Two wins for SOS Connect
DLA Piper select Interwoven Uni Search
DLA Piper has selected Interwoven’s new Universal Search (Professional Services Edition) system to enable staff in Europe, the Middle East and Asia to search the firm’s knowledge repositories. David Halliwell, the firm’s head of KM for Europe and Asia said “Cross-border transactions mean the most relevant best practices may be from another country. Interwoven Universal Search will support us in guiding our people to the most relevant and current information.”

Dutch firm goes with Dynamics CRM
Amsterdam-based law firm Van Doorne, which also has offices in London, Aruba and Curacao, has selected Client Profiles’ CR4Legal product, which is based on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform, as its CRM system. The system is being supplied and implemented by Timesoft.

Maclay Murray & Spens select FloSuite
Top 50 firm Maclay Murray & Spens has selected the FloSuite BPM system to automate and streamline some of its internal procedures, including billing and matter inception. The system will be integrated with the firm’s Interwoven DMS and Pilgrim PMS.

Isokon in pole position in probate market
Charles Russell has dropped rival Lawbase and Solution 6 products to standardise on using Isokon’s trust and probate software in all its offices. Isokon has also signed up six more regional firms, including Bray & Bray and Challinors, to bring its total number of firms to just over 80, including 15 top 100 firms. A quarter of Isokon sites are integrated with TFB PMS systems.

Vendors target IRIS sites
After spending the past six months posting rude comments on The Orange Rag blog about the IRIS Group‘s legal division, legal IT suppliers are now starting to seriously target IRIS users, with Mountain sites in the firing line. TFB has announced wins at two Mountain sites: North-Western criminal law specialists Burton Copeland LLP and 50-user Follett Stock in Truro, who are swapping out a Mountain Connected system, despite having only installed it a few months previously. Follett’s CEO Nigel Fox said the firm was “amazingly disappointed” by the Mountain system.

SOS has won an IRIS Mountain site: 70 user Kirby Simcox, who will now be implementing the .NET-based SOS Connect (no relation to the Mountain software) across three offices in the Bristol area. We’re also hearing reports that AlphaLaw has won a Mountain site in the South-West.
• Pracctice Osprey users Woolley & Co are also switching to SOS.

Saturn merges with 27h consultancy
Saturn Legal and 27h (the consultancy formed last year by Tim Spriggs and David Gallagher) have merged to become Saturn27 Limited. Both organisations had been working together in recent months and Gallagher said it made business sense to combine. The new company says its policy is to remain ‘agnostic’ to proprietary vendors and not partner with any one specific time and billing, CRM or other supplier. Instead its aim is to offer independent services and consultancy augmented by Microsoft products that will leverage customers’ IT investments.
• Saturn27 will have a stand at the Legal IT show.

One consequence of the merger is Gallagher will not now be taking up his planned role as general manager of Handshake Software Europe. Tim Kenney, of the US-based portals and Sharepoint company, said Handshake will still open an office in London this spring to support both its growing European user base (the latest sale is to Taylor Vinters in Cambridge) and its new product launches. These include Handshake DM Director, which makes it easier for firms to build document management systems based on Microsoft Sharepoint. In the meantime Saturn27 has been appointed a Handshake reseller, joining other European resellers Tikit, Aderant and Timesoft.
• It’s rumoured a working title for the merger was 3 Bellies Consulting but someone spotted that Saturn’s rings are at 27 degrees to the horizon, so the names were combined.
www.saturn27.com
www.handshakesoftware.com

Santa delivers the lolly in his sack
Santa was busy over the holiday season delivering cash and share options to all those good little boys and girls in the legal IT industry who had businesses other companies wanted to buy. The first deal, and being all American it coincided appropriately enough with Thanksgiving, was the acquisition of niche CRM supplier Contact Networks by Thomson. December began with LexisNexis Australia buying long-established local PMS supplier Locus. A couple of weeks later Seagate acquired US e-discovery supplier MetaLINCS and then, just as we were packing up for Christmas, the AIM-listed ArgentVive group acquired UK and Irish legal market KM specialists Solcara for an undisclosed sum. With the New Year came more acquisitions. LexisNexis acquired Redwood Analytics, the highly rated benchmarking and business intelligence company, for an undisclosed sum. Redwood will join the Lexis division that includes InterAction. And, Microsoft acquired the Norwegian FAST search engine business (no relation to the Fast that is part of the IRIS Group in the UK) to the apparent delight (see story in The Orange Rag blog) of Fast’s competitors ISYS and Recommind.

