Searchflow wins this year's SCL award
The online conveyancing searches service Searchflow has won the Society for Computers and Law's 2002 award for "the most outstanding application of information technology to the law".

Andrew Levison, the chairman of the SCL award committee, told the Insider that the judges were impressed by Searchflow's "incredible technology" plus the fact this was a system "that would touch the lives of most people" as it should have a positive impact on the speed and cost of buying any home or piece of property in England and Wales.

The Searchflow service is one of three official channels under the Government's National Land Information Service (NLIS) initiative to help create an electronic conveyancing system. To date 60 percent of all NLIS searches, including HM Land Registry and local authority, are ordered via Searchflow.

The winner of the SCL award was announced by Lord Peter Goldsmith, QC Attorney General, at a presentation at The Law Society in London on Monday evening. The three runners up were the IntellX document assembly system from Business Integrity, Elite Information Systems' Digital Dashboard and the Granite & Comfrey Knowledge Management Taxonomy System.

Mountain moves into the Bar systems market
Grantham based Mountain Software, best known as a supplier of accounts and case management systems to small-to-mid sized solicitors practices, has completed the purchase of Meridian Law, the supplier of IT systems to over 60 percent of barristers chambers in England & Wales. Mountain is taking on all Meridian's staff, with the exception of company founder John Willis who is taking a sabbatical from the commercial world, as well as Meridian's London and Manchester offices.

The deal gives the combined business an annual turnover approaching £6 million and over 80 employees, including a 20 strong inhouse development team. Steve Kendrick of Mountain told the Insider that the company was committed to the ongoing development of Meridian's Bar software, including support for recent initiatives such as the Freedom/Clerksroom ASP venture.

The Meridian deal is Mountain's second acquisition in recent months. Last year it also took over Ray Hemmingway's coroners court business which supplies administration software to two-thirds of the coroner's courts in England & Wales. Confusingly, Meridian Law is no relation to Meridian Legal Systems of Stamford, which sells the SolPak range of software to law firms.
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Workshare cleans up the top 10
Legal systems developer Workshare Technology reports that the UK's top 10 largest law firms have all now purchased the company's Deltaview redliner software. The latest win (using the ICC/Legal 500 rankings) is Hammond Suddards Edge.

Workshare CTO Barrie Hadfield said the company planned to duplicate this success with its new Synergy "document change management" software for multiple author collaboration applications. Herbert Smith has already placed a 1500 user licence order for Synergy and Workshare recently recruited document management specialist Eliza Hedegaard from Tikit to head up sales of Synergy in the legal sector.
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Microsoft to renew focus on UK legal sector
Microsoft UK and legal IT specialist supplier First Stop Computer Group recently took senior IT staff from five major UK law firms to the Microsoft HQ in Redmond, Seattle. The two day event was intended to give an overview of the Microsoft vision for the future and how it can and will enhance and improve Microsoft infrastructures from a legal perspective.

According to Nick Taylor-Delahoy, the chief information officer at Nabarro Nathanson: "this event was like drinking from a fire hose. It was the most information rich two days of this year for me". Other participants included Tony Rowe of Clifford Chance, David Hamilton of Freshfields, Peter Owen of Eversheds and Janet Day of Berwin Leighton Paisner.

Microsoft UK business manager Anabel Lopez said the event had been "the most successful legal briefing run to date. There are certain Microsoft technologies, such as Pocket PC, Tablet PC and the new .NET strategies, that will revolutionise the way all lawyers will work in the future. It is a very exciting time for all concerned with IT and the feedback we have received from the clients certainly helped us understand further what Microsoft need to do to address some of the challenges law firms face."

Following the success of this event, Microsoft plans to run similar events annually and punctuate the interim period with quarterly legal user group briefings in London and Microsoft's UK head office in Reading.

The one Microsoft product that seems to have left people deeply unimpressed is SharePoint Portal Server, which was described by one of the Seattle visitors as "a solution looking for a problem". Although to be fair, Microsoft themselves are not portraying SPPS as a full blown document management system that could take on DOCS Open or iManage but rather as a portal through to other databases.

First Stop will also be organising a number of locally based technology briefing sessions in conjunction with Microsoft.
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Two more iManage wins for KLA
West End commercial firm Fladgate Fielder has selected iManage WorkSite as its preferred document management system. Kramer Lee & Associates (KLA), who have provided technical support for the firm's existing DMS, have been selected to project manage the iManage implementation. Fladgate plans to use iManage not only as an enhanced document and content management system but also to provide the basis for extranet and know-how facilities.

