Headlines

30+ firms sign up for Elite 3E
More than 30 law firms across the globe have adopted Elite 3E from Thomson Elite as their next-generation financial and practice management software, with 12 firms signing up in the past three months in the UK, CEMEA and Asia-Pacific regions. These include Allen & Overy, Nabarro Nathanson, Semple Fraser and Ozannes. Although critics of Elite point out these orders have been a long time coming (see also BRG story), Elite is starting to reposition itself as more than just another practice management systems supplier. Recent innovations include the launch of a range of consultancy services covering such things as database analysis, business and conflicts process reviews and global discovery.
• Latest load tests indicate Elite 3E can sustain 3000 concurrent users running on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Intel/AMD 64-bit servers without error.

Videss aim at larger firms
Videss, now part of the CS Group, has announced details of Version 10 of its practice management system. Although it remains loyal to a Progress 4GL platform and an upgrade for existing sites (the entry level is 25 users) larger firms can take advantage of a SQL server option that supports up to 800 users in a best of breed environment. Version 10, a complete rewrite of v.9, will eventually be available with fat client, thin client and browser front-ends.

LITIG survey shows IT spend on increase
According to the results of the latest LITIG (Legal IT Innovation Group) annual IT benchmarking survey, law firm spending on IT is on the increase. The survey, which looked at the spending patterns for 13 top 100 firms during 2006, found that the average IT spend per fee earner rose by around 15% (compared with the 2005 figures) to just over £5,500pa.

Overall IT running costs as a percentage of turnover was largely unchanged at 4% (excluding depreciation) which is probably lower than conventional wisdom would have us believe. In addition, average IT salaries rose by 4.5% and most firms enjoyed some success in improving their fee earner-to-secretarial ratios from 2.3:1 to 2.5:1. The benchmarking exercise, which produces a lot of other comparative data, is free of charge but only available to LITIG members.

Quill hit 1.3 million mark
When it was launched in 1996, Quill’s Pinpoint legal accounts bureau had just one cashier and one client. By the end of last year, the service had 45 cashiers in four offices serving 200 law firms and during the course of 2006 posted over 1.3 million accounting transactions, produced 65,000 reports and reconciled more than 50,000 bank statements. Pinpoint’s sales & marketing director Andrew Sherwin says when viewed in simple financial and operational terms the savings can be significant “but when you also take into consideration staff recruitment, retention and training, the argument for outsourcing becomes a no-brainer”.
• Quill’s latest enhancement is Pinpoint Interactive, which allows laptop and PDA users with WiFi or 3G to access realtime practice management information remotely.

• Correction: There was a mistake in the last Insider, which reported that Quill Computers was not featured with the 2007 edition of the Law Society’s Software Solutions Guide. In fact Quill’s PinPoint accounts bureau service is included, as it has been for many years. Our apologies to Quill and its customers for any confusion this may have caused. Mea culpa we looked at the wrong columns, for reasons best known to the Law Society, Quill is omitted from the product functionality charts at the back of the guide.

All change at Carydan
It’s all change at Carydan Legal Solutions, the Cheshire based case and practice management systems supplier. The company’s founder Jonathan Beck has left to set up a new consultancy – Legal-Aide – providing IT, financial and practice management services for smaller (to 10 partners and 100 staff) solicitors practices. Beck, who is a chartered accountant by background, believes small firms are struggling to keep pace with the changing legal landscape because they lack the internal management skills. Beck can be contacted on 07970 763162 or jb@legal-aide.co.uk

Meanwhile Aonix, who acquired Carydan in 2004, are porting the software to an Access 2007 database platform, as well making enhancements to the case management and criminal billing elements, for release this spring. Aonix is also working on SQL Server version, scheduled for later this year, and is committed to actively marketing and supporting the Carydan software. Beck has been retained on a consultancy basis to advise on these projects. For details contact Elaine Hatch of Aonix on 0845 6126650.

