The September issue of the Insider Colour Supplement is out now. The stories include
• the results of the latest ILTA survey on North American law firm IT spending trends
• the Trek China charity hike raises £100k
• are you ready for Instant Messaging
• a new portable printer for road warriors
• what is meant by EPE - the electronic presentation of evidence
• Stuart Holden of Axxia on why a modern PMS can meet all your needs
• Speech recognition 10 years on
• Bindmans go with Sharepoint portal
Enjoy - the next issue will be published on 22nd October
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Monday, September 24
Insider Colour Supplement #2 - September issue out now
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Sep 2007 03:24 PM BST
Insider Colour Supplement #2 - latest ILTA technology purchasing survey
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Sep 2007 03:16 PM BST
JoAnna Forshee, the CEO of Envision, summarises the results of the latest ILTA Technology Purchasing Survey and finds they provide a snapshot of North American law firm IT spending patterns – and who influences them...
In late August, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA), in cooperation with Envision Agency, released ILTA’s Annual IT Purchasing Survey representing all ILTA member law firms with 100 attorneys or more. While the overwhelming majority of the 126 firm responses originated from the US, information from Canadian, UK and Australian firms was also included. What always amazes is the level of participation and cooperation among the ILTA crowd, especially when it comes time to complete yet another survey. Between periodic ILTA surveys, American Bar Association polls and numerous American Lawyer (AmLaw) rankings and scorecards, law firm IT leaders are constantly on the survey circuit. With that said, a 27% response rate for the ILTA IT survey represents an impressive sampling. The 2007 survey revealed notable findings relating to IT purchasing patterns, budgets, decision making and influences, as well as future technology trends. The bottom line Survey responses indicate that budgets are way up, but only among law firms with under 200 attorneys (we called them Small Firms), firms with more than 200 attorneys (Large Firms), on the other hand, are in budget conservation mode. Small Firms are implementing and planning major software purchases, Large Firms are focused on infrastructure, hardware upgrades, and innovative mobility solutions. Small Firm users are dissatisfied with recent technology implementations, perhaps linked to training cuts, while Large Firm user satisfaction more than doubled. Finally, in addition to tackling the e-Discovery boom, IT decision makers are challenged daily with staffing issues, managing firm growth, increasing volumes of data and storage shortages, as well as user education. Budgets IT budgets are still increasing, but not for all firms. 52% of Small Firms noted a more than 5% increase of IT budgets compared to 2006 (up 14% from 2006 survey results). 15% of Large Firms reported an overall budget decrease (up 4% from last year’s survey). This “flip flop” trend from 2006 is something worth monitoring in subsequent surveys. Part of the 2007 increased budget trend in Small Firms is attributed to an upswing in more general purchasing plans (15% in 2007 versus 3% in 2006). In contrast, only 37% of all respondents cited specific technology purchasing plans (versus 48% in 2006), and 10% (4% upswing compared to 2006 survey results) cited other reasons such as future firm growth, mergers and acquisitions-related expenses, and business continuity planning. Budget decreases are primarily tied to firms’ expense control and conservative budgeting policies, particularly in Large Firms which accounted for all survey expense-tightening answers. This indicates a notable difference from last year when purse strings at Large Firms seemed considerably looser. Technology purchases Small Firms indicated higher implementation rates for case management, courtroom technology, docketing software, imaging/scanning/OCR, patch management, and records management software. Large Firms dominated in the implementation of OS upgrades, remote access technology, voicemail upgrades, workflow automation, and wireless devices. In the planned purchase category, the biggest percentage increases during 2006 occurred in the desktop hardware and laptop/notebook categories (both up 10% from 2006), and in dictation software and hardware (up 9% from combined hardware/software category last year). The biggest declines in the planned purchase category include disaster recovery, workflow automation, records management, cost recovery, and VoIP. IT & user satisfaction 98% of all respondents (IT staff) were very satisfied (10% higher than in 2006) or at least satisfied with new technologies they implemented in 2006. Comparatively, user satisfaction rates with new technologies fluctuated between Small and Large Firms (Large Firms were 20% more satisfied than Small Firms). In fact, Small Firms indicated a 14% somewhat unsatisfied rate, the only such dissatisfaction among any respondents. Purchase influences Less than 50% of survey respondents cited their clients as being key influencers in the IT purchasing process. In fact, only 39% of Large Firms look to clients for IT purchases, a very interesting development. IT challenges The most pressing challenges facing the surveyed IT decision makers include managing firm growth from an IT perspective, data volume and data storage limitations, user education and training, and e-discovery readiness/preparedness. This concludes the summary of the findings, and you can download a free copy of the complete survey. In addition, ILTA will be hosting the 3rd Annual ILTA Insight Event in the UK. in April of 2008. If you are interested in attending, please contact Peggy Wechsler at peggy@iltanet.org or Nigel Blackwood at nigel_blackwood@wragge.com • JoAnna Forshee is CEO of Envision Agency, a legal technology marketing and strategy company representing clients in the US and UK. She can be reached at jf@envisionagency.com
Insider Colour Supplement #2 - China Trek raises nearly £100k
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Sep 2007 02:47 PM BST
The Trek China charity fundraising hike along part of the Great Wall of China – which was set up by Kevin Connell and saw some of the members of the UK legal IT community (well at least some of the physically fit ones) take part in the venture earlier this month – is now back in the UK and has raised nearly £100,000 in sponsorship. The project was designed to raise money for both Newick House School (a UK school for children with
special needs) and The National Autistic Society. Among those participating, along with Kevin and his daughter Lyndsey, were the consultant Neil Cameron and two of his daughters (Siobhan and Kirsty), a sizeable contingent of Kevin's colleagues at BP, the consultant Andrew Haslam (who apparently left his stock of exotic neck-ties back in the UK) and everyone's favourite e-learning expert Ann Hemming.
