The writer went on to say he had only found one “pure” 64 bit hardware and server system, which had been developed by a US law firm. “Unfortunately” (not surprisingly would be a more accurate phrase) he added “the PMS is geared entirely to the US market, is wholly reliant on an IBM DB2 database which would be too expensive for his firm,” and he hadn’t come across any other legal software that supports DB2 either. So there you have it suppliers, now you know where you’ve been going wrong all these years. The fact you’ve still got dozens of users who can’t run the latest (or even the not-so latest) releases of your software, because they are still using Windows 97 vintage PCs or green screen Unix kit from the land that time forgot, is irrelevant. You are the ones who are holding the profession back.
 
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Headlines

DDS suppliers go for Blackberry
Two of the UK’s biggest suppliers of digital dictation software – Bighand and nFlow – have announced their support for the Blackberry PDA as a dictation client, so users will in future be able to make phone calls, check their email plus dictate notes and send them off for transcription from the same device. As subscribers to our Orange Rag blog will have noticed, the war of words between the two suppliers (still nothing from Winscribe, the other big player in the DDS market although we do expect more Blackberry-related dictation announcements from other suppliers later this summer) has been uncharacteristically acerbic, with nFlow accusing Bighand of being “all hype over substance”.

At the heart of this dispute is the fact the Bighand solution, which was developed by Blackberry applications specialists PaperIQ, will only run on Blackberry OS 4.2 which (unless you want to upgrade the operating system on your Blackberry) is only available on later models of the Blackberry (the Pearl, the Curve and the 8800) whereas most law firms are still running second generation 8700 or even first generation 7200 models. nFlow say their new offering – nFlow Mobile – will be a more flexible system that will support DDS on both Blackberry and Microsoft Windows Mobile devices. In addition, nFlow anticipate their system will be compatible with not only the nFlow DDS but also the rival products from Bighhand and Winscribe. The nFlow mobility suite is due to be launched later this summer although we understand it is currently being tested by one large law firm.

Dave Terry quits Elite
Thomson Elite veteran Dave Terry has quit as vice-president of sales. Unconfirmed reports say he is joining Chrome River Technologies, the new venture set up by Elite co-founder Alan Rich after he left the company in February this year. Chrome River’s website says the company was created to deliver ‘the latest rich internet application technologies to improve business operations for professional services firms’ and that they are currently building multi-language, multi-currency systems for global deployment, that incorporate business process rules.
www.chromeriver.com

DAC select Recommind
Davies Arnold Cooper has selected Recommind’s MindServer Legal system to provide its new know-how retrieval platform. In the process of evaluating the product, the firm recognised that the system’s ability to index and search unstructured data also meant it could be used as a document review tool in a litigation support capacity.

CSG FAST acquisition creates ripples
The Computer Software Group (CS Group) has bought the FAST (Federation Against Software Theft) software licence compliance organisation for £10.5 million. While this follows the CS Group’s strategy of acquiring horizontal market products that can be sold to customers of its legal (AIM, Laserform & Videss) and not-for-profit vertical market suppliers, the deal has stirred up controversy. For example, although some larger users (including Linklaters, Berwin Leighton Paisner and the Scottish Legal Aid Board) have been able to save money because the FAST software has helped identify inefficient licensing (typically through buying more copies of software than they need), among smaller businesses FAST still has a Big Brother reputation.

The computer industry magazine IT Week recently accused the FAST salesforce of browbeating prospects “with a sales patter worthy of a dodgy double-glazier”. CS Group’s CEO Vin Murria replied that while it was necessary to warn customers of the consequences of non-compliance, the new owners had a different sales philosophy and “our approach is not about sticks, it is about carrots”. This is already being seen in the legal sector where FAST is promoting the benefits to law firms of meeting IT asset management standards and how this can help with broader compliance issues, such as Lexcel.

A further problem is while software companies were willing to subscribe to FAST when it was independent, now it is part of a larger group that is a software publisher in its own right – and therefore a competitor – this is seen as a serious conflict of interest, with industry sources suggesting at least four legal software suppliers will not be renewing their FAST subscriptions this year.

