IN THIS ISSUE No.108 - 15.05.2002 Fat lady finally sings at Keystone/Solution 6 wedding - Rap sheets online - Another IT event cancelled - Millard to wave the Blue Flag - Infographics enjoys Malaysian success - Dot Pro domain on way - Digital copyright explained - Rutan & Tucker to Vault email - Butterworths reviews not cuts - Next issue: 22.05.2002

SOLUTION 6 COMPLETES ACQUISITION OF KEYSTONE
The fat lady has finally sung at the wedding of Keystone and Solution 6 after Sol 6 last week declared its offer wholly unconditional after receiving acceptances in excess of 90 percent of the issued share capital of Keystone. It is anticipated that cancellations of trading in Keystone shares and warrants and a de-listing (the company is listed on the London Stock Exchange) will occur before 21 June 2002.

Solution 6 chief executive officer Neil Gamble said that preparations are well in hand to ensure the rapid integration of Keystone personnel and operations in the UK, United States, Australia and New Zealand into the Solution 6 regional network.

Keystones London-based chief executive, Graeme Frost will take up the position of managing director of Solution 6 for Asia Pacific, overseeing all professional services and software operations in the region. Kaye Sycamore, Keystone's Australia & New Zealand managing director, will take up the new international role of President Global Solutions responsible for product and market strategy across the Solution 6 Group. Frost and Sycamore each have extensive experience in the professional services software sector. These new appointments add significant industry expertise and depth to the executive team.

"Keystone product and services specialists will continue to focus on developing and supporting the Keystone products, and their blue-chip customer base," Neil Gamble said. "I am excited about the prospects for the Group and the enhancements to both product line and profitability that Keystone brings. In addition to over £3 million in cash to bolster our operational cash reserves, the acquisition signals the beginning of moves to achieve major synergies in our sales and marketing operations, and our product research and development.

"This acquisition reinforces our position as the largest specialist professional services solutions company worldwide," he said. "We have the most extensive and complete 'armoury' of software applications specifically designed for professional services organisations. We will now move to leverage and consolidate that market position. This includes improving shareholder value by obtaining efficiencies and synergies between Solution 6 products (including the CMS Open product) and operating groups.

"Keystone's Net Results suite of financial analytics software leads in its field. And Keystone Professional, the Oracle-based time and billing and practice management software complements our other software applications. Our product portfolio now includes both stand-alone or 'point' solutions, as well as end-to-end software suites on both Oracle and SQL platforms. We offer real choice and world-leading solutions to professional firms of all sizes - local through global - and we have the customer base to back that up.

"While the quality of Keystone's software is reflected in the calibre of its customers, the size of the company has always been a handicap when closing large new sales opportunities. Now, Keystone is part of the world's largest specialist professional services solutions group. New and existing customers have a wider choice of software applications, backed by a strong and growing international group with strengthened geographic coverage and much larger research and development resources. This is a good outcome - for Solution 6 and Keystone, our collective customers, staff and shareholders," Frost said.

The next issue of Legal Technology Insider will include an interview with Solution 6 Europe managing director David England on how he sees the relationship between the Keystone and CMS products panning out.

ONLY IN AMERICA - RAP SHEETS ONLINE
They do things differently in America. In the UK one of this week's political hot topics is a proposal from the Information Commissioner (aka the Data Protection Registrar) to further increase the amount of red tape small businesses must comply with regarding employee personal data. In the US a company called Rapsheets.com has just launched its National Criminal Index service which claims to contain 20 percent more criminal records than the FBI has in its fingerprint database. Furthermore, private citizens can access the NCI service for around US$20 a name plus a monthly membership fee. US privacy regulations require business to have permission before background checking for employment or tenant screening however such rules do not apply to private citizens. www.rapsheets.com

SECOND EURO IT SHOW CANCELLED
Europe has seen the cancellation of a second major legal technology conference schedule for May. The latest casualty is a one day event - The Impact of Technology on the Practice of Law - the International Bar Association were planning to hold in Dublin on 29 May. Earlier this spring the Ark Group pulled the plug on its Legal Solutions Europe Conference & Exhibition, which had been due to take place in Paris this week.

MILLARD TO WAVE THE BLUE FLAG
Christopher Millard, the legal academic turned practitioner who, for the last decade has been leading Clifford Chance's initiatives in the online legal services field - including the firm's NextLaw service, is moving to Linklaters at the end of the month. Millard, who also has a strong reputation for his legal work in the fields of data protection, IT and e-commerce law, will take over as head of Linklaters' ITC (information, technology & communications) practice. Significantly, Millard is also expected to join the firm's e-board which is responsible for its own BlueFlag online legal service venture.