The Trek China team would still like to raise more money, so if you haven't done so already, help now. You can find out more about the event, see the route the followed, look at some of the pictures they took, and read the participants' blogs by visiting www.trekchina0907.org.uk/
Insider Colour Supplement #2 - Realtime communication has arrived - were you ready ?
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Sep 2007 02:25 PM BST
In this article Ken Agnew of Agnew Associates – a law firm IT director turned consultant – looks at the impact of instant messaging on the legal world...
Those of us who are old enough to remember the technology of late nineties will be able to recall the arguments we witnessed over whether to allow secretaries to have email access and how the communications made by anyone at or under associate level were going to be checked by a partner. Today the arguments over which lawyers toiled and sweated seem fatuous in the extreme. The very concept that it is possible for almost anyone in a legal organisation to work without email is impossible to fathom. That superiors should vet all mails is an equally idiotic notion. We discussed the relative merits of sending documents as attachments with some saying that it would be dangerous to send important contracts over “the ether” because anyone might get their hands on them until it was pointed out to them that they were perfectly happy to hand them over to leather-clad bikers they’d never met before and that, somehow, they seemed to think that was safer. I even overheard a partner in one firm dictating a letter beginning “I refer to your electronic communication of the 17th inst”. Today we face the same kind of dilemmas over what is termed “Real-Time Communication” or Instant Messaging to you and me. Hopefully, we are better prepared and educated. When I ask legal IT directors what they know or think about IM, they invariably reply “That’s what my kids use” and go on to lament the fact that, after spending a whole day in school with their peers, their darling offspring return and spend the evening on MSN or Google-Talk exchanging new and exiting information with precisely the same people and only occasionally surface to eat, moan about broadband speeds or ask for money. My own children who are only 9 and 6 at the moment take great pleasure in sitting in separate rooms exchanging messages with each other while playing bizarre games involving penguins – all of which is anathema to me but keeps them happy and, mercifully, quiet. These children and the adolescents who precede them are growing up in a culture where IM and other real-time communication tools are taken for granted and the oldest of these have begun to enter the workplace. One law firm I spoke to about IM recently confessed to having had to provide training on Outlook because one of their recent graduate intake had never seen an email client before. Indeed, they had no idea what email was having never used it and had to have the word “attachment” defined for them. All of this makes me feel very old although I am becoming a proficient Skype user and have even logged on to “Club Penguin” from my laptop in the kitchen to tell my kids their tea is ready! I felt quite proud until it was pointed out to me that I had spent ten minutes managing to emulate the technical achievements of a year 2 child. My kids love the Internet and have no fear or hesitation in exploiting it for whatever reason. They both have mail accounts and an awareness but not experience of pure and open IM. They take all of this for granted. This is the same generation who take 300 digital TV channels for granted whereas we grew up with two – in black and white to boot! They don’t know what a floppy disk or an audio cassette or, for that matter, a video cassette is and they’ve never seen a vinyl record. They have never heard of a telegram (do they still read those out at weddings or do they read the instant messages?). These kids have never hurt their fingers in a telephone dial and think all phones are mobile – indeed, they expect to be provided with one at an extraordinarily early age A recent survey among IT users and Managers (undertaken by New Diligence Market Research on behalf of FaceTime Inc) revealed that 41% of users in a variety of organisations had IM or other Peer-to-Peer applications on their work PC. In the same group 53% agreed with the statement “I tend to disregard company policies on IM and Peer-to-Peer usage” and 39% with the statement “I should be able to install the applications I need on my computer”. Instant Messaging was installed already in 76% of organisations with or without the sanction of the IT department. Clearly, pressure from users will become a key element in your decision to sanction IM use and to make it safe and manageable. Legal is necessarily and understandably a risk-averse industry but it is surrounded by clients and third party organisations which are less so and ready to embrace new technology and working practices more quickly. It is only a matter of time before major clients and suppliers are asking you to adopt a “presence based” working model and communicate in real time. The lack of standards within the discipline makes this difficult and will drive you towards adoption of an enterprise system such as Live Communication Server from Microsoft who continue to weave messaging and Peer-to-Peer functionality into the fabric of their Office and OS products. As far as I can tell, IT departments fall into three categories within legal. Firstly, those who have already provided or are planning to roll out IM to their users in the knowledge that dealing with this inevitability is better than ignoring it. This group is still a small coterie of a few top 100 firms. Secondly, those who know it goes on but ignore it on the assumption that it can’t be being used for client related work – which accounts for the majority. And, thirdly, those who actively seek to ban it and put provisions in place to ensure the ban is respected. There’s