ISSUE No.122 - 31.01.2003 - Beecham moves to Lexis - Smith quits WordWave - New Weblog - Solicitec in HK deal - Desktop Lawyer CD launch - Phase 2 for Money Claim Online - News in brief - Workshare expands into Australian market - iManage end of year results - Call for papers on AI in KMS - Lit support: Canadian DoJ takes Ringtail

BEECHAM MOVES TO LEXIS
In the last issue of the Insider newsletter we reported that Thomson's Sweet & Maxwell division had been hit by the sudden departure of its managing director Wendy Beecham, a woman who also can take a lot of the credit for helping establish Westlaw in the US. Now we know where she has gone - with effect from 3 February, she has joined LexisNexis as senior vice president for the group's Enterprise & Library unit. Beecham will be based in Bethesda, MD, with an office in the group's Dayton, Ohio headquarters. Commenting on the move, Bill Pardue, the president and CEO for LexisNexis Corporate & Federal Markets, said "She brings impressive skills and far-ranging experience to our organization. Her commitment to quality and her strategic drive promise to make the competitive landscape even livelier."

The LexisNexis Enterprise & Library business unit provides solutions for organization-wide information needs of corporate and federal customers. End users include information professionals, sales & marketing professionals, strategists, webmasters and intranet publishers. Among the largest vertical industries served are financial services, media, and consulting, as well as the executive and legislative branches of the US government. The E&L unit also serves the information needs of the academic market at the high school, undergraduate, and post-graduate levels.

SMITH WAVES FAREWELL TO WORDWAVE
Graham Smith, the founder of the Smith Bernal court reporting agency (Bernal is his wife's maiden name) and the market-leading LiveNote realtime transcription system, has resigned from WordWave International, the company that acquired Smith Bernal some years ago. Smith will now focus his energies on expanding his own business Livenote Technologies and its US counterpart Livenote Inc. Livenote Technologies retains the IP rights to the LiveNote software, which is currently licensed back and distributed as a service by WordWave. When the Insider spoke to Smith at this week's LegalTech New York event, he declined to go on record over the reasons why he had left however we have no doubt that, as someone who knows the legal market, is a technology innovator and has a reputation for being able to close a business deal, we will be hearing a lot more from Smith and Livenote in the months to come. www.livenote.com

NEW WEBLOG ON LAW & TECHNOLOGY ISSUES
Sabrina Pacifici, the founder of the well known LLRX.com online resource for law librarians, has launched a new weblog on law and technology issues - beSpacific - which can be at www.bespacific.com

The site went live in early January and has an archive of over 500 entries back to September 2002. The content is primarily focused to meet the needs of legal professionals and researchers who are interested in a succinct current awareness monitoring tool that covers the increasingly important post 9/11 issues including privacy, internet filtering and censorship, freedom of information, digital rights and copyright, federal and state tech-related legislation and e-government initiatives.

SOLICITEC CONNECT WITH HONG KONG
Hong Kong based law firm Johnson Stokes & Master has launched "Connect", a web enabled case management system for its clients. The extranet facilities, which provide real time status and progress reports, are based around Solicitec's SolCase and SolCase Online systems. Connect will initially support mortgage re-possessions matters, with other applications such as general debt recovery, personal bankruptcy and sale of property to follow shortly.

David Ellis, partner and head of JSM's Technology & Communications Group said: "One of the main reasons we chose SolCase was due to the flexibility of the system and the ability to build and modify applications to meet the exact needs of both our users and our clients. We have reaped many benefits since the implementation including a reduction in case turnaround time, improved management control and improved documentation quality."

Juliana Ewin, Overseas Business Manager, Solicitec comments "JSM is Solicitec's second venture into the Asia/Pacific marketplace and based on the success of these projects against international competition, we have now established Solicitec Pty, based in Brisbane. We are looking forward to a long and prosperous future within this market." www.solicitec.com

DESKTOP LAWYER LAUNCHES CD-ROM FOR CONSUMERS AND SMALL BUSINESSES
Desktop Lawyer, best known for its online divorce package, has just launched a new CD-ROM version of its service. The new titles are Desktop Lawyer Home and Desktop Lawyer Business and are priced at £29.99 and £49.99 respectively. Each package contains a portfolio of interactive and customisable legal documents - such as wills, divorce, property to let, tenancy agreements, neighbour disputes, traffic incidents, shareholders agreements and employment contracts - with unlimited personal and business use.

Each document is "intelligent" and asks the user simple straightforward questions, giving help and guidance throughout. From these answers the Desktop Lawyer technology drafts each document live on screen. As an added bonus, by purchasing Desktop Lawyer, users qualify for a 50% discount on the LawAssure Legal Service, which usually retails at £499 for a business policy (+ VAT) and £199 (inc.VAT) for a personal policy. For more information contact FastTrak Software Publishing on 01923 495496.

