Headlines

SAP back with legal offering
With market rumours suggesting that at least two top 100 UK firms are poised to turn to SAP for their next practice management system, the company this week announced a new partnership with one of its resellers – Intalec – to create a tailored solution for larger-to-mid-sized firms. Called Intalec for Legal Practices, the system will be based around the mySAP All-in-One product and will include full financial, practice, facilities and HR management plus practice development and fee earner billing functionality.

Intalec, who have been an SAP reseller in the UK and Ireland for the past five years, specialise in the professional services sector and have also developed a system for handling NLIS/e-conveyancing searches. Julian Page of Intalec says the objective of Intalec for Legal is “to provide law firms with a single version of the truth at an affordable cost and in a manageable timescale”.
www.intalec.com

Legalease launch son-of-loties
Legalease, the publishers of Legal Business magazine and The Legal 500, has announced the launch of the Legal Technology Awards. Headed up by Jeremy Hill, who was previously the business development director at In Brief, the event aims to fill the gap caused by the demise of the annual Loties awards (see also page 5). The new awards involve a three stage process: nominations, followed by the creation of a shortlist for each of the categories by a panel of judges and then public voting on the shortlist.

Nominations are now open for a range of supplier and user award categories. Self-nominations are permitted and although there is no charge for submitting a nomination, they must be accompanied by a 500-word explanation. The members of this year’s judging panel are Neil Cameron, Janet Day of Berwin Leighton Paisner and Derek Southall of Wragge & Co. Nominations close next week on Friday 21st October; voting commences on 31st October and will run through to 12th January; and the awards ceremony, which will take place in London, is provisionally set for mid-to-late January 2006.
www.legaltechnologyawards.co.uk

The Insider is 10 - and not out
This month Legal Technology Insider celebrates its 10th anniversary. The top stories in issue No.1, back in October 1995, included Dundas & Wilson picking Novell for its new PC network platform – the firm rejected Microsoft Windows NT because of doubts about its performance – and Norwel Computers winning major orders for front and back office systems from Withers and Berwin Leighton. As to the future, we are planning more news coverage, more special supplements and more features on the website, including our new online readers poll.

Tikit goes shopping
The AIM-listed Tikit Group has been shopping again, this time buying privately owned Shamrock Marketing for £714,000 in cash and shares, subject to performance targets being met. Shamrock, which specialises in auditing and cleaning content data held by professional services firms in relation to their marketing and CRM systems (see Insider No.146 for first reports) currently employs 20 staff and is a member of LexisNexis Interface Software’s partner programme. For the year ended 31 March 2005 it had unaudited revenues of £829k and pre-rax profits of £103k.

LSSA commissions survey into IT future
The Legal Software Suppliers Association (LSSA) has commissioned Allan Carton's Practical Solutions consultancy to conduct a survey to examine 'the influences that will drive business performance in the legal sector over the next 10 years and to demonstrate where effective use of technology will produce improved results'.

Given that the last decent piece of research of this type was carried out by Andrew Levison back in 1999, when he was still at Grant Thornton, this is a very timely project. The survey will take the form of both quantitative and more in-depth qualitative research, with a summary of the findings being presented at the Legal IT event in London in February. Copies of the in-depth questionnaire and an accompanying discussion document - plus details an incentive to take part in the survey - can be downloaded from the Practical Solutions website.
www.inpractice.co.uk

E-conveyancing spurs software development
The move towards e-conveyancing seems to be having a positive impact on innovation within the legal IT sector with two new product launches this month. First off the block is MSS (01252 371121) with its AlphaLAW Uno case management software. This is the company’s Microsoft .NET next generation application and is being previewed at the Law Society’s e-conveyancing roadshow. Features include full integration with Microsoft Office, a greater emphasis upon automation and at-a-glance management information and reporting.

The second system is Themis from a Bespoke Solutions Network (01375 488886), a recently formed software company specialising in .NET applications. Themis is a web-enabled case management system that the company’s sales director Mark Serkes describes as “perfectly placed for the arrival of e-conveyancing”. There is an online demo of the system available on the web.
www.bespokesolutionsnetwork.com

In other e-conveyancing news... DPS One Office has become the first case management system to be certified as PISCES 1.6.1 compliant for residential and commercial conveyancing and bulk plot sales. And, Easy Convey is claiming that last month Layard Horsfall, which runs its CASA conveyancing case management software, became the first law firm to file a Stamp Duty Land Tax return online via the CASA e-submission facility.