only one of the third group as far as I have seen and even they are resigned to the task ahead of them but have taken these steps because, uncommonly, they are aware of the dangers IM and other Peer-to-Peer applications pose. So what are these dangers? Well, you may have noticed, as I have, that it’s been quite a while since we had a LoveBug or similar virus threat hitting the news. Viruses used to be written by geeks in black-painted bedrooms with the intention of causing as much disruption as possible either for fun or to protest against global capitalism or the arms race or some such other thing that preoccupies the minds of disaffected youth. Nowadays, the same kinds of people who would and could do that are writing spyware and adware (or Malware) to get into your corporate networks and they are doing so for profit. These are no longer pasty faced, bearded individuals, they are tanned and well dressed and have very pleasant lifestyles because they can afford it. Details of your browsing habits, your personal details like your address and age, gender, economic grouping, buying habits and, most worryingly, your credit card details are being bought and sold internationally. This is not going through email any more. They’re using IM and P2P networks as a vector to infect your corporate PC’s. Indeed, in the eighteen months following March 2005, the number of infections spread by P2P rose by 2200% – No, that’s not a misprint. It’s Two Thousand, Two Hundred Percent! That’s lots by anyone’s standards to put it mildly. You still need services like Messagelabs or Mimecast and AV controls on your desktops and at the firewall but none of these products can adequately protect you from these new threats in isolation or together. Most of the products being used within legal are only looking at either HTML or port 80 traffic. Your average spyware writer knows this and develops his material to bypass these routes just as the IM providers use evasive techniques to avoid detection. This makes them perfect partners. For instance, did you know that Skype change the encryption methodology and algorithms in their product every time they release a new version and that almost all P2P products actively seek random open ports to pass through. There are no standards in IM. This means that public IM providers all use different methods and protocols to communicate and are all equally evasive. Each have both web-based and PC-based clients which can be used with the same buddy names so that a user can use the full client at home and, if need be, the web version at work transparently. Anonymisers such as Tor and Hopster can disguise IM use and internet abuse by sending misinformation to the proxy. So, unless your desktops are locked down to a draconian degree, users can still send and receive IM and therefore send and receive malware infections. Most law firms I’ve seen have infection levels which have surpassed their IT management’s expectations both in volume and severity of infection. In all but one firm, IT directors have had reactions ranging from surprised to appalled at the volume of IM and, particularly, Skype traffic emanating from their network. All have had a degree of spyware infection which may or may not be prevented from phoning home through their various protection systems, indeed, in most cases, it has successfully bypassed the firewall. There are also compliance issues. For instance, since February this year, IM messages have been treated in exactly the same way as e-mail under the Sarbanes-Oxley act. This means that any communication made through IM is subjected to the same rigorous requirements for retention and substantiation. UK and European legislation is bound to follow suit sooner or later. If, like the 26% of people in the FaceTime survey, your users are employing IM as an alternative to mail because it affords “private, unmonitored communications”, then you need to know why, what they’re saying and to whom. To illustrate this, here’s a short, alarmist story. In late 2006 Congressman Mark A Foley was forced to resign from Congress when details of an explicit Instant Messaging conversation he had with a sixteen year old were leaked to the press. He had taken the precaution of deleting the conversation but the boy in question had not been so careful and probably got a fortune for it when he went public. The conversation in question had occurred in 2003, since when, Senator Foley had been campaigning for legislation to protect minors from the dangers of the internet. You don’t want to know what was in the conversation. It took an investigative journalist two days to topple him from power. He put a piece of innuendo about the congressman in a blog one day and the next day, despite threats of libel actions, after being contacted by the victim, was able to expose the whole sordid story. Congress itself had no record of the conversation going through its infrastructure. I’m not accusing anyone in the legal industry of being a predatory paedophile but do you have a record of the IM conversations your users are having? You probably should. The chairman of IBM once said "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." The manager of The Beatles said that he could do the job in a couple of afternoons a week and Bill Clinton apparently didn’t inhale cannabis or have sexual relations with that woman. All of these things were said with misplaced confidence, all would jump up and bite their authors back in the future and they were all wrong. Your users, your clients and Microsoft are going to force you eventually to employ, sanction and roll out IM, just as they did with e-mail all those years ago and anyone who says otherwise is in danger of joining that illustrious pantheon. If you’re not making provision to protect yourselves from malware in the meantime, you are inviting trouble. IM is coming, in fact, for the majority of us, it’s already arrived whether we like it or know about it and, chances are, the threats it brings with it are already on your network.
