The answer then, as it still is today, is we regard legal technology – both from the law firm and supplier sides – as a distinct industry that deserves to have its activities taken seriously and reported in depth. That is what has made the Insider the most widely read legal tech publication in the UK, Continental Europe and Australia. (It is also the fourth most widely read legal IT source in the US even though we do not specifically target that market.) And that is what we will continue to do as we embark upon the next 200 issues. We are interested in your stories, not your marketing budgets or your sponsorship, which is also why we continue to refuse advertorial content and only accept stories on their editorial merits. So, what next?

Over the past 12 months we’ve introduced The Orange Rag breaking news blog and increased the size of the Insider by 50% from 8 to 12 pages. In the autumn we will be publishing a new CD containing the first 200 issues as PDF files. And, we are currently working on two new online services, as well as a new regular special supplement, to further complement and enhance our coverage of legal IT news – all of which will be made available at no extra cost to subscribers.
 
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Headline stories

New regime, new focus for Elite
At its first international user conference since the new management team headed by president & CEO Steve Buege took over the reins, Thomson Elite used its Las Vegas conference at the end of June as an opportunity to restate the positioning and strategy for its core practice management systems. At a keynote presentation, Buege said “expectations have changed, the bar has been raised” and went on to explain that Elite was adopting “a more deliberate, less opportunistic strategy” and a “more disciplined, credible and predictable” approach to new product development.

Later, Buege told the Insider that now the initial “noise” surrounding 3E had subsided, the management were in a position to clarify some of the issues that had arisen at the time of its launch. Buege said that while 3E is intended as a replacement for the Elite Enterprise PMS, this is very much a long term objective, with full support and upgrades for Enterprise set to continue for “a decade or so”. He added that firms can – as indeed some are – still buy Enterprise rather than 3E.

Buege also said there had been misunderstandings over the workflow aspects of 3E. The strategy here was to embed workflow tools within the application, so firms didn’t have to integrate with third-party workflow systems, if they didn’t need to. But he went on to say 3E’s workflow capabilities were never intended as a Metastorm killer and that Metastorm remained the obvious choice for Enterprise users and 3E users wanting to build workflows around other applications such as DMS. In a telling phrase, Buege said although the objective with 3E was to create “a single instance ERP of integrated components for the legal industry” it was equally important to be “surrounded by an eco-system of third party partners”. In fact there were over 40 of these suppliers, including Metastorm, present at the mini exhibition accompanying the event.

In a separate conversation with the Insider, marketing V-P Dan Tacone explained that Elite had gone its own way with the embedded workflow tools in 3E because it did not want to be dependant on a third-party, which he felt was a risk Aderant was exposed to because its workflow utilities were based on Microsoft technology. He added that of the 40 plus sites that had now ordered and/or were implementing 3E, 35 were migrations from non-Elite systems. Tacone said the majority of larger firms now look at just two PMS options: Elite and SAP but not Aderant, with SAP quickly dropping from the frame. (A view echoed by the law firm delegates we spoke to.) Both Tacone and Buege said Elite was considering a smaller, out-of-the-box version of 3E for mid-tier firms but not in the near future.

• Both Alan Rich and Chris Poole, from the old guard at Elite, were present at Las Vegas although Poole had to leave early. He’s joined a rock ‘n’ roll band (as you do) and had to rehearse for a forthcoming gig.
• Steve Buege made the best joke. Noting that the Las Vegas tourist agency uses the slogan ‘what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas’ he said it would be more correct to say “what happens in Las Vegas shows up on your credit card 30 days later.”
• There were over 1000 user delegates in Vegas but we heard only one complaint – and that firm admitted it began implementing Elite when its ledgers were in a mess.

Vin Murria leaves CSG/IRIS
The story has already been extensively discussed on the Orange Rag blog over the past fortnight but in case you missed it: Vin Murria – the architect of the CS Group’s rapid expansion into the legal IT market – has left the company after its acquisition by the IRIS Group. Arlene Adams joined IRIS last week as the managing director of the new Legal & Compliance business unit, which includes AIM, Laserform, Mountain and Videss. And a question mark still hangs over the £6 million acquisition of another legal IT supplier Murria was negotiating but had not concluded at the time of her departure. IRIS Group chief executive Martin Leuw told the Insider the group had always focussed on customer service, which meant no end-of-lifing or mandatory migration to successor systems.

