Headlines

Law firm signs £1.5 million IT outsourcing deal with Computacenter
Dundas & Wilson, one of Scotland's largest commercial firms, has outsourced the management of its new IT infrastructure to Computacenter. In a £1.5 million deal, IT services company Computacenter (0800 617000) will become responsible for delivering key information services to Dundas & Wilson's 500 staff, whatever their location, from June 2003. A full lifecycle of support will be provided across desktops/laptops, servers and networks, and will encompass hardware and software maintenance, planned infrastructure changes and asset disposal. Computacenter will also provide the firm's helpdesk facility.
http://www.computacenter.com

Breaking news: Are legal IT trade shows finished in the UK?
With last week's LegalTech Europe Solicitors event in Birmingham attracting one of the smallest audiences we have seen at a UK legal IT exhibition in recent years and Axxia Systems announcing that it was pulling out of all trade shows - including the market-leading Legal IT Leeds and Legal IT Islington events - where does this leave traditional IT trade show? Axxia's sales & marketing director Bill Kirby believes "exhibitions have had their day" and that his company's marketing budget would be better spent on more tightly focused conferences, seminars and user events - a view a growing number of legal IT vendors seem to share. We will be carrying a full report and analysis in the next issue of the Insider newsletter.

LSSA unveils latest XML initiative
The UK's Legal Software Suppliers Association (LSSA) has published a revised proposal for an XML Schema for the legal profession. The full white paper - illustrating the updated schema - is available in Word file format (600KB) and can be downloaded from the Insider home page. LSSA XML working party chairman Neil Ewin the original schema had been revised and improved over the past year, in light of the PISCES and LEDES XML standards, as well as UK government XML guidelines.

Context launches Irish reports on the web
Following an agreement with the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for Ireland, electronic publisher Context has added another case law series to its Justis.com online legal research service. The Electronic Irish Reports & Digests, which are also available as a Justis CD-ROM, cover over 80 years of the most authoritative Irish case reports, including the full text of published cases dating back to 1919. The Irish Digests provides a summary, including catchwords and headnotes, of each case reported in The Irish Reports, Northern Ireland Reports, Irish Law Reports Monthly, Irish Law Times Reports, Irish Jurist Reports and Irish Law Journal.
http://www.justis.com

New player in the legal portals & virtual dealrooms sector
Neoteris, a supplier of instant secure application access extranets and portals, has just announced that it is extending its sales and marketing focus into the legal vertical market to meet multiple pressing secure access needs. As part of this initiative, Neoteris has also announced that two well know US law firms - Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati - have become Neoteris users. The firms are using the Neoteris IVE system to provision secure access for hundreds of lawyers, paralegals and administrative staff in offices across the country.

The interesting feature of Neoteris is its use of a novel category of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology that allows users to gain secure remote access to network resources from any standard web browser - and without the need to install special client software. As a result, users are no longer constrained to use specific machines or to work from designated locations - they can work from anywhere where they can access an internet connection and a web browser. Additionally, because there is no need to install, configure, or maintain client software, this should minimise support issues. Neoteris is a privately held company backed by, among others, Jim Clark - the man behind Silicon Graphics and Netscape.
www.neoteris.com/ind_sol/legal.html

Legal technology in Australia – survey paints worrying picture
PA Consulting and CCH Australia have collaborated to complete a study into the use of technology by major Australian law firms. Although some of the finding are a bit on generalist side, in a market that is starved of serious raw data, the results still provide valuable - and in some instances distinctly worrying - food for thought. This includes the fact that only 23% of firms felt IT had measurably reduced costs and 85% felt they could create more value from their investments in IT. There again, as nearly a quarter of the firms in the sample said IT projects were undertaken with no supporting business case on the way in which the benefits could be delivered to the practice, perhaps this is hardly surprising.

As to how much firms are spending on IT, figures ranged from 1.6% to 7.0% of annual turnover, with an average of 4.5%. This echoes the Insider's own research on law firm IT budgets and PA rightly point out that most firms are not spending enough on IT, particularly when compared with other industries and professional services sectors. Unfortunately, as the survey concludes that this "situation is unlikely to change in the near future as IT spend is currently under pressure with 38% of respondents stating the IT budgets have either remained at the same level or decreased over the past few years."
www.cch.com.au/lawsurvey

.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Asia Pacific news in brief

Sycamore back as Head of Elite Asia Pacific
Kaye Sycamore, the co-founder of Keystone Solutions, which was acquired by the Solution 6 Group just over a year ago, has returned to the legal systems sector as managing director of Elite's Asia Pacific operations. The new job - which is also a new initiative within Elite and will initially be based out of Elite's WebView development team's offices in Auckland, will see Sycamore responsible for setting up a sales operation covering the New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Philippines markets. Currently Elite has 20 user sites in this area but although it is the home turf of arch-rivals Solution 6, Sycamore told the Insider that there is "more market momentum" in the region than most people realise. Sycamore also places great store on Elite's partners in the region, which include JuzLAW Solutions in Singapore and Billback and InterLegal in Australia.

BillBack in Elite deal
Elite has entered the cost recovery market, forming a strategic alliance with BillBack Systems to become the exclusive reseller of BillBack products in North America. Australian based BillBack currently sells directly in the UK where its flagship site is Linklaters.
.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Philips and Kluwer in speech recognition initiative
Philips, Wolters Kluwer Germany and AnNoText have just announced the creation of a Speech Recognition Competence Centre which they hope will "accelerate use of speech recognition technology in legal IT systems." The Centre will function as a research and development platform for Wolters Kluwer's legal IT businesses in Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, UK, Netherlands and Germany, while legal IT company AnNoText (a Wolters Kluwer affiliate) and Philips will cooperate in the development of interfaces which will allow the integration of speech recognition with various business software applications. This will be based on Philips' SpeechMagic speech recognition technology.