Insider Colour Supplement #2 - Portable printers for road warriors
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Sep 2007 01:17 PM BST
At a recent Gartner event, analyst Nick Jones predicted a few tendencies towards increased mobility in everyday business life. According to Jones, mobile email will be a commodity in most businesses by 2010, with the breakthrough of the smart phones facilitating this process, so anyone will be able to work anytime, anyplace. As a result, says Jones “the road warrior requires a compact portable printer that does not only come with a convenient carrier bag, but that can also guarantee an optimal print quality in a variety of harsh circumstances.”
Pentax Technologies Europe believe they have the answer with their PocketJet mobile printer – a compact, shockproof and reliable that prints on to water and temperature resistant Pentax Quality thermal paper, which is available as single sheets on a roll or as fanfold. Our picture shows the PocketJet 3/3Plus, the latest 'top of the line' 200/300-dpi high quality and ultra-portable direct thermal printer. It combines a robust functionality and reliability with the functionality for working with all print-enabled portable computing, handheld and PDA devices. The PocketJet 3 has a compact size: 25.5 centimeters (10.04”) in length and weighing just under 500g (1.12 lb with battery). This mobile printer supports both the graphical GDI emulation (raster) and EPSON ESC/P emulation standards, enabling users to print what is on the screen, without any buffering or spooling. It is compatible with the main OS Windows, Win CE, Symbian, Mac and Linux. Built-in USB and IrDA replace the requirement for external cables. Enhanced user defined configuration options offer maximum versatility for setting up the printer, monitoring the power supply, responding to error messages, etc. Multiple power sources are available as well as a trickle charge NiMH battery. The PocketJet 3/3Plus can also be combined with the Thinprint Content Beamer solution, enabling mobile users to print emails and attachments as well as locally stored information from Bluetooth-capable BlackBerry handhelds, Symbian smartphones or Windows Mobile-based devices to the PocketJet 3 BT/ 3Plus BT printers. PocketJet printer kits RRP at about £280 to £400 + VAT depending on the configuration – there are 4 models. Pentax Technologies' distributor in the UK is RGIMS, contactable at mike@rgims.fsnet.co.uk
Insider Colour Supplement #2 - What is meant by Electronic Presentation of Evidence ?
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Sep 2007 12:52 PM BST
In this article Lisa Burton, a director of litigation support and e-discovery specialists Legal Inc, explains what is meant by EPE – or electrontic presentation of evidence – the latest TLA (three letter acronym) to hit the legal world...