• The ongoing saga of the CS Group and, most recently, the departure of Vin Murria (or Vinasty as it’s been christened) has boosted viewing figures for the Orange Rag blog to a record high. Weekday figures now average 5000 page views per day (or 100,000 a month) and we have over 9300 distinct hosts as subscribers.
www.theorangerag.com

Grumbling in the glens after TFB Scottish deal
TFB has become the first legal systems vendor to be awarded recognised supplier status by the Law Society of Scotland and has already commenced an aggressive marketing campaign to promote this, complete with some attractive special price deals on its accounts software for smaller Scottish law firms.

Although other suppliers will be recognised in the coming months, TFB were able to steal a lead because, as a result of their involvement with the English Law Society’s Software Solutions Guide, their company accounts had already been subject to extensive due diligence vetting by independent auditors, whereas this will take longer with some of the smaller Scottish suppliers who currently only produce abbreviated accounts. Indeed Insider sources report that some of the suppliers at the “cottage industry end of the market” have been “throwing their toys out the pram” after hearing of TFB’s accreditation.

No hurry say Pracctice
Pracctice has announced it is changing its support policy for the legacy version of its Osprey V.8 software, so in future firms that do not upgrade to the newer Osprey.TM system will have the cost of supporting the older system apportioned between them. Pracctice sales & marketing director Matt Lancaster said users did not need to take any rush decisions as they would have between 12 months and two years’ notice of the change (the last Osprey 8 sale was over four years ago) and added that as the majority of customers had already upgraded to TM, this was felt to be the fairest approach for the user-base as a whole.

“Any customers choosing not to upgrade will not have support services withdrawn, they will simply share the cost incurred in supporting Version 8.” Lancaster went on to say there seemed to be “a misconception that Osprey.TM can only be used as a hosted service but in fact users can upgrade to or purchase TM to operate as a traditional client/server application.”

Workshare glad to have competition
Following last month’s announcement that DocsCorp was planning to go head-to-head with Workshare in the redlining market, Workshare UK general manager Andrew Pearson told the Insider he was “glad to have competition” as it gave customers a choice. He added he was confident that if the products were compared, the latest version of Workshare (Pro 5) would come out on top because of its innovative features, such as the one-to-many comparison that lets users run simultaneous redlinings against several different iterations of the same document. Pearson also said Workshare licencing had been simplified, both for new and upgrade purchases, so customers had greater choice as to whether to buy products, such as Deltaview, separately or bundled together within the Pro 5 suite.

Nice Insight but is the price right?
Probably the most interesting product to make its debut at last month’s Law 2007 event at the Birmingham NEC was the Partner Insight system, that had been developed by Performance Analytics (0845 057 4155) in conjunction with solicitors Stanley Lee LLP. This is a performance management system that not only measures key performance indicators (KPIs) on a whole range of law firm activities (Stanley Tee measure 80 different KPIs) but then presents the information as a series of balanced scorecards with traffic light indicators to show whether performance is on, above or below target.

Stanley Tee’s partnership secretary Ian Fretwell said although initial set up took about 15 days of consultancy and implementation, the fact KPI reporting is now automated already saves the firm’s financial controller about 8 days a month, compared with preparing reports on Crystal. More importantly, the partnership management now receives information in an immediately digestible format instead of having to wade through 50 page reports.

Partner Insight can draw data from any ODBC compliant database (Stanley Tee run an old Civica Galaxy PMS) and according to Alan Neal of Performance Analytics “balanced scorecard KPI reporting sitting on top of a PMS is the next killer app for law firms”. Certainly the system attracted admiring glances at the NEC, with the director of one practice management system supplier admitting “it’s a gorgeous interface and performs better than our own KPI reporting software” but does it have legs?

One possible problem is because the application is based on the ScoreCard system, developed by QPR Software in Finland, the VAR partnership agreement with QPR does not give Performance Analytics much flexibility on price. Another legal systems supplier told the Insider they’d love to offer it to their users (as on add-on to their own PMS) but felt an entry level price of around £20k was too steep for most mid-market law firms. All of which is rather ironic as it is ambitious mid-market firms (like Stanley Tee) who most need a system like this, as their own accounts and practice management systems usually have only rudimentary reporting facilities.
www.partnerinsight.com
www.qpr.com

KM 2.0 orders starting to flow
The resurgence of interest in knowledge management (or KM 2.0 see Insider 196) by law firms is starting to manifest itself in new business deals. Clifford Chance, which has been running Solcara SolSearch for the past three years, announced earlier this month it was extending its use of the Solcara system. In recent weeks SolSearch has also been purchased by Carey Olsen and Mishcon de Reya.