Tikit change BPM horses - again
Listen carefully because we shall say this only once: Back in January 2004, Tikit’s original partner for BPM/workflow systems was Metastorm but then in November last year it dropped Metastorm in favour of becoming an exclusive reseller of the rival FloSuite system. At the time, Tikit were effusive in their praise of FloSuite but now, 10 months on, Tikit has swapped BPM horses yet again to become a Metastorm ‘preferred partner’ in the legal market.

In fact this behaviour is not as fickle as it sounds for in the intervening period Tikit acquired ResSoft, the leading implementer of Metastorm workflow systems in the UK legal market and it clearly makes sense to take advantage of all this expertise. Nevertheless, while Metastorm has been picking up some new business in the legal market, winning orders from Kennedys, Cobbetts, Wright Hassall, Wiggin and Rickerbys, last month did see Bond Pearce drop Metastorm in favour of FloSuite. FloSuite has also terminated Tikit’s reseller contract.

AIM take gold - with insight
AIM Professional has announced a new reporting tool – called Evolution InSight – intended to provide fee earners and managers with a library of easily tailored reports covering all aspects of client and matter management. The new InSight system also gives firms the ability to offer clients and referrers 24/7 web access to status reports via a secure extranet.

In other AIM news... the company has just secured Microsoft ‘gold’ certified partner status. And, the newly formed BTMK firm in Southend (the result of last month’s merger between TMK Solicitors and Bates Travell) has selected AIM Evolution to provides its new accounts and case management platform.

Scots aim for one-stop shop
Pace Professional Systems, which was formed by Scottish legal IT veteran Ronnie Paton, and the Aberdeen-based systems house Tycom have teamed up to provide a one-stop hardware and software solution for Scottish law firms. Tycom, who have already been working with Pace for the past three years, will provide the IT support while Pace will supply their PacePro (now renamed LawPro) integrated accounts, case management and document management software.
www.tycom.co.uk

Civica launches more systems for local authority market
As a result of recent partnerships, the Civica group has launched two new systems for the local authorities market. The first is Pathway, which was designed by Azolve Technologies to help public authorities handle the procedural aspects of dealing with requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act. The second new product, which comes from Civica’s Flare Software division, takes the Regalion licensing system (originally developed by Wandsworth LBC to provide a web interface for submitting applications under the new Licensing Act 2003) and provides a link through to local government back office systems for processing such applications.

New owner at Legal IT but In Brief still unsold
Last month Global Professional Media, the publishers of Legal Week and Legal IT magazines, was bought by the Incisive Media Group. Incisive, who are one of the UK’s leading publishers of financial services, insurance and risk management magazines, already owned a 20% holding in GPM and have now acquired the remaining 80% for approximately £5.7 million in cash. GPM generated revenue of £4.5 million in 2004.

At the time of the acquisition, in the middle of last month, Legal IT magazine’s long time editor Kierran Flatt had already left the publication to concentrate on his main writing interests of yachting and cheese (no, we are not making this up) journalism in the UK and French press. At the time of going to press we are also hearing reports that towards the end of this year/early next year, Legal IT will cease to be a separate publication and become instead a bi-monthly supplement within Legal Week.

Legal Week may have found a new home but the saga of In Brief magazine and its Loties awards has still to reach a conclusion. The management buyout bid fronted by former In Brief publisher Karen Jones has fallen through. Insider sources say the bid failed because the parent group Longbridge wants to sell In Brief along with the assets and liabilities of its trading company PS Publications, whereas the bid was only for the titles. The Insider has since learned that the Ark Group, publishers of Managing Partner magazine, ‘are considering their options’ but ‘do not think there is any value in PS Publications’ or the Loties because ‘they do not make much profit’.