BRG looking at future of legal PMS & ERP
Intalec for Legal (SAP’s main business partner in the UK legal market) is sponsoring a new forum – called the Business Reference Group – to provide the IT directors of larger law firms with an opportunity to discuss where they see the next generation of legal practice management and ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems heading. The group held its first meeting last month, when Damian Griffiths (previously with Addleshaw Goddard, now running his own consultancy) was elected inaugural chairman. Intalec have asked us not to name names but those attending the first meeting included the heads of IT of five top 50 firms, plus IT directors from top 100 firms and inhouse legal departments. Duncan Campbell said even other legal IT vendors were welcome to join the BRG “although they might have to buy their own lunch”. For more details email duncan.campbell@intalec.com

• With a lot of legacy systems out there and the Elite 3E upgrade strategy unsettling some users, suddenly the lower end of the large firms and top end of the mid-tier law firms IT markets are becoming very active. Along with Thomson Elite and Aderant, we’re also hearing growing interest in the Pilgrim and Intalec/SAP offerings however the Axxia DNA and new Videss V.10 systems are also seen by some firms as potential contenders in this sector.

Linetime put Eclipse in the shade
Canter Levin & Berg in Liverpool has selected a 200+ user Liberate case management system from Linetime to integrate with their existing Linetime PMS. Linetime see this as an important win as the personal injury practice previously used Eclipse software to handle their case management work. Other recent Linetime wins include Emsleys in West Yorkshire, who are taking a 120 user Liberate practice and case management system; Hays & Kilner, who are adding case management to their existing Linetime PMS, Keeble Hawson and Chadwick Lawrence, who are both installing DebtimeSQL debt recovery systems; and Juliet Bellis, the legal arm of a corporate group – Erinaceous – who have also ordered the debt system. Linetime DebtimeSQL and Liberate case management users can now have an XML interface to the London Gazette so they can electronically submit insolvency and other legal notices for publication.

Alan Rich leaves Elite
Earlier this month Alan Rich, one of the original architects of Elite, left the company he and his father Harvey started in 1988. The official statement said he was leaving “to chase his entrepreneurial interests full time” Rich is the second high profile departure from Thomson Elite in under a year – Chris Poole, the company’s long time president & CEO Chris Poole stepped down last August. Commenting on Rich’s departure, another former senior exec at Elite said “Alan is the latest casualty... He walked and he has a new plan but is not talking. Shock and awe at Elite.”

DMS: will new Open Text have the X-factor?
As they used to say on the old Allo, Allo! TV series, listen carefully as we shall say this only once. In the beginning there was a document management system called PC DOCS Open which everyone liked. The company was subsequently bought by Hummingbird (now part of the Open Text group) and DOCS updated to what might be called, for convenience, DM 4. Then came DM 5, which was initially the subject of some controversy over its performance, and then came DM 6 which some users, such as the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, rate very highly.

Now Open Text has announced its revised roadmap for Hummingbird users. In summary, migration to DM 6 is regarded as too complex and disruptive so the new advice is stick with DM 5, which will now receive some of the functionality of DM 6, including support for Microsoft Vista and Office 2007. As to the future, there will be a new upgrade offering – called DM X – that “represents the true convergence of Open Text and Hummingbird technologies”. DM X will be previewed in October this year and is expected to ship in early 2008.
• During a conference call earlier this month, Open Text president & CEO John Shackleton admitted that the legal vertical market accounted for just “probably 2-to-3%” of the company’s total revenues.

Meanwhile at Interwoven... Amid the sounds of laughter and champagne corks popping, the reaction at Interwoven is the DMS market has now reached a tipping point that will see more and more Hummingbird users defecting – one Interwoven manager said they were already seeing “a surge of law firms wanting to talk to us”. Globally, the last quarter of 2006 saw 13 more law firms swap out Open Text for Interwoven – including Laytons in London. (There were also 6 conversions from ‘other’ DMS products, such as Worldox and Filenet.) Perhaps more worryingly, in the past 12 months two large firms – Simmons & Simmons and Ashurst – have carried out extensive side-by-side tests of the latest Hummingbird/Open Text and Interwoven systems – and both opted for Interwoven.
• Anderson Strathern reports that since implementing an Interwoven WorkSite DMS, the system has saved its 150 partners and fee earners over 2200 hours or the equivalent of £185k in billable time.