Meanwhile Field Fisher Waterhouse has become the latest UK firm to select Recommind’s MindServer Legal system as its enterprise search platform supporting knowledge management infrastructure.
• Recommind this month also launched a new email management system. Called Decisiv Email, it is fully integrated with Outlook, was developed in conjunction with Mallesons, and automatically tags, organises and files emails and their assorted attachments with virtually no user involvement required. Gerard Neiditsch of Mallesons said as well as slashing routine email administration, the system also addresses compliance, records management and e-discovery issues.

Balance tipping in favour of Blackberry?
Over the past few months we’ve seen more and more IT directors coming out in favour of Windows Mobile devices as the preferred alternative to Blackberry in the PDA stakes but is the balance starting to swing back in favour of the Blackberry? A new survey, conducted by the IT industry webzine The Register, found that among organisations with experience of implementing and managing both systems, Blackberry Enterprise Server was rated superior to Microsoft Exchange/Windows Mobile in terms of ease of implementation, cost/hassle of support and functionality/user experience; and substantially superior in terms of security and management control.

The survey concludes that while Blackberry BES is often criticised as a proprietary solution, that adds an extra layer into an organisation’s messaging architecture sitting next to Exchange, shortcomings in the Microsoft Windows Mobile architecture mean that organisations are still likely to need third-party management systems to achieve the same level of control as Blackberry BES sites enjoy out of the box.

• Sweet & Maxwell’s Westlaw UK service, which has just been the subject of a major redesign and relaunch, is now Blackberry compatible.
 
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Other stories
   
Hubbard One opening in UK
Although the Thomson Elite user conference in Las Vegas had a strong focus on the Elite PMS product range, it also featured one of the other businesses in the group: Hubbard One. This is a relatively new – and currently the fastest growing – division within the Thomson Legal empire that pulls together software applications and related services to support the marketing and business development activities of law firms. This covers everything from blogs, websites, mini-sites, intranets, RSS feeds and email marketing (in the US another increasingly popular option are alumni programmes) to working with the Elite Marketing Center software which now includes the Experience Manager, Proposal Generation and Contact Management (the successor to Elite Apex) applications.
• Hubbard One now has a UK office, contact Chris Turk on 07894 174324 or email christopher.turk@thomson.com

Compuware/Tikit partnership
Compuware has selected Tikit to be its UK and European partner to deliver the Compuware Vantage ‘application service management’ (ASM) technology to law firms. ASM can best be described as an infrastructure monitoring and diagnostics system that can identify performance problems before they cause a system crash. UK firms using or implementing Vantage include SJ Berwin, Pinsent Masons, Linklaters, BLP, DMH, Clifford Chance and Kennedys.
www.compuware.com

Phoenix in training initiative
After a number of joint projects over the past six months, Phoenix Business Solutions and Humber Ashford Associates are joining forces and will launch a new company – Phoenix Training Services (UK) Ltd – on 1st August. Joanne Humber will be a director of the company and will be bringing over her staff and trainer network to join the Phoenix group. Dawn Ashford will also continue to work with the business as a consultant.

Out-of-the-box from Whitehill
Whitehill Technologies has announced a new ‘Legal Accelerator’ for its Whitehill BPI Legal system that provides pre-configured, out-of-the-box automation for processing new business intake, including running conflict of interest searches, within law firms. The system is fully compatible with Elite and the feedback from law firms who’ve already seen the system is it’s a more attractive product than Metastorm’s New Business Intake pod.
• Whitehill Technologies has appointed two new partners in the UK: Saturn Legal and the 27h consultancy.
www.whitehilltech.com
www.saturnlegal.co.uk
www.27h.co.uk

Will writers back to haunt Quill Computers
Back in 1993, the High Court wound up a company called Quill Wills “in the public interest”. They were a will writing operation who had been selling franchises on the strength of a sales brochure that, according to the DTi, contained “false, misleading and deceptive” claims. All of which came as a great relief to Tony Landes, the founder and managing director of the legal software supplier Quill Computer Systems – a company which has never had any connection whatsoever with either Quill Wills or will writing services generally.

Fast forward 14 years and the Quill Wills business has risen from the dead and is now trading as an online entity, called the Quill Group (not a UK registered company) based in that well-known centre for testamentary practice – the island of Lanzarote (in the Canaries). Its principals are a Simon and Jenny Harris – who may or may not be related to the Nicolas and Jennifer Harris who were directors in the old Quill Wills business.