DPS embrace Outlook and SaaS
DPS Software will be giving the first public demonstrations of its new Outlook Office suite at the Islington Legal IT show next month. As the name implies, this is a new case and matter management system that operates entirely within the familiar Microsoft Outlook application, with full integration with Outlook diary and email functionality. Users can also opt to switch on Outlook integration with the DPS legal accounts, digital dictation and telephone integration applications.

DPS has been piloting this system with a number beta sites, including Enfield lawyers Shepherd Harris, who describe Outlook Office’s performance as outstripping standalone case management systems. Interestingly, as well as offering Outlook Office as an installed system on a WAN/LAN for new and existing DPS users, it will also be available to smaller firms (up to 10 seats) on a software as a service (SaaS) basis.

10 years after: same old, same old from Law Society Guide
The English Law Society has just published the 10th edition of its annual Software Solutions Guide. Content wise, it’s the same formula we’ve seen for the past decade, with 2008 featuring 15 of the approximately 60 suppliers of accounts and practice management systems active in England & Wales today, along with those market research figures that allow everyone to interpret them in such a way that they claim their users love them the most.

This year’s listed suppliers are: Access Legal Systems – no change, AlphaLaw – no change, Cognito Software – no change, DPS Software – no change, Eclipse Legal Systems – no change, IRIS Connected (aka Mountain) – no change, IRIS Evolution (aka AIM) – no change, JCS Computing Solutions – no change, Linetime – no change, OPSIS – no change, Quill Group Pinpoint – no change, Select Legal Systems – no change, SOS – no change, and TFB – no change. This year also sees one re-entry, by IRIS Legal Office (aka Videss) – the previous owners of the business pulled out of the guide for policy reasons in 2003; and the departure of Laserform (aka IRIS LPS). You can find a PDF of the guide on the resources page on the Insider website.
www.legaltechnology.com

Readers' poll - law firm IT budgets static?
Back in December, our readers’ poll asked the question whether law firm IT budgets were rising or falling. In particular we wanted to know if a frequently cited statistic – that law firms spent on average 5.5% of their annual turnover on IT – was still valid. The first question was what was last year’s IT spend as a percentage of turnover, to which 12.5% said more than 8%. Unfortunately 18.8% said it was just 4%, 12.5% said it was 3%, and the largest response (31.3%) said it was less than 3%, making a total of 63% spending 4% or less. We also had 6.5% say 5%, 12.5% say 6%, and 6% say 7% of turnover. By our math, from the total results this gives an average figure of 4.45%

As for the current year, the number of firms spending less than 3% declined marginally to 25% (but this was still the largest single response) however all the other figures remained pretty much static, save for a increase to 18.8% in the number of firms saying they would be spending 3% and a decline to 12.5% in the number of firms spending 4% of their turnover on IT, to give an average of 4.5%.

In terms of predictions for the coming year, the biggest single response was one third of firms reporting planned budgets of 4% however overall other data remained broadly similar to produce an average figure of 4.53%.

All this is a long way short of the anecdotal figure of 5.5% we’ve heard for so long – and way below the 8.89% figure the English Law Society cited last year. In terms of percentages of turnover, over a three year period law firm IT spends are static and not even increasing in pace with inflation. The one consolation for IT suppliers is that in real terms law firm turnovers have increased, so 4.5% this year is still a better deal than 4.45% last year.

