Headlines

Guide 'no longer relevant'
Is the English Law Society’s Software Solutions Guide still relevant today? Although the 2007 edition is due to be published in a fortnight’s time, one of the biggest names in its core small-to-mid-sized firms market – Axxia Systems – has pulled out, citing a poor return on investment (it costs about £10,000 to have an entry in the guide) and adding that the guide ‘had ceased to be really relevant’. Videss, now part of the CS Group, pulled out (and has stayed out) of the guide for similar reasons in 2004.

While the guide has finally addressed one long standing complaint (was it endorsing the supplier or the system?) so both AlphaLaw and Opsis have separate entries for their respective entry-level and mid-sized systems, the guide is now down to just 14 suppliers out of a total of 40 plus accounts and PMS vendors. Along with AlphaLaw and Opsis, the guide includes Access, CS Group AIM, DPS, Eclipse, JCS, Linetime, Mountain, SOS and TFB from last year plus two new entries – Cognito Software and Select Legal Systems. There is also one returnee: CS Group Laserform. However, in addition to Axxia, Civica, Quill and Edgebyte have also dropped out of the guide. Readers with longer memories will recall it was Axxia’s decision to pull out of the old Barbican SOLEX exhibition after 1998 that marked the beginning of the end for that event.

Vin Murria wins Legal Technology award
One year ago nobody in the legal market had heard of her yet this Thursday night – at the Legal Technology Awards ceremony in London – Vin Murria, the chief executive of the CS Group was named the supplier personality of the year. (David Lumsden of Tikit was the runner-up). In fact it was a good night for CSG generally with Videss Legal Office winning the integrated system award (TFB was the runner up) and AIM named as runner-up in the LITIG award for customer service – Copitrak was the winner.

Barnetts Solicitors also had a good night winning in the online service category for their Click Conveyancing facility and coming runners-up in the award for best automation project – Brodies were the winner in this class. Other supplier awards results included Interse iBox winning the technology innovation award, SJ Berwin winning the implementation award for their Interwoven Worksite 8 project, Ringtail Legal winning the litigation support system award, and G3 Consulting (now part of the FTI group) winning the lit support service provider award – Lisa Burton’s Legal Inc were runners up in this class. Business Integrity won the best of breed category (BigHand were runners-up) and CallCredit won the online product award – SDLT.co.uk was the runner up here.

By Legal For Legal won the award for outstanding contribution to the legal market (and about time too) with David Thorpe as runner-up. Andy MacLusky of Maples & Calder was named IT director of the year, Brodies were the IT team of the year and Lewis Silkin were law firm of the year. Allen & Overy won the outsourcing award, Taylor Wessing took helpdesk team, Reuters won the inhouse legal award and Ashurst won the training initiative award.

Cut-price systems for Scottish solicitors
The Law Society of Scotland has just finalised a series of discount deals for its members. These include a 40% discount on the price of Adobe Acrobat 8; a special price on Trustis smartcard readers for accessing the Automated Registration of Title to Land online service within the Registers of Scotland; and – probably the most interesting deal of all – a 20% saving on the list price of nFlow’s digital dictation software for new purchases.

At the Scottish Law Society, Gordon Brewster (who headed the team that negotiated the discounts) said DDS had been one of the big legal IT success stories and he hoped the deal would bring nFlow within reach of many firms, enabling them to take advantage of the benefits of digital dictation. Brewster and his team hope to identify further opportunities for members.
www.lawscot.org.uk/Members_Information/Deals

Taking a LEAD on legal e-learning
Last week saw Ashurst host the second meeting of the LEAD (Legal e-Learning for Advancement & Development) coalition in the UK. This is a new initiative (it’s been running for a couple of years in the US and now has 24 large firms on board) that hopes to create a common training and certification programme for IT skills ‘that educates legal professionals on how to do their job not how to use software’. The e-learning company TutorPro is helping co-ordinate LEAD in the UK and for further details email spasfield@tutorpro.com

• Simmons & Simmons has chosen TutorPro to provide training and support for the roll-out of a new desktop that includes Microsoft Office 2003, Worksite 8 and Workshare Professional. TutorPro’s learning management system TutorEnterprise will be used to manage e-learning and classroom courses. The system also tracks CPD and integrates with Outlook and the firm’s HR database.

