Headlines

So this is Christmas
This is our last issue of the year, so Seasons Greetings and (in the words of that novelty record we'll all soon be sick of hearing in the UK) a Proper Crimbo to all out readers. We will be back with another Newswire in mid-January. In the meantime, if you are going on holiday then enjoy yourselves - but remember to get those sprouts on early. (In fact - as anyone who has ever eaten a traditional Christmas lunch in the UK will know - the sprouts should have been boiling on full heat since November.) If you are one of those people stuck in the workhouse - or IT department as they are now known - carrying out system upgrades during the quiet period between Xmas and New Year, you have our sympathy - and you could always apply for one of those jobs in the Cayman Islands.

The Engate realtime transcription dispute
Out in the world of interactive, realtime transcription systems, the US court reporting world has been jumping through ructions over the last couple of years trying to deal with the increasingly aggresive activities of an Illinois-based company called Engate. We first ran into this company in October this year, when we were asked to provide a declaration relating to some editorial material prepared by Insider editor Charles Christian way back in 1992.

The declaration was for an action being brought in the US District Court, for the Northern District of the Illinois Eastern Division, in the case of Engate Inc v Esquire Depostion Services, Atkinson-Baker Inc and Others. This is one of a series of actions Engate have been bringing in the US to protect a series of long standing patents they hold relating interactive, realtime transcription technology and data feeds, both on a local and internet-based model. Leaving aside the disruptive impact of any litigation, one of the consequences of Engate's actions has been that a number of US court reporting agencies have stopped offering interactive, realtime transcription services for fear of contravening Engate's patents.

Of course one of the best known interactive, realtime transcription systems in the world today is the LiveNote software from LiveNote Technologies. LiveNote - it should be stressed - has never been named as a party in any of Engate's lawsuits nevertheless - to a quote a letter issued by LiveNote founder and CEO Graham Smith: "To ensure the continued viability of realtime reporting and to further ensure that users of interactive realtime software are not exposed to any potential claim of infringement, LiveNote has secured a full licence to Engate's patents. We are making our software Engate-compliant and introducing a licensing plan available to the entire industry - including court reporters and agencies, lawyers and law firm personnel, and even other interactive realtime software providers."

LiveNote's approach has been to develop a new Engate-compliant version of its software - starting with version 8.3 - that uses a system of 'tokens' (in effect a credit maintained in the software) that allows users to receive a realtime data feed from LiveNote or any similar real-time transcription system. The price of the tokens will be $35 per day, which Smith says involves only a marginal increase in the cost of realtime transcriptions, trials and arbitrations in the US represents "a dramatic reduction in Engates's previous royalty structure." More information about the tokens scheme, which will come into effect from 1st January 2004 onwards, can be found on the LiveNote web site www.livenote.com

In a related development, on 15 October, LegaLink Inc - one of the largest court reporting agencies in the US, announced it had settled its litigation with Engate and adopted LiveNote's new licensing programme. Perry Solomon, the CEO of WordWave (the parent of Legalink) commented: "It is our opinion that the lawsuit could drag on for several more years and, even if we were to ultimately be successful, a victory may not protect court reporters or attorneys from being sued individually by Engate." As part of the settlement, Legalink will provide tokens to attorneys on LiveNote's latest software and purchase registration licences for all other connections (feeds) utilising legacy Livote software or other related realtime software.

Since late October we have heard nothing further on the Illinois case and there have been no lawsuits brought against anyone in the UK. Engate has also stated publicly that "it will not initiate an offensive pursuit of past infringement claims agains any agencies or reporters who timely commence and maintain compliance via the licensing options provided by LiveNote".

Lexis to standardise on new global platform
LexisNexis has announced that it is launching the first release of a single global technology platform that will deliver its information products and services in the United States, Europe, Asia Pacific, Canada and Latin America. Customers in Australia and France will be the first to benefit from the new platform when LexisNexis launches enhanced online legal research products in these countries early in the first quarter of 2004. In addition, LexisNexis will begin releasing enhanced news and business research and business intelligence products on the new platform in Germany in early 2004. The company says the new platform will allow local LexisNexis businesses to benefit from standard web technology and a consistent user interface, while customizing products to the specific information needs and language of a country, a jurisdiction or a market.

Glen Legal launches LITF Club
IBC/Informa, the organisers of the annual Gleneagles Legal IT Forum, are extending the event's networking opportunities to throughout the year with the launch of the LITF Club. This will meet three times a year to provide delegates with a mixture of keynote presentations and networking in an informal setting. The launch night is 26th February, when the Club will meet at The Magic Circle (that's the magicians' venue) in London. Entry to the LITF Club, which is also offering members a number of other benefits and discounts, is free of charge to law firm IT professionals. In addition, there is an opportunity for 25 IT vendors to become members of the Club for £2000 per annum. This will give them, among other things, entry to LITF Club evenings and the opportunity to place promotional material in a 'goody' bag given out to each member. For more details email simon.dieppe@informa.com or visit www.legalitforum.com

New on the Insider web site - revised online white paper + enlarged 200
The downloads facility on the Insider web site has been updated to included a revised version of our Online Strategies for Law Firms white paper - we gave it a revision after hearing from a guest at the recent LOTIES awards that he had based his MBA dissertation on the original white paper. And, we have expanded The Insider 200 chart - showing which IT systems the largest law firms in the British Isles (including Ireland) are running - to include document automation & assembly software.
www.legaltechnology.com

Perfect Access rebrands
Well it might not be such a dramatic move as Ashurts Morris Crisp's recent decision to rebrand as just plain Ashurst (!) but online information provider Perfect Information, part of the Centaur Communications group, has rebranded its portfolio of products in the aftermath of its recent acquisition of the Synergy Group. The company's core products now include: Perfect Filings - previously Pioneer, which offers free text searching of EDGAR and similar corporate documents, Perfect Analysis - this was previously the Synergy Hydra display, charting and analytical system, Perfect Research Services, Perfect Debt and Perfect Learning.
www.perfectinfo.com