KLA have also won a contract to swap out the existing Hummingbird DOCS Open document management system at Clyde & Co and implement iManage in its place. The new system will also be going into the firm's various overseas offices. IT manager Clive Nicholas said that along with support for the overseas offices, Clyde & Co were impressed by the iManage's ability to build and support collaborative virtual dealrooms.
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The Legal Technology Jobs Board
If you are a legal systems supplier or a law firm looking for IT staff, including positions in management, development, sales, support and training, you can post your vacancies free of charge on the Legal Technology Insider web site. Email job details to: news@legaltechnology.com

Business solutions - not software solutions
He is the best known and undoubtedly the most controversial IT consultant working in the UK legal market today but is there still a need for people like Andrew Levison of Baker Robbins?

The criticisms we hear fall into three categories: The first is Baker Robbins can no longer claim to be independent because it now undertakes implementation projects. The second is Levison risks going the same way of the Dodo as more and more firms employ good quality IT directors, build up their own inhouse expertise and so no longer need consultants to help them select their IT systems. And, the third is traditional consultants risk being pushed down market as larger firms turn to top level management consultancies such as Bain & Co and McKinsey.

Levison is well aware of the rumours that he will only recommend certain products so Baker Robbins can also win the follow up implementation business. Leaving aside the obvious riposte that this criticism is most frequently levied by suppliers who miss out on a Levison tender, he is keen to stress that Baker Robbins are not just another system integrator because, unlike other integrators, they do not re-sell software product.

Levison says this will always be a key differentiator between his firm and the rest of the market but adds that it needs to be understood in the context of Baker Robbins' belief that what law firms should focus on today is "business solutions rather than software solutions".

To this end Levison also believes that while some consultants have ceased to have a role, Baker Robbins is set to go from strength to strength because it can offer more than mere IT selection services. "We are into solving business problems and because we can also deliver integration services, we can give our clients the freedom to choose the solutions they need, rather than make do with whatever package products a supplier can offer."

But what about the provision of higher level strategic advice? Levison says he is increasingly being asked for advice of this kind from firms of all sizes. NDAs prevent him disclosing names but these include more than 50 percent of the top 20 firms, including one that threw out a "top level" consultancy after six weeks when it became clear how little they understood of the legal market.
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Linklaters first to buy DealBuilder
Linklaters has become the first magic circle firm to buy the DealBuilder document assembly system from Business Integrity. The system will be used to enhance Linklaters' Blue Flag online service by allowing clients to automatically assemble complex contracts from simple web based questionnaires without jeopardising the legal integrity of the completed document.

Commenting on the deal, Blue Flag CEO Patrick Haynes said that although document assembly is not a new concept "until recently the time, costs and inaccuracies involved outweighed the potential benefits. DealBuilder changes the game, enabling us to automate documents easily and quickly but above all with complete accuracy".

DealBuilder lets users generate contracts from automated masters documents (themselves created by Business Integrity's companion template creation product IntellX - a runner up for this year's SCL award) by converting them into web based questionnaires. According to Business Integrity (020 7814 6900) co-founder Richard Newton, the company "is also in advanced talks" with other magic circle and top 10 law firms.
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News in brief

Griffith Smith, on the South coast, is to expand its existing Axxia accounts system by rolling out a range of productivity tools to fee earners. Axxia will also be responsible for the firm's new network infrastructure, which includes the introduction of thin client technology in the firm's five branch offices.

According to Axxia administrator Vicky Neiva, the introduction of the Sunrise system had two key benefits. The first was to give the support desk extra functionality and the capacity to handle calls from Axxia's growing user base. The second, on the evidence of surveys and user group feedback, has been a marked increase in customer satisfaction. www.sunrisesoftware.co.uk

DPS site goes ASP
Orpington criminal practice and long time DPS case management software user Graham Dobson & Co has migrated to a new FM/ASP service from DPS. Under the new service all the firm's applications, including Microsoft Office plus the DPS criminal practice and accounts software, are hosted and managed on servers at DPS' secure data centre and accessed by Graham Dobson staff via thin client terminals.