Agendas are secret of success
What makes for a successful legal IT event? If last month’s PISCES and By Legal For Legal conferences are anything to go by, the secret seems to be an agenda that provides delegates with the sessions they want to see – not what commercial sponsors think they want to hear. Plus, plenty of time for relaxed networking and discussions between the formal sessions, as distinct from the regimented timetables some events impose. Roger de Boehmler of PISCES said their event was so successful that delegates went away asking when the next one would be, while By Legal – which has Chatham House rules to encourage full and frequently very frank debate – enjoyed its third successive year of growth. By Legal is now talking to sponsors about its 2006 event, for details contact Travers Smith’s head of IT Ann Elia at ann.elia@traverssmith.com

Document assembly the next big thing?
Document assembly and automation (or document drafting and creation as some suppliers now prefer to call it) may have been around a long time but increased pressure on margins means even large City firms are now waking up to the fact they need to improve the efficiency of their document production operations. One company clearly hoping document assembly technology will become the next big thing is Tikit which, after many months of reviewing the market, has announced a partnership with the US Microsystems group to offer Microsystems’ D3 document drafting software and related services to the European legal market.

According to Tikit’s innovations director Liam Flanagan, what the company plans to deliver is a “complete, first draft to final delivery document lifecycle solution” that covers not only document drafting and content management but also the automatic cleaning up of precedents and migration of documents to a Word 2003 format so advantage can be taken of Microsoft’s latest technologies, including XML, smart tags and the information bridge framework (IBF). In fact 9 of London’s top 20 law firms already use Microsystems’ bureau services in Chicago to clean up and reformat their documents. Tikit is holding a seminar with Microsystems in London next week (11 October) full details on the web.
www.tikit.com

In other document assembly news... Last week the Australian-based software house RuleBurst announced the European launch of the latest version of its rule-based document assembly expert system. RuleBurst already allows users to work within a Microsoft Word environment and the latest enhancements include a new approach to XML-based rule-repository management and a simpler, natural language interface. UK users of RuleBurst, the system was originally called SoftLaw, include HM Revenue & Customs and the Legal Services Commission.
www.ruleburst.com

Meanwhile Morgan Cole, which has been working with Capsoft UK for the past four years, has now created a library of over 1000 templates based on HotDocs. These range from simple one paragraph precedents through to 200 page corporate documents. HotDocs projects at Morgan Cole are headed up by Kevin Greer’s Legal Innovation Team, which uses IT literate lawyers to provide a link between the firm’s IT department and fee earners ‘to prevent time being wasted on reinventing the wheel’.

All change in legal IT marketing
That old ‘we’ve come back from our summer holidays and want a career change’ phenomenon has been at work in the legal IT marketing world, with this autumn seeing two more departures. At Aderant, Jasmine Gonano has departed to travel around Europe for three months before heading back home to Australia. Aggie Anthimidou took over as marketing manager for Aderant’s EMEA operations at the end of last month. She has an MA in advertising & marketing from Leeds University Business School. And at AIM Professional, long-time marketing manager Amanda Beer has left to have a baby. She has been replaced by Graeme Dagg.

New IT consultancy
Tim Platel, previously a consultant with Professional Computer Group and latterly inhouse counsel for Easy Convey, has set up a new consultancy – Horizon Legal Services – to provide IT advice and assistance to smaller law firms. Platel says his services are based around the concept of ‘KAT’ – kit, attitude and training – as lawyers need to get all three correct if their IT strategies are to succeed. “Get one of these elements wrong,” says Platel, “and life will get difficult. Get them all wrong and you really don’t have a hope.”
www.horizonlegal.co.uk

Kind quits to write
Rosemary Kind, Shoosmiths’ head of finance & IT, has quit to pursue a career in writing and consultancy. Kind, who had been with Shoosmiths since 2000 – during which time turnover increased by 40% and average profits per equity partner by 94% – is moving to Antwerp. Shoosmiths will split Kind’s role and now appoint separate directors for IT and finance.

New products from Philips and WinScribe
WinScribe has announced the release of version 3.6 of its digital dictation software. New enhancements include a Microsoft XP style interface for authors, support for VoIP, Microsoft Terminal services and any recent version of Citrix thin client technology plus Active Directory integration. Meanwhile Philips has released a new version of its SpeechMagic speech recognition (SR) software that will operate in a Citrix environment, so as to make it possible for the first time for both SR and digital dictation applications to be hosted centrally and made part of the same integrated document creation and management workflow. Philips has also launched two new versions of its SpeechMike combi microphone and PC mouse device.