AlphaLaw acquire Cashier 2000 business
AlphaLaw has acquired the customer base of IT Accounting, the Somerset-based accounts, time recording and legal aid software supplier whose current core product is the Cashier 2000 system. The sale follows the decision by IT Accounting’s owner, Richard White, to retire. IT Accounting has about 50 law firm sites, 15 have already converted to AlphaLaw systems and most of the remainder are due for conversion during the next few months.
• During the first part of this year, 11 firms have signed up for AlphaLaw’s next generation case management system Uno. These include John Morley & Co, Douglas Silas Solicitors, RJ Hawksley, Ogun@Law, Langley Wellington, David Burnett & Co and Connect Conveyancing.
www.alphalaw.com

TFB commit to support Carter
TFB says its Partner for Windows development team is not only committed to supporting the huge changes to criminal legal aid work administration, required by the Carter Review between now and 2012, but will do so as part of its standard support contracts. This is unlike some other vendors who are reported to be either treating it as a chargeable extra or pulling out of legal aid altogether.

Data exchange protocol out
LiST, the UK litigation support technology think tank, has released a finalised version of Part 1 of its Data Exchange Protocol (Disclosure Documents). LiST has also commenced consultations on Part 2 (Disclosure Data) of the protocol. Copies of both documents, associated release notes and a joint LiST/Adobe statement on the PDF versus TIFF debate can be found on the LiST website. The consultation period ends on 31st August 2007.
www.listgroup.org/publications.htm

Blandy & Blandy pick Pilgrim
Reading-based Blandy & Blandy has selected Pilgrim Systems’ LawSoft software to replace its Axxia PMS and provide its new practice, case, document and CRM management facilities. Nick Burrows, the partner heading the selection, said “like many firms today, we require more than the basic bookkeeping and client management facilities from our practice management software. We want improvements in efficiency, tools to monitor business performance and facilities to further enhance the quality of the service we provide to our clients.”
• The Insider has also heard that Colin Kennedy, who used to head Visualfiles Scotland and set to become chief operating officer for LexisNexis Visualfiles, is now on six month’s gardening leave and expected to join the board of Pilgrim in the autumn to head its new case management systems division. Pilgrim is currently recruiting for applications support, training/implementation and support consultants. For more details email jobs@pilgrimsystems.com

A-to-Z with Spriggs and Gallagher
Former Civica legal sales director Tim Spriggs and long-time financial systems consultant David Gallagher, most recently with Tikit, have formed a new venture. Called AlphaZero (020 7873 2153) its stated aim is to be ‘a dynamic consulting and technology company delivering value to clients through deployment of specialist consulting skills, software solutions and bespoke software development services.’ The consultancy has already developed a conflict of interest check system, using its Pathway Search technology, for one firm.
www.alphazeroltd.com
• We’ve also heard that Eliza Hedegaard has left Tikit (again) this time to join email and online security systems developer Mimecast. Mimecast users already include law firms Lewis Silkin, Stephenson Harwood and Taylor Wessing.
www.mimecast.com

Oyez changes hands
The Oyez Straker legal forms-to-stationery supplies group has been bought by venture capitalists Hermes Private Equity for £80 million. It acquired the business from rival private-equity outfit Bridgepoint Capital, who created the group in 1997 by merging two separate businesses: Straker Office Supplies and the Solicitors Law Stationery Society. A plan to float the business in 2000 was abandoned.

Know your search engine marketing
Last year Conscious Solutions published a handy booklet on common mistakes law firms make with their websites. This year they’ve trumped it with a truly excellent guide to search engine marketing, including metadata, why NOT to use Flash on your home page, how pay per click (PPC) advertising works, why personal injury PPC ads are so expensive and which search engines you should advertise on. Incidentally, for most firms the answer to the last question will be Google. If you are considering a web based marketing campaign, this guide is definitely worth reading – and it is available free of charge. For a copy of 19 things every law firm should know about search engine marketing call Conscious Solutions on 0117 903 1129.
www.conscious.co.uk

Consultancies planning on growth
Three companies, who are all chipping away at the market Tikit used to dominate, have this month announced expansion plans. Practice management specialists Saturn Legal have announced new partnerships with Hague Computer Suppliers, who produce secure print (including cheque printing) technology; and with Linetime – the latter deal will see Saturn working on an integration between the Thomson Elite PMS and Linetime’s Liberate case and matter management software.

