only endorsed finance provider to their members for both commercial and personal loan products.
Wesleyan Bank’s extensive commercial product range includes funding professional indemnity insurance, company tax, VAT, practising certificates, case acquisition and other regulatory fees. The company can also provide short and long-term loans to facilitate partner buy-ins and buy-outs in addition to assisting law firms to invest in new assets along with IT hardware, software and related services.
Law Society President Jonathan Smithers said: “We are very pleased to endorse Wesleyan Bank for the provision of commercial and personal loan products and services to law firms. Throughout the endorsement process, we have been consistently impressed with the quality and standards presented. The endorsement is designed to bring additional membership benefits and assists Law Society members in making informed choices when purchasing business or lifestyle services and products.”