Trio of orders for KM specialist Solcara
Knowledge management-to-intranet specialist Solcara has notched up a trio of orders in the UK legal market. Clifford Chance and Lane & Partners have both implemented Solcara’s SolSearch system, which allows users to simultaneously search multiple information sources, including intranets and internal KM databases, and consolidate the results through one single search interface. Solcara’s third order was from 80-partner patent and trade marks attorneys Marks & Clerk, who will run Solcara’s Client Partner intranet system to provide the firm’s 12 offices with a single point of access to their KM resources. Solcara has also opened a City of London office at Central Point, 45 Beech Street, EC2 (020 7070 0450).
www.solcara.com

More join BlackBerry way
RIM’s BlackBerry – one of the few IT innovations to sneak under Microsoft’s radar in recent years – continues to go from strength-to-strength with this month both Aderant (with Mobile Office) and Thomson Elite (with Mobile Link) announcing new integrations to the BlackBerry. Both use wireless links to provide mobile time recording and client/matter inquiries, as well as email and diary access.

Readers poll: which PDF?
Through our new online survey facility, the Insider has been running a readers poll for the past month asking the question: which version of Adobe Acrobat do you use to read PDF files? We were interested, as we wanted to ensure we made the PDF edition of the Insider as accessible as possible and, when we asked Adobe they didn’t know the answer, so we decided to find out for ourselves. The results are now in: 46% of you use Acrobat version 6, 39% use the latest version 7, 15% use version 5 and nobody uses version 4 anymore. Thank you.

This month we ask... if Microsoft were to move into the small business systems market and offer applications such as accounts, CRM and document management that were suitable for law firms, would you (a) still continue buying specialist legal systems or (b) switch to the Microsoft products? The readers poll is on the Insider website.
www.legaltechnology.com

Oz firm cites 'little confidence' in local IT
Axxia Systems has scored its second win in Australia, with an order from the Argyle Partnership. Axxia will be rolling out its practice management, case management and KPI (key performance indicators) software across the firm’s Sydney and Melbourne offices.

Why? Because according to the Argyle Partnership’s CEO Denise Eastabrook: “When we began our search for a new system, the home grown supplier market was in a state of flux and, as a result, we had little confidence that a long term solution was to be found there. We then looked at the global players and having seen the success Axxia had achieved with their first Australian installation at Minter Ellison, we were keen to know more.”
www.axxia.com

OFT say local councils must level playing field
The Office of Fair Trading has published the results of its study into the provision of property information by local authorities. With home information packs (HIPs) due to be introduced in 2007, the OFT says it is essential for local councils to provide search information to third-parties on non-discriminatory terms so competition is not restricted. The OFT also found that with the price of local authority searches ranging from £55 to £269 “it is likely that some consumers are paying too much”.

The OFT’s findings have been welcomed by the private search industry. Mark Riddick, the chief executive of SearchFlow said “We have been calling for one market, one standard of information and one fair pricing structure for many months. The OFT study sends a strong message to the government (which must now respond to the report) to reform and clarify the market as a priority.”
www.oft.gov.uk/news

Insider figures suggests that of the 1.4 million property searches carried out in England & Wales last year, just 20% were made electronically. SearchFlow is the market leader with a 41% share, followed by Transaction Online (TOL) and then TM Property Service. All three are NLIS-licensed channels. A fourth NLIS licence slot has been available, but with no takers, since 2001.

Strange bedfellows
What do LexisNexis and the hotel heiress and celebrity Paris Hilton have in common? The answer, according to a recent report in the Washington Post, is last year they were both the victims of the same teenager hacker. In the case of Paris Hilton – best known for her TV series The Simple Life and a certain home movie taken by a former boyfriend – the hacker was able to access her cell phone’s address book, containing the private phone numbers and ‘revealing photos’ of various celebs, and post them onto a website. With LexisNexis, the hacker accessed data stored on one of the company’s US information services.

The 17-year-old hacker, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is now serving an 11-month sentence and on release he will be barred for two years from using or possessing any computer, phone or other device capable of accessing the internet. Apparently one of his favourite tools is a Trojan horse virus which, once inside a victim’s computer or network, allowed him to access information within the system as if he were a legitimate user.