Meanwhile Phoenix Business Solutions is on target to achieve a turnover of £4.5m by the end of its current financial year and has awarded legal IT recruiters JPL Group an exclusive contract to provide them with IT and support staff to underpin what Phoenix director Roger Pickett describes as the company’s “ongoing aggressive expansion plans”. Phoenix has recently won contracts to implement the Interwoven Worksite DMS at Jersey firm Appleby, Greek firm Kyriakides Georgopoulos & Daniolos and to convert Stephenson Harwood’s Hummingbird installation over to an Interwoven DMS. Finally, CCE has launched a ‘Legal Out of Hours’ service for the growing number of law firms interested in the company’s outsourcing and managed services offerings.
www.saturnlegal.co.uk
www.phoenixbs.com
www.cce.co.uk

Next gen Proclaim on way
Eclipse Legal Systems has announced details of upcoming enhancements to its Proclaim case management software. These include two-way SMS text messaging, and the ability to import, store and export both sound files (typically .WAV) and MPEG-4 video files.

Minter Ellison put DNA through lab test
Minter Ellison SANT, part of one of the largest law firms serving the Australia/Asia-Pacific market, is now looking to implement Axxia’s new DNA practice plus business management system, after putting the software through two weeks of evaluation in a technical review lab. Minter Ellison director of innovation Ian Thomson (previously a partner with Morton Fraser in Scotland) said the firm looked at DNA for two key reasons “Firstly the system is web based and secondly this is the only business process management system with a legal practice management system contained within it.” Axxia managing director Stuart Holden added that the lab review gave Minter Ellison the opportunity to fully review and scrutinise the system, to reassure themselves that DNA is a fully functional and technically sound product that can deliver to their requirements.

Quintet of CSG AIM wins
The CS Group’s legal division has announced a total of five new wins for its AIM Evolution Insight system. They are the start-ups Cameron Deacon in London plus IP and commercial property specialists Foremans LLP. Gilbert Stephens Solicitors, which has three offices in Exeter and the South-West, is also taking Insight, as is Gullands in Maidstone, who are replacing their legacy Axxia system. The fifth site is the newly formed City practice Maxwell Winward LLP, which was formed last month by the merger of Maxwell Batley and Winward Fearon. Winwards were already Insight users and the decision was taken to migrate the Maxwell users over to AIM as well.
• CS Group Laserform has joined the select roll of SDLT electronics forms suppliers who have received HMRC approval for the new SDLT5 e-submissions form.

CRM4Legal here now
Although the Insider first reported the story back in March, Client Profiles have only just got around (we suspect the story was caught up in PR red tape) to announcing their new legal market specific CRM system. Called CRM4Legal, this is based on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Outlook products and involves input from the consultancy Inpractice. Allan Carton of Inpractice has also produced a free white paper on legal sector CRM.
www.inpractice.co.uk

VoIP - some of your questions answered
Our Calling all VoIP experts piece in the last issue of the Insider had the desired effect of getting both law firms and suppliers to put their heads above the parapets and say who they thought the experts were – and were not. These are some of the law firm recommendations...

Nessco, who specialise in Mitel equipment but also handle Nortel and Siemens, were described by one IT director as having “good VoIP and telephony skills that you can trust”. From a Scottish firm we received a recommendation for a Mitel 3300 VoIP switch installed by Commsworld, while a Dublin practice described the Cisco Call Manager as “very stable and also easy/cheap to create levels of resiliency not normally possible”. The IT director of a London firm described Azzurri as “brilliant” – she also provided the names of two VoIP consultancies that law firms should “never, never, never” let near their telecoms networks. Unfortunately the laws of libel (or, more to the point, libel lawyers) do not permit us to print their names.