Griffiths' new venture
Damian Griffiths says that along with conventional IT work (with a particular emphasis on financial systems) his new consultancy VProfessional Ltd (0845 868 1471) will be looking at the ways firms can use new media – such as streaming video – to provide added value services. Griffiths, who was responsible for setting up the Employment Channel service when he was at Addleshaw Goddard, has put together a team of specialists to produce multimedia projects for law firms. “All large firms should be using video within five years – and it doesn’t have to look like something off YouTube,” he adds.
www.vprofessional.co.uk

Legal IT show postmortem & launches
Well, Informa – the new owners of the annual Legal IT exhibition in Islington – tried hard but, if the evidence of this month’s show is anything to go by, they still need to try harder to stop the rot. There were a lot of good things about the show. For example, for the first time in many years the ground floor exhibition area felt like it was an integral part of the event rather than an afterthought, the facilities for presenters in the keynote theatre were the best yet, and there were innovations, such as the speakers corner section on the ground floor.

It was also good to see so many exhibitors resorting to a little showmanship, rather than just wheeling out the usual salesmen in suits. Along with chances to play with and/or win Nintendo Wiis, have your shoes shone, have your picture sketched courtesy of Select Legal Systems, and even receive a free iPod Nano just for visiting the stand (as one exhibitor was offering), there was also as much free coffee and fruit juice as you could drink. The CS Group, which now encompasses AIM, Laserform and Videss, had the best coffee. They also had the biggest stand we have ever seen – as well as the three biggest banners hanging from the roof – although whether this was to impress visitors or terrify the competition was the subject of some debate among other exhibitors.

On the downside, visitor numbers seemed indifferent. Although the morning and lunchtime of the first day were busy, it went very quiet in the afternoon. The second day was hit by bad weather. We were snowed in and didn’t attend – but one visitor who did said by the afternoon “there were tumbleweeds rolling down the aisles”. Three long time supporters of the event – Civica, Norwel and Thomson Elite – were absent this year. And another stalwart – Peapod Solutions/PSL – has already announced it will not be returning to Islington. PSL’s Ian Wimbush said he felt Informa “didn’t deliver on its promises”. But what about those new product launches...

Capturing time before it goes by
Copitrak, best known for its costs recovery and expenses management systems, has extended its portfolio of products by becoming the sole distributor for the Pensera TimeKM time capture system. There are two basic modules (TimeKM Web for the desktop and TimeKM Mobile for handheld devices) and although both technically made their UK debut at Legal IT, Copitrak already has Linklaters as its first UK site. Linklaters will be using TimeKM on a global basis, by integrating it with SAP and the firm’s WorkSpace Environment, which is based on Microsoft Sharepoint technology. Pensera’s product philosophy can probably best be described as allowing lawyers and their support staff to capture time and activities any time, anywhere and on any device. Copitrak has set up a subsidiary company (based out of the same offices) called TimeKM Europe, to market and support the device. The UK contact number is 020 7621 2365.
www.timekm.com

One login – and control over online content licences
Info Technology Supply (020 8429 5255), who some firms will have already encountered via their IRIS CD/DVD and Windows application networking system, used the show to introduce the legal market to their Onelog system. This is designed to help firms better manage the online services they use and subscribe to. However, as well as including features users will be familiar with from other systems, such as centralised password management and single sign-on authentication (so users only need to login once), it also includes extensive cost recovery (that can be integrated with accounts and billing software) and reporting facilities. The latter can be used for both budgeting purposes and to ensure firms are not buying more licences than they need or subscribing to services they rarely use. Firms subscribing to resources restricted by a concurrent user licence will probably also find the ‘one logoff’ feature useful, as this can be used to free up the licence when another user has not logged off properly. Onelog is an ‘e-library management’ system and should be welcome in any firm that makes heavy use of online information services.
www.itsltduk.com

Stand back and light the Touchpaper
The concept behind Touchpaper’s ITBM (IT Business Management) suite is a little more complex but essentially we are looking at workflow and business process management. Or, as regional sales manager Tim FitzGerald puts it “inbound events that spawn a process”. And these events can be just about anything – if it can be measured, it can be improved – including helping IT departments implement best practices (such as ITL, MOF, COBIT) more effectively; creating asset management strategies that can proactively address risk as well as track and audit assets; promoting self-service capabilities so users can quickly solve basic IT problems without having to call the helpdesk; and handling HR issues, such as grievances and new employee induction. As a company, Touchpaper (01483 744400) has been around for over 20 years and has a substantial presence in the corporate market on a global basis however it is now starting to focus on legal and has already won a number of orders from law firms, including Mishcon de Reya.
www.touchpaper.com

