All eyes will be on the IRIS Legal business to see if it can convince the market that it has a technically viable and sufficiently commercially attractive product roadmap, both to retain the support of its existing AIM, Laserform, Mountain and Videss users and to win new customers.

Then there is Microsoft Sharepoint – we’ve heard the hype, now where’s the beef? Will any of these document management systems projects deliver – or will we see the tide turn against them? As was reported on The Orange Rag blog last week, in the US it is now being suggested that a poorly managed Sharepoint DMS project can prove to be little more than a self-inflicted corporate virus.

The other big development is going to be more mergers and acquisitions among legal IT suppliers. We’re expecting one to be announced before Christmas and another is on the cards for Q1 2008. But a lot will depend upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling. If there are no amendments to the proposed changes to the Capital Gains Tax regime, then we could see a number of proprietors deciding to sell up cheap now, rather than hold out for money but get hit by far bigger CGT bills from April 2008 onwards.
 
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Headline stories
 
December's big deals

Two wins for SOS Connect
Solicitors Own Software (SOS) has announced two new wins for its Microsoft .NET based Connect case and practice management system. The orders were placed by Barcan Woodward in Bristol, who are swapping out an Axxia system; and BLB Solicitors, who have four offices across the Avon-Wiltshire area and are swapping out a Pracctice Osprey system.

Kingslegal say yes to Eclipse
Eclipse Legal Systems says it has won a “six figure deal” to install a 130-user Proclaim case management system in the Cardiff and Solent offices of insurance claims practice Kingslegal. The practice, which acts for clients including Axa, Zurich and the Co-op Insurance Society, previously ran Axxia software and will also be installing an Eclipse accounts and practice management system.

Field Fisher up & running in 3 months
Field Fisher Waterhouse has completed the practice-wide rollout of a Recommind Mindserver enterprise search platform within three months.

Microsystems adds seven more UK sites
Microsystems, the ‘first draft to final delivery’ document lifecycle company, has announced seven more customers for its Knowledge Partnership Microsoft Word document control and clean-up product. They are Winckworth Sherwood, Clyde & Co, Memery Crystal, Thomson Snell & Passmore, Pannone, Morton Fraser and Field Fisher Waterhouse. Field Fisher has also ordered Microsystems D3 document assembly system.
www.microsystems.com

IRIS Legal unfold product roadmap
IRIS Legal Solutions last week published its five year roadmap for the business that now includes AIM, Laserform, Mountain and Videss. Full details appear on The Orange Rag blog however key points include:
• The introduction, over a five-to-six year period of a new Microsoft .NET technology framework called LegalLink that will integrate existing IRIS Legal applications with new case and practice management modules.
• A commitment to support all existing IRIS Legal products for at least four years.
• The introduction of new lawyer and client-facing front office applications, including knowledge management, CRM and document management systems.

Birmingham City Council, one of the largest local authorities in Europe, has selected the IRIS Videss Legal Office system to support the operations of its 300-strong legal team. Other recent IRIS Legal wins include: Anami Law and Williams Airey (Mountain), LMK Solicitors (AIM) and Hodders and Drummonds Kirkwood (Videss).

Who you gonna call? Legal Inc Assist
Litigation support specialist Legal Inc has launched a new service for law firms who find themselves in need of urgent ad hoc assistance. Called Legal Inc Assist, this is a rapid response fixed fee consultancy programme for firms facing one of three common scenarios:
• A small firm finding itself on the other side of an action but with no or limited resources, requiring immediate litigation support assistance.
• A firm that suddenly finds itself without expertise due to the loss of key staff and needs interim management.
• A firm that finds it necessary to switch lit support systems midstream and needs help with the transition.

Legal Inc director Lisa Burton said the service was being introduced because “Over the past year we’ve had more and more calls from small-to-mid size firms who want or need to up their litigation game but find themselves hamstrung by lack of resources. An Assist project gives them free and unfettered access to all our know-how, from the specification and configuration of litigation support software to the design of workflows, from review techniques through to electronic presentation solutions. A popular option is a simple, one day review session where we evaluate and optimise existing technology.” For details email Burton at lisa.burton@legalinc.co.uk

Blue water! What blue water?
Following on from last month’s story about the latest version of Recommind’s MindServer search platform, Helen Dibble – the marketing manager at rival vendor Solcara – has been in touch to say she’d “like to muddy the clear blue water” that Recommind suggests now lies between its software and that of competitors.