INFOGRAPHICS WINS MAJOR MALAYSIAN LAW FIRM DEAL
Zaid Ibrahim & Co, the largest commercial law firm in Malaysia has signed a deal with Scottish based legal systems developer Infographics for the supply and implementation of new business process management (BPM) software. The total contract value is expected to be £250,000. It comprises implementation of FloSuite BPM, initially to manage debt recovery work but to be rolled out to other areas and is Infographics first win in the legal sector for the Asia Pacific region.

Zaid Ibrahim lawyers have already received training, and designed and installed a fully functioning debt recovery system with links to external partner organisations in just three weeks. The next stage is to roll FloSuite out incrementally across the firm's other business areas, which include cross border mergers and acquisitions, banking, property, oil and gas, intellectual property, and insurance and reinsurance. www.inforgraphics.co.uk

DOT PRO CONTRACT SIGNED BY ICANN
RegistryPro Inc last week announced it had executed its contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN), under which it will operate the registry for the new top level domain (TLD) .pro. RegistryPro expects .pro to launch at the end of 2002 or early next year. The .pro domain extension is the most recent of the seven TLDs selected by ICANN to be added to the existing Domain Name System (DNS), following the .biz, .info and .name registries which were introduced last year. To facilitate the highest levels of privacy in communications, RegistryPro will be the first registry to require enhanced security with every .pro domain name, registrants will be required to certify their professional credentials and each will be issued a digital certificate as a means of verifying their identity in an electronic exchange.

According to Sloan Gaon, the CEO of RegistryPro: "Based on the growing recognition that professionals must conduct patient or client online communications securely, there has been tremendous interest in the .pro extension from the medical, legal and accounting communities."

RegistryPro's TLD product is expected to facilitate many professional services such as filing online court documents, filing taxes, electronic signatures under E-Sign legislation and compliance with confidentiality obligations when communicating electronically, such as attorney-client, doctor-patient and fiduciary. "The bundling of a domain name with a digital security product is a tremendous development in internet security," said Stephen Wu, co-chair of the Information Security Committee of the American Bar Association and CEO of the InfoSec Law Group based in the Silicon Valley. "Legislation recognizing the validity of digital and other electronic signatures has been passed by nearly every state, on a national level, and by many countries. The .pro system will provide a means for professionals to conduct electronic transactions and communications that satisfy electronic signature laws and provide assurances of identity and confidentiality." www.registrypro.com

DIGITAL COPYRIGHT EXPLAINED
"Digital copyright - law and practice" (published by LexisNexis Butterworths Tolley) is the new book by Simon Stokes, partner in London technology law firm Tarlo Lyons, which offers a definitive guide combining analysis, best practice, checklists and relevant Acts and EU Directives. Stokes draws on relevant case law and the Digital/Information Society Copyright Directive, adopted by the EU on 22 May 2001. He looks in depth at the vital role and basics of digital copyright, digital database law and the Internet, digital moral rights, software copyright and protecting and managing your digital copyright assets. For further details contact Butterworths or any legal bookshop.

RUTAN & TUCKER TO VAULT EMAIL STORAGE
Earlier this month Herbert Smith in London announced it was to invest in the system. Now Rutan & Tucker, the largest law firm in Orange County, California, has announced that it has adopted and deployed the Enterprise Vault email management and archiving system from KVS.

Explaining the move David Kunkletown, Director of Information Systems at Rutan & Tucker, said: "The value of email has changed drastically. It's more than just a communication tool for us. It is used for case management. We discovered early on what most companies will discover - quotas are useless in this changing business environment. It is just not feasible to delete email, as one never knows what bit of information you'll need down the road nor how quickly. Historical approaches such as printing email and storing the paper is an outdated method to protecting this intellectual property as well. With Enterprise Vault we not only store our email more efficiently but the search and discover functionality allows our attorneys to do more for our clients. Less time searching means more effective counselling."

Chilling thought: according to the research group IDC, worldwide daily email will exceed 36 billion messages a day by 2005. www.kvsplc.com

BUTTERWORTHS - BUDGETS REVIEWED NOT CUT
Following our story in Issue 106, Sabina Smith, the manager of Butterworths LawDirect News to say that the comment that LexisNexis Butterworths Tolley has 'slashed contributor budgets' is untrue. Says Smith: "We have not cut contributors budgets nor altered the policy across the board, as you suggest with the comment 'when it informed contributors to its Law Direct News service that it could no longer pay them for their contributions'. We have simply reviewed the value to subscribers of some of the content material we previously paid for in specific areas and decided to end that arrangement.

"As with any publishing content is regularly reviewed as we aim to provide the most up to date, relevant information we can. We continue to pay contributors who work in partnership with us to help us meet that aim. The Law Direct News site is constantly evolving and adapting to the requirements of the increasing numbers of subscribers. I'm sure you would agree we would not be providing customers the service they expect if we did not review our services."