Headlines

Tikit enters Spanish market with a bang
Madrid-based Garrigues, Continental Europe's largest law firm is upgrading its IT infrastructure with the selection of an iManage document management system, with the UK's Tikit group as the system implementers. The Spanish firm has also ordered the Tikit Granite & Comfrey KnowHow System as part of a project that will eventually see Garrigues rolling out DMS and KM to the desktops of 1600 users across their regional offices. This is Tikit's first major contract with a leading law firm in Continental Europe and the contract has just been complemented by another Spanish deal - this time at Uria & Menendez, Spain's third largest firm which has also decided to implement an iManage DMS, again with Tikit as the system implementers. Uria & Menendez has over 600 users across the firm's 13 offices worldwide.

Comment: First it was ResSoft which has been making a splash in the Benelux region, now it is Tikit in Spain and, as reported elsewhere in this issue, Solution 6 are also ramping up their operations in Continental Europe. At long last IT vendors - and particular UK-based suppliers - are waking up to the fact that there is a potentially huge untapped market for legal IT products just over the Channel in Continental Europe. Furthermore, much of that market (with the obvious exception of the French who always want to do their own Gallic thing) seems to accept that when it comes to legal technology, the most innovative systems emanate from the English speaking legal jurisdictions, including the UK, the US and Australia.

Quill expands outsourcing operations through acquistion
In a move intended to secure leadership of the UK legal bureau accounting services sector, Quill Computer Systems (0161 236 2910) has acquired Liverpool-based A M Services. With a combined client based of over 120 solicitors practices Quill believes it is now by far the largest bureau outsourcing company servicing the legal profession in the UK. The move also means that Quill, previously known for its legal client base, now also includes a non-legal payroll client list of over 170 companies. More importantly, the newly expanded business is now a registered BACC's provider, so it is also able to offer a full payroll service, including organising the actual payment of staff. The acquisition takes the number of offices the company has in the UK to four, with the new Liverpool office now networking with the existing bases in Manchester, Redcar and Colchester. Quill's managing director Tony Landes said the acquisition would help "promote a new range of services to be announced in the very near future."

White & Case to drop Hummingbird in favour in iManage
White & Case has just announced that it is to switch from a Hummingbird/PC Docs document manage platform to iManage Worksite, in a global rollout that will eventually see 1600 lawyers in 38 offices across Europe, the US, the Middle East, Africa and Asia to the new DMS. While this is an interesting deal in its own right, a rather more interesting question is just how many more firms will follow suit. According to our researches, in the UK alone there are ten firms within the top half of the Insider 200 chart currently reviewing their DMS operations.

Now we know there is a lot of spin and hype surrounding the whole Hummingbird versus iManage rivalry but we can't help noticing that iManage is currently doing a much better job at demonstrating to the legal community that it has a clear picture of its longer term strategy, both in the light of recent WorkSite product upgrades and the pending merger with Interwoven. Hummingbird, by comparison, may have been making some key acquisitions in recent months but they have yet to convince us that they have the 'big picture' vision as to what they are going to do with all these elements.

Thinking Virtual to tackle management issues
Forget online hubs and dealrooms, the one technology that was on everybody's wish lists at all the recent technology events in the UK was email management - in other words how to deal with all the various permutations of email management associated problems from spam to long term archiving. In the UK, the latest company to throw its hat into the ring is Thinking Virtual (+44 (0) 1428 661255) which has launched a new email archiving system called e-MARC which the company believes "eliminates completely the perennial 'I accidentally deleted it' email problem. The system copies all emails and attachments sent or received within an organisation, into a secure and tamperproof repository. Both emails and attachments are indexed as they are stored, making authorised search and retrieval easy and efficient. e-MARC can also track of the chain of communication for an email and provides storage management benefits by reducing the cost of storage by up to 50%. For more information visit www.thinkingvirtual.com

OpenSource aim to take document collaboration to next level
Menlo Park-based OpenSource Inc, a developer of contract analysis and management software to law firms and legal departments, has announced the release of OpenSourceCM 3.5. This version expands the product reach into deal-centric collaborative review and negotiation of agreements - an area that until now has been poorly catered for by a combination of wordprocessors, redliner comparison tools and email applications. OpenSource say the new release adds support for the contract creation lifecycle - including drafting, collaborative review and negotiation - and that "unlike other collaborative review tools, such as Workshare DeltaView, OpenSourceCM 3.5 provides a comprehensive view of all documents relevant to a transaction."

OpenSource is fully web-based, eliminating the need of collaborating parties to access internal file systems or install proprietary client software, and version 3.5 includes the following new capabilities: multi-party document editing with full visibility - so multiple parties can simultaneously edit a document within the system, having full visibility into all relevant transaction information, including prior agreements, schedules and revisions; automatic versioning - contract changes are saved in new contract versions, eliminating the risk of inadvertent modifications; and online comparison offering a fully web-based side-by-side or redlined document comparison with overview of changes by author, contract section and type of change.

Commenting on the launch, OpenSource CEO and co-founder Uri Zernik said "Our clients are tired of working on separate agreements without visibility into the whole relationship with the other party, or even the additional documents related to that specific transaction. They are frustrated with chasing document versions across mailboxes and not being able to track the changes made by their peers. Having the right fundamentals in place allowed us to address this unmet market need. We added the familiar MS Word editing interface within our already collaborative and transaction-oriented environment, and combined it with the online comparison capability that clients, such as LexisNexis, have been using for years."
www.opensourceinc.com

SAP project roll out a success say Linklaters
Linklaters has gone public to say that after two years and - depending upon which reports you believe - spending between £28 million and £40 million on the system and rollout, the firm has successfully implemented a SAP ERP (enterprise resource planning) software solution across its 30 offices worldwide. Components include mySAP Business Warehouse, mySAP HR, mySAP Financials and mySAP CRM and the firm says that by having all lawyers, finance, HR and marketing staff on the same worldwide system, the integrated software equips the firm to improve its service to clients.