Last month’s piece also coincided with Norton Rose going public on the details of a new VoIP infrastructure the firm invested in, to coincide with its move from Camomile Street to its new offices at 3 More London Riverside. The firm’s IT director Jeff Roberts said that after investigating the market, checking out products and reviewing suppliers “We have implemented Cisco equipment. Cisco bent over backwards to demonstrate their equipment in their labs and our offices, so we were able to see the equipment and how it would work. This showcase also gave us the opportunity to see some of the things we would be doing a little further into the future, such as duel mode phones and collaboration tools. We selected Affiniti to implement the equipment and are pleaed with what they have done, which includes system integration and training. For independent advice we have worked with Improcom and Garner, again I am pleased with what they did for us.”
www.nessco.co.uk (01224 428400)
www.commsworld.com (0845 3305033)
www.azzurricommunications.com (01635 520360)
www.affiniti.com (0800 138 3800)
www.improcom.com
www.gartner.com (01784 431611)
www.cisco.com (0800 0153003 + 1800 556670 Irl)
www.mitel.com (0870 909 3030)

Along with law firms suggesting their recommendations, we also received the following self-nominations from suppliers putting their own names forward...

• Ricotech (0844 484 9799) is a new company (formed in 2006) by former BT, Cisco and Kingston Communications consultant Jason Williams and Richard Connock, who has worked in legal IT sales with companies such as AIM, Axxia and Solution 6 (now Aderant). Ricotech can supply consultancy services and VoIP systems based on the Asterisk IP PBX.
www.ricotech.co.uk

• Long established legal systems integrators JMC IT (0161 925 7777) also have a VoIP telephony division, headed by Peter Sweeney. The company has a team of Cisco accedited staff and is a Cisco premier partner.
www.jmc.it

• As recently reported in the Insider, Converge IT (0870 770 0790) has been selected as a systems supplier to the Pannonne-led Connect2Law group of solicitors practices The company is a Mitel partner and specialises in Mitel 3300-based VoIP systems for law firms.
www.converge-it.net

• The CS Group’s managed services team also provides a VoIP system – called IP Office – based around Avaya technology and has just completed a 75 user implementation at Glaisyers Solicitors in Manchester. The new system is also fully integrated with Microsoft Outlook.
www.computersoftware.com
www.avaya.co.uk

For this month's Readers Poll, we are asking about your VoIP plans: do you already have a VoIP infrastructure, are you planning to implement one, would you recommend your VoIP contractors to other law firms? We’ve also got some questions for VoIP suppliers. The link to the survey is on the top of the right hand column of our website. There will be a full report on the results in next month’s Insider.

10 years ago today...
Back in May 1997, Macmillans in Ipswich, which had been a pilot site for the Law Society’s ill-fated High Street Starter Kit, switched to a new accounts system from Quill Computers. The firm said it had put considerable effort into the HSSK project “but due to lack of support from other quarters the system failed dismally”. Elsewhere, Barry Hawley Green (who last year sold his Laserform business to the CS Group) was complaining that small firms were their own worst enemies when it came to IT because they were not prepared to invest in decent hardware and adequate training. John Meehan, the chairman of what is now AlphaLaw, was criticising computer consultants as a bunch of “paper gatherers” who did not understand the legal market. Philips and Dragon Systems were getting very excited about the pending launch of their respective continuous speech recognition software. And a then little known company called Tikit was announcing that it had acquired the UK distribution rights for the Interaction CRM system.

They ran and they ran
Congratulations to all our London Marathon 2007 runners who not only completed the 26 mile race but also raised large amounts of money for charity. The consultant John Rogers had a finishing time of just over five hours (5:06) and raised £2200 for Asthma UK, while Stuart Cowell and Paul Smith of Davies Arnold Cooper had finishing times of 4:54 and 4:23 respectively – between them they raised £8400 for the Anthony Nolan bone marrow charity, well above their £5000 target. To set these times into context – and the heat made this a slow race – the celebrity chef and regular marathon runner Gordon Ramsay finished in 4:20 while former premier league football player Mark Bright finished in 4:55. 35,674 runners completed the race.