The firm's principal Graham Dobson is full of praise for the practical aspects of ASP, including performance and reliability, but he also cites some key commercial benefits. In particular, because he no longer has to employ inhouse IT support staff, his annual maintenance bill has been cut by 60 percent a year, enough to hire another fee earner instead.
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What makes buyers tick ?
Select Legal Systems has carried out a survey of its user base to try to discover which factors influence law firm IT purchase decisions. On a scale of 1 to 5 (with 5 the highest rating) the survey found having a supplier that was a Microsoft certified solution provider (4.0) was more important than a supplier listed in the Law Society Software Solutions Guide (2.0). The availability of ASP hosting services also received a low 2.16 rating, while the most desirable feature (4.67) was a supplier that could source and support a firm's entire IT infrastructure.
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Can pay but won't pay
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers' latest annual survey of financial management within law firms, 65 percent of firms in the sample reported that the average client takes over 150 days to pay its bills, a 20 percent deterioration on the year 2000. PwC said lawyers had only themselves to blame for not billing and collecting debts quickly enough. This is a warning that should give heart to all those IT suppliers who have been struggling for the past five years to get firms to buy or implement client credit control and automatic/fee earner desktop billing systems.
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Legal IT 2002 exhibition preview
It may still only be January but next month's Legal IT show at the Business Design Centre in North London (6 & 7 February - for more details see diary listing) already looks like being the biggest exhibition of the year 2002 in the UK legal technology events calendar.

With law firms having apparently recovered from their autumnal worries about an economic downturn, the organisers report that pre-registration bookings for tickets are running 30 percent up on last year. And, the exhibitors are also pulling out all the stops. For example Axxia Systems will have its biggest presence ever at a legal show, with two stands featuring both conventional displays and presentations by various user firms.

Axxia (Stands 1 & 16) also promises a major new product launch but is not disclosing details until the event - we will however have a report on this and other new launches in our show review in the next issue. In the meantime, new product debuts we do have information on include: Solicitec (Stand 19) who are launching the latest version of their case management system SolCase Version 7.0, along with SolFile - a new entry level case and file management system and Visualdocs - a new intelligent document assembly system.

Among other launches from established suppliers are a multi currency facility for the Evolution/Client Server PMS system from AIM (Stand 20). The system allows different currency transactions to co-exist on the same ledger €uro triangulation. TFB (Stand 15) is also showing a multi-currency/€uro facility along with a new Criminal Defence Services (CDS) module. DPS Software (Stand 6) is showing its new ASP service for practice and case management applications (you can also find ASP services on the Axxia stands). And, Kommunicate (Stand 11) is adding to its wide range of comms products with the launch of Text Message Server, a multi-user SMS texting management application, as well as diversifying into new areas with OnBase, a web based integrated document and workflow management system.

Turning to the companies making their legal market public debuts at Legal IT 2002... EMIS Legal (Stand 12) will be showing its new Seneca document and knowledge management software. APX Systems (Stand 39) is giving its first public demonstrations of a new secure electronic document exchange system. APX say key features include compatibility with existing desktop applications and ease of use so extra training is not required.

Staying in the realms of online security, the memorably named Indicii Salus (Stand 2) is using the event to launch its Xenophon PKI security system for internet e-commerce transactions. One of the interesting features of the system is that it is server-centric and so can support a variety of applications and devices, including PDAs and wireless networks. Finally, EuroProspectus.com (Stand 32) will be demonstrating it's new text searchable prospectus database (DealMaker) and M&A database (RainMaker) which provide users with the ability to download from over 100,000 prospectuses and M&A documents.
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AllVoice slays the Dragon - just
A US bankruptcy court has finally approved ScanSoft's bid to acquire the speech business assets (probably the best known part is the Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition product range) of the now bankrupt Lernout & Hauspie (L&H) group. In addition the court has approved the settlement of a long running patents dispute between Dragon and the UK speech recognition company AllVoice Computing. Although AllVoice originally claimed nearly £40 million in damages, L&H's bankruptcy means the settlement is only worth £400,000 in cash and shares. AllVoice itself has suffered in recent years with turnover falling from over £1 million in 1995 to £176,000 last year.
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People & Places
Anthony Pinsent, a former chairman of the Lloyds Brokers Committee and director of AON, has joined Alternative Team Ltd in a consultancy role and will be working on insurance and legal software related projects.

John Gailey, previously with Pilgrim Systems, has joined Solicitec where he will be working with the team marketing the company's new Visualfiles system.

Following the appointment of Stephen Murphy as sales director for Spain, Simon Black and Helen Freestone are now looking after Hummingbird DMS and portal customers in the UK legal sector.

Long time Axxia staffer Graham Mills has joined Elite Information Systems, where he takes up the new position of senior product manager with responsibility for the UK and Continental markets.