In essence, EPE is an IT-driven alternative to paper-based presentation in a room being used for any type of legal hearing (usually a court or arbitration room). Most commonly it will consist of scanned pages of documents being stored on a computer which are made available to the participants of the hearing via presentation on screens dotted around the courtroom, but the term EPE also embraces sophisticated complementary technologies such as video links, 3D graphics and virtual reconstructions – anything that will aid the clarity of the case being presented or is required for the smooth running of a hearing. Now the law can be an old fashioned industry and the idea of all this often provokes sharp intakes of breath, but the whole point of technology is that it should help, support and underpin a process rather than take over from a tried and tested methodology. Counsel should not be aware that as he or she is presenting their case, an operator is quietly illustrating the points being made using highlights, arrows, zooms and stamps. In its crudest form, EPE has been around since the 80s. There are some (now) humorous stories still echoing around the Advocates’ Dining Rooms of sheets attached to the wall as a screen for a projector, but we have moved on a little since then. Being the mother of invention, necessity has spurred the development of the technology, and these days there is an extensive choice of basic, reliable technology as well as an even longer list of whistles and bells for clever tricks (if required, though not always recommended). In what type of cases is it typically used? EPE was first used for heavy-duty fraud cases, the sheer volume of documents and the complexity of legal argument lent themselves to an EPE solution. Members of the Bar are rightly proud of their advocacy skills but a picture can paint a thousand words. Encapsulate the movements of a money laundering chain in an animated PowerPoint presentation, and you make your point much more clearly than using words alone. In recent years, EPE has also been used in large disputes in the Technology and Construction Court, where complexity and volume often conspire against paper. Multiple formats of ‘document’ often form the evidence in such cases, and the facility to show a publicity film, technical reports, emails and site plan diagrams on the same equipment is invaluable. There is currently a huge growth area in Dispute Resolution and arbitration: the increased use of EPE will radically speed presentation, aid understanding and promote fair judgment – and with an estimated 300 arbitrations per year, that’s a very substantial cumulative gain. What are the benefits of using EPE? The principal benefits are two-fold: EPE saves time and money and makes case presentation much easier to follow. It is also worth noting that the benefits of EPE increase the earlier in the legal process it is taken into consideration. It’s widely accepted that EPE can save approximately one third of court time and costs in criminal trials: it takes an average of 3.5 minutes for everyone to locate the specified paragraph within the specified document within the specified folder, where it takes 2-3 seconds per call out to bring up that same paragraph on screen - the more documents shown, the more time saved. Knowing that everyone is on the same page is more than helpful. While there is no Jury to factor into the calculations in a civil trial or arbitration, the time savings are still important. Add to that the fact that some of these cases are well in excess of 100,000 pages of evidence, a room equipped with the shelf space of a respectable sized library would be required to accommodate them, not to mention the logistics of ‘moving in’ for the start of the hearing. And they do say that moving is one of the most stressful activities in life… The use of specific EPE software also makes for an extremely focused argument. No longer do you have to worry that someone is getting carried away with reading paragraph seven of the page when you wish them to look at paragraph four, even if paragraph seven is more interesting. Zooming in on the appropriate section of any given page will mean that paragraph seven is only addressed if and when Counsel wants it to be. What are the essential ingredients of successful EPE delivery? There are two aspects: legal and technical. From a legal perspective, litigators and counsel must ensure that they have total confidence in the quality of their data. It is also absolutely vital that the preparation of the evidence is the best it can be. An ordered, organised case with referencing formats agreed in advance bring smiles from all EPE suppliers. It seems an obvious thing to say but there’s a misconception that EPE, with all its clever visuals and technical wizardry, can be used to make a weak case strong. In fact, quite the opposite is true – EPE will merely show up a weak case even more sharply. From a technical perspective, it’s all about using specialists who really understand how an eCourt has to function. There is no point in using a provider who offers an all you can eat price when 80% of the capability is unused. The technology should also be ‘silent’ and users should be almost unaware of its existence. Like the processor in the PC itself, it should thrum quietly away in the background, never drawing attention to itself. However, there’s a huge gulf in capabilities in the supply market, particularly with regard to the actual courtroom operator. A skilled, experienced eCourt manager can be the difference between success and failure. How is EPE best deployed for effective case presentation? Those who use EPE to maximum effect understand the limitations of technology and the psychology of those in the courtroom. As anyone who has ever fallen asleep in a film will attest to, it is possible to get switched off by the visual performance in front of you, particularly when you are asked to do nothing but sit back and watch. It’s the same with EPE. On many occasions, counsel rely totally on electronic visuals, whose soporific, relentless slickness just switches off people’s attention. Those who are on the ball will mix things up a bit, deliberately making jurors pick up their paper bundles so as to keep them alert and physically involved. Air conditioning will not be enough! We also have to acknowledge the fact that while there is – quite rightly, much excitement about the capabilities of EPE, it is not perfect for everything. Yet there are specific cases when it is useful, and many where it is essential, but for the daily grind, the old ways are sometimes the best. Is there any resistance to the use of EPE within the legal profession and judiciary? Naturally, there are sceptics, but the list of converts grows with each case. And as I’ve touched on earlier, there are those who know that their best hope of winning their week case lies in bamboozling the court with a detailed paper-based argument. However, it is great to see many of the senior members of the law community championing the cause of EPE. It might be expected that they would be the most resistant, or at least the least interested, but it is by no means always left to ‘Junior’ to work the equipment. EPE and eCourt solutions are the exception rather than the norm at the moment. Will this change? Absolutely. Usage will rise, not just because of familiarity but because of the rapidly increasing volume of electronic evidence: evidence which is digital at source and thus should be brought into court in that format. Interestingly too, judges are increasingly aware of EPE’s ability to save time and costs and sometimes insist on the parties using it, and the Judiciary, spurred on by a government eager to push through efficiencies wherever they can, are keen as a whole to use EPE, and this is no bad thing. There will be issues to overcome, obviously. Data exchange formats need to be agreed, and more equipment installed as standard. It is quite possible that the future lies in the parties bringing their own data on their own computers and connecting into the existing infrastructure of a court or arbitration room. With the costs of these systems reducing daily as the technology moves forward, we cannot be too far away from all courts being permanently equipped for Counsel to plug into. But with new technologies being used in our private and business lives all the time – SMS, instant messaging, video conferencing, there will be no lack of digital content to present via an EPE solution.