“Solcara Solsearch,” says Dibble, “has been deftly managing asynchronous searching for the past five years and has been successfully deployed in a large number of leading UK and Irish law firms. As many will recognise, simultaneously searching internal and external information repositories with a single query should be standard, and not of significance for a federated search engine. If this is Recommind’s v5.1 offering, the clear blue water is, we believe, very much in Solcara’s wake.”
www.solcara.com

InterAction introduce subscription service
LexisNexis has begun offering a subscription service based around its market-leading InterAction CRM system. The move follows research by Lexis into the reasons why law firms are currently not investing in CRM software and seeks to address two of the main concerns, namely cost and the risk of an implementation failing.

InterAction is now available on a five year contract (as a site licence, based on the number of fee earners – not end users) with an option to cancel after two years. However even if firms do cancel, they still retain the latest version of the InterAction software and all their data, so there is no risk of their data being held to ransom, which is the concern with some software as a service (SaaS) offerings.

Interaction suggest the new pricing model means that if each lawyer in a firm saves just 45 minutes a year organising their Christmas card list, the system will pay for itself. The first two organisations to sign up for the new subscription service are law firm Peters & Peters and the Development Planning Partnership property consultancy.
• Mayer Brown and leading Norwegian law firm Wiersholm have both signed firm-wide InterAction deals.
• Digital marketing technology provider Concep has launched cMap, a data management application that integrates with InterAction to provide automated records updating for email marketing campaigns.
www.conceplegal.com

Lexis creates consultancy arm
LexisNexis has announced the formation of a Professional Services & Consulting Group that will combine the project management, training and implementation skills of the LexisNexis InterAction CRM and VisualFiles workflow and case management businesses. The new group’s director Darren Smith said that by pooling resources they would be able to provide “a much more holistic service”.

Offshoring could save £30k per secretary each year
Global Secretarial, which provides a South African based outsourced dictation transcription service, is claiming that offshoring can save London-based law firms in excess of £30k per secretary a year. The company is hosting a webinar on 17th January to explain how such cost savings can be achieved. For more details email nic@globalsecretarial.co.uk

Insider Christmas crackers

Cold Feat – to the North Pole with lawyers and a gun
Duncan Eadie, who heads up IT at the London offices of Baker & McKenzie, has a new book out about a recent trip he made to the North Pole with the explorer Pen Hadow. It includes everything from the initial training, which involved running around a park at night with a tractor tyre slung to his waist, to the slog of the trip in -60oC temperatures with thin ice, broken teeth, frostbitten toes and polar bears to worry about. “Worse still,” says Eadie, “I had to get on with a group of lawyers day and night far away from civilisation, with only a loaded rifle for security.” The book is called Cold Feat - A journey to the North Magnetic Pole by Pen Hadow and Duncan Eadie and you can order it on Amazon.

Email Archiving for Dummies
Still on the subject of books, Bob Spurzem and Bill Tolson of Mimosa Systems have a new book out called Email Archiving for Dummies. This looks at all the issues to consider when selecting an archiving system to support and it really is part of the well-known For Dummies series from Wiley publishing, complete with the same layout and even cartoons. You can register for a copy of the book on the Mimosa website however what doubly impressed us is this seems to be a very smart use of a marketing budget. In fact we’re surprised that other suppliers haven’t brought out custom For Dummies titles.
www.mimosasystems.com
bizdev@wiley.com

Live at Blackacre
Then there is our old friend, the American lawyer Lawrence Savell, who has just released a new CD of legal themed songs called The LawTunes - Live at Blackacre, a legendary location all lawyers will recall from law school days. We particularly like the Phil Collins pastiche (She’s an) Electronic Discovery. You can order copies online.
www.lawtunes.com

Actually we have met before, I pay your salary
Finally, a seasonal quiz... Which IT director, only a few weeks into his new job with a certain law firm, attended a software demo and inadvertently handed his business card to one of his own firm’s senior partners?
   
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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

Horsey Lightly ride off with Crescendo
Berkshire law firm Horsey Lightly Fynn has selected the DigiScribe-XL system from Crescendo as its digital dictation platform. Following a pilot in its London office, the firm is now rolling it out at its head office in Newbury. IT manager Karl Donovan said the firm was impressed by the way Crescendo could stream voice files to provide multi-site dictation and transcription without any bandwidth or file copy issues.

