Headlines

English Law Society starts 2004 guide process
The Law Society of England & Wales is starting the application process for legal systems suppliers who want to be included in the next edition of its annual Software Solutions Guide, which is due to be published in spring 2004. The opening date for applications is Monday 14 July and the closing date is Friday 5 September. The guide is open to all suppliers of accounts and practice management systems selling to English & Welsh solicitors practices however applicants must go through a rigorous vetting procedure - this includes extensive market research into the views of their users as well as an examination of their accounts records and financial health. Application forms can be found at http://www.it4law.co.uk

Tikit bullish
The publicly quoted Tikit Group plc, the closest thing the UK legal market has to a bell-wether stock, this week published an update on current trading trends for the first half of the year ending 31 December 2003, before entering its close period prior to the announcement of its interim result. With its talk of "current trading strong" and the "outlook very encouraging", Tikit's announcement is likely to cause dismay among some of its would-be competitors who have been talking about a stalled market and difficult trading conditions. Perhaps it is not the market that is stagnant but merely the demand for some other suppliers' products and services?

The text of the statement says: "Trading during the first half of the year has been robust, with demand for higher margin consultancy and support services continuing and the order book for these services remains strong. As a result Tikit has had an excellent first half of the year with sales and profits showing significant growth from the corresponding period last year and are ahead of budget expectations.

"The group has extended its portfolio of application expertise over the past six months with the addition of a number of innovative products for the large law firm market. As well as the ongoing installation and support of world-class systems in the areas of document management, customer relationship management and time and expense recording, Tikit has recently undertaken large-scale implementation of business intelligence, content management and digital dictation systems. There has also been a notable increase in the importance of Tikit-developed value-add software in many of these projects.

"Entering the traditionally stronger second half, the outlook for the group is very encouraging and the Directors look forward to updating shareholders on progress when the interim results for the six months to 30 June 2003 are released on Thursday, 11 September 2003."

Hummingbird buys Valid
Hard on the heels of Hummingbird's recent acquisition of Kramer Lee & Associates (+ see next story), Hummingbird has now bought Bill Cannings' document & records management company Valid Information Systems. Formed in 1989 - and originally called Ymijs - Valid and its R/KYV software has evolved from a relatively simple DIP (document image processing) system into a compliance & records management system that is widely used by major corporations as well as central and local government authorities and related governmental agencies.

Commenting on the deal, Hummingbird chairman & CEO Fred Sorkin said "With Valid joining the Hummingbird family, we are now one step closer to becoming the leading provider of government solutions globally. In the UK alone, there are over 1.2 million government seats that require records management compliance within the next two years. With the Valid acquisition, Hummingbird is now well poised to take advantage of this market opportunity."

Hummingbird acquired the shares of Valid for initial consideration of £10 million (US$16.5 million) in cash and additional consideration of £8 million (US$ 13 million) in cash payable over two years, based on performance targets. Valid will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Hummingbird, continuing to support and maintain all customer implementations. Hummingbird will continue to sell the Valid products in the UK without interruption. The existing Valid management team and employees will remain with their current responsibilities and positions.

iManage & KLA fall out
Meanwhile the shock of last month's Hummingbird surprise acquisition of Kramer Lee & Associates continues to reverberate, with KLA's former document management systems partner iManage formally serving notice on KLA to the effect that its reseller agreement will terminate on 3rd August. After this, Kramer Lee will no longer be entitled to purchase products from iManage, nor promote, market, sell, distribute, install or, more importantly, maintain any iManage products. An email seen by the Insider suggests that any work carried out on iManage sites by KLA after the termination date will invalidate the warranty and that iManage will also not permit KLA to support firms wanting to remain running an older version of the iManage system.

Market rumour suggests Hummingbird accquired KLA for £3 million in cash, with an additional £1 million, based on performance targets, payable within 12 months. iManage UK say their top reseller last year was actually the First Stop Computer Group, with KLA and ResSoft almost level pegging in second place. Tikit, which only recently became an iManage reseller, is expected to fill the space left by KLA.

Booty joins Solicitec
Richard Booty has joined the sales team at Solicitec. Booty joins after three years with IBM, prior to this he spent 10 years with Axxia Systems, where he was rated by the competition as Axxia's most effective sales account manager. Booty's initial role will be to sell the Solicitec Visualfiles case-to-KM-workflow management system into larger City firms.

Commenting on the move, Booty said "In my three years with IBM, it has been interesting to watch the league table of movers and shakers in the legal supplier community change with a refreshing pace. Traditional sole suppliers are perceived to have stood still and even lost share whilst best of breed suppliers such as Solicitec, Elite & SOS are moving in for the kill. I am looking forward to accelerating the company's rising fortunes and to further cement its position as the supplier of choice."