Wordwave boosts publishing expertise
WordWave International, the leading supplier of audio-to-text transcription has boosted its publishing expertise with the appointment of two industry experts - Christine Miskin and Penny Dickman - as consultants to its online judgments service Casetrack. Miskin founded the publishing company Legal Information Resources (LIR) in 1986, whose flagship publication was the Legal Journals Index, still an essential research tool in law libraries. She went on to work at legal publishers Sweet and Maxwell, where she launched the Westlaw UK project. Dickman developed the first regular summary of cases - Green's Weekly Digest - in the 1980s before joining Christine at LIR and later Sweet and Maxwell, where she edited Current Law for many years. Last month WordWave appointed Julia Szczepanski, formerly of the publisher of The Lawyer magazine, as business director.
www.wordwave.com

e-Conveyancing: Two initiatives from Transaction Online
Transaction Online, one of the UK's three competing NLIS (National Land Information Service) channel providers - which currently claims an 11% share of the NLIS market, has announced two initiatives to support its e-conveyancing services. The first is the news that Laser-Scan has renewed its agreement to support the map property search service delivered by Transaction Online, which allows users to create a property plan using Ordnance Survey data. The second development that ConveyanceLink is running a series of Profitable Conveyancing Workshops in conjunction with Transaction Online at venues around the UK. These will include such topics as conveyancing case management systems, NLIS and indemnity schemes. The dates are London (26 January), followed by Birmingham (28 January), Manchester (2 February) and Leeds (4 February). Places are limited so pre-booking is essential. To register visit www.conveyancelink.com or email info@conveyancelink.com. Also visit www.transaction-online.co.uk & www.laser-scan.com

Hanky panky at the Xmas party - not with an acceptable seasonal conduct policy
Finally, we are all used to receiving digital Christmas cards that take up a lot of bandwidth still don't work however Melbourne-based document automation specialists SpeedLegal have come up with a seasonal feature that (a) works, (b) is amusing and (c) neatly demonstrates the way their SmartPrecedent software operates. SpeedLegal have devised an Acceptable Seasonal Conduct Policy which, in the words of the company's CEO Jamie Wodetzki, "is our small contribution to the never-ending quest for improved compliance - and also a good way to experience the joys of web-based, real time, document assembly".

The process starts with the option: "Would you like a politically correct, over-lawyered policy that proscribes all forms of religious or Christmas-related references in the workplace?" and allows you to set a number of different styles for the document, including the 'Snowman look' and the slightly more dubious 'Britney look'. After that you just select the clauses and options you want. For example, the section on drinking includes the following choices "You've had too many drinks if... you attempt to photograph or photocopy your private parts, you've hit on more than three co-workers in the previous half hour, you take off your clothes and start dancing on the bar, you start to believe that people are laughing with you, the back of your head keeps getting hit by the toilet seat, you find yourself face down in the gutter or lockup, you roll over in the morning and see something really scary (whose name, and/or species you can't remember)." There are plenty of other options but most contain words and phrases that would never get through your firewalls. Instead, visit www.smartprecedent.net/Seasonal.html
 
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News in brief

Jobst Elster now with Envision
Jobst Elster , for a long time head of PR for Solution 6's CMS Data business in Florida, is now vice president of the Envision Agency, which is now probably the leading PR and full-service marketing outsourcing agency for legal IT companies in the United States. As well as acting for a number of US companies looking to break into the UK/European market, Envision is also talking to some UK suppliers hoping to increase their presence in the US. Envision will be launching several new services for the legal industry including Insidelegal.com, an online information portal, at LegalTech New York in February.
www.envisionagency.com

Solution 6 UK to offer alternative Sedol licences
This next item will only make sense to law firms with substantial trusts and taxation departments however from 26 January 2004, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) will be charging licence fees to all end users of the Stock Exchange Daily Official List (SEDOL) identifiers. The 7-digit SEDOL numbers are widely used in tax and accounting software packages as a means of identifying securities, but the rights to them are owned by the LSE. For single sites, the charges are to range from £500 to £15,000 per year but larger organisations can expect to pay around £50,000 for an enterprise licence. Currently, Solution 6's SecTAX, CGT Calculator and Trust Accounts packages use SEDOL data but customers are being offered a free update to the software to enable the use of the licence-free International Security Identification Number (ISIN). This means that Solution 6 customers can escape the LSE's SEDOL charge altogether, if they are happy to move to ISIN. For more information on changing over from SEDOL to ISIN, contact Solution 6 on 020 8997 5500.

Freestone still with Hummingbird
In our 20th November edition of the Insider newsletter we reported that Helen Freestone was one of several people to have left Hummingbird and we went on to say that we believed she would be joining Tikit. Ms Freestone has asked us to point out that she is still employed at Hummingbird and has not been offered or accepted a job with Tikit or any other company. Apologies to all concerned.

More legal wins for Interwoven aka iManage
Interwoven, which now bills itself as "the world's next-generation enterprise content management company" has reported three new sales of its Interwoven WorkSite (previously iManage) software as more law firms "move beyond traditional document management toward matter centric collaboration". The three firms are Bates & Carey in Chicago, Harris Harris Bauerle & Sharma in Orlando, Florida and Teacher, Stern & Selby in the UK.

Hummingbird integrates with Ricoh
Hummingbird has just announced that Ricoh GlobalScan software, combined with Ricoh multi-function products (MFPs), can now be integrated with the Hummingbird DM system so users can scan and index documents into Hummingbird document management repositories directly from the touch-screen panel of Ricoh MFPs.
 
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