Clifford Chance show why
Ever wondered why records management and document lifecycle/retention policies are so necessary? Then just go down to Canary Wharf and warm your hands on the red faces at Clifford Chance. Why? Because at the end of last month someone leaked the contents of an old database containing background information on senior executives at Airbus, one of the firm’s clients.

According to the file, one of the executives was ‘very stressed when under pressure’ and another was described as ‘powerful for five years, marginalised since then.’ Clifford Chance say they regret the incident and have apologised to Airbus but add that the comments came from a four-year-old file at the Paris office that is no longer used and not in accordance with the firm’s current data protection policy.

Security? Not here
Evolution Security Systems has published the results of a recent survey on IT security within law firms – and dismal reading it makes. For example, although over half of those responding said they felt online security threats were increasing and 10% had suffered a security breach during the past 12 months, 39% did not have disaster recovery plans. There again 25% of respondents admitted to never changing their loggin passwords and over half said they still asked their colleagues to check their emails for them.
www.evolve-online.com

Cannonball run
Congratulations to Visualfiles sales manager Roger Hudson who has just completed the Cannonball 8000 rally, along with another 120 participants, between London and Rome. Although his car was sponsored by Visualfiles, Hudson and his co-driver travelled dressed as Scott and Virgil Tracey from Thunderbirds. Apart from a speeding ticket near Nuremberg and eight other stops by German police for licence and insurance checks, the journey ran to plan. Next year’s rally heads to Budapest via Prague.

The Insider is moving
Legal Technology Insider is moving home later this month. The new postal address is Oak Lodge, Darrow Green Road, Denton, Harleston, Norfolk IP20 0AY. The new phone number should be 01986 788666 (fax 788808). To accommodate the move – we have been in our present location for 20 years and do have a paper mountain to sort and shift – the Insider office will close on Thursday 20th October and re-open on Tuesday 1st November.

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News in brief

Simmons integrate OneSource into CRM
Simmons & Simmons has integrated the OneSource business information service, which provides business and financial data on 3.2 million companies, into its InterAction CRM system.
www.onesource.com

C&W win £2m Irwin Mitchell contract
Cable & Wireless is to provide Irwin Mitchell with a new converged IP network in a deal worth £2 million over five years. As well as replacing the firm’s old frame relay network, the new internet protocol technology also supports a voice over IP (VoIP) phone system. The firm says the move to one single network carrying voice and data traffic will reduce both telephony and maintenance costs. One example of these savings is the firm recently had to provide phones to 350 people in a new building. Previously this would have taken four or five IM staff and a BT engineer a whole weekend whereas with VoIP it took just three hours.

New website for Howlett Clarke
Brighton law firm Howlett Clarke has launched a new website as part of a rebranding exercise. The site was designed by the NVisage (01273 384287) and uses an Ektron content management system.
www.howlettclarke.co.uk
www.nvisage.co.uk

Freshfields award Teksys Select deal
Following its appointment as a Microsoft large account reseller, Teksys (01923 247707) has been awarded with a ‘select’ agreement by Freshfield Bruckhaus Deringer to supply it with Microsoft software and licensing.

Wedlake Bell migrate to Plan-Net
Wedlake Bell has completed the first phase of a migration from Novell Groupwise to Microsoft Exchange. The implementation was handled by IT services company Plan-Net (020 7353 4313) as part of a £20,000 contract.

Upgrades to Eclipse case management
Eclipse Legal Systems is now rolling out version 2.5 of its Proclaim case management software. New features include electronic payment requisition slips, improved audit trails, an advanced report writer facility and enhancements to the system’s automated task management.

Two more wins for Cryoserver
Taylor Wessing and Watford-based Matthew Arnold & Baldwin have become the latest firms to order Cryoserver’s (020 7251 1000) email compliance system.
www.cryoserver.com

RPC upgrade with Hummingbird
Reynolds Porter Chamberlain has opted to stay with Hummingbird for its document management software and upgrade to the company’s Enterprise system.

Addleshaw Goodard one hour support
Addleshaw Goddard is now using the Supportworks product from Hornbill Systems (020 8582 8224) to help cut call resolution targets for its IT support service helpdesk from an average of four hours to just one hour. The helpdesk service, which receives an average of 2500 calls a month, aims to deal with 95% of all calls within an hour by the end of this year.