Akin Gump go with Hummingbird
Although - as reported in the last edition of the Insider Newsletter - the rivalry between the major players in the legal document management systems arena may currently be more bitter than it has been for several years, Hummingbird's position remains undented. The latest vote off confidence comes from Akin Gump, one of the largest firms in the US, which has just announced its purchase of the Hummingbird Enterprise 5 suite to provide an integrated document and knowledge management, email management, collaboration, portal and business intelligence platform.

New PST folder management system available
C2C Systems, a developer of management utilities for Microsoft Exchange, can now offer centralized control over .PST files (or personal storage folders and their contents) via the latest version Active Folders Content Manager v.4.0 system. PSTs are a common way to manage mailbox size in Exchange but are widely recognized as presenting difficulties for administrators, as well as legal risks. Users can set PSTs up anywhere and they frequently corrupt data at a critical 2Gb limit. The PST decentralized format also presents an inherent risk with organisations being unable to track and control email content, particularly those subject to email retention and deletion policies or who may be required to find an email quickly for legal reasons. C2C say the addition of PST capability to version 4.0 now provides the complete capability to discover, assess and take action on all Exchange email: in public folders, private mailboxes and now personal (PST) folders.

Dave Hunt, the CEO of C2C Systems, said "More than half the PST user companies we've spoken to, state they cannot envisage removing the dependency on them in the next two years, so a simple removal process is unrealistic. C2C's approach allows an organization to reduce its litigation risk without imposing impractical changes to its systems. What's more, Active Folders will find PSTs whether they are on network accessible drive locations or concealed in a local file store. The result is reduced corporate risk and greater management awareness." C2C has offices in the UK and US. For more information visit www.c2c.com/products/PST/default.htm

Infotrieve to preview next generation system at Special Libraries meeting
Infotrieve is to preview its E-100 electronic document delivery system at the Special Libraries Association (SLA) Annual Conference in New York next week (7-12 June). E-100 is described as offering "next generation document delivery, providing 100% electronic delivery to the desktop" so that virtually all articles and documents can be delivered directly to the computer screens of its customers worldwide, regardless of whether an original article was created digitally or in print format.

When a customer already has an electronic journal subscription, E-100 allows direct linking to articles from subscribed journals to save customers service and copyright fees. When a customer does not have electronic subscription access, Infotrieve can provide a PDF document through its extensive network of publisher agreements or a scanned image delivered in a secure manner, both of which are copyright-compliant, delivered from Infotrieve's own digital rights management software. For more details contact Kelly Haggard at khaggard@infotrieve.com

....................................................................................................................................................................................................................top
Special report

Latest from Solution 6 Momentum Conference
At the end of last month, Solution 6 held its first global user group conference - Momentum 2003 - in Florida, bringing together users of CMS, Javelan, Keystone, Net Results and Novient. The company also took the opportunity to announce a number of new products to the 500 + delegates attending the event. Solution 6 president & CEO Neil Gamble opened the conference by outlining the company's objectives and customer commitment. "Solution 6 is committed to you, your challenges and your success. The people in this room represent the world's largest user base of service professionals. We will accept nothing less than to be regarded, not only as the largest, but also the best provider of software for service organizations. We are dedicated to developing and deploying solutions that will revolutionize the way professional services organizations operate," continued Gamble. "Our comprehensive suite of products and services, ranging from applications for small law firms to enterprise solutions for high-end global firms, reinforces Solution 6’s commitment to providing flexible solutions that the services industry needs."

CMS Net to ship later this month
Probably the main event at Momentum was the unveiling of CMS.Net 5, the next evolution of the company's practice management offering. CMS.Net 5 leverages Microsoft's web-native .NET platform to deliver unparalleled, internet-based applications designed specifically for financial practice management. By utilizing web-based technology, CMS.Net allows firms to quickly and cost-effectively add remote users as well interface with wireless, PDA and networked devices to provide access from anywhere in the world. CMS.Net represents the fifth major release for CMS, building upon the functionality of CMS OPEN as well as the CiO .NET based suite of web applications.

CMS.Net 5 is currently targeted for general availability on June 30, 2003 and contains the following enhancements: A new, fully customisable web-based Inquiry module that enables business users to better access and view critical financial data. Expanded multi-currency capabilities to enable global firms to balance numerous offices in multiple currency formats. New electronic banking, bank reconciliation and BRAGO billing capabilities to enhance back-office efficiencies and meet regulatory compliance. Greater web-based time capture capabilities with fully exposed APIs for greater integration capabilities. And an improved user interface and usability within the Collections module.

New Javelan too
Solution 6 also put paid to earlier rumours about the future of its Javelan PMS for smaller US law firms with the announcement of of a next generation version of Javelan that includes web-enabled functionality and seamlessly integration with Microsoft SQL Server based financial management tools, such as FRx, to integrate billing, client management, time and billing reports to deliver what Solution 6 describe as "large law firm functionality to smaller practices".

....................................................................................................................................................................................................................top
Copyright © Legal Technology Insider. ISSN 1740-7664. All rights reserved. Published by Legal Technology Insider Limited. The contents of this email may be freely reproduced providing Legal Technology Insider is credited as the source. Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of all published information, the Publisher cannot guarantee accuracy and does not accept liability for any loff of damage that may arise from any errors or omissions. Please note that web site addresses can change. All trademarks and brand names are acknowledged. Privacy policy: We do not sell or disclose names, phone numbers, email addresses or any other contact details of our subscribers to anyone.
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................
© 2003 Legal Technology Insider | Site designed by Wirebox Designs