The new Quill Wills business says it is a member of the Willwriters Association and the Association of Lawyers & Legal Advisors – the latter organisation claiming its members have the same status as solicitors. No, we’ve never heard of them – which is not surprising as both organisations appear to be run by a Simon Harris. For the record, the official professional body for will writers in the UK is the Institute of Professional Willwriters (IPW), which was set up in the aftermath of the original Quill Wills debacle. Simon Harris, unsurprisingly, is not a member of the IPW and an Insider source said “He’d probably be lynched if he ever turned up at an IPW meeting”.

All of which brings us back to Quill Computer Systems (and its legitimately UK registered holding company Quill Group Ltd) who would like to point out that just as they were not connected to the Quill Wills business in the 1990s, so they are still not related to them now. On a serious note Tony Landes says “We’ve three main concerns: firstly, we are receiving irate phone calls from clients of the other company, asking for their wills. Secondly, we don’t want our customers (mainly law firms) to think we are in competition with them in offering will writing services. And, thirdly, we don't want our reputation compromised by association."

200 issues ago...
The top story in the September 1995 launch issue of the Insider was Scotland’s then largest law firm Dundas & Wilson selecting a Novell NetWare network infrastructure because it felt Windows NT did not perform as well. We also reported that over 600 firms had placed full or trial orders for a Windows 95 CD version of Sweet & Maxwell’s White Book – the exciting fact here was the revelation that so many firms had PCs with CD disk drives. And Norwel was celebrating its renaissance with a series of large orders, including Withers and Berwin Leighton (there was no Paisner in BLP back then).

Quote, unquote
“My view is they are a bunch of muppets. The key thing is that anyone who is so confident about e-data searching and processing must be completely and utterly missing the point. It is just not that simple.” ...a director of a UK litigation support services company is less than impressed by the claims being made by one of the latest entrants into the market.

Many unhappy returns
It was 25 years ago – in July 1982 – the first computer virus, Elk Cloner, was unleashed on the world. Unleashed is perhaps over-dramatic: it was spread between Apple II computers via infected floppy disks. It was the work of a 15-year-old American high school student and its payload was to display a couple of verses of poetry. Oh, such innocent days.

Gossip central
Which supplier has chartered a helicopter to fly a number of legal IT directors to a slap-up, won’t you upgrade to the latest version of our software lunch at Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons restaurant at Great Milton? Of course if there is any turbulence on the return flight, then projectile vomiting at 5000 feet could be a bit of a downer.

Readers poll: all about VoIP
Over the past couple of months we have been asking what your plans are – if any – for embracing VoIP and IP telephony technology. Among law firms, 42% of those responding said they already had some form of VoIP/IP infrastructure in place and 56% said they were planning to implement it, which leaves just 2% who are presumably happy still using dolls-eye switchboards. As to the timing of any VoIP migration, the position is not quite so clear cut, with 40% saying it was planned over the next 12 months and a further 20% committing over the next couple of years. But the remaining 40% admitted it was planned ‘sometime/one day’, which tends to suggest it may be on many firms’ wish-lists but not in their budgets.

We also asked those firms with VoIP whether they would recommend their supplier to another firm. This yielded a not exactly ringing endorsement with 57% saying they would but 43% saying they would not. This reflects the comment we heard from one firm who said the VoIP market was the latest IT prairie to provide a home for cowboys. And, talking of VoIP service providers, our survey also revealed that only 25% of suppliers had been in the market for longer than 3 years and 50% had been involved for less than 12 months. If it is any consolation, one third of suppliers who currently do not provide VoIP services are planning to introduce them in the near future.
 
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Introduce a subscriber and save £25 off your next subscription

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

Salans select Tikit for DMS project
Salans, one of the largest firms in France, has selected Tikit’s French subsidiary to roll out an Interwoven Worksite document management system to 1300 users in 18 countries. The implementation, which will also see Tikit France replacing the firm’s existing Hummingbird DMS, is part of Salans’ global Macro IT ‘one firm, one approach’ project, designed to rebuild the desktop so lawyers have a single interface to a broad range of applications.

Linetime clock up five more sites
Linetime has secured five more orders for its Liberate case and practice management software. The five, which include two existing Linetime law firm sites who have upgraded, are Thomas Simon and William Graham Law, both in Cardiff, Quantrills in Ipswich, the Waterfront Partnership in London and Rogers & Norton in Norwich.