Elite gearing up for busy year ahead
Thomson Elite International has just completed the busiest hiring period in its history, taking on 27 new staff – the majority being additions to the UK services team – during the past three months, and more than doubling the total complement (from 45 to 97 people) over the last year. Recent recruits include Alan Charlton as project director (previously Baker Robbins and before that Linklaters), Chris Weston, technical consultant on BPE (most recently with Cap Gemini), Jonathon Scott, application consultant (previously with the Legal Services Commission), and Richard Foulds, technical consultant (previously with Tikit). The company has also opened new offices in France and Hong Kong.

Commenting on these developments, international V-P Jitendra Valera said “Our recent recruitment drive follows the successful launch of 3E last year and is the result of an ever-increasing demand from new and existing customers. Although Elite has been relatively quiet on the new orders front over the past few months, the Insider understands this has been for contractual reasons and that the company now has a backlog of at least 10 new orders – primarily for the new 3E product – to announce this spring. The most recent win disclosed by Elite was Withy King, which saw the Bath-based firm order the Elite Enterprise system to replace its old SOS practice management software.

Smith escapes from Tycom
After five years with Tycom, Mike Smith has joined the Aberdeen-based IT services company Escape Technologies (01224 630 600) as sales manager, with a brief that includes “making a big push” into the Scottish legal market. Escape specialise in supplying servers, networking, support, maintenance, telephony and outsourced IT services. Smith says he will maintain partnerships with existing legal suppliers, including Ronnie Paton’s Pace Professional and Jim Currie’s Legal Information Systems (01259 720305) consultancy.
www.escape-tech.co.uk
www.legalinformationsystems.co.uk

Thomson buys BRCO
The Thomson Corporation has acquired the US-based IT consultancy Baker Robbins & Co. The acquisition of Baker Robbins (BRCO) is described as ‘a powerful complement to the Thomson portfolio of legal consulting services’ which already includes Hildebrandt International. BRCO co-founders David Baker and Brad Robbins will remain with the business. Baker Robbins is a private company and the terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Looking for US representation
Last month we reported on PureTech Marketing opening in the UK, this month we head to Minneapolis where Amy Juers has just launched Legal Edge Marketing, a full service marketing and PR company for the US legal IT market. The new consultancy includes Carolyn Depko, who used to be with the LegalVoice consultancy, which has now closed.
www.legaledgemarketing.com

You sold it for how much?
Non-attributable sources say that far from selling their shareholdings in the company for the rumoured £6 million we reported in September last year, the founders of the BigHand digital dictation systems business - Stephen Thompson and Gordon McAlpine - actually sold for a far higher sum approaching £16 million.

Legal IT show preview
In just under a fortnight – on Wednesday 7th February – the annual Legal IT Exhibition opens its doors again at the Business Design Centre in Islington. In terms of new product launches, at the time of going to press, a few suppliers had managed to get their acts together to send preview material – and we will be carrying a review in the February issue.

We start with a potential show-stopper from Anya Designs who, in association with Fujitsu Siemens Computers, are launching Legal Practice in a Box. This is described as the ‘first and only plug and play legal system package that contains everything you need in one box,’ namely Anya’s iLaw case management and accounts software, personalised for your firm, running on Fujitsu Siemens hardware, so a start-up law firm is ‘good to go from the first day they open their doors’.

Axxia, who are sponsoring the juice bar, are showing the latest developments on their DNA business management system, including the iCapella reporting and decision support system (features include personalised information delivery and firm-wide data consolidation) from Cranes Software. CS Group AIM is unveiling AIM Evolution’s new embedded document management system which is built around the Microsoft enterprise content management platform of MS Office and Windows Sharepoint Services.

Eclipse Legal Systems is taking the wraps off the latest version (v.3) of its Proclaim software. Available free to users on software maintenance contracts, version 3 features include a new user interface, Web Services compatibility as standard – which should prove popular with users who need to integrate with client, business partner and third-party (referrers etc) IT systems – and extended practice management tools. Grundig is launching its new entry level machine – the Digta 405 – which has been designed for ‘the iPod generation’ and previewing a wireless USB dictation microphone, a device that has been on many users’ wish lists for sometime.