Next stop Law 2007 at Olympia London
The next big legal technology event on the calendar is Law London 2007, which takes place at Olympia 2 in west London on 14th & 15th March. The organisers expect over 2000 delegates to attend the event, which is a mixture of a legal training congress, a conventional exhibition and a legal IT conference – this last element offering up to 16 hours of free CPD workshops over the two days. At the time of going to press, the legal IT companies that have booked exhibition stands include Axxia, DPS Software, Kroll Ontrack, O2, Olympus, Philips, PSL Legal, Saturn Legal and Worldox. For more details or request a free entry ticket call The Solicitors Group on 01332 226601.
www.thesolicitorsgroup.co.uk/Olympia

Editorial: the muppets are on the march
We all have our favourites who we’d like to line up against the wall when the revolution comes and here on the Insider it would be PRs and marketing people who don’t do their jobs properly. Not only do they consistently fail to understand the needs of niche, vertical market media like the Insider – clearly too much to expect them to read the section on our website that says in bold ‘PR agencies please read this’ – but they also don’t appear to know what their own companies – or those companies’ customers – do for a living.

For example, in the lead up to the Legal IT exhibition we had one PR nagging us to interview her client. So we asked her what the company did and were sent 3 pages of ramblings about critical business solutions and Sarbanes Oxley. When we pointed out this was marketing-speak gibberish and asked for a 15 word synopsis, she got quite sniffy but eventually provided the information. As it sounded half-way interesting we visited the stand, only to discover they were involved in an entirely different line of business.

Sounds bad? It’s not as bad as another supplier whose business development director recently emailed us to say the company had recently hosted an event at which IT people “from 50% of the top 20 law firms attended”. He then went on to say, direct quote coming up, “I would be interested in learning more about legal IT to understand our customers better. Do you have a book devoted to the processes and operations of IT within law firms that you could recommend.”

So, let me get this right, it’s only after they start making presentations to law firms that they bother to find out what their prospective customers do and whether their products and services might be of interest! Truly the muppet-brains are on the march. And, for the record, glue is a solution, software is a system.
...Charles Christian

Opinion: try a little super-pleasing
In IT marketing one of the key points is the transition between the early adopter stage, when customers are primarily interested in a new technology, and the maturer majority stage, when customers are more interested in the supplier’s reputation and quality of service. It’s at this point you start to see customers swapping out systems and switching to rival suppliers because they are dissatisfied with the quality of support services they receive. So how does a supplier that has been in the market from the outset manage this transition?

The answer is the supplier gets its new business people to handle the account management as well. Afterall, is it not better that the person who sells the system in the first place is the same person looking after the customer in the longer term? That way the trust relationship developed at the outset, which formed the basis of the original purchase decision, continues on in the long term.

For the vendor it costs no more than the current orthodoxy of having two teams (one for new business sales and one for ongoing account management) and is operationally more cost effective. More importantly, it provides a better platform for delivering the process of super-pleasing. The management guru David Maister describes super-pleasing as a marketing strategy in which the objective is to leave customers truly delighted and not merely just satisfied with the products and/or services you supply.

But why do it, particularly as some people dismiss it as too expensive and philanthropic because you don’t obviously make any money from it?

In fact super-pleasing is another form of marketing and as such has a cost just like an ad or exhibition stand. Nobody disagrees that word of mouth is by far the most effective marketing any company can have but it can also be the biggest detractor. For example, we all remember when we receive terrible service from a company but few of us remember a company that is just satisfactory. However we do remember when a company is excellent and we often tell our friends so they can share in this great find.

This is super-pleasing and while the commercial benefits should never be the sole reason to super-please customers, it is a very valid reason to give the accountants for doing something with no apparent direct return.
...Rob Lancashire, sales & marketing director, nFlow Software
• For the full version of this article email rlancashire@nflow.com

The US: not that big then
Interesting statistics arrive on our desktop courtesy of JoAnna Forshee’s Envision marketing agency on the current state of the US legal industry. There are about 1150 law firms in the US with 100 or more employees (including 45+ lawyers). Of these, 325 firms have more than 250 employees (including more than 110 lawyers). However firms with 100+ staff account for less than 0.7% of the entire US law firm market, with 95% of firms having less than 25 staff, including no more than 10 lawyers – and 56% of firms only have between 2 and 4 employees.