UC Logic launch federated search
UC Logic has launched its new Sysero Federated search and taxonomy system for law firms building know-how systems around intranet and Interwoven DMS information sources. Sysero also handles content from subscription services.
www.uclogic.com

Clouds with silver linings for AlphaLaw
Congratulations to AlphaLaw for devising a press release that managed to combine the wet weather in June with the fact orders were flooding in for their software. The company has recorded 25 new customers in recent weeks, including firms in the UK and the Irish Republic.

NTL Telewest bring in IP and multimedia
Miller Hendry in Tayside has rolled out an IP and multimedia communications network, including support for video conferencing, supplied by NTL Telewest.

Eclipse wins 100th accounts site
Although best known for its Proclaim case management software, Eclipse Legal Systems also produce an accounts package and have just won their 100th accounts system order. The order was placed by motorbike RTA-specialists Fletchers as part of a “six-figure deal” that will see the firm rolling out a bespoke Proclaim case management software to around 100 users, as well as swapping out its current Axxia PMS in favour of the Eclipse accounts system.
• Blakemores in the Midlands has selected Eclipse Proclaim as its new case management software platform.

Turcan become Bailey’s 100th customer
Turcan Connell has selected the KnowAll integrated library and knowledge management system from Bailey Solutions (01273 773788). KnowAll lets users interrogate library and KM resources simultaneously using the same search syntax and taxonomies. Turcan’s is Bailey’s 100th law firm customer.
www.baileysolutions.co.uk

Poole Townsend go with Videss
Poole Townsend, one of the largest law firms in the Lake District, has selected Videss Legal Office as its new practice and case management system. According to the Insider archives, the firm has been running Axxia software since 2002.
• B Legal, the legal arm of mortgage providers Beacon Home Loans, has ordered a Videss conveyancing system.

Herbert Smith implement new helpdesk
Herbert Smith has implemented the Infra Corporation’s ITIL software infraEnterprise for its global service desk/helpdesk system. Initial reports show 75% of calls logged are now resolved by 1st line staff.
www.infra.co.uk

Tikit launch three Metastorm pods
Tikit has launched three new process pods for the Metastorm BPM platform. The pods cover client matter inception, conflicts checking and anti-money laundering. SJ Berwin and Addleshaw Goddard have already purchased the pods, which can be integrated with platforms such as Elite, Interwoven, Blackberry and Sharepoint.

Phoenix pull in DocsCorp orders
Last month saw Phoenix Business Solutions sell DocsCorp’s PDS software into four more firms: Ogiers, Ozannes, Appleby and GVA Grimley. Phoenix is also running a series of seminars on DocsCorp and Interwoven systems, starting in London (26th) followed by Dublin (27th) and Edinburgh (2nd August). For more details call 020 7680 4450.

Timesoft push Aderant Dutch envelope
The Dutch systems house Timesoft has been pushing the envelope in terms of Aderant-related projects. The law firm Ploum Lodder Princen has selected Timesoft’s fixed assets module to run with its Aderant Expert PMS and Dirkzwager Advocaten is implementing Aderant’s Sharepoint-based Expert Portal. The firm is also implementing Timesoft’s time entry applet so fee earners can record time in a portal environment.
www.timesoft.nl

Irwin Mitchell select Chameleon wills
Irwin Mitchell has selected the Chameleon will drafting system from Documents Plus (01723 867792) to streamline its will writing service. Chameleon uses an interactive front-end questionnaire to automatically select the correct clauses and adjust the wording to suit specific client’s circumstances.
www.chamnet.com

Symantec/Interwoven integration sorted
The long running issue of integration between the KVS Vault (now part of the Symantec empire) emailing archiving system and Interwoven’s WorkSite DMS (whereby it was possible to misfile and ‘lose’ archived email messages) looks to be resolved. According to Nabarro IT director Andrew Powell (the chair of the WorkSite user group in the UK) “I know from user group meetings that KVS-Interwoven integration is a very live issue for many firms. Interwoven has been working closely with Symantec over past months and I’m pleased to report that significant progress has been made at last. Interwoven and Symantec have reached agreement on a joint approach that will see a server-side solution becoming part of core product with Server 8.5 (maybe sooner) and KVS 6 SP2.”