Two milestones for AlphaLaw
Phillips International Lawyers has become the 900th firm to purchase the Esprit entry-level accounts & PMS from AlphaLaw. In a second milestone, Bennett Richmond in Consett has become the 400th firm to install AlphaLaw’s Vantage case and practice management system.

More firms go with DocsCorp for PDFs
Finers Stephens Innocent, Boyes Turner and property firm NLP are the latest organisations to buy DocsCorp pdfDocs systems from Phoenix Business Solutions.

Rutherfords make it five in a row for TFB
Staffordshire law firm Rutherfords has rolled out TFB’s Partner for Windows case and practice management system across 45 users. This is the fifth Pracctice Osprey site TFB has won this year. TFB has also swapped out three OMS sites, the latest being 42 user Chartbridge Solicitors LLP in Lancashire.

Tollers go with Norwel
Northampton-based Tollers has migrated from Norwel’s old case management system to the supplier’s recently launched Prescient system. This combines matter management, case workflow plus document production and management functionality with Outlook integration. Tollers head of IT David Baskerville said his team looked at VisualFiles, Metastorm, Eclipse and Videss systems before picking Norwel to support the firm’s personal injury and conveyancing operations.

Dentons stress test with Spirent
Denton Wilde Sapte has used Spirent to provide performance analysis and service assurance technology to help the firm’s migration from a localised server environment to a new Docklands data centre. Spirent was used to ‘stress test’ applications, servers and networks to ensure the infrastructure worked effectively before and after the move.
www.spirent.com

Cobbetts go with Pivotal
Cobbetts has selected a Pivotal CRM system, which will be implemented by CDC Software (01604 630050) and rolled out to 680 lawyers and staff in the firm’s Birmingham, Leeds, London and Manchester offices.
www.cdccorporation.net

DAC to backup Blackberry
Avanquest Solutions has won a contract from Davies Arnold Cooper to supply a Neverfail for BES disaster recovery system to provide backup for its Blackberry Enterprise Server. Two fact sheets on Neverfail can be found on the KM resources section of the Insider website.
www.legaltechnology.com

Elite streamlines e-billing
Thomson Elite has linked up with eBilling Hub in the US to provide a streamlined electronic billing system – called the Elite eBillingHub – that will also provide closer integration with the Elite PMS.

MPS to implement purchase-to-pay
The not-for-profit Medical Protection Society is to implement a Proactis P2P (purchase-to-pay) system to improve the management of its indirect spend, which includes 30,000 + invoices each year from a range of suppliers, such as lawyers, working on its behalf.
www.proactis.com

Shoosmiths arms IT staff with ITIL
As part of an ongoing initiative to operate its IT department in line with ITIL best practices , Shoosmiths has trained all its 50 strong IT team to ITIL Foundation level. The training was handled by specialist IT training consultancy FGI (01926 405777).
• ITIL – the Information Technology Infrastructure Library – is a customisable framework for best practice delivery and support of IT services and infrastructure, developed in the 1980s by what is now the Office of Government Commerce.
www.fgiltd.co.uk

Foot Anstey use NTL for comms network
In preparation for this month’s merger with Cornish firm Hancock Caffin and to accommodate 40% growth over the past two years, Foot Anstey has implemented an MPLS (multi protocol label switching) network to link its offices across the South-West. Along with replacing the separate data and internet networks it ran at each office, the new MPLS also features inter-office video conferencing and enhanced backup architecture. NTL Telewest supplied the MPLS.
www.ntltelewestbusiness.co.uk

Seneca goes inhouse
The inhouse legal departments of both Callcredit and Experian have placed orders to deploy the Seneca system from EMIS IT. Both organisations will be using Seneca to provide email, file and document template management functionality within Microsoft Outlook.
• Isle of Man law firm Gough & Co has also selected EMIS Seneca as its new case and practice management system.

New conveyancing software release
LexisNexis Visualfiles has released version 4.2 of its VisualConvey conveyancing case management system in anticipation of the integration needs of e-conveyancing. Deployment options range from standard, seven day out of the box implementations through to customised systems.