ILCA awards time
The Institute of Legal Cashiers & Administrators has launched its 2007 software award to find what users rate the best legal accounts system in the UK today. Voting, which is via the ILCA website, runs through until July and also allows users to comment on the quality of suppliers’ support and training services.
www.ilca.org.uk

Buzzword corner: CSR
No, its not a new cops TV series featuring lots of gory autopsies. CSR means corporate social responsibility – in otherwords how you reduce your carbon footprint. This involves ensuring your IT systems are more energy efficient and could also mean changing your business practices so that, for example, more staff can work from home rather than commute to the office every day. Expect to see many organisations jumping on the CSR bandwaggon in the near future.

10 years ago today...
The big story in February 1997 was that the winner of the Society for Computers & Law’s award for the most outstanding application of IT to the law was a four partner firm in Exeter who were still running some DOS applications. One of the runners-up subsequently described the decision as a “quirky choice” to generate more publicity for the Society and added that he thought it a pity that “three very good legal software applications were beaten by an entry with no product”.

Three vie for the IT factor?
We’ve already had the biggest vote so far for a readers poll and with three people currently vying for the top slot in I’m a Legal Technology Celebrity, get me out of the Big Brother House because I have the IT Factor, we’ve decided to extend the poll until the end of March. At the time of going to press, the top three – in strictly alphabetical order – are Jan Durant of Lewis Silkin, Nathan Hayes of Osborne Clarke and Harry Townsend of Thomson Elite. You can find the readers poll on the Insider website.
www.legaltechnology.com

Cameron going on the Long March
The consultant Neil Cameron is the latest person to sign up for this September’s Great Wall of China charity trek in aid of Friends of Newick House/National Autistic Society. Cameron will be accompanied by his three daughters and is currently “still working on the son”. You can make donations online via www.justgiving.com/ncameron

Townsend retiring
Harry Townsend, one of the best known faces in the legal IT supplier community is retiring this spring. Originally with Kienzle, then Axxia and latterly Thomson Elite, Townsend has a reputation for not only knowing just about every senior and managing partner in the country but also having played a round of golf with them at sometime. We wish him well for the future.

Gossip central
• It’s not available until the end of the year but already interest is growing in the new Apple iPhone. David Thorpe of Pilgrim Systems – and a well-known Apple Mac fan – reckons he’ll be the first person in the UK legal market to get one but we think Mark Garnish of TFB and the original Inspector Gadget Neil Cameron are also front runners.

• Which well-known supplier of case management software – including personal injury claims handling systems – had a wheelchair access ramp so awkwardly placed on the corner of their stand at the recent Legal IT exhibition that a steady stream of visitors tripped over it?
 
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News in brief

CS Group shortlisted with itself
The Computer Software Group found itself in the unusual position of being shortlisted against itself when 24 partner Girlings in Kent was recently looking for a new case and practice management system. Having reviewed a total of 14 different suppliers, the two invited to tender were CS Group AIM and CS Group Videss, with the latter eventually winning the deal to replace the firm’s old ResSoft PMS and InControl case management. The firm will also be installing electronic forms from Laserform, another part of the CS Group. The Girlings order is the largest single deal CS Group has won since entering the legal market.

Aderant to enhance e-billing support
The next release of the Aderant Expert PMS will include functionality to support the LEDES XML E-Billing V.2 standard.

Taylor Wessing pick crisis control system
Taylor Wessing has become the first firm to select Solcara’s new Crisis Control Centre software to support its business continuity plans. CCC is designed to help crisis management teams collaborate during emergencies and facilitate a more effective decision making process. The firm will also use CCC as a collaboration tool during large projects such as IT rollouts and its upcoming office move.

LDM to resell CaseLogistix
Litigation support services bureau LDM is to resell CaseLogistix evidence and litigation support software in the UK, Europe, Pacific Rim and US.
www.caselogistix.com

Pericom expands service operation
Pericom (01908 265533) has expanded its IT and telecoms support operations by acquiring the service business of printer specialists Freestone Communications.

Laserform add conveyancing checklists
CS Group Laserform, which last year launched its LitPro litigation checklists, has extended its range of out-of-the-box KM tools with the introduction of the ConPro range of conveyancing checklists. There are 10 checklists covering conveyancing and re-mortgaging and further lists covering HIPs, the chain matrix and e-lodgement are on the way.