• For our next poll, we look at Microsoft Sharepoint and how law firms view it as a DMS or intranet platform. The findings of this survey will be one of the topics discussed at Avanquest’s next roundtable lunch, to chaired by Neil Cameron and taking place in London on 21st February. For more details email dsaunders@avanquest.co.uk

Heroes & Zeroes

Hero: I’m not laughing Santa
Russ Elliott received an unexpected gift at Christmas – his boss Stuart Cowell, the head of IT at Davies Arnold Cooper, got him a place in this year’s London Marathon. Elliott won’t be alone on the 26 mile run as he will be accompanied by Cowell and Paul Smith, who are both competing – again. This year they are hoping to raise more than £8000 for the Children with Leukaemia charity and are already training hard – “two hours playing Wii tennis each night” says Cowell. To sign up as a sponsor visit
www.bmycharity.com/dacpain

Zero: That don’t impress me much
What do law students think of the marketing activities of the big legal publishers? Are they impressed by their sales strategies? If this sketch, recorded at the Virginia School of Law’s annual Libel Show last autumn is anything to go by, then students are not exactly impressed by the sales antics of either LexisNexis or Westlaw.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2JPJDmP9lo
   
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Other stories
 
The clock is ticking
Microsoft has announced that support for Windows XP will end on 14th April 2009. As that’s the day after Easter Monday, you'll all have plenty of time over the holiday weekend to upgrade to Vista.

Fortnight until Legal IT show
The annual Legal IT show, which takes place at the Islington Business Design Centre in London, opens its doors in just under a fortnight on Wednesday 6th February. Exhibitor-related preview stories are flagged in this issue and we will be carrying a full review next month. Admission is free and this year will also see an opening keynote presentation (at 10:00am on the first day) by Richard Susskind. Opening hours are 9:30am to 5:00pm on Wednesday and 9:30am to 4:30pm on Thursday. You can still register online for tickets at www.legalitshow.com

Trinity hoping to offer insight
Microsoft specialists Trinity Expert Systems (02476 420100) is now planning the third of its regular Legal Insight meetings. Trinity’s legal services business development manager Malcolm Hunt told the Insider the idea is to create an informal networking forum for law for IT directors based around a presentation by a third-party, such as Richard Susskind who spoke at the first Legal Insight meeting. The first couple of Insights were attended by about 20 top-100 firm heads of IT and, while it was initially envisaged the catchment area would be the Midlands, the pre-Christmas event included directors from London and Newcastle firms. For details of the next event, scheduled for March, email Hunt at malcolmh@tesl.com

CRM data capture problems
If your firm is having problems capturing accurate contact information for its CRM system, it might be worth looking at an application called Anagram (available via Agnew Associates on 0121 354 3727) that allows staff to record contacts in their entirety at the press of a button, instead of copying them from signatures on emails. A demo version is available at www.getanagram.com/anagramoutlook

Just sitting here watching the grass grow
nFlow is holding a competition at the Legal IT show based on its popular The Grass is Greener garden cans, with a prize of an Apple iPhone. Visitors to the show should go to nFlow’s stand (22A) to collect their canned garden and start growing the grass. Then, send in photographs and measurements of the grass and the winners will be announced in April’s Legal Technology Insider. There are two prizes – one for the best grass growth and one for the most amusing or imaginative decorations on the miniature gardens. If you can’t make the show visit www.nflow.com/thegrassisgreener to order a can and to see the competition progress.

10 years ago today...
The big news in January 1998 was whether we were seeing a meltdown among legal IT suppliers. The Admiral group was in talks to dispose of its LegalMind PMS business. This would eventually be acquired by Civica and become part of their Galaxy suite. Resolution Systems (later ResSoft and later still acquired by Tikit) was buying the rights to Mercury Computing’s InControl Legal case management system – the product would later be dropped. And, Applied Computer Expertise (ACE) was looking for a buyer for its solicitors systems business. Talks with Axxia subsequently broke down and by the summer of 1998 most of ACE’s 25-strong law firm user-base was in the process of migrating to other systems. Suppliers to benefit included Axxia and SOS.
 