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The Insider web site
For the latest legal IT news, jobs, events and information, visit the Insider web site, described by The Times newspaper as "the definitive online resource for legal technology information".

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Litigation support news

Attenex in at Simmons & Simmons
Simmons & Simmons has selected the LIT Group UK (0870 421 4091) and the Attenex Patterns e-discovery system to help review 40Gb of archived electronic documents. The archive held over 750,000 pages of emails and attachments and because the firm was under tight deadlines, it realised conventional reviewing methods would be inadequate and turned instead to Attenex, which uses pattern recognition to sift, cull and organise large volumes of data.

Taylor Wessing implement PortWise
Taylor Wessing has implemented a PortWise system to provide its clients with a secure means of accessing and reviewing confidential case material for e-disclosure purposes as part of the firm’s client-facing litigation support system. Taylor Wessing were introduced to PortWise by Agnew Associates (07867 507843).
www.portwise.com

KPMG Forensic recruits e-dislosure specialist
KPMG Forensic has recruited Baker & McKenzie litigation lawyer Sanjay Bhandari to head up its e-disclosure team. He is a co-author of the Commercial Litigators Forum discussion paper on e-discovery and a member of the Sedona Conference working group on electronic information management, disclosure & discovery.

Discover-e links up with Hobs Legal
Hobs Legal Docs (020 7831 6277) has become the first litigation support services bureau in London to have a formal partnership with the developers of the US e-discovery system Discover-e Legal. Hobs Legal, part of the Hobs reprographics group, was formed at the end of last year by Terry Harrison and has already processed almost 6 million pages of materials. As well as Discover-e, Hobs Legal also has partnerships with many of the other big names in litigation support software, including Dataflight, Summation and IPRO Tech.
www.hobslegadocs.com

Trilantic launch end-to-end e-disclosure services
Trilantic (020 7042 1000), the new litigation support services company set up earlier this summer by industry veteran Nigel Murray, has launched what Murray describes as “a complete end-to-end service” covering everything from data gathering and document processing, through to database hosting, document disclosure and courtroom presentation. Murray says Trilantic’s “project management oriented approach” will save both time and money, compared with the current market trend for selecting multiple suppliers.
www.trilantic.co.uk

CPS used Futuremedia for e-learning
The Crown Prosecution Service has used Futuremedia to develop a series of ‘best practice’ e-learning courses for CPS lawyers. The courses, which cover such topics as the code of conduct for prosecutors, PACE and the Bail Act, are delivered to new recruits via a web portal.
www.futuremedia.co.uk

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Digital dictation news

Ince & Co go international with BigHand
Having already installed BigHand’s digital dictation system in the London, Paris, Le Havre and Piraeus offices of Ince & Co, the firm’s shipping & trade practice is now planning to rollout DDS in its Hamburg, Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai offices. BigHand has also been named in the Sunday Times annual ‘tech track’ table as one of the UK’s 100 fastest growing private technology companies. BigHand, ranked number 51 in the list, was the only software developer working in the legal sector to be listed.

Sternberg rollout Nflow DDS
Essex firm Sternberg Reed Taylor & Gill is reporting ‘significant cost savings’ during the 12 months since it first rolled out the Nflow digital dictation system to 67 users in its two offices. The Nflow software has been integrated with the firm’s AIM practice management system, whilst both fee earners and secretaries can work from home via Microsoft Remote Desktop. Sternbergs is also planning to instal Nflow’s telephony dictation interface, which will allow the criminal practice team to dictate via mobile phones during dead time, such as a court recess.

Beachcroft’s to use WinScribe in 10 offices
Having already rolled out WinScribe software at seven offices, Beachcroft Wansbroughs is now rolling it out to its remaining offices in Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester. The firm, which is working with WinScribe sales and implementation partner SRC, is already reporting a 20% reduction in document turnaround times, increased levels of team working between offices and a cut on transcription backlogs since the introduction of digital dictation.