Solution 6 has opened a new office in Paris (+33 (0) 1 462 51870) which will house all CMS Open and CABS consultants working in France. It will also act as a focal point for all Solution 6 sales activities in Continental Europe, with the exception of the Benelux region, which continues to be covered by Dutch reseller, Timesoft-Hansco.

After a period outside the legal sector, working as a consultant in the foot & mouth ravaged tourist industry, independent consultant Duncan Finlyson is back in the legal sector advising the Law Society on its proposed new client relations rules - and ensuring they are compatible with the Legal Services Commission's own standards.

In the aftermath of its takeover by Opsis, Stamford based Solace Legal Systems will, with effect from 1st February, change its name to Opsis Practice Management Solutions. Solace founder Peter Walker remains with the company as technical director.
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Digital dictation off to a flying start in 2002
Digital dictation, one of the technologies the Insider predicts will have a great future in the year 2002, has made a flying start with the announcement that Ashurst Morris Crisp is dispensing with traditional analogue tape and rolling out BigHand's TotalSpeech digital dictation workflow software in what will be one of the largest uptakes of digital speech technology in the UK legal market to date. The system will be rolled out by department to 700 users in AMC's London office between now and March.

In other digital dictation and speech technology related news...

Wordprocessing news in brief

Both Microsoft and Adobe have fonts containing the €uro symbol that can be downloaded free of charge from the web. In addition Microsoft's Technet site contains white papers (search for 'euro') on which applications may need upgrading to achieve €uro compatibility. Finally, IBM has a free EuroReady Reckoner download for calculating currency conversions.
www.microsoft.com/typography/fontpack
www.microsoft.com/technet
www.adobe.com/support/downloads
www.ibm.com/euro
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Email disclaimers in context
One of the most striking features of law firm email messages is the size and scope of the various disclaimers and privacy notices they contain. But are these blanket disclaimers entirely relevant? For example, is it approriate to use the same disclaimer for emails to clients or co-counsel that you use for third parties?

If this keeps you awake at night you might check out Red Earth Software's new Policy Patrol 1.2 product. This is an add-on for Microsoft Exchange 2000/5.5 and Lotus Notes/Domino that allows users to set context sensitive disclaimers, formatting and signatures both to outgoing emails and internal messaging. Policy Patrol pricing starts from $119 for 10 users. A 30 day free evaluation version can be downloaded from: www.policypatrol.com/downloadfrm.htm
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LCD hit by the enemy within
In response to questions raised by the Liberal Democrats, the Lord Chancellor's Department has admitted that hackers have tried break into its computer systems on 19 occasions over the past five years. Ironically 16 of these hack attacks came from within the department itself, possibly using some of the 77 computers the LCD reported stolen over the same period.

Elsewhere along the corridors of power, the Northern Ireland Office is coming in for extensive criticism for having already spent over £52 million on Lord Saville's Bloody Sunday inquiry, including £13.3 million on IT and courtroom presentation systems. With the inquiry expected to last another two years, the final bill for taxpayers is likely to be more than £100 million.
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Correction
In the last issue of the Insider we reported industry speculation that Solution 6 recently had exploratory talks with Keystone Solutions and Axxia Systems. Keystone subsequently confirmed their discussions, adding that they "are at a very early stage and may or may not lead to a transaction." Unfortunately our reference to Axxia was incorrect. Representatives of Axxia have not met with Solution 6 for talks of any sort, nor have they any plans to do so.

We are not sure if this is a return to the bad old days of legal IT, when suppliers habitually slagged off each other but here on the Insider we have detected a significant increase in the amount of malicious rumours in circulation in recent months, with Axxia the latest victim of negative spin. It is unprofessional and it harms the credibility of the industry - maybe the suppliers' organisation LSSA should intervene?
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Online news in brief

So there is life after technology
Life's a bitch and then you die but some people do manage to escape. Howard Slone, of Elliott Slone, has done it, concluding the final element of his buyout deal with the Williams Lea group just before Christmas and now living in France. (His co-founder Jo Elliott remains with Williams Lea.) However one of the more dramatic life style changes can be claimed by Jackie Wyles, who for many years ran the old Oyez legal accounts bureau. She has swapped a computer room in Bermondsey for a swimming pool in Hollywood, where she is now the housekeeper for her brother, the movie actor Gary Oldman. Her sister, the actress Laila Morse, plays the character Big Mo in the soap EastEnders.
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Legal Technology Events Diary

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