LexisNexis Visualfiles is giving its software an alternative look with the introduction of a Microsoft Outlook interface for its case management software – this is already available on its M2 matter management system. Visualfiles will also be previewing ‘case plan’ based case management, new natural language reporting tools and a new extranet. Linetime is launching a new digital dictation integration between its Liberate Express document creation process and the nFlow system, as well as a new HIPs creation package for users of Liberate conveyancing.

And, finally, 81G makes its Islington debut with a portfolio of managed services and IP telephony offerings, including demonstrations of the SwyxWare software-based IP telephony and unified messaging system. 81G will have the UK’s champion shoe shiner Drew Goodall (we’re not making this up) on its stand to clean your shoes and be running what looks to be the best prize draw – for a Nintendo Wii – of the show.
www.81g.org

Editorial: how about something new?
In less than a fortnight the Legal IT show opens its doors at the Business Design Centre in Islington. And a few minutes later the first legal IT supplier will sidle up to me to complain that visitor numbers are disappointing and the event’s organisers have let them down – again.

It’s not foresight – just experience. I’ve been attending legal IT exhibitions in the UK for over 20 years and I hear the same complaints every year. True, the new masters in charge of the show – Informa – have not exactly pushed the boat out with their pre-publicity. In fact their campaign looks to be almost identical to the one the previous owners Cordial used for years – although not printing the opening times on the tickets was novel. (They are 9:30am to 4:30pm incidentally.)

However what the organisers do – or don’t do – is only half the story. Equally important is the contribution made by the exhibitors – and that means more than having a big stand and all your corpulent sales team kitted out in matching polo shirts and chinos. What visitors are looking for is ‘new stuff’ – new product launches, new suppliers – and a little razzmatazz. What they get is the same old same old and a chance to put their business cards into a prize draw to win a bottle of indifferent champagne.

Exhibitors wax lyrical about the crowds attending legal IT shows in the mid-1990s but there was plenty of exciting new stuff – such as Windows and speech recognition – on show. This year, by contrast, there were more new product launches made at supplier roadshows and user conferences in the autumn, than there will be at Islington. It’s on old complaint that IT exhibitions have a tired format but the real problem is the exhibitors have a tired mindset and are failing to offer visitors anything to lure them out of their offices and make the trek to north London.
...Charles Christian

Opinion: rage against the belief that big is best
In the December 2006 edition of the Insider, Stuart Holden of Axxia made a rather bold statement regarding the amount of money his company, one of the larger suppliers to the UK legal software market, spends on research and development. According to Mr Holden, his company spends an average of 15% of its annual turnover on R&D which, he contends, is a ‘key differentiator’ when compared to that of other, smaller suppliers – assuming this is what is meant by the rather unfortunate reference to ‘cottage industries’.

As a director of one of those suppliers, I feel compelled to put aside the needle and cotton for a few minutes and respond.

I agree with Mr Holden in that there clearly is a difference between his company and us. I know for a fact that the time and money that we spend on R&D accounts for over 50% of our turnover – and I dare say we are similar to most smaller suppliers in any marketplace.

We have no choice but to spend what others may see as a disproportionate amount of time and money on R&D because it is crucial to the future welfare of our business. The main reason, of course, is we do not have anything like the same marketing budget as the likes of Mr Holden’s company. Therefore it is essential for us to ensure we continue to supply the best possible software systems and after-sales service. This is our best form of marketing, proven by the fact that over 90% of our new clients emanate from a personal recommendations.

This leads me neatly on to make a statement that is perhaps equally as bold. I have long held the view that legal practices receive a vastly superior standard of service from a smaller software supplier. This is partly due to the lack of a sizeable marketing budget, as I have already explained. Additionally, smaller suppliers will inevitably have a much smaller client base to service and whilst they may not have the same number of front-line support personnel, proportionately their figures are bound to be much more manageable.