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News in brief

Langleys upgrade to DNA
Long-time Axxia user Langleys – the firm has been a customer since 1993 – is switching from its current Unix product to the new Axxia DNA system running within a SQL environment.

ePartners to resell Relationship Charts
ePartners is to resell the Relationship Charts system as an optional add-on to its own Legal CRM product, which is based on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform. Relationship Charts, which was developed by SalesCentric, allows firms to track referrals and uncover potential cross selling opportunities by identifying the relationships between lawyers, clients and other contacts.
www.salescentric.com
www.epartnersolutions.com

Pearson Fielding use Hassnet
Merseyside criminal lawyers Pearson Fielding Polson are using CaseMap software, supplied and supported by Hassnet (01527 857555), to create databases, schedules and chronologies to help understand the evidence in individual cases. The firm’s founder Andrew Pearson cites one case in which 152 mobile phones were used – with 96 attributable to just three defendants. Without CaseMap, Pearson says the firm would have been wading through call records that “created the equivalent of a small Amazonian rainforest of paper”.
www.hassnet.co.uk

Avanquest teams with Legal Rapport
Avanquest Solutions (01962 835053) is partnering with integrated telecoms specialist Legal Rapport to provide a range of products and services, including business process solutions, based on Mitel technology.
www.legalrapport.com

JGR go live in three weeks
West End law firm Jeffrey Green Russell, one of the first UK firms to implement a CMS PMS, has just upgraded from CMS.Net to Aderant Expert Release 7.5. Version 7.5, released in October, includes new functionality for global financial and statutory reporting, credit notes and e-billing support, as well as a new Microsoft Vista-inspired user interface.

Simmons & Simmons pick Recommind
Simmons & Simmons has selected Recommind MindServer to deliver enterprise search across internal systems, databases and external resources, including the firm’s Interwoven DMS, international know-how and library catalogues, PLC and elexica, the firm’s own online legal resource. Insider sources suggest Recommind will be announcing more UK wins this spring.

More Mimecast wins
Mimecast has announced four new contracts for its email management system: London-based Teacher Stern Selby, Mishcon de Reya and Capsticks plus Anderson Strathern in Scotland.

Herbert Smith latest Microsystems win
Herbert Smith has signed up as a Microsystems’ Knowledge Partnership customer. Knowledge Partnership provides lawyers, secretaries and IT staff with software-based document analysis, formatting and quality-control tools, as well as emergency document troubleshooting for Microsoft Word.

Cobbetts using Diligence from PLC
Cobbets has used PLC’s Diligence system in two M&A deals and reports being able to supply a due diligence report within 24 hours of leaving the data room.
www.practicallaw.com/diligence

8000 users can’t be wrong
Case management specialists Eclipse Legal Systems this month clocked up their 8000th Proclaim software user. In the first six months of its current trading year, the company has also signed up 50 more firms, the most recent wins including Vincents in Preston, Harkin Lloyd in Liverpool, Russell Worth in Plymouth and Corlett Bolton on the Isle of Man.
• Eclipse has announced the release of an identity verification facility within its Proclaim case management software. It is based on the Experian authentication system and was developed in conjunction with niche law firm ASB Aspire LLP.

Tikit launch AML pod
Tikit has launched an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) pod to specifically help law firms comply with the 3rd Money Laundering Directive which came into force in December. The pod is the latest addition to Tikit’s portfolio business process automation tools. For more details email Sandra.deandrade@tikit.com

Ealing upgrade Tricostar system
The London Borough of Ealing has picked Tricostar’s Timebase as its new inhouse case management system. The web-based system will support 59 legal department staff and provides full integration with GroupWise. Ealing is the second of Tricostar’s local authority sites to go for an externally hosted solution.
www.tricostar.com

Boodle Hatfield invoke Cerberus
When London-based Boodle Hatfield had a disk subsystem failure at its Oxford office in November, the firm invoked its Datashare Cerberus rapid systems recovery service and was back up and fully running within six hours. This was before the firm’s usual hardware break-fix engineers had even arrived at the site. IT manager Thereza Snyman said bringing in Datashare might seem a ‘belt and braces’ approach but it meant the office was able to return to full operation in less time than if they had relied on break-fix alone.
www.datasharesolutions.com

Phoenix partner up with Omtool
Phoenix Business Solutions and Omtool have announced a partnership that allows Phoenix to licence and support Omtool’s AccuRoute document capture and routing system. Ray Burch of Phoenix said he saw “the addition of Omtool to our portfolio as a way to close the gap firms have between their physical and electronic matter files.”