Linklaters outsource fourth data centre
Linklaters has signed a ‘multi-million pound, five year deal’ to outsource its Colchester data centre infrastructure to SAVVIS. Under the terms of the deal (which does not involve any staff transfers) SAVVIS will host a number of Linklaters’ business applications including KM, DMS, web and email systems, as well as provide internet bandwidth and archiving facilities. This is the fourth Linklaters data centre to be outsourced in recent years and while the SAVVIS deal mainly supports the firm’s Continental European operations, it also covers a number of global systems including the SAP financial and practice management system.

SDLT hit new high
Archie Courage of SDLT.co.uk, which has now established itself as the most widely integrated electronic SDLT forms package in the English legal market, says the take up of e-conveyancing continues, with last Friday seeing the highest ever number of SDLT5 forms produced in one day.

Linklaters use Accordent for training
Linklaters has deployed a ‘rich media’ (video, audio, web casting multimedia etc) creation, publishing and management system from Ardent Technologies to provide the foundation for an online training system that will support training operations across the practice, including its international offices. Linklaters strategy consultant Neil Thomas said that as well as ensuring staff in non-UK offices were kept apprised of changes in English law, because Accordent is “an all encompassing, start to finish technology, it lowers administrative costs since IT doesn’t have to look after the publishing of all presentations”.
www.accordent.com

Altien aiming at inhouse DMS sector
Altien (a new name on the pages of the Insider although they’ve been around for about 10 years) has launched a DMS for corporate legal departments. The key aspect of Altien for Corporate Legal is to provide inhouse lawyers with all the functionality they would get from the specialist document management systems available in the legal market (which today means Interwoven Worksite) but using the type of content management system a business may be running on an enterprise wide basis. Altien for Corporate Legal supports IBM DB2 and Filenet P8.
www.altien.com

High Tideway at Linklaters
Linklaters have implemented Tideway Systems’ Foundation product to help provide a clearer picture of its entire IT infrastructure so as to be able to map interdependencies and improve the firm’s change, incident and problem management processes. There is a full case study on the Insider website.
www.tideway.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 Anthony Stables, IT Manager, Farrer & Co

Computers - how do you use yours?
How do you use your computer? Do you use a keyboard, microphone or get your secretary to do it? The way we use or interface with computers shapes our attitude towards them and forms the basis of how we perform a task. Take the keyboard: originally designed with an A-Z layout, it was changed to the QWERTY format we’re familiar with today to prevent typewriter arms jamming. But when IBM put a keyboard on a PC they persisted with the QWERTY layout for familiarity, so we are stuck with an interface from 1874! With something that isn’t natural we need training, hence lessons in touch typing and many partners are still of the two finger stabbing variety.

The desirables from an interface are that it is instinctive, functional and assists you in working. Many hours are spent over interfaces with good reason and money spent on good design pays dividends elsewhere. Take a website: if you have a clear, friendly and informative home page, people are far more likely to stay and delve deeper.

The word interface is most commonly associated with software and these interfaces change more frequently and are more flexible. Those of us ancient enough to remember green screen terminals will recall complex structures of menus, sub menus and sub-sub menus. Fortunately we are finally getting away from this – Office 2007 moves away from rigid menus, into a more contextual way of working.

Interfaces evolve. This can be seen most clearly in versions of Microsoft Window. Unfortunately Windows still eats up RAM but at least Microsoft continue to sculpt the interface into a more ‘user friendly’ experience. Of course as soon as you mention the Windows interface, die hard Mac users start eulogising the virtues of OSX. As far as operating system user interfaces are concerned, Mac users do have a point (although not so strong now Vista has arrived) but when it comes to a mouse with one button just don’t get me started! (Ahem, the Insider is 100% Mac ...Ed)

Interface evolution is generally steady but sometimes there are big leaps forward. Good examples include the move from green screens to the graphical user interface (GUI), the mouse and voice recognition. Replicating natural selection theory, there are those that have ceased to evolve, such as Lotus Notes and good things that haven’t taken off, such as ultra mobile PCs. For example, there has been a lot of talk about tablet laptops. The ability to mark up and work on the screen with a pen, to carry your PowerPoint notes around without looking like an idiot and the fun had when sitting on a train and people wondering why you are writing on the screen are all well and good but at the moment this technology is restricted to laptops. So what about at the desk?

One potential new leap forward is Microsoft Surface. Surface has a 30” touch screen with a snazzy operating environment that lets you drag, drop and resize items with your fingers. (Just like Tom Cruise did in the movie Minority Report ...Ed). If you visit www.microsoft.com/surface/ and can forgive the Tony Blairish ‘a new way that isn’t new at all’ strap line, you can watch Flash videos and see this is clearly work in progress. But this is a real product with massive potential and Microsoft will be demonstrating it in the winter. Microsoft has missed a trick in the videos though, it is concentrating on home, social and retail use but this type of interface also has a massive potential in the broader business market.