To give an example: Supplier X has a team of 50 support staff serving 20,000 end users, meaning each team member must service on average 400 end users. Supplier Y has 5 support staff serving 500 end users. Who is in the better position to provide support? You do the maths.
...Terry Frost, founder Solicitors Case Management Systems

Insider readers poll: IT budgets in 2007
Last month we asked law firms whether their IT budgets for the coming year would be going up, coming down or remaining the same. The poll, which generated one of the biggest turnouts of the year, produced one very clear answer – namely nearly 69% of respondents said their budgets would be increasing. The bad news is 37.5% said they would only be increasing marginally. The good news is 31.3% of you said your budgets would be increasing ‘significantly’.

As for the remainder... 22.9% said their budgets would be staying the same and just 8.3% said they would be decreasing. Compared with previous years, the proportion of firms facing a decrease is lower than usual, whereas on the increase side, one interpretation of a ‘marginal’ increase is that it means budgets are frozen but with an allowance for inflation. That still leaves nearly a third of firms with a significantly increased budget to spend. When we polled the subject last year, about 58% of firms said their spending priority was infrastructure, with email security and business continuity taking priority. And 42% said their focus would be new or upgrades to existing software applications.

Buzzword corner
According to a survey by Centennial Software, 53% of people working in the UK IT industry have lost portable devices such as laptops, PDAs, mobile phones, and USB devices, containing work-related information after drinking too much. Over half the devices were lost at the drinking venue, typically a pub, with the remainder going astray in taxis, tubes and trains. Centennial call these incidents Alcohol Related Security Emergencies – or ARSE.


10 years ago today...
The big stories in January 1997 included Laserform (now part of the CS Group) announcing it was moving into the case management market despite other suppliers warning the move would force them switch to alternative electronics forms suppliers such as Oyez. Blaming a crowded agenda, the English Law Society ducked out of making a decision on what to do with its troubled High Street Starter Kit project until its March council meeting. And, shades of deja vu, Microsoft launched a new version of its Office suite. Innovations in Office 97 included a brand new application called Outlook – and people wondered if it would ever catch on.

Have you the IT factor?
With wall-to-wall reality TV on the box, we thought we’d organise our own hommage to the genre, the snappily titled I’m a Legal Technology Celebrity, get me out of the Big Brother House because I have the IT Factor. If you visit the Insider website, you’ll see the latest readers’ poll has been given over to the IT Factor and provides you with an opportunity to vote for your favourite legal technology celebrity – you’ve a selection of 10 to pick from. The person receiving the most votes will receive a suitably tacky memento, as well as a slap up meal of witchetty grubs. Feel free to vote as often as you like.
www.legaltechnology.com

On sale, on DVD, in March
As result of health problems – nothing sinister – long time Legal Abacus editor Maria Maloney has left the Institute of Legal Cashiers & Administrators. Meanwhile her husband Bill and daughter Regan have obtained a distribution deal for their first feature-length movie. Called Lunatic, it goes on sale as a DVD via Virgin, HMV and Amazon in March.

Donations in – and still wanted
With a final push that included sending electronic Xmas cards, LexisNexis Visualfiles managed to raise just over £14,000 for charitable causes last year. The majority of the money has been distributed to two charities: the Teeenage Cancer Trust and Mary’s Meals, which provides school meals in Malawi. Meanwhile Stuart Cowell, the head of IT, and network manager Paul Smith at Davies Arnold Cooper are hoping to raise £5000 for the Anthony Nolan Leukaemia Trust by running in April’s London marathon. They are looking for donations and you can do this online by logging on to www.justgiving.com/dac-charity

Gossip central
• Which digital dictation systems vendor sources hardware via eBay?

• Which well-known legal technology man-about-town was thrown out of a Midlands disco by bouncers after falling into the lap of a woman in a wheelchair, while strutting his stuff on the dance floor?

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News in brief

Travers Smith select Copitrak
Travers Smith has selected Copitrak to replace its Equitrac cost recovery/cost management systems. The firm will integrate Copitrak to its Timeslice PMS and Open Text DMS.

Gibraltar firm picks Linetime
After studying the English Law Society’s software solutions guide, Gibraltar-based Marrache & Co has picked Linetime’s Liberate software as its new practice management system.

RF Tansey buys into Videss
Thame-based RF Tansey Solicitors has signed up with CS Group Videss to implement a new case and practice management system. The firm said it was unhappy with the service it received from its incumbent supplier although the firm declined to name them.