MONEY CLAIM ONLINE MOVING INTO SECOND PHASE
With Money Claim Online (MCOL) the UK Court Service's first online debt recovery service this week celebrating its first birthday, Yvette Cooper, Minister for the Courts at the Lord Chancellor's Department has announced plans for the second phase of the project. This will provide a secure web service to allow defendants of claims issued through MCOL and the County Court Bulk Centre to submit an acknowledgment of service, defence, part admission and counterclaim to the court using the internet. "MCOL phase two," said the minister, "is another important step forward in our programme to modernise the courts, making them more accessible and providing a service that suits the needs of the people that use them, rather than the people that run them." The Court Service estimate that over half a million people could take advantage of the new service each year.

Since its launch in February 2002, over 16,700 claims have been issued using MCOL. This already makes MCOL the fourth highest issuing "court" for money claims - behind only the large county courts in Leeds, Birmingham and Liverpool." You can find the site at www.courtservice.gov.uk/mcol

NEWS IN BRIEF

INFOTRIEVE ACQUIRES ARIEL DOCUMENT DELIVERY SOFTWARE - Infotrieve said today that it has acquired Ariel software from RLG, a membership corporation for leading research libraries, archives and museums. The terms of the sale were not disclosed. Ariel enables academic and research libraries to electronically convey and share scanned or digitized documents, such as articles published in scholarly and professional journals vital to academic and scholarly research, between and within institutions in high-resolution TIF or PDF formats across the Internet. Approximately 9400 installations around the world currently use Ariel. The software was developed and launched in 1991 by the non-profit RLG. The privately owned Infotrieve is a leading provider of on-demand article distribution services. It is also a provider of web-enabled virtual library platforms and outsourced information services to corporate and institutional customers. www.infotrieve.com

BT & VALID WIN MAJOR NORTHERN IRELAND POLICE DEAL BT Northern Ireland has won a multi-million pound contract to supply the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) with a fully integrated information system based on Valid Information Systems' R/KYV document and records management solution. Valid's Public Record Office approved solution will provide the infrastructure to PSNI's new administration platform, known as AIS. The system will be managed by IDL, Valid's solution partner in Ireland. Under the five-year deal, BTNI will supply the police with an email-based messaging service for its 14,000 staff and an intranet site which can be accessed by 6500 personal computers in PSNI buildings province-wide.

INTERFACE SOFTWARE MAINTAINS GROWTH IN 2002 Privately owned Interface Software has announced today that it maintained double digit growth in 2002, with record sales fueled, in part, by high demand for InterAction 5, the latest release of its CRM solution for professional services and other relationship-based organizations. The company maintained profitability throughout the year and reported that the fourth quarter of 2002 marked its eleventh consecutive quarter of growth.

WORKSHARE EXPANDING INTO AUSTRALIAN MARKET & METAWALL GETS FIRST ORDER
Workshare Technology, best known for its DeltaView red-lining software, is showcasing its product range at a special event for legal IT Directors and CIOs at the Park Hyatt Sydney restaurant on 25 February. Workshare will also be using the event to announce news of its latest customers in Australia, as well as its strategic partnerships with select IT resellers before setting off on a two-week, awareness raising tour of the country.

Workshare has also begun installing its Workshare Synergy, document collaboration software at its first Australian site - the economics consultancy NECG. That deal was struck with the assistance and support of Inform Systems Australia. Commenting on the move Workshare's Rebecca Tucker said: "A significant proportion of the largest law firms in the English-speaking world use Workshare software and we are seeing an international growth in our business across this and other markets. Our launch in Australia is a statement of intent; that we will aggressively promote and support our highly advanced enterprise product offerings to this new market through a network of experienced and skilled partners."

In a related development, Nabarro Nathanson has become the first law firm to order Workshare's the latest addition to the company's product range: the MetaWall, which was designed to cleanse electronic documents of all hidden metadata. Nabarros have bought 1000 seats of MetaWall and will be integrating the system with their Hummingbird DMS.

iMANAGE REPORTS END OF YEAR RESULTS
iManage Inc. has announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended 31 December 2002. For the fourth quarter, iManage reported revenues of $10.3 million and a pro forma net loss of $1.1 million, or $0.04 per share. For the same period a year ago, iManage reported revenues of $11.3 million and a pro forma loss of $335,000, or $0.01 per share. Pro forma results exclude the impact of amortization of deferred stock compensation and intangible assets. Including amortization of deferred stock compensation and intangible assets, the net loss for the fourth quarter of 2002 was $1.2 million, or $0.05 per share, as compared to a net loss of $2.6 million or $0.11 per share, for the same period last year.