Can you imagine dragging your documents around your desk, signing them, writing on them, stacking and organising them in your own fashion? Sounds like every single solicitor’s office I have ever seen – except no paper.
 
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People & places
 
Pip pops off to go solo
E-learning specialist Pip Johnson, most recently with TutorPro, has launched her own online learning consultancy. Called Ad Alta Learning (01323 871870), it offers advice on systems, implementation support and the development of bespoke online learning courseware.
pjohnson@adaltalearning.co.uk

Symons joins nFlow as non-exec
Ken Symons, one of the founders of the old Resolution Software/ResSoft group, has joined the board of digital dictation systems supplier nFlow Software as a non-executive director.

Rogers joins Howard Kennedy
John Rogers, who has been working as an independent CRM consultant for the last couple of years, has joined Howard Kennedy as head of IT, replacing Hamish Mitchell who has left the firm.

Taylor-Delahoy ahoy
Nick Taylor-Delahoy, most recently the CIO as Nabarro, has joined Penningtons as head of IT.

Bailey appointed enterprise advocate
Penny Bailey, the managing director of library systems vendor Bailey Solutions, has been appointed Women’s Enterprise Advocate by the South East England Development Agency to encourage more women to develop business careers. In the South East, 46% of the working population are women but only 15% of businesses are owned by women.

Billback moves
Eldean Ward, one of Billback Systems’ founders, has left the company. The UK branch has moved to new offices at MWB Business Exchange, 107-111 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2AB (020 7936 9044).
 
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Digital dictation news in brief

Olympus now supporting Citrix
With the 4.10 update of its DSS Player Pro dictation management software, Olympus is now supporting Citrix thin client network environments. The supported versions of Citrix Presentation Server are 3.0/4.0/4.5 and the latest version of DSS Player Pro can be downloaded free of charge from the Olympus website. The version 4.10 of DSS Player Pro will also be shipped directly with the following Olympus digital recorder hardware: DS-4000, DS-3300, AS-4000 and DR-2000.
www.olympus-europa.com/voice

Winscribe to support Blackberry
Winscribe has signed an ISV (independent software vendor) agreement with RIM, the manufacturer of the Blackberry. Further details of the Blackberry/Winscribe digital dictation integration will be announced later.
• The Insider understands nFlow have concluded a similar ISV deal with RIM for the Blackberry.

Mogers outsource with Bighand/Voicepath
Private client specialists Mogers has become the first firm to outsource its digital dictation through the Bighand Voicepath integration module. The integration means the firm, which was already a Bighand3 site, can outsource transcription to Voicepath as easy as to an inhouse secretary. Echoing other firms, Moger’s managing partner Derwent Campbell said that while they recognised the benefits of outsourcing, it was a “guiding principle that our work should be kept in the UK,” hence the attraction of Voicepath’s strictly UK-based transcription service.

Keoghs in Visualfiles/Winscribe first
Keoghs have just gone live with the first ever integration of a Winscribe DDS with a LexisNexis Visualfiles case management system. Dictation can be instigated from within Visualfiles and the resulting transcription returned to populate the case management screens.

A & L Goodbody roll out Bighand
Ireland’s largest law firm A & L Goodbody has rolled out Bighand3 DDS to over 300 users. IT director Susan Kemp said that while fee earners already submitted transcription remotely via their mobile phones, the firm is now planning to roll out Bighand over Citrix in the coming months to further add to the system’s remote working capabilities.
   
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Litigation news

Fence building with Allvision
Litigation readiness has been described as the “better fence at the top of the cliff”, and is a US concept that does have some applicability to certain UK sectors and law firms. Allvision’s Andrew Haslam has written a white paper exploring the concepts of litigation readiness and how they apply to the UK market. A PDF copy of the white paper is available free of charge and can be downloaded from the resources section on the Insider website.
www.legaltechnology.com

Autonomy swallows up Zantaz
Autonomy has acquired the Zantaz e-discovery and email archiving business for £375 million.