Two more firms go with Emis IT
Two more firms – Picton Howell in London and Dyne Solicitors in Cheshire – have selected the Seneca CM system from Emit IT as their new PMS.

Huge RoI for Solcase user
Cheshire-based personal injury claims specialists Bott & Co report that following the integration of their LexisNexis Visualfiles Solcase case management with a Tobit unified messaging system, the firm is enjoying ‘a conservative saving of £100,000 a year and a 30-40% saving on support and ongoing maintenance costs. Two more firms – Birketts and Veale Wasbrough – have selected Visualfiles for their case management platform.
www.bottonline.co.uk
www.tobit.com

Two wins for Saturn Legal
Offshore firm Ogier has commissioned Saturn Legal to provide consultancy services to assist in the development of a suite of business and management reports. And, Radcliffes Le Brasseur is buying Saturn’s i-balance data integrity system for the Elite PMS.
www.saturnlegal.co.uk

Solcara partners with ISYS
Solcara (0870 333 2966) is to integrate ISYS Search Software’s indexing technology within its SolSearch search engine. SolSearch is described as a ‘federated’ system as it can simultaneously search multiple information repositories.

Crawfords outsource with Sovereign
Crawfords in London has outsourced its entire IT infrastructure to Sovereign Business Integration (020 8216 3333).
www.sovereign-plc.co.uk

Legastat select EED software
Legastat (020 7405 9178) has selected the Discover-e Legal system as its electronic data discovery (EDD) platform. Josef Elliott of Oyster-IMS helped with the evaluation and selection process.
www.discover-e-legal.com

Free FSA assessments available
Storage technology specialists MTI is offering law firms (who currently have a minimum of 500 Gb of stored data) a free file system assessment. MTI’s Jamie Hall says along with spotting illegal file types (such as personal MP3s) that can immediately be removed from storage, an FSA (which only looks at metadata, not the contents of files) can help a firm better understand its storage needs and identify which files need to be kept on network servers and which can be archived. The offer runs until the end of July, for more details call Hall on 01483 520218.

Latest wins for TFB
The latest wins for TFB include the legal department of Costcutter Supermarkets, who are using Partner for Windows (P4W) to create a litigation case management system, and Gulbenkian Andonian, who have installed the P4W small practice edition. In addition, both Whitehead Monckton and Keeble Hawson are integrating the Isokon trust and probate system with P4W. This brings to 12 the number of TFB users now also running Isokon.
• TFB has launched a new ServerWatch service (free to users on support contracts) that remotely monitors and reports on server health and security on a 24/7 basis.

Norton Rose boosts systems reliability with NetIQ
Faced with an average of 44,000 routine system alerts each month (the firm calculated that dealing with email system alerts alone would require 81 man-hours a day) Norton Rose has implemented the NetIQ AppManager suite of server performance and security monitoring tools to help them identify major system errors and move from a reactive to a proactive approach to service management.
   
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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". And don't forget our breaking news blog The Orange Rag.
 
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Consultancy news

3Kites ends first six months on target
Paul Longhurst of 3Kites Legal IT Consulting says their first six months trading were “more encouraging than I could have predicted” with major projects commenced for Shoosmiths, Simmons & Simmons and The Pensions Regulator.
www.3kites.com

Blackburn joins Kirby consultancy
Mike Blackburn has joined Bill Kirby’s Professional Choice Consultancy. With law firms entering the post-Clementi world, Blackburn and Kirby have put together a new packaged strategy programme (which uses historical business and client/introducer analysis) to help generate new strategic options for firms looking to compete effectively in an evolving marketplace.
www.professionalchoiceconsultancy.com

New site to offer management forum
Practice manager-turned law firm management consultant Tom Paul has launched a new website that aims to provide advice for managing partners and practice managers of smaller-to-mid sized firms that currently have no central resource for management information. Access to the extensive content on the site is free of charge and users can register to be notified when new material is posted.
www.profitablepractice.org.uk
 
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Fresh on the radar

New entrant to barristers software market
Bar Squared (0845 009 1180) has launched a new chambers management system – called Lex – for the barristers’ market. Although they are going head-to-head with market leader Meridian (part of the Mountain group) Nick Hartwell of Bar Squared claims Lex is the future of barristers software because it is “currently the only complete Microsoft .NET solution available to chambers”.
www.barsquared.net/lex