Insider Colour Supplement #2 - Can a PMS supply all your needs ?
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Sep 2007 12:34 PM BST
Can a practice management developer and supplier truly be the master of all the functionality a legal firm needs, from a core Business Process Management (BPM) solution through case, document and client relationship management and more? Axxia Managing Director Stuart Holden believes that – at last – the answer is “yes”.
Picture the scenario. A fee-earner sits down at her desk at the beginning of the working day. She has a number of tasks to achieve during the first half of the morning, before a major client meeting at 11 o’clock. She logs on and accesses her To Do list. It’s long, and she doesn’t have much time. But she’s confident she can achieve all the most immediate tasks, because she has complete confidence in the new web-based, unified legal application that her firm has recently installed. First, a phone call, activating her time recording with one click she carries out the call and is ready for the resulting actions, the generation of a letter. On completion the system automatically produces a skeleton letter ensuring minimum input is required, letter complete, the clock is stopped. This in turn triggers the drafting of a bill, which she signs off with confidence assured it will be accurate and correct. She is alerted to an outstanding account, and immediately takes the action her firm stipulates. Task completed. Next, she has to set up a new client on the system. Due to the workflow capabilities her involvement in all tasks and procedures are predefined only requiring her input on specific areas thus minimising time spent on actions outside her role, benefiting both the fee earner and her clients. Immediately, she’s prompted to put in conflict and money-laundering checks, to prepare a welcome letter and to add all CRM details of the database. Task completed. Next, she turns to an item of incoming post, which leads to a cheque requisition. Task completed. She completes another five tasks just as quickly and easily and even has time for a coffee and a scan of the agenda before her meeting starts. In none of these tasks has she had to move between one ‘siloed’ area and another. Rather, she has been guided through and across a single, integrated system with all the legal-specific, administrative, accounting, reporting and other functionality she needs to do her job – swiftly, efficiently and effectively. Quite simply, she can do this because her firm has questioned the benefit of following the in vogue ‘best of breed’ approach to IT, where buyers select software from different vendors to ensure that they can gain from specialist expertise in every area. After due research and consideration, her firm chose another route – that of buying a complete solution designed specifically for the legal profession. It’s an approach that increasing numbers of firms are choosing, chiefly because of the streamlined workflows it enables to deliver better control over regulatory and compliance factors across file and non-file related issues. These firms are also discovering that it provides a host of efficiency, training and admin cost savings, as well as reduced user intervention through process automation. I for one am delighted, because at Axxia, after more than three years’ dedicated research that has swallowed some 15% of our annual revenues, we have recently introduced DNA, a complete, unified legal application. Today, the market response is plainly showing that we’ve moved legal computing to a new level. Our approach has been to create a new solution around a legal Business Process Management (BPM) platform, on which sit applications such as customer relationship, document, case and financial management and more. In this way, DNA provides a complete business view with no need for the management and support of third party products (although, of course, it can integrate with third party applications). Unlike the best of breed approach, ensuring smooth, efficient workflow to tame the complexity of the modern law firm is DNA’s primary aim. This is achieved through the Workflow Modelling Studio, a process management engine that enables a firm to design, deploy and adapt workflows to govern every aspect of their operation, both legal and non-legal. The benefits have been described very well by Patrick Gaul, managing partner of top-75 firm Weightmans, who are shortly to roll DNA out to all their 750 staff. As he says, “The beauty of DNA is in its entity structure and workflow modelling tool which gives us in-house control over the design and deployment of even highly complex workflows which means we can be responsive to changes affecting the business and gain a competitive edge.” He goes on, “That’s in addition to all the inherent advantages of BPM – consistent standards, production efficiencies, cost-reduction, enhanced risk management and performance monitoring. We are excited by this enabling technology and we intend to maximise our investment in it.” Minter Ellison, part of the Asia Pacific region’s largest law firm, has also selected DNA to underpin its future business strategy and customer service offerings. Following two weeks’ of intensive lab-testing, the firm’s director of innovation, Ian Thomson, could see how it could help improve service levels. As he said, “DNA will allow us to offer a collaborative communication service, successfully delivering an improved service to clients while being cost-effective and differentiating us from our competitors.” Of course, we are not alone in challenging the best-of-breed supremacy. Across the generic business landscape, Microsoft’s Sharepoint is leading a groundswell of opinion among forward-thinking IT professionals. But at Axxia, we are showing how a complete solution built from the ground up to meet the specific needs of the legal profession is delivering the tangible efficiency, service and cost benefits that provide genuine competitive advantage.