Climb every mountain
Another fundraising event, also beset by weather problems but in this case bitterly cold winds and poor visibility, saw a team from Quill Computers (including company founder Tony Landes, he can be seen at the back in a woolly hat) and its Pinpoint bureau service taking Pinpoint manager – and multiple sclerosis sufferer – Sue Heller in a sponsored wheelchair push up Mount Snowdon over the May bank holiday weekend. Heller was pushed, pulled, dragged and carried to the summit in a specially adapted wheelchair and so far has already raised over £4000 for the MS Society.
www.justgiving.com/sueonsnowdon

Gossip central
• The Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, has confirmed that the Ministry of Justice (or whatever it’s called this week) does keep lists of judges who’ve been disciplined for computer misuse, including viewing porn on them.

• So when a certain City law firm ran a self-congratulatory ad in a legal magazine, showing an old bakelite telephone sitting next to a not-so-new Blackberry, with the caption ‘progress’ – did anyone spot that the selection brackets on the Blackberry screen were highlighting not a business application but the BrickBreaker arcade game?

• At their recent audience with Law Society president Fiona Woolf, which well-known member of LITIG (the Legal IT Innovators Group) was greeted with the stony silence of total non-recognition when he made an “Am I bovered” quip (the catch phrase of a popular comedienne M’Lud)? We also hear another LITIG member was given a ticking off for using an oxymoron.

Eight minutes and counting...
We’ve always known the Insider is one of the rare publications in the legal world that is read pretty much the moment it lands on someone’s desktop. But just how quickly even surprises us. For example, we sent out the digital edition of issue 197 at 12:00 noon on Wednesday 25th April and within 8 minutes had received back our first reader comments on its stories.
 
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Introduce a subscriber & save £25 off your next subscription. If you recommend a friend or colleague to take out a new subscription to Legal Technology Insider we will give you a £25 discount off your next annual subscription. The scheme applies to both hard copy and digital versions of the newsletter - and if the new subscriber takes out a two year sub, we will give you a £50 discount when your subscription next comes up for renewal. The only qualifications are that it must be a new subscription from either an individual or an organisation (not an existing subscriber) and the discount only becomes available when the new subscription is fully paid. To take advantage of this scheme just get the friend or colleague you are recommending to quote your name and contact details on their subscription application form.   

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News in brief

Legal Inc makes iconection
Litigation support specialist Legal Inc has launched a new consultancy service for firms switching away from remotely served platforms to Legal Inc’s own iConect hosting environment. Called Making the iConect-ion, it takes the form of a one day workshop. Legal Inc director Lisa Burton said there was a growing demand for ‘local’ delivery of services “with firms wanting suppliers they can partner with effectively – they don’t want to have to rely on a remote set-up and support that is one step removed.”
www.legalinc.co.uk

Interaction wins across Europe
The latest wins for LexisNexis Interaction’s CRM software include Leigh Day & Co in the UK, Uria & Menendez in Spain, the Moscow office of White & Case and Kromann Reumart in Copenhagen.

Two firms roll out RPost
Speechly Bircham LLP and Cumberland Ellis LLP are to roll out the RPost registered email service, which provides verifiable proof of outgoing email communications (including proof of delivery, content and time) later this spring. Unlike some other ‘secure’ email systems, RPost is a one click system that requires no reciprocal agreements from recipients.
www.rpost.com

Metastorm announce new intake pod
Business process management specialist Metastorm has launched a New Business Intake (NBI) process pod for the legal market. The new pod (part of a library of process pods Metastorm is building) can handle such tasks as screening new clients, running conflicts of interest searches and generating online forms to collect client, matter and billing data.
www.metastorm.com

Crill Canavan selects Aderant
Jersey law firm Crill Canavan has selected the Aderant Expert system for its new practice management platform. The firm said a key requirement was for a proven system built on Microsoft standards for business process management, database design and user interface.