Kroll launch forensic email
Kroll Ontrack this week launched a new email investigation tool. Called Firstview, it provides a desktop based search and analytics system to help legal advisers and IT teams appraise the scope and potential significance of email for evidence purposes, including evaluating whether misconduct has occurred and identifying data that should be processed for electronic disclosure purposes.
www.ontrackfirstview.co.uk

Legal Insight launch content mining service
Legal Insight (01883 339932) has launched a new service that can analyse the content of documents stored in case management systems to help identify trends, patterns and sentiments. Ken Tombs of Legal Insight reckons the system can speed up the time it takes to analyse file content by a factor of about 10-to-1, allowing litigators to get to grips with the issues far quicker than was previously possible.
www.legalinsight.eu

ECHR starts webcasting
The European Court of Human Rights has launched two initiatives: webcasting its public hearings and the provision of new information about pending cases. The Court’s President Jean-Paul Costa described webcasting as “a significant step forward in making the Court’s activities more visible and accessible. Lawyers, academics, journalists and ordinary citizens, many of whom would never have been able to come to Strasbourg to attend a hearing, will be able to follow the proceedings from their homes and offices. This will bring the Convention closer to the ordinary citizens it is intended to serve and protect.”

The second initiative will appear on the Court’s website every Monday, giving a list of cases that have been officially communicated to states against which the applicant’s complaints are directed. For each case there will be a link to a summary of the facts, the applicants’ complaints and the questions put by the Court to the parties. This information will be in English or French.
www.echr.coe.int
 
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Fresh on the radar

The best thing since Autonomy but cheaper?
Last month we reported that Bird & Bird’s next generation KM system was built around Concept Searching’s search engine, this month we report on a company called Web-Labs (01525 374859) who hope to enter the legal market with a knowledge management search system called SearchMaster, also based on the Concept Searching engine.

We know, we’ve heard it all before but Duncan McLellan of Web-Labs says SearchMaster differentiates itself from the competition by automatically identifying the most significant patterns in any text and uses these compound terms to rank results on an understanding of meaning rather than simply based on finding the required words. “The only other company to our knowledge,” says McLellan, “that uses the Probabilistic Model (or Bayesian Inference) and the concept identification based on Shannon’s Information Theory is Autonomy. The difference here is price, we start at £20k and Autonomy starts at £250K.” McLellan says in his view while Recommind make similar claims “their version of this does not come close”.

“The other big differentiator,” says McLellan,” is categorisation in that SearchMaster automatically classifies documents into any predefined categories based on a small number of descriptors and can categorise documents and websites on the fly.” Once classified the documents can then be applied to a legal/corporate taxonomy or any home built classification such as, for example, for use in e-discovery work. Web-Labs will be offering law firms low cost pilots to prove SearchMaster’s technology and, if successful, will deduct that cost from the total bill.
www.web-labs.co.uk

Anyone for e-books?
The idea of finding a more immediate and eco-friendly alternative to paper has been around for a long time but the iLiad Reader from iRex Technologies (a Philips spin off) looks the most constructive step yet in the right direction. The device is A5 sized – in otherwords book-sized, weighs less than a pound and displays text on its ‘electronic paper’ (and surprisingly legible non-LCD) screen just like the pages of a conventional book. You can even make annotations to the text or use it as a notepad, writing notes with digital ‘e-ink’. Rather more importantly, this is not a stand alone device as you can sync it with a PC via a USB or wireless link and can subscribe to RSS feeds and other information sources providing content in PDF, HTML, TXT, JPEG and Amazon MobiPocket file formats (there are over 49,000 ebook titles available on MobiPocket).

So, great gadget but is it of any serious use in the legal world? In the UK Sweet & Maxwell has been piloting the device with a small number of barristers from litigation chambers and feels the device could have legs, not least because it could save the legs (and backs) of counsel who would otherwise have to lug a stack of bulky law books with them to court. The ability to annotate text is a big plus here. However, this is only a pilot and we could still see a VHS versus Betamax standards battle break out between the iLiad and the rival Sony Reader device, which may lack some of the iLiad’s functionality (particularly support for a wide range of file formats and the ability to input text) but is smaller, lighter and cheaper. Prices start at £433 (inc VAT) for the iLiad and the 128Mb internal memory can be expanded to 25Gb using memory cards.
www.irextechnologies.com – for technical data
www.iliadreader.co.uk – UK & Irish retail channel
 
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Insider jobs of the week

Consultancy posts at Aderant
Aderant’s London office is currently recruiting for a senior business consultant and a conversion/customisation consultant to join its EMEA consultancy team. For more information visit www.aderant.com Send CVs and covering letter to paula.stockton@aderant.com

Full details on these and other vacancies can be found on the Insider jobsboard at www.legaltechnology.com
 
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