New on the Insider website
The latest additions to the Insider website resources section includes a white paper by ISYS Search Software looking at how law firms can leverage enterprise search software to tackle e-discovery.
www.legaltechnology.com

Lewis Silkin opt for new support desk
Lewis Silkin has selected the e-Service Desk from ICCM (which is based around Metastorm workflow technology) to replace its current support and service desk system. The firm’s head of IT Jan Durant said that after a comprehensive review of the market ICCM “emerged as a clear leader” on the grounds of flexibility, functionality and cost.
www.iccm.co.uk

Legal recruiters headhunt EMIS IT
The legal recruitment and executive search agency Jepson Holt has selected the Seneca CM system from Emis IT as the basis for its new business and file management system. Other recent Seneca wins include London commercial property lawyers Blount Petre Kramer and 75 user Schofield Sweeney in Bradford.

DSDM at Simmons & Simmons
Simmons & Simmons has adopted the DSDM project delivery framework to support the rollout of new IT projects, from prototyping through to proof of concept and prioritising user requests.
www.dsdm.org

Datashare gets ISO 27001 certification
Datashare Solutions has received ISO 27001 certification for its Cerberus managed disaster recovery system. This succeeds the earlier BS 7799 certificate for benchmarking information security management systems.

Pilgrim forges Redwood partnership
Pilgrim Systems has formed a partnership with Redwood Analytics that will provide integration between Pilgrim’s LawSoft PMS and Redwood’s Business Intelligence suite.
   
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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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Latest deals in brief

The LexisNexis Group has signed up with Canon UK to replace its printers at three UK sites with a combination of desktop and multifunction copier/printers. The order includes eCopy workflow software.

As part of £150k infrastructure upgrade project, Buckles Solicitors in Peterborough is replacing its Pracctice Osprey accounts software with a Connect PMS from SOS.

The HIPs provider Stratify Associates has selected LexisNexis Visualfiles as its HIP technology supplier. Stratify already has a network of 250 customers for its HIPs.

The homeless charity Shelter has awarded Civica a contract to supply a case management system, including contact and document management functionality, to help manage the 170,000 homeless cases it handles each year.

January saw Eclipse Legal Systems enjoy its best ever operating month. The latest signings for the company’s Proclaim case management systems include Morgan Jones & Pett in Norwich, Croftons in Manchester and niche practice UK Traffic Law.

Reynolds Porter Chamberlain has picked Copitrak as its new cost recovery system.

Tikit is helping Bircham Dyson Bell implement a new Metastorm BPM workflow management system. It will initially be used to handle new client matter inception and conflict checking.
 
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Fresh on the radar

Discovery mining – a new kid on the lit support block
We’re hearing rave reviews about a new US litigation support system called Discovery Mining, with the IT director of one London firm describing it as “a kind of Recommind for lit support”. Briefly, Discovery Mining offers a secure, web-based document review service to organisations dealing with litigation, dispute resolution, internal or external investigation and document retention. The product is based on the Linux and open source technology, which Discovery Mining says provides for greater development flexibility and faster scalability. If you take the view that e-disclosure starts after the documents have been collected together, then Discovery Mining can look after the subsequent indexing, culling and reviewing of files, as well as exporting the data to a choice of media and repository. For more details contact Discovery Mining’s European general manager Gordon Lichter on 020 7903 5157 or email glichter@discoverymining.com
www.discoverymining.com

Direct View from Nedstat
Nedstat, the website analytics company, has launched Direct View, a web metric overlay system for users of its Sitestat software. Direct View allows Sitestat users instant access to a range of 16 page and 13 URL link website key performance indicators in a graphical format.
www.nedstat.com

Face to face with Skype
FaceTime Communications has launched an end-to-end security, management and control system for the Skype internet phone network, to make it a more attractive option for serious business users. Ken Agnew’s Agnew Associates (07867 507843) has been appointed the sole reseller for the UK legal IT market.
www.facetime.com
 
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International news

Appleby Hunter go paperless invoicing
The offshore legal services group Appleby Hunter Bailhache has switched to a paperless PDF invoicing system based around Timeframe’s BillFiler software. BillFiler, which has been integrated with Appleby’s Aderant PMS, uses DocsCorp PDF creation and workflow technology to help automate the conversion of conventional invoices into PDFs that can then be emailed to clients.
www.time-frame.com

Dommerholt selects Aderant
Dutch law firm Dommerholt Advocaten has selected the Aderant Expert front and back office suites as the basis for its new practice management system. The deal was secured by Timesoft, who will also be handling the implementation.
 