Voicepath expands into Northern Ireland
Voicepath, the UK’s largest domestically based outsourced transcription service, has expanded its operations into Northern Ireland, with the appointment of Blue Chip Technologies as a new trading partner. Blue Chip is the province’s largest provider of digital dictation and speech recognition systems and will now also be advising its law firm customers on the benefits of outsourcing.
www.bluechiptechnologies.com

New seminar programme
Over the next month, the Sussex-based Speech Centre is holding a series of seminars in the South-East on the topic of ‘is speech recognition digital dictation?’ The locations are Brighton (20 October), Maidstone (25 October), Tunbridge Wells (1 November) and Croydon (3 November). For details call Janet Duchesne on 01892 661116) or email info@speechcentre.co.uk

Transcription in Scotland
Along with dictation transcription for lawyers in the central area of Scotland, Lawscript is now also offering a ‘virtual paralegal’ service that works with firm’s case management systems. For details call Lorna Edwards on 01259 727400.
www.lawscript.com

Speech recognition training CD
US publishers Say-I-Can has launched a set of training CDs on getting to grips with Dragon’s speech recognition software. Called the Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8 Video Guide, prices start from $99.95.
www.sayican.com

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Online news in brief

Pro Bono access all areas
The Solicitors Pro Bono Group and Lexis Nexis Butterworths have agreed a new scheme that will allow lawyers working on a voluntary basis in LawWorks Clinics to access the content within the recently launched LexisNexis Butterworths online legal and tax information service free of charge. The LawWorks Clinics are a joint initiative between the Solicitors Pro Bono Group and the Law Centres Federation to provide free legal advice to individuals and communities. For more details about the LawWorks initiative call Graham Bucknall on 020 7929 5601

ICC expands online company library
ICC Information has begun a major expansion of its online company documents library by adding pre-1996 materials currently stored on microfiche. The back-scanning project, which is proceeding at a rate of 5500 companies and 325,000 documents a week, is expected to be completed by November 2006. Since 1996 all company documents have been automatically scanned and the ICC library currently contains over 280 million document images.
www.icc.co.uk

Norwich Union team up with SearchFlow
Norwich Union is offering conveyancers legal indemnity insurance against defective titles via the SearchFlow online conveyancing search service. SearchFlow users will now be able to access the insurer’s LION (Legal Indemnity Online) service to obtain quotations, policy documentation and full cover online.
www.searchflow.co.uk

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International news

Arenthals select Aderant in Netherlands
The Dutch accountancy firm Arenthals Grant Thornton has selected Aderant Back Office (formerly CMS.Net) as its new practice management system. The deal was secured by Aderant’s Benelux partner Timesoft, who will also be responsible for implementing it throughout the firm’s eight offices in The Netherlands.
www.timesoft.nl

Morningstar is new InterAction partner
Morningstar Systems have joined the partner programme for LexisNexis Interface Software’s InterAction CRM system. Morningstar will be responsible for selling and implementing InterAction in the Benelux region – this is the first time Interface has had a partner specifically covering this area of the European market.
www.morningstarsystems.nl

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People & places

Another departure from Elite
Following this summer’s shock departure of David Thorpe (now with Tikit) from Thomson Elite, the PMS supplier has now seen another high level departure with the resignation of Harry Pfeffer, who headed Elite’s European operations.

Hadley sales director at Copitrak
Copitrak Systems has appointed Stewart Hadley as its new sales & marketing director. Hadley has spent several years working in the HR software industry in Europe and Australia, most recently with Cezanne Software.

Pilgrim expand London office
As part of an expansion of its London office, Nicky Sayer has joined Pilgrim Systems’ implementation team and will be working with customers in the south of England. Sayer has previously worked with Paragon, Axxia and Laserform.

Siddle now at Visuafiles
Martin Siddle, most recently the sales director at Pracctice and before that with Pilgrim, has joined the sales team at Visualfiles’ commercial division.

New appointment at Lightspeed Europe
Anthony Wells has been appointed as UK sales manager for Lightspeed Systems Europe. Wells has worked in the legal IT market for six years, most recently with Sellers Legal Services and Hummingbird.

New joiner at Transam
Tabinda Singh has joined the sales team at Transam, with special responsibility for Microsoft products and licensing schemes.

Select sponsor English champion
Select Legal Systems’ sponsorship of Hull junior squash prodigy James Earles continues to pay dividends, with Earles living up to his ranking as the No.1 seed by recently winning the All England Junior (under 13) Squash Championship in Sheffield.

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