For the year ended December 31, 2002, iManage reported record revenues of $41.3 million, up 6% from $38.9 million reported last year. On a pro forma basis, the company posted a net loss for the year of $5.3 million, or $0.22 per share, as compared to a pro forma net loss of $8.7 million, or $0.37 per share, in 2001. Pro forma results exclude the impact of amortization of deferred stock compensation and intangible assets and, in 2001, a restructuring charge. The net loss, including these charges, was $6.7 million, or $0.28 per share in 2002, as compared to a net loss of $19.8 million, or $0.85 per share, for 2001.

Over a lunch of knish and pastrami in the Carnegie Deli in New York earlier this week, iManage president & CEO Mahmood Panjwani told the Insider "We closed the year with a strong fourth quarter. iManage will remember 2002 as a year of significant accomplishments, despite the difficult economy. While many companies in the software industry will mark 2002 as a year to forget, iManage executed well as evidenced by significant new customer deals, new product introductions and partnerships that provide our customers with the industry's most complete, integrated collaborative content management solution. We are well positioned as we enter 2003. Our finances are strong, our products are superior and our team is focused."

iManage won 53 new customers in the fourth quarter, including AmLaw Top 25 firms Kirkland & Ellis and White & Case. At the end of 2002, iManage legal customers accounted for 45 of the AmLaw Top 100 law firms. International law firms continued to purchase and convert to WorkSite, including Stibbe in the Netherlands.

AI IN KMS CALL FOR PAPERS
The International Association for Artificial Intelligence and Law - the leading international community of scholars, researchers, and practitioners interested in AI as it relates to law - will be holding a workshop on Practical Knowledge Systems in Today's Law Offices, to be held on Saturday June 28, 2003 at the University of Edinburgh. This is scheduled as part of the Ninth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law. (Information about the conference is available at www.cirfid.unibo.it/~agsw/icail03

The aim of this workshop is to foster practical discussion of real-world AI and knowledge management efforts by both researchers and practitioners: those who explore the possible applications of AI in the legal field, those who actually develop AI tools for legal practice, and those who use (or might use) them. The workshop will include presentations of papers, demonstrations of tools, and a panel discussion with audience participation. We expect researchers in the field of AI and law, lawyers, publishers, companies that develop tools for law practice, consultants, and law firm technologists and administrators to contribute and participate.

Marc Lauritsen, of Capstone Practice Systems, who is a member of the programme committee, told the Insider that interested authors were invited to submit papers on topics related to practical knowledge systems, including descriptions of applications, their requirements, legal knowledge management models or tools, and their implications for legal e-business and e-commerce. "We're especially interested in work that is high in both theoretical interest and practical concreteness. And, because the workshop focuses on real-world applications, papers need not be academic or formal in any sense."

Accepted papers will be included in the proceedings of the workshop, which will likely be published on the web. The closing date for submissions of papers and statements of interest is 12th March. For more details email marc@capstonepractice.com

LITIGATION SUPPORT - CANADIAN DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE SELECTS RINGTAIL
Ringtail Solutions has just announced the successful implementation of its flagship web browser-based software for legal case and matter management - Ringtail CaseBook - at the Canadian Department of Justice. Ringtail is already active in Canada where its system has been in use at the Canadian Competition Bureau since November 2001 and Canada's market-leading litigation support vendor Commonwealth Legal has now joined the Ringtail Alliance Partnership program in order to meet not only the support needs of its DOJ and CB clients but also those of law firms and corporate legal departments.

The DOJ reported that "After a grueling evaluation process, the DOJ's Legal Risk Management office selected Ringtail Solutions as the winner of a competition to provide the DOJ's national litigation support software. Ringtail Solutions will also assist counsel and other professional staff to acquire, organize, analyze and present evidence. Through the use of computer data processing, image management and other technologies, Ringtail Solutions will help litigation teams rapidly locate information and make the best use of it in conducting prosecutions, lawsuits or settlement negotiations.

The DOJ's Technology in Litigation Project will work with Ringtail Solutions to meet one of the DOJ's key commitments under the Legal Risk Management program: ensuring that Justice delivers outstanding, cost-effective service. The initial implementation at the DOJ is designed to service cases in the Ottawa and Halifax regional offices, where pilot Litigation Support Centres (LSCs) are located. Once the pilot concludes in March, additional sites and cases will be added as resources and the DOJ's internal expertise and support capacity allow. For more information on Ringtail visit www.ringtailsolutions.com