Wedlake Bell roll out Copitrak
Wedlake Bell has gone live with a new Copitrak eClipse cost recovery and cost management system. The implementation saw the introduction of eClipse terminals to the firms MFDs, as well as a number of eClipse interfaces hosted on existing eCopy ScanStations, so minimising hardware levels. The practice is also trialing Copitrak’s LaserTrak print management software, with a view to a practice-wide rollout later in the year.

DocsCorp release version pdfDocs 2.1
DocsCorp has released version 2.1 of its flagship pdfDocs software. New features include support for Bates numbering and closer integration with document management systems, such as the ability to print Word documents to PDF and profile it directly into a DMS. The new version also features binder and numbering set functionality, so multiple PDFs and other documents can be combined in one fully indexed and hyperlinked electronic file before being burned on a CD, whether for litigation support or due diligence purposes.
• At Legal IT, DocsCorp systems will be on view on the stands of partners Axxia Saturn 27 and Tikit.

Bevan Brittan drop Acrobat for Nuance
Bevan Brittan has rolled out PDF Converter Professional from Nuance as a low cost alternative to creating PDFs using Adobe Acrobat. The system was supplied by Nuance reseller Inqology (0845 456 4135).
   
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Opinion ... ... Simon Price, UK sales director, Recommind Inc

Dinosaurs and trolls in 2008?
This year – 2008 – will be the year enterprise search and e-discovery converge to become top areas of focus for enterprises worldwide, creating substantial growth and evolution in the management of electronic information. Research carried out by my own company Recommind suggests we will see seven key trends...

• Keyword-only search will go the way of the dinosaur. Enterprise users will insist their search technologies work the way users work – and will require accurate search results without having to contort queries into something only Boolean logic can understand or scroll through pages of irrelevant results a la Google. A more sophisticated approach to finding information using advanced algorithms will be a necessity in e-discovery, as well as general search functions within the enterprise.

• Enterprises will go green by embracing (data) recycling. Enterprises are beginning to realise that saving everything is not a good approach because it is too expensive to manage, creates too much litigation exposure, and comes with a high energy price tag. Enterprises will increasingly seek to preserve only what data they absolutely need for legal, compliance or business purposes, while having the rest subject to the corporate retention policy (which they will enforce more and more rigidly). Effectively recycling data requires both the ability to categorise data automatically (to know what needs to be kept), and a fast, replicable and accurate legal hold process to ensure defensibility in court.

• EDD trolls will increasingly plague enterprises. As rising e-discovery costs garner more attention, there will be an increase in frivolous lawsuits and related out of court settlements. Unscrupulous opportunists know many large companies may be unprepared to meet the e-discovery requirements mandated by such developments as the revised FRCP, and/or would rather settle out of court than incur the costs of litigation, even for meritless suits. Similar to patent trolls who use lawsuits to extort money from enterprise victims, EDD trolls will pose a serious and expensive challenge. By implementing e-discovery solutions before litigation arises, companies and their law firms will be able to respond quickly and effectively with great confidence and can avoid arbitration and expensive out-of-court settlements.

• Centralised, remote access legal holds will spread like wildfire. Law firms and general counsel increasingly recognise the need for centralised, remote access legal holds, the ability to surgically identify, preserve and collect ESI remotely – without having to send people out to image each custodian’s laptop/desktop and entire drives, which creates huge potential litigation exposure.

• Folksonomies will go corporate. Enterprise users will increasingly look to incorporate peer feedback and usage habits to determine the relevancy of information.

• Good Enough search will no longer suffice. Enterprise search customers will increasingly realise the only way to avoid drowning in data is to employ sophisticated, effective search and categorisation systems across and within their businesses. With search occupying such a critical role in enterprise networks, customers will demand their search technology be secure, scalable, customised, and deliver highly relevant results, which are all requirements at which one-size-fits-all search applications fail miserably. In 2008, enterprise customers will become increasingly leery of using simplistic, insecure search systems for fear of security/privacy breaches, among other shortcomings.