Insider Colour Supplement #2 - Speech recognition 10 years on
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Sep 2007 12:08 PM BST
Neil Grant, the regional sale director of Nuance looks at the progress speech recognition has made over the past decade...
At a press conference in New York ten years ago, Hollywood star Richard Dreyfus told an assembled group of journalists that they were about to witness a revolution in computing; a revolution that would fundamentally alter the way they interfaced with their PC. This time, Dreyfus wasn’t acting. As the cynical press scoffed and shuffled in their seats to shrug off the chill of the snow storm howling outside, the demonstration began. The presenter dictated a few words to a PC, and miraculously, one after the other, the words appeared on the PC’s monitor. The room was stunned into silence, and Dragon NaturallySpeaking was officially launched. Ten years on, desktop speech recognition technology continues to surprise all those who see it in action for the first time. The 1997 launch was a landmark moment in almost 50 years of speech technology development. During those 50 years, ongoing investment and development into the technology means that speech is now an interface to many of the devices that we take for granted today. In 2007, the applications for speech technology are vast. Mercedes-Benz, Ford, and Fiat are just a few of the automotive manufacturers whose cars feature speech as an interface to control a car’s audio, telephone and navigation system. Additionally, a growing number of mobile phones already boast speech-enabled functionality, enabling users to dictate text messages and have text messages read aloud, while some personal satellite navigation devices offer speech enabled destination entry. Speech technology is also used to -activate the Command and Control functions on some of the world’s best-selling computer games, while the technology is also used to provide the warm, synthesised-voice that greets and guides you through the options available when you book flight-tickets over the phone, seek travel information, or request your balance via your tele-banking service. In the last ten years, the development of desktop speech has been particularly impressive. For instance, Nuance’s Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9, can now be used ‘out of the box’ with no enrolment, and offers up to 99 per cent accuracy at up to 160 words per minute. However, despite the considerable progress that has been made in desktop speech recognition, objections to its adoption in the general office environment still remain. And, as is often the case, these objections are founded on perceptions and half-truths, rather than reality. Typically, these perceptions are routed in the past, and based on experiences with early versions over issues that were actually resolved years ago. So what has changed? What is so different in 2007 compared to ten years ago? To begin with, you need to consider your own PC, and reflect on how computing power has evolved over the last ten years. A 2007 PC is much faster and more powerful, boasting better processors, and much more memory than its 1997 equivalent. In short, it is a far more robust platform upon which to deploy speech recognition technology. At the same time, the software has got better too, with companies such as IBM, Microsoft and Nuance investing millions of development dollars and thousands of man hours refining the technology. With the technology mature and a growing receptiveness to the idea of speech as an interface, legal firms should consider the benefits that desktop speech recognition software offers in the general office environment. Migrating paper forms or information into electronic forms can be an incredible time consuming process. This is especially true in specialised, document-intensive industries, such as in legal environments where professionals are under intense pressure to create documents quickly and accurately. Indeed, some of the earliest adopters of desktop speech recognition software were legal and medical professionals. Even today, they remain loyal stalwarts with the technology. Many legal professionals claim that without the software they simply would not be able to complete their documents in time, thus compromising the quality and level of service they provide to clients. Working with Microsoft Windows applications, Dragon NaturallySpeaking enables users to edit and send emails, develop spreadsheets, surf the internet, create Word documents and fill in spreadsheets simply by talking to their PC. Some Dragon NaturallySpeaking customers report that the software enables users to create 25 page documents in less than six minutes, rather than half a day; the productivity benefit for any document intensive environment is evident. With dictation device manufacturers such as Grundig Business Systems adding their support for speech recognition, those benefits are only likely to increase. The legal profession, in particular, is drowning in tedious and costly manual process. Through the implementation of industry-leading speech applications, users can enjoy hands-free interaction with applications, simply by dictating to their PC. This reduction in manual processes serves to speed up your organisation and increase staff productivity. Through ensuring document accuracy and faster turnaround time, the result is an improved client service and, ultimately, an improved bottom line. One legal firm using desktop speech technology is London patent attorney firm Beresford & Co. Its implementation of Dragon NaturallySpeaking has transformed working practices and is driving vast improvements in productivity, faster turnaround of legal documentation and e-mail correspondence. Commenting on the accuracy of the software, Keith Beresford, senior partner, Beresford & Co said: “I experience 100 per cent accuracy at speeds of up to 150 words per minute when consciously dictating in a measured tone. We are producing more documents for the time we spend on administration with fewer corrections and less time editing overall.” In summary, speech recognition software presents many opportunities and benefits to the legal industry. It is a proven technology with clear benefits, especially in document-intensive industries under pressure to create documents quickly and accurately. If you haven’t already, now really is the time to start talking about desktop speech technology.