ISYS picked for litigation support
Simpson & Marwick has selected ISYS Search Software to provide the search functionality for its litigation support system. The firm scans all documents and converts them into searchable PDF files which are then indexed by ISYS and can be searched either within ISYS or through its CaseMap case analysis application.
www.isys-search.com

RSinteract goes into Browne Jacobson
Nottingham-based Browne Jacobson has awarded ICS (0161 886 8500) a contract to design and implement a data warehouse based on SQL Server 2005 and to deploy an RSinteract reporting system. This was developed by ICS and is built upon Microsoft’s BI business intelligence toolset. Browne Jacobson IT director Peter Birley said by going the Microsoft BI route the firm would be able to ‘push’ data towards end users and give them a self-service capability.
www.rsinteract.com

Forensic idol from Autonomy
Autonomy has launched Idol Echo, a new module for its search engine technology that will allow global businesses to forensically track and trace the lifecycle of every piece of data (including phone calls, emails, voicemails, instant messages and documents) within an organisation.
www.autonomy.com
   
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The Insider web site

For the latest legal IT news, jobs, events and information, visit the Insider web site - www.legaltechnology.com, 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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Opinion ... with Roger de Boehmler, Director General, PISCES

Enabling e-commerce with PISCES
“I want it and I want it now”. That’s what people in the IT profession hear all the time. Expectations are high and keep getting higher. Our clients expect a fast response from us – indeed we expect our own systems to respond quickly and to transfer information seamlessly. It’s these expectations that brought me to PISCES.

Like all of us, I need good quality data to help me give good advice and make informed decisions. The trouble was different people, working in discrete parts of the property industry, did things differently, on isolated systems. They even used different words for the same thing. When I needed information it had to be collected manually or re-keyed. The frustrations were enormous. Many of us wanted the property industry to use joined up e-commerce solutions but this looked impossible with so many specialists using different software programs.

The solution was for the industry to get together and agree standards. This wasn’t new, because service standards were everywhere. What was new was the emergence of XML to enlist the power of computers. From a simple vision of seamless data transfer, some 10 years ago, we’ve grown into a self-funding organisation that’s published 10 standards and offers around 280 XML schemas for free download. How do we do this?

Our 150+ member organisations support PISCES though fees and contributing their expertise and time. We use meetings of experts, supplied by the membership, to talk through standards in work groups. With experience of writing over 3500 data field definitions in the past two years, we can publish schemas quickly. For instance, we were able to develop and publish a HIPs schema in only three months. This is probably the fastest development of a complex e-commerce standard in the world.

With our standards you build it in once and use it many times. Entirely bespoke connections are simply too slow and too costly. The legal profession and some software vendors are very protective of bespoke solutions. We understand this. Where we provide a solution is in the shared areas of common working practice. A standard can help process the biggest, most predictable, part of any task (the 80% bit) – leaving the lawyer to add their special expertise for the non-standard aspects.

The legal profession is of course facing change. HIPs, commoditisation and Clementi are just some of the changes around the corner. However the biggest change, and challenge, is the adoption of e-commerce. This is not driven by government but by the public. Customers increasingly want to do business online. They want a rapid, straightforward, hassle-free electronic service. Already 80% of people research major purchases online. They also say “If I can order my groceries online, why shouldn’t I buy a house online.”

For a long time we’ve been waiting for the government to deliver what it calls e-conveyancing. This is likely to be little more than e-registration, which is hardly exciting. While some wait for e-registration to arrive, and it’s likely to be some time yet, the rest of the property industry is getting its e-commerce act together. Already the search industry is talking electronically using our standard. Data is automatically exchanged between the search data provider and case management software users. While the government consults, we build schemas that are put into daily use.

Our members come from all parts of the property industry, an industry that is joining up electronically. Where there is an established belief in any area of property work, that an exchange standard will make data transfer easier, we can develop the schema people want. We are a flexible organisation with a determination to enable all parts of the property world to improve their service to the customer.

The rapid adoption of e-commerce is vital to the continued prosperity of the property industry. It is too important to be left to government and has to be led by the industry itself. Now is the time to get more people together to talk about how best we can really improve our services. PISCES is already providing that forum for change – one that is actually also delivering the means.
 