• Enterprise applications and litigation support platforms will get hitched. At the request of customers, vendors will increasingly seek to integrate their applications/platforms with complementary and legacy platforms from other vendors because no single technology provider has a complete, end-to-end solution.
  
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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
 
All change at JPL Group
Legal technology recruitment specialist JPL Group has moved its IT division over to sister company Cooper Charles. The contact details remain the same but to reach JPL consultant Darren Kantor you must now email darren@coopercharles.com

Laserform moving home
IRIS Legal has announced plans to move its Laserform division into new offices at Booths Park, Knutsford, later this spring. IRIS is also closing Laserform’s satellite office in London – although it still retains its Fleet Street and SW19 premises. Other changes include the appointment of Steve Pipes as customer support manager, and the addition of Petra Carke-Fisher and Lisa Mennell to the marketing team.

McNulty hangs up his media list
Veteran legal industry PR man Lawrence McNulty has retired. We first met him when he was with Digital, before the MBO that led to the creation of what is now Axxia. As well as working for Thames Valley law firms, McNulty has also handled PR for the Institute of Legal Cashiers & Administrators (ICL). McNulty will still be keeping his hand in, as he is also the marketing director for a 60-strong barbershop choir – called the Thames Valley Chorus – which has just returned from winning a gold medal at an international competition in Warsaw.

UK services manager for Recommind
Enterprise search systems provider Recommind has appointed Mike Patton, whose track record includes BP, Mars and the BBC, as its UK services manager.
 
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Digital dictation news in brief

Bighand pilot Blackberry in Australia
Gilbert + Tobin in Australia has successfully piloted Bighand digital dictation software running on a Blackberry, with staff praising not only the convenience of the system but also the sound clarity of the dictation files. Here in the UK, Lancashire firm Glaisyers (which uses Bighand DDS in conjunction with Voicepath outsourced transcription) has also announced plans to add Blackberry to its digital dictation infrastructure.

Beswicks and London boroughs pick SRC Winscribe
The legal departments of the London boroughs of Lambeth and Kensington & Chelsea have selected Winscribe digital dictation systems supplied by SRC. Over 30 local authorities now run Winscribe DDS and over the past two years every London council to opt for digital dictation has selected a Winscribe system.
• Staffordshire law firm Beswicks is also deploying a Winscribe DDS, supplied by SRC. Fee earners will use Philips SpeechMike II Pro devices as recorder hardware when they are in the office and mobile phones when they are out of the office.

nFlow to preview Version 5 at Legal IT
nFlow will be previewing Version 5 of its software – what the company is describing as a ‘2nd generation digital dictation solution’ or DDS2 – at the Islington Legal IT show. Details are scarce but nFlow say the system has just completed extensive testing by Microsoft at their Scalability Labs and is fully compliant with Microsoft Best Practice and the .NET platform.
• nFlow will also be showing their DDS integration with the Interwoven DMS, along with their Mobility Suite, which supports Blackberry and Microsoft PDA platforms.

DictateNow acquire Solscribe
Dictation transcription outsourcer DictateNow has just acquired the digital dictation business of Solscribe. Solscribe’s user base is primarily in the Midlands and North of England although it also has some sites in London and the South-East. DictateNow has over 100 UK-based legal secretaries on its transcription team, serving over 400 law firms, as well a large number of MPs. (DictateNow sponsor the annual Tiffin Cup curry competition at the House of Commons.)
www.dictatenow.com
   
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Fresh on the radar

Logical Office now shipping CRM system
After being out in the cold due to restrictive covenants, Logical Office (020 7482 7077) – the company created by Rod Voyce after he sold the ACE barristers systems business to Mountain/Meridian Law (now part of the IRIS Group) – is now actively selling software into the legal market. Its flagship product – called Legal Office – is a hybrid marketing, CRM, document management and process automation system that fully integrates with Microsoft Office and runs on both Access and SQL Server database platforms.