Insider Colour Supplement #2 - Bindmans go with Sharepoint portal
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Sep 2007 11:42 AM BST
Bindmans is well known for its commitment to civil liberties and human rights but behind the scenes fee earners need to be able to access resources, practice procedures and matter files, whether from the London office or remotely. Thus, the need for a portal to all key line of business (LOB) applications and practice resources, became increasingly evident.
But what Bindmans had, according to IT Manager Kambiz Jahanshahi (pictured in photo column) was far from an ideal solution. “We had an intranet which was custom-made but was rarely used, it was just Marketing that could upload content. Plus, we wanted to run resources, procedures and social areas and to integrate these with the practice management system and documents management system. Despite having its own content management system, it was difficult to administer. Nothing was being done with it and it was running very slowly.” The vision is to cast off this older system and replace with a genuine intranet where staf could get up-to-date news and information on their team or group, access training materials, management reports as well as relevant practice materials such as forms and training request applications, and other areas such as a discussion forum so can people can have a break from work, plus a common interface to business applications to promote more collaborative ways of working. Eventually, the firm is planning to offer an extranet facility so that clients can access reports and view their account status as a value-added service. Bindmans found Concentra, a SharePoint technology specialist organisation, to help turn the legal firm’s vision into reality and replace the existing intranet with a Microsoft SharePoint solution. “Concentra had a really good understanding of where we wanted to go. During the evaluation process they came in and were very quickly able to produce an analysis of our requirements and a proposal. We were also impressed with the delivery time they came up with — which was crazy, really quick," said Jahanshahi. Concentra’s commitment was borne out when after a three week implementation period the system was up and running. Concentra Project Manager, Chris Wright, cites QuickStart, the company’s project management approach, as a key success factor. “We have generated a best practice methodology for implementing SharePoint, which means fast, low-fuss, cost-effective deployment — and we are delighted that this has helped produce a successful outcome for Bindmans.” Also useful was the SharePoint technology being so easy to integrate with Bindmans’ existing infrastructure. “It’s Microsoft, so it fits with all our desktop applications and .NET investment, and so an obvious choice and route to go down was SharePoint. Training wise there’s not a huge amount to be done, it’s very easy for users to run their part of the site and upload information. If we had given everyone access to upload content on the previous site, I don’t think they would have been able to pick it up. It just wasn’t easy to use and no one liked it.” Though it is early days for Bindmans, it is already seeing other sorts of efficiency and time savings, such as less downtime for staff in terms of protracted searches through filing cabinets in order to retrieve documentation for instance. “The search facilities in SharePoint are incredibly powerful, so rather then scouring around trying to find a document they can just search for it will come up straight away. Right now I don’t think there’s any way of quantifying those time savings, but the consensus is that it is saving time.” It also comes down to financial benefits, such as storage space savings and cheaper offsite storage locations outside London for any documents that need to be kept for financial and regulatory reasons.place to go for everything. “It’s been a big, big success — and we are only at the beginning.” enthuses Jahanshahi. “What we are pushing for is that the intranet is the first place to go for everything.” “We are essentially creating a one stop shop for all our different information sources — from reports, case material, corporate materials to forums and business applications such as the practice management system — to manage our communication needs across the company and helps people collaborate because people will be able to access documents wherever they are,” says Jahanshahi. “Going forward an extranet will be accessible to our clients as well, so the message is that we offer value added service that makes us stand out a bit more than the average law firm.” "Everyone is really excited about it, and very keen to be involved, and loads of ideas have come through about how it can help people in their jobs. People you wouldn’t expect want to get involved, like senior partners, even the CEO has uploaded information.” |
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