Although the situation at Linklaters was unusual in that the firm previously had over 15 separate databases handling the information now combined within the single SAP environment, the real interest now centres on whether other firms will follow suit with either SAP or any of the other ERP system vendors? Reports suggest that both PeopleSoft and JD Edwards are currently sniffing around top 10 law firms in the UK - but as the IT director of one of these firms recently told the Insider "law firms currently have more important IT priorities than spending millions of pounds on a system that will only benefit 20 accountants staff in the back office."

Solution 6 beefs up its European operations
Solution 6 has been busy getting its European act together with a series of appointments and commercial announcements. As far as Continental Europe is concerned, probably the most important development is the recruitment of Derk Kropholler as the vice president of legal sales within Continental Europe. Kropholler joins Solution 6 from Timesoft Hansco, the Solution 6 reseller of the CMS product within the Benelux region. During the four years that Kropholler was with Timesoft, he was responsible for putting CMS Open and later CMS .Net into 8 of the top 20 largest Dutch law firms. In a related development, Solution 6 has also announced a new, long term partnership agreement with Timesoft Hansco for sales and support in the Benelux region. Since Timesoft was first granted reseller rights in 1999, it has put CMS products into 15 sites, including three CMS .Net sites within the last few months. Following the departure of Kropholler, Martijn Voorhuis has taken over as managing director of Timesoft.

Solution 6 has also appointed Bryan Roberts as its new vice president for legal & enterprise sales within Solution 6 Europe, with responsibility for the CMS, Keystone, Net Results and Novient products. Roberts joins Solution 6 from Systar, where he was responsible for taking sales from zero to £2 million in two years and prior to that he was the UK sales director for the ERP vendor Lawson Software. Solution 6 has also announced that its next global user conference - Momentum 2004 - will take place in Las Vegas for three days from 9th March.

LITIG launches e-billing initiative
A sub-group of LITIG (the UK's Legal IT Innovators Group) has commenced a seven week consultation to agree an e-billing standard. The group comprises Andrew Dey, Projects & Operations Manager of Barclays Bank Legal Function and Derek Southall, Partner and Head of Strategic Development of Wragge & Co, with advice and support from Peter Owen, IT Director of Eversheds. Commenting on the project, Andrew Dey said "this project is absolutely vital to major corporates going forward. Without it we run the risk of a proliferation of different formats which we will never be able to stop." The team have been working on e-billing for over 6 months and LITIG have now approved its research paper. The research paper is now being released for consultation with comments being required by 15 December 2003. For further information and a copy of the consultation paper please visit www.litig.org Please supply all comments electronically to ebilling@litig.org
   
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News in brief

Bird & Bird launch international privacy zine
Bird & Bird has just published the first edition of its new Data Protection & Privacy Law Bulletin. It provides news and analysis on a range of topical issues concerning data protection and privacy laws in the UK, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Hong Kong, France, Sweden and Italy and the firm plans to publish three or four issues per year. It is available via email in an HTML or plain text format and register for a copy please contact dpplb@twobirds.com

Just Ask! Web site launched
The UK's Legal Services Commission has just relaunched its Just Ask! web site, which was developed to make it easier for members of the general public to locate law firms and legal service providers who can meet their particular needs. The redesign is intended to make the navigation simpler - the original version had nearly 60 different search criterion, including legal speciality, location and language - with most pages now accessible directly from the home page. The site now also includes an interactive calculator that lets users check their eligibility for legal aid.
www.justask.org.uk

New book: Knowledge management & the smarter lawyer
ALM Publishing (part of the American Lawyer Media group) has just published 'Knowledge Management and the Smarter Lawyer' (ISBN: 1-58852-116-8) by Gretta Rusanow. Rusanow, who started out in the precedents department at Mallesons in Sydney before joining the law firm consulting group at PwC in New York and, more recently, setting up her own business - Curve Consulting - is one of only a handful of good KM consultants operating in the world today. Of course KM is a subject most law firms squander squillions on, while simultaneously trying to squeeze their library and PSA budgets however this book, by breaking the subject down into a series of bite-sized bullet points, does present the case for KM in a way that even the dumbest managing partner (and some are very dumb when it comes to IT and KM) should be able to understand. It is also good to see there is plenty in the book about addressing the issue of law firm 'culture'. And, unusually, the book also looks at KM from the point of view of inhouse legal departments and very small firms - both sectors that are usually ignored. The US price is $49.95 and the book is available through www.lawcatalog.com

Singapore: Bizibody dominates CCH awards
Bizibody Technology, which specializes in implementing and developing law firm and court applications, dominated the Best Implementer category at the recent CCH Legal Technology Awards in Singapore with five of the eight nominated law firms having worked with Bizibody on their respective legal technology solutions. The eventual winner was Guofu Advocates & Solicitors, who were selected for their implementation of the Open Practice case & practice management system, Worldox document management and Lawdocs document assembly systems. The various solutions are developed and/or distributed by Bizibody's Australian partner Midware Solutions.
www.bizibody.biz
 
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