Essentially this is an organiser application for both new business development and current client care work, for organisations who want more than a practice management system can offer but cannot afford or need a best of breed solution. Four sets of barristers chambers, including 11 Stone Buildings, 1KBW and Exchange Chambers in Liverpool, have already ordered the system, as have a number of smaller law firms, including Bonallack & Bishop and Azright Law.
www.logical-office.com

E-billing consultancy with Bryan King
Although he actually retired from Clifford Chance at the end of December, because he’d spent the previous few years working on the firm’s e-billing projects, King finds he is now in demand as a consultant – and in fact is currently working overseas with a offshore law firm. Before he departed, King told the Insider that e-billing is an unusual area of legal IT as nearly all the running is being made by the big corporate clients. An added complication, King says, is that firms have to be prepared to support whatever legal ebilling intermediary system their clients are using (in the UK the two most frequently encountered are DataCert and CT Tymetrix). And this in turn means ensuring their practice management systems can support the appropriate data exchange file formats, which include LEDES 1998B and LEDES XML 2.0.

King was the IT development manager at Linklaters from 1985 to 1994. He then moved to Lovells before joining Clifford Chance, where he held a number of senior IT roles, including responsibility for e-billing projects since 2004. He can be contacted on 07504 489697 or via email at bryan10king@btinternet.com

Run DMC towards LMS
DMC Business Machines (0845 130 6251), who specialise in the supply of copiers, scanners, printers and multifunction devices, has won a contract from LMS DC (the conveyancing arm of the LMS panel management group) to help handle the increasing volumes of documents – such as mortgage deeds and proofs of ID and earnings – that now have to be processed. With the DMC system, documents are scanned on arrival, with each document type (including lender information) being automatically recognised by the system, with the original hard copy and subsequent electronic documents then being archived. LMS DC director & project manager Sally Holdway estimates some processes that used to take 30 minutes can now be handled in nearer 30 seconds.
www.dmcplc.co.uk
 
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International news

DDS supports branch opening
Dutch law firm Adriaanse van der Weel is reporting that thanks to implementing a digital dictation workfow management system, it will now able to open a new branch office in Rotterdam with only minimal secretarial facilities, as lawyers will be able to send dictations for transcription to secretaries based in the firm’s existing offices. The firm, which will open its Rotterdam office in March, has installed Bighand 3 DDS software, which is distributed in The Netherlands by Morningstar Systems. Ploum Lodder Princen has also bought Bighand 3.
• Morningstar report they are also working on Interwoven Worksite projects and implementations at Stibbe Brussels, Wirkborg Rein in Norway, 800 user Norr Stiefenhofer Lutz in Germany, as well as Dutch firms Stibbe, Houthoff Buruma and De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek.

Timesoft win more Aderant business
Dutch law firm Hermans & Schuttevaer has selected Aderant Expert Back Office as its new practice management system. Benelux systems integrators Timesoft will implement the system along with an Open Text DMS and Timesoft’s own application for notaries – InMinuut.Net. Another Dutch firm, Dirkzwager Advocaten & Notarissen, has also selected Timesoft’s InMinuut and will also be running it on top of an Aderant PMS.

nCipher helps Belgian notaries go digital
The Royal Federation of Belgian Notaries has announced that thanks to deploying time stamping technology, supplied by nCipher plc, to process digitally signed company registration documents, it is now possible to register a new company online within 3 days, whereas previously formation times averaged 56 days.
www.ncipher.com
 
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Insider jobs of the week

Marketing Associate, PureTech Marketing Limited
£25-£30k (+ bonus scheme) dependent on experience, London & flexible working
Are you ready for the challenge of working for a new and dynamic Marketing Consultancy with values of integrity, client care, creativity, quality and service? Do you have the initiative and enthusiasm for success? Would you like a flexible working environment? If this resonates with you, working for PureTech Marketing is where your future lies! Experience of working within the legal or professional services arena would be beneficial but not compulsory. To apply for this great opportunity to work with different clients, as well as being exposed to all marketing activity, please email your CV to info@puretechmarketing.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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