3Kites to fly BlackBerry time recording
3Kites Technologies (020 7520 9495) a new offshoot of the 3Kites Consultancy, has launched DTE Inhand in the UK. This is a new time recording system for the Blackberry, that was developed by Advanced Productivity Software in the US. DTE Inhand, which can be integrated with practice management systems and Carpe Diem, will be sold on the basis of a small monthly fee, so there are no large upfront costs. Paul Longhurst of 3Kites says assuming an hourly billing rate of £200, capturing two additional 6 minute units a month will pay the fee and net a profit.
www.3kites.com

SoftWise and Litera in joint venture
Two of the leading US suppliers of document production systems – SoftWise and Litera – have agreed to merge their respective metadata utilities (Out-of-Sight and Metadata Sweeper) to create a new product called Metadact. The new system, which will be available during Q1 2007, will allow users to act on metadata in all Microsoft Office and PDF documents.
www.softwise.net

CPD – all sorted now
All lawyers may have to do it but the management and monitoring of CPD (continuing professional development) remains a time consuming hassle for most law firms. The latest product to try to crack this problem is CPDsorted from Sorted Software (08444 150090). This is a web-based product – so smaller firms have no applications to download, install or worry about configuring – with prices starting at £30 a month although for larger firms volume discounts bring this down to about 50p per user per month. And that’s just about it – the product does what it says on the tin, including providing extensive reporting tools for individual fee earner planning, practice management and Law Society compliance purposes. There is an excellent website carrying a comprehensive demo of the system – which can also be used to create individual and team learning plans – and the product has an interesting pedigree. The Sorted Software team is a joint venture between RNS Consultants (part of accountants RN Store & Co), Bluestorm Design and Penny Owston, senior partner at Martin & Haigh – and a well known lecturer and author on law firm management issues in her own right.
www.cpdsorted.co.uk

 
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International news

Tikit wins Danish mega-deal
Tikit has been selected by Bech-Bruun, Denmark’s largest law firm, to handle a major upgrade to its IT infrastructure for 500 users in two offices. The project includes implementing Interse iBox KM and Metastorm BPM workflow systems plus Interwoven WorkSite 8 DMS, which will be integrated with the Workshare document security and metadata application. The firm is also rolling out Tikit’s own deal bible creation system.

Aderant end year on high note
Aderant ended last year on a high note with several wins in Q4 2006 in Australia and continental Europe. The biggest orders came from Slater & Gordon in Melbourne (300 users) and Cologne-based Luther (part of the new Pinsent Masons Luther Group). Other wins included Fisher Jeffries in Adelaide, Claeys & Engels in Brussels and De Kempenaer Advocaten in The Netherlands.

Two more NZ wins for TFB
TFB’s New Zealand operation has secured two more wins for its Partner for Windows case and practice management systems at law firm Burke Melrose and investment company Citywide Capital.
 
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Digital dictation news in brief

nFlow claims most complex Citrix project... probably
DDS developer nFlow has delivered what it believes is the most intricate Citrix based digital dictation implementation to-date, probably. The system was installed for Scottish firm Miller Hendry, which has 8 offices across the Tayside area, highly mobile fee earners and restrictions on the availability of bandwidth – as low as 256k in some cases.

Although the firm’s research suggested none of the DDS systems then available could meet their needs, nFlow were willing to develop a bespoke solution that ported its distributed audio data repository technology onto a thin client platform and removed wasted data traffic between offices. (Evidence suggests 80-95% of dictation is still transcribed at the same location as dictated.) Additional development was also required to redistribute audio processing functions around multiple locations to efficiently support wired and portable recording devices.

• The latest top 250 wins for nFlow DDS software are Ashfords, Burges Salmon, Porter Dodson, Tods Murray and Trowers & Hamlins.

Endeavour swap out G2 for Winscribe
The Endeavour Partnership in the North-East has switched to a 42-user Winscribe digital dictation system ‘after experiencing numerous technical problems with its previous G2 system’. The implementation was handled by Direct Dictation Solutions (0191 224 2300).