Linetime gets PCOL link
Linetime’s Liberate system now has a direct online link to the Court Service’s new Possession Claim Online (PCOL) portal for managing and monitoring mortgage repossession work.

ILEX gets IRIS
The Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX) is extending its current membership management system by deploying the Profile Concept suite of web access modules. These will allow members and students direct access to information through a personalised extranet. The systems will be supplied by IRIS NFP, who have now been working with parts of the IRIS group for nearly 20 years.

Correction: Addleshaw and APEX
Contrary to our report in the last issue, Addleshaw Goddard has not replaced its Elite APEX CRM with the Hubbard One Development Suite but is still reviewing its options. Apologies for the confusion.
   
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Opinion ... ... Stewart Hadley, Managing Director, Copitrak Systems

Costs recovery renaissance on way?
It may be a bit of a stretch to call it a renaissance but we are certainly seeing a renewed interest in cost recovery systems, fuelled partly by the need to upgrade to new generation technology and partly by the desire to focus more closely on cost management within the business. It is no real coincidence therefore that just as the market starts to heat up, we see providers jostling more aggressively for position and in so doing causing a rather unhelpful polarisation of views.

In the red corner, we have those who see the future of cost recovery as lying exclusively in embedded software, where the cost recovery solution is made available through the MFD (multi-functional device) rather than through a discrete terminal. The sales pitch is slick – single interface, no additional devices needed, less space required, cheaper. In fact, why would you consider any other solution? In the blue corner stand those who will defend the ‘hard’ over the ‘soft’ every time, demonstrating with a passion the hugely more usable interface of terminals and tablets, the superior functionality and the ease of switching in new equipment.

The trouble with being in one or other corner is that a cost recovery specialist should actually be in the middle, being the referee. Our role should be to help clients make a judgement – IT solutions of any colour need to be aligned to business needs and with cost recovery in particular, geared to user demands. And yes, this should be a bit of a no-brainer and yet why do we come across so many incidences of organisations who have invested heavily in cost recovery technology and who are either criminally under-utilising them or worse, who have actually unplugged them?

It is not enough for a supplier to come and sell the hard or soft options, exclusively promoting the merits of one while damning the other. That doesn’t answer the question of what a client really needs or how they want to operate or where they want to go long-term. We’ve just completed a number of very satisfying implementations where we were able to partner with the client to determine user considerations, operational parameters and business needs prior to designing an optimum solution. And the onus is on solution – there was no merit in selling a hardware-based system or a software-based system, but in delivering in all cases a compelling mix of both. And this illustrates for me where cost recovery has to go - away from the box shifting of the past to adopt instead a more consultative approach, in much the same way as the PMS providers have done over the past few years. We’re now looking to actively advise our clients not on the best technology but on the best technology fit. Somewhere between hard and soft is the right place.
 
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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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People & places
 
New account managers for Winscribe
Winscribe has appointed Chris Smith as its new sales account manager for the Midlands & Wales, and Trevor Hoggard as sales account manager for Scotland & the North of England.

New UK office for Grundig
Grundig Business Systems has moved its UK office to the Kinetic Business Centre, Borehamwood, Herts WD6 4PJ. Contact Ian Laycock on 020 8387 1423.

Searchflow finds a new home
Property search specialist SearchFlow has found a new home at 42 Kings Hill Avenue, West Malling, Kent ME19 4AJ.

Oyster opens at new office
Records and information management consultancy Oyster IMS has moved to New Loom House, 101 Back Church Lane, London E1 1LU. You can contact Josef Elliott and his team on 020 7199 0620.

Marks Baughan open UK operations
The US-based investment banking services group Marks Baughan, which has been behind a number of recent acquisition deals in the North American legal IT market, has gained Financial Services Authority authorisation for its UK subsidiary Marks Baughan Securities UK, LLP. John Jacobs, who previously headed technology investment teams for HSBC and Credit Suisse First Boston, has been appointed the London office’s managing member. The company is now located at 2-61 Condor House, 5-10 St Pauls Churchyard, London EC4M 5AL.
 
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Cost recovery news in brief

Ashurst select Billback
Ashurst LLP has selected Billback to provide cost recovery systems for network print, fax and scan, and has purchased Billback’s print room management module to manage its London office reprographics workflow operations. Ashurst was previously an Equitrac site.