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Digital dictation news in brief

Another US firm picks BigHand
Leonard Street & Deinard in Minneapolis has implemented a BigHand digital dictation workflow system across four offices and serving over 190 lawyers. The implementation was handled by BigHand reseller Loffler Companies. BigHand’s first DDS sale in the US was to Wisconsin based Godfrey & Kahn last August.
www.loffler.com

Winscribe in thin client partnership
Winscribe has formed a partnership with thin client technology specialist Neoware to develop an integrated digital dictation system for firms running thin client networks. The system runs on a secure server and allows both desktop and mobile devices to be centrally managed.
www.neoware.com
•In the US, the Kent County Sheriff’s department in Michigan is reporting “significant productivity gains” following the installation of Winscribe digital dictation.

Two more firms go with Voice Technologies
Maritime and property specialist MacKinnons in Aberdeen and Bowcock & Pursail in Leek are the latest firms to install Winscribe DDS supplied by Voice Technologies (0141 847 5610). Voice Technologies will be demonstrating its systems at the Scottish Law Society’s annual conference in Edinburgh on 2nd March.

RBS choose SpeechWrite Digital
The Royal Bank of Scotland has awarded SpeechWrite Digital (01497 820508) a contract to supply an 800+ user digital dictation system for their legal and commercial departments in Bristol and Chelmsford. The system will also support phone-based dictation.
• SpeechWrite has also announced a partnership with Swiss-based Calison (formerly Dictaphone IVS) to supply its Frisbee digital dictation and workflow management system in the UK.

VoicePower now supplying Multi-Speak
VoicePower (01943 468 000) has been appointed UK sole supplier of the Multi-Speak automatic transcription system for meetings, interviews and other instances where two or more people may be speaking. The system uses a combination of colour coding and time stamping to keep track of the participants’ contributions.

nFlow sales up over 55%
DDS developer nFlow Software reports that for its 2006 trading year, sales were up by 55%, including a 40% increase in software licence sales. During the same period nFlow increased the size of its customer services team by 30% and installed an ICCM support desk system.
• OutSec (0870 243 0294) is offering an outsourced typing and transcription service that is fully integrated with the nFlow DDS. This means nFlow customers can now use OutSec’s team of UK-based secretaries whilst retaining all the functionality of their internal workflows.
www.outsec.co.uk
 
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People & places

Practical Solutions rebrand
Allan Carton’s Practical Solutions IT, marketing and management consultancy has rebranded itself as Inpractice. www.inpractice.co.uk

New head of IT for Bevan Brittan
Bevan Brittan LLP has appointed Clive Scott-Green as head of IT. Previously he was the IT services manager and handled the IT side of the firm’s office moves in Bristol, London and Birmingham.

Mike Sharples at Tikit
Mike Sharples, previously one of the founders of Perceptive Technology, has joined the KM team at Tikit. Support will still be available for users of Perceptive’s old Mentor system.

Farquharson joins 3Kites
Melanie Farquharson has joined 3Kites Consulting. Previously she was a partner at Simmons & Simmons and from 2001 responsible for knowledge management projects, including the award-winning elexica online service and the banking legal technology portal.
 
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Insider job of the week

Sales Engineer, Professional Services Industry Solutions
Interwoven UK, London, Highly competitive salary + benefits
Working closely with Sales Managers, Partner Managers and Marketing Representatives to qualify, model and close new and existing accounts. This highly visible role involves owning accounts from all aspects of the technical sales cycle including process discovery, demo, RFP, proof-of-concept development and demonstration. You will be a highly motivated and successful Sales Engineer with a very sound technical background and a great passion for success through expert relationship building, process mapping and sales cycle management. Demonstrated outstanding presentation, communication and interpersonal skills you will have significant knowledge of the Professional Services Industry Solutions software market and superior consultative sales abilities. Extremely commercially aware with an outstanding and professional sales approach as well as outstanding technical skills in .NET Languages, JavaScript, VB, SQL, Microsoft Sharepoint and relational databases and solid hands-on experience with enterprise content management, collaboration, document management, digital asset management, imaging/scanning, and workflow. For more information please visit www.interwoven.com/careers Closing Date: 5th March 2007

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