SpeechWrite now offering outsourced transcription
SpeechWrite Digital is now working with Invent Asia (01497 820508) to offer an outsourced transcription service. SpeechWrite has also secured two more law firm wins – 50+ user Morris Roberts in Carmarthen and Triggs Read Dart in Barnstaple – as well as a major corporate account, namely Arriva Transport in the North of England.

Walker Morris run DDS on fault-tolerant Stratus
Walker Morris is running its Winscribe DDS on Stratus fault-tolerant hardware. The firm’s head of IT Dominic Hayes said that when the decision was made to roll out Winscribe on a practice-wide basis, the project was rated as critical to the firm’s ability to perform to the levels required by clients and so the decision was made to use a fault tolerant server that would minimise downtime.

Cambridge install BigHand
Cambridge County Council’s legal department has replaced its old analogue tape system with BigHand3 digital dictation. The authority’s administration manager Chris Timmins said the switch overcame the sort of cost and inefficiency problems that ‘must be at every council’.

Philips now supporting Citrix
Philips’ SpeechExec Pro 4.2 software and range of input devices is now compatible with Citrix. Philips has developed a dedicated data channel for speech.

Mobile service from DictateNow
The outsourced transcription service DictateNow (0845 601 7726) has extended its offerings to include support for dictation direct from mobile phones.

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HIPS & conveyancing news

TFB sign up with Hipag
TFB has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Hipag Services (Hipag is backed by the OyezStraker group) to co-operate on the production of home information packs. The deal means users of TFB software will have access to Hipag Online, giving them the ability to order, amend and check the status of HIPs online.

Jordans wins NLIS licence
Jordans, one of the largest suppliers of property search services, has won a new licence to provide electronic searches through the National Land Information Service (NLIS). The new Jordans NLIS channel service will be launched in March.

Nigel Payne is new PISCES chair
Nigel Payne, managing director of The Mortgage Business (part of the HBOS group), has become the new chairman of PISCES. He takes over from Mark Riddick, who held the post for two years.

Axxia and SDLT.co.uk to integrate
SDLT has concluded negotiations with Axxia, that will see Axxia offering its users full integration with the SDLT.co.uk stamp duty land tax returns automation software.

Land Registry to have IBM security
The Land Registry has signed a three-year deal that will see IBM provide the security infrastructure, including document authentication and e-signatures, for the Registry’s web-based services.

Easy Convey to include new HIPs module
Easy Convey has added a new module to its CASA conveyancing administration software that will permit the generation of HIPs from within the application. The completed HIP is produced as a password protected PDF that can be printed, uploaded to a website, sent as an email attachment or burned to a CD/DVD.

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People & places

Changing places
John Howells, previously the head of IT at Lawrence Graham, has left for lifestyle reasons and moved to Bermuda. Martin Roe has been appointed interim IT director in his place. Meanwhile Graham van Terheyden, previously interim IT director at Cobbetts (prior to the arrival of Kevin Goosman), has been appointed IT director at Addleshaw Goddard, replacing Damian Griffiths who left last year.

Parry joins SOS board
Solicitors Own Software has made its business development manager Stephen Parry a director of the company. Parry originally joined SOS in 1997 and in recent months has headed the team behind the company’s new Virtual Practices ASP service.

Andy Eden gone from Hummingbird
Andy Eden, one of the better known faces with Hummingbird Legal – now Open Text – in the UK, has left the company.
 
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Insider job of the week

Senior Database Administrator
US Law Firm, London, to £55k + benefits
Our client is a highly regarded US Law firm with over 1000 staff in the UK. With the firm going through a period of sustained growth, they are now seeking a Senior DBA to work at their London offices. The firm run an SQL Server farm and you will be responsible for the design, and build of the London based servers as well as being responsible for maintaining stability and continuity of the servers. University educated and with commercial experience working within legal sector, you will have extensive experience in administering enterprise database environments including relational databases, MS SQL and Windows as well as MS applications. The firm offer exceptional career opportunities and a highly generous benefits package. The role may involve occasional travel to the USA. To find out more call Nigel Lawrence on 020 76003883 or email your CV in confidence to nigel@lawsupport.co.uk

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LEGAL TECHNOLOGY INSIDER
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