Bond Pearce go with Copitrak
Another former Equitrac site, Bond Pearce, has gone live with a new cost recovery system from Copitrak. The project saw the deployment of a combination of traditional terminals and Copitrak’s eClipse interface sitting at the front of eCopy scan stations, plus the rollout of LaserTrak print tracking software across the firm’s five office network.
• Copitrak has launched a new print management system to automate reprographics workflow within law firms.

Wins and upgrades for Equitrac
Meanwhile Equitrac is still holding its own, recently winning orders for its Pro 5 system from Royds, Turbervilles and Hamlins LLP – the latter two will be taking advantage of the embedded Equitrac terminal technologies now available on Canon MEAP and eCopy ShareScan devices. And, two existing sites – Halliwells and RadcliffesLeBrasseur – will be upgrading to Pro 5 systems.

nQueue receive additional funding
nQueue Inc announced last week that Momentum Venture Management and Hilltop Capital Partners had made additional investments in the company. The financial terms were not disclosed.
   
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Fresh on the radar

Sharepoint with Content & Code
Here’s another new face in the market – Content & Code (020 7101 0926). The company is a Microsoft gold partner that specialises in building intranets and websites based primarily on Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 (aka MOSS) with a special focus on document management and search. The company has already worked with a couple of law firms (Winckworth Sherwood and Bevan Brittan) as well as Sweet & Maxwell, and now wants to expand its presence in the legal market, kicking off with a seminar in London on 24th January. Speakers will include representatives from Microsoft, Interse (the company behind the iBox system) and Josef Elliott of the Oyster IMS records management consultancy. To book a place email kallia.mansour@contentandcode.com
www.contentandcode.com

Updating legacy software
Office automation specialist Kutana (01235 772070) has launched a legacy update consultancy service to review law firm legacy software and work out how best to deal with other people’s undocumented code. Kutana’s Roger Middlebrook is keen to stress the service is not intended to handle wholesale data conversion projects, such as those associated with PMS swap-outs. Instead, it is designed to deal with all those macros, templates and bespoke routines someone, such as a long departed employee or defunct software house, once wrote but no-one now knows how to change. Examples include updating a suite of queries written for SQL Server; revising a bespoke reporting system running on Exchange Server 5.1 so it will still function when the firm migrates to Exchange Server 2003; and revising templates, with macros in WordBasic, so none of their functionality is lost after an upgrade to a new DMS.
www.kutana.co.uk

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International news

Eclipse win first Australian customer
Eclipse Legal Systems has won its first order from an Australian organisation. The Sydney based 1car1, which operates a global motor claims service covering everything from car hire to accident management, has ordered the Eclipse Proclam case management system for its new personal injury claims department. The UK arm of 1car1 already uses Eclipse and it was their experiences of the software that convinced the Australian operation to also adopt it.

Tikit expands US operations
The Tikit Group is expanding its presence in North America and has appointed Theresa Sidwell as its new US legal account manager. The move comes in the wake of growing demand for Tikit’s eMarketing Solution. This application integrates with the LexisNexis InterAction CRM system to provide legal sector specific marketing and campaign management tools.

Morningstar acquired by IRIS Group
Benelux-based Morningstar Systems has been acquired by the IRIS Group. No this is not the UK-based IRIS Group that now owns the AIM, Laserform, Mountain and Videss businesses but the Brussels-based Image Recognition Integrated Systems Group. Formed in 2001, Morningstar is a reseller and implementer of Interwoven DMS, Metastorm BPM, Bighand digital dictation and InterAction CRM systems.

Thomson Elite expands Asia-Pac team
Thomson Elite International has expanded the customer services team serving its Asia Pacific business. New appointments include Christelle Nicola as director client services, Terry Gibson heading technical services and Cheng Kwee-Chua heading a South East Asian team out of Singapore.
 
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Insider jobs of the week

CRM Client Advisor
LexisNexis is recruiting for a CRM Client Advisor with responsibility for the UK, Ireland & Europe. This client facing role suited to someone with a working knowledge of CRM tools and a background in business development, marketing and/or CRM technology. Strong presentation skills and a desire to work with people in an innovative, problem-solving capacity are essential. For details contact Daniel Von Weihe at daniel.vonweihe@lexisnexis.com

Full details on these and other vacancies can be found on the Insider jobsboard
 
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Contact us

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