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Digital dictation news in brief

Brodies go digital with Winscribe
Scottish commercial practice Brodies is rolling out digital dictation to 250 users in its Glasgow and Edinburgh offices. IT director Andrew Powell said the firm’s previous analogue tape set-up did not lend itself to multiple office working and decided to go with a Winscribe DDS after seeing it in use at Bishops, the Glasgow firm that was recently merged with Brodies. The installation is being handled by Winscribe partner Welgo.

Linetime add Bighand link
Following the recent integration of its Liberate case and PMS software with the nFlow digital dictation system, Linetime has expanded its product portfolio by creating an integration with the Bighand DDS. Linetime technical director Phil Snee said “partnering leading specialist complementary software developers is a fundamental element of our product development strategy.”

North Lanarkshire legal picks Winscribe
Voice Technologies (0141 847 5610) have implemented a Winscribe DDS at the offices of North Lanarkshire Council’s legal services team. Voice Technologies has also implemented digital dictation systems for the legal departments of Argyll & Bute and Glasgow City councils.

Fraser Brown DDS now in 10 offices
Fraser Brown Solicitors has extended its use of a Crescendo Digiscribe XL digital dictation system from just one department to a total of 10 offices across the Nottingham area, with dictations for transcription and completed documents transferred across the firm’s LAN.

Stones swap out Dictaphone for nFlow
Stone Solicitors in the South-West has selected nFlow to replace its incumbent Dictaphone/Frisbee digital dictation software. Stones said a key factor in the selection was the ability of nFlow to integrate its DDS workflow system with the Dictaphone portable recorders the firm already used.

Challinors order SRC Winscribe
Challinors, which has offices across the West Midlands, has ordered a Winscribe DDS from SRC. The firm, which has been using analogue tape, plans to roll out DDS to over 200 users. IT manager Richard Drew said it was “just a starting point” opening up “exciting new opportunities”.
 
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People & places

All change at Winckworths
Christel Aguila has taken over as the IT manager at Winckworth Sherwood following the departure of Sam Luxford Watts who, we understand, is joining the technical team at DDS supplier Bighand.

New EMEA marketing head at Aderant
Barbara Ozimic has joined the London office of PMS supplier Aderant as their EMEA marketing manager. Ozimic, who has held senior marketing roles with several UK, US and German organisations, joins Aderant from IntelliQ, a UK supplier of data mining systems.

Legal Inc associates with Wilson
Lit support consultancy Legal Inc has promoted Paul Wilson to associate director. Wilson has been responsible for the development of key government accounts, latterly working as a consultant to the Revenue & Customs Prosecutions Office and the Serious Fraud Office.

Lawton joins Lewis Silkin SharePoint team
Anna Lawton, most recently with Interwoven and before that Hummingbird, has joined the IT team at Lewis Silkin to help implement the firm’s SharePoint document management system project.

New marketing manager for SRC
Dominic Mellor has joined DDS supplier SRC as marketing manager. He takes over from Richard Whale who left the company late last year.

Here’s... Jonny
Jonathan Vaughan, previously a cashier with Blacks Solicitors in Leeds, has joined EMIS IT as a trainer on accounts and PMS systems. User’s of the EMIS Seneca system held their inaugural user group meeting last month, with Andrew Perry of SAS Daniels in Stockport voted chairman.
 
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Online news in brief

Beck’s new site goes live
Jonathan Beck’s new Legal Aide business consultancy (see Insider 195 for first report) has launched its information packed website for smaller law firms.
www.legal-aide.co.uk

KBX gets a website & RSS feed
Documents Plus has launched a new website for its KBX document assembly system. It also includes an RSS news feed.
www.kbxweb.net

Second Life – or get a life
Field Fisher Waterhouse has become the first major law firm to open an ‘office’ on the Second Life virtual 3D world. As Second Life currently has over 6 million virtual residents, this initiative may pay dividends, albeit it virtual fees. See Insider Orange Rag blog for first report.
www.secondlife.com
 
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Insider job of the week

Managing Consultant
LexisNexis InterAction, London
Three years + InterAction experience a must.
Please contact contact Darren Smith, Director of Professional Services, for further details: darren.smith@lexisnexis.co.uk or phone 020 7400 4655.
 
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Contact us

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