Cripps looking for new IT head
One of the UK's major regional firms - Kent-based Cripps Harries Hall - is looking for a new head of IT to replace Tanya Collett, who is leaving the firm later this summer. Current projects at the firm include digital dictation and a new HR database and one of the first projects, slated for 2003/2004, that the new head of IT will need to tackle is a new practice management system. Collett is moving to Masons to take up a project management role, working with head of IT Kevin Connell. Collett, who also worked with Connell when they were both at Lovells, told the Insider that it was the hands-on side of IT that she enjoyed the most.

Full details of this and other vacancies and be found on the Insider jobs board at http://www.legaltechnology.com
 
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News in brief

SOS new look web site
Solicitors Own Software (SOS) has relaunched its web site with a fresh, minimalist look. No 'Flash' just straightforward, no nonsense frame style site.
http://www.sosbath.co.uk

Meticulus launches Red LEtter secure email for Unix
Meticulus Solutions has announced the availability of its Red Letter secure email system on the Unix platform. Previously delivered as a Linux appliance it is now also available as standalone software for the Sun Solaris, IBM AIX and HP-UX operating systems. Explaining the move, Meticulus CEO Ivan Harris said "The Linux version of Red Letter has achieved considerable sales success since its launch in January 2003. We have also found strong demand for our system in large enterprises where the IT department wants to be closely involved in the detail of the system implementation rather than simply purchasing an appliance. Our Unix offering meets this need and positions us to deliver on the very largest sites, extending the benefits of Red Letter to a significant new market sector http://www.redletteremail.com

White & Case to switch from Hummingbird to iManage
White & Case, one of the largest law firms on the AmLaw 200 list, is to convert its entire global organization from Hummingbird to the iManage WorkSite document management suite.

Complinet to relaunch regulatory service
Complinet is about to relaunch its Rulebooks & Regulatory Update service, which provides a range of legal and regulatory content including the FSA Handbook), relevant statutory materials (Acts/SIs) and other primary source information from relevant regulators (City Code, GISC, Rules of the London Stock Exchange, etc.) The service will be accessible from next Monday (14 July) via the Complinet web site, which has also been redesigned. The company will also be offering a new consolidated legislation module that allows users to view historical/prospective versions of Acts and SIs. With mony laundering becoming an increasing concern for lawyers, firms may also be interested in the company's KYC Check service - this has a know your client database that allows you to check individual names or batches of names against a list of official sanctioning bodies such as OFAC, the Bank of England and the FSA.
http://www.complinet.com
 
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Asia Pacific news in brief

Speedlegal releases major upgrade
SpeedLegal, the Australian developer of XML-based document assembly & automation software has just released version 3 of its SmartPrecedent system. SpeedLegal, which now has customers in Melbourne, Milan, Luxembourg, Auckland and Seattle - including law firm, government and inhouse legal users - says the latest release has a simpler graphical user interface, visual tools for checking logic and rules, and stores templates, precedents, clauses and answer files under version control, with a complete audit trail of changes, who made them, and when. http://www.speedlegal.com

Jamie Wodetzki of SpeedLegal told the Insider that what was really exciting was the fact SmartPrecedent V3 was coming at a time when Microsoft was finally embracing XML technology. This is what Microsoft says about XML in a preview document for MS Office Word 2003 Beta 2... "Documents saved in HTML format in Word 2000 and 2002 have some embedded islands of XML data saved within them, but you cannot use either Word 2000 or Word 2002 to natively create or save XML documents. Without this capability, it is difficult to associate meaning with document contents. Information is locked inside a .doc format binary file which is not an interchangeable format. This makes multi-device, cross-platform exchange impossible. It also makes content repurposing outside Word difficult, data-mining impossible, and collaboration and document management problematic. It also does not allow for database and server-side processing.

"XML removes the obstacles that stemmed from data being locked in binary files, and enables semantic structure around content, which makes data retrieval quite easy. XML support in Word 2003 is one of the most exciting breakthroughs for Micosoft Office 2003. Through the use of XML, Word content becomes freeflowing, unlocked data, which can be modified. The sharing of information between documents, databases, and other applications also simplified with XML."

Crown Law stays with Solution 6
Crown Law, one of Queensland's largest law offices, has chosen to upgrade with Solution 6 to the new version of its practice management solution CLO 6. The software was chosen to support the practice's continued growth and meet a range of needs. Although Crown Law currently use CLO 5, the firm only chose CLO 6 after a rigorous selection process that included consideration of a number of competing software products.

Timeframe teams up with Intellera
Intellera, a Canadian developer of business intelligence systems, has announced a partnership with Timeframe Systems (TFS) that will see TFS become a full reseller of Intellera solutions and related consultancy services throughout Australia and New Zealand. "We look forward to building on the momentum Intellera has achieved in the North American professional services market," said Timeframe president Derek Giles. "Intellera BI solutions are mature and built with leading technologies. They are a natural partner for the modern practice management systems used by our larger clients such as CMS OPEN, Keystone, and Elite." Prior to the acquisition of Keystone Solutions and its Net Benefits system, Intellera was one of Solution 6's best of breed business intelligence offerings.
http://www.time-frame.com on Scottish appeals to the House of Lords and the Privy Council.
 
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