Thomson Reuters has announced the launch of Westlaw Business in China and Hong Kong. Westlaw Business will provide China-based business lawyers with a comprehensive legal resource – the first of its kind to serve global legal professionals.
“The economic strength and importance of China has been underscored by the country’s global mergers and acquisitions activity, which has continued throughout the recession,” said Westlaw Business Senior V-P Kevin Ritchey. “China and Hong Kong are leading in this area, pulling other economies forward through cross-border and local deal making. Westlaw Business enables global business lawyers, and those who support them, to better spot issues, perform due diligence, find precedent agreements and draft the documents needed for creating successful business transactions in this important region.”
At the core of Westlaw Business are specialized work centres tailored to the unique needs of business lawyers around the world. The centres include M & A, Securities US, Securities UK, Securities Canada, Islamic Finance, Corporate Finance, Restructuring, Private Equity and LIVEDGAR. The service includes some 500,000 specialized documents that provide comprehensive legal, financial, regulatory and current awareness perspectives of complex legal matters and business transactions relevant to the Asia Pacific market. Business Citator, which is integrated into Westlaw Business centres, provides a deeper understanding of the clients, peers, suppliers, acquisition targets and competitors connected to specific transactions.
“Launching Westlaw Business as a truly global platform reinforces our commitment to supporting lawyers on a global basis,” said Peter Warwick, president and CEO of Thomson Reuters, Legal. “Our ability to develop the right products for practitioners in all parts of the world reflects the unique expertise and resources of our global organisation. We can share our common technology platforms, infrastructure and business models across markets, and effectively tailor products to meet local customers’ needs.”
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Tuesday, October 20
Westlaw opens in China and Hong Kong
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 20 Oct 2009 01:00 BST
Monday, October 19
Wolters Kluwer sells CCH Workflow business
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 19 Oct 2009 12:10 BST
Asia-Pacific online information management source IDE.net.au is reporting that Australia’s e.law has acquired the assets of CCH Workflow Solutions from parent company Wolters Kluwer Asia Pacific. Privately-held elaw has emerged as the largest independent player in
the Australian ediscovery market and, according to a statement, the decision to sell the Workflow Solutions
assets “comes following a strategic review of the Wolters Kluwer’s Asia
Pacific Portfolio.”
Dave Lampert, CEO of Wolters Kluwer Asia Pacific said "although the Workflow Solutions unit has been very successful, and we are extremely proud of the market position it has achieved, litigation support is not part of our longer term strategic plan in the Asia Pacific. In reaching this agreement with e.law, we believe that we have arrived at an outcome that delivers significant benefits to all concerned. The customers and staff of Workflow Solutions will benefit from e.law’s understanding of, and long term commitment to, the litigation support business. Wolters Kluwer Asia Pacific will be better positioned to concentrate on executing our long term strategy of being the leading provider of information services and software applications to tax, accounting and legal professionals." Allison Stanfield, Director & CEO of e.law Australia said, "We are very pleased to announce e.law Australia’s purchase of CCH Workflow Solutions. We feel both businesses are complementary and look forward to delivering a greater depth of evidence management services to our clients". Formed in 1999 by
Allison Stanfield and Bruce Grant, e.law is a privately owned Australian company employing about 50 full-time staff providing specialised forensics, e-discovery, e-courts and information management advice
and services to the legal profession, corporate and government
organisations. www.elaw.com.au Thursday, October 15
Asia-Pacific news round-up
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 15 Oct 2009 01:00 BST
Two fresh news stories from Australia...
Queensland firm purchases OpenPurchase McCullough Robertson, Queensland’s largest law firm, has selected the OpenPurchase electronic purchase order system from Swerdlove. McCullough Robertson will implement the fully-functional automated purchase order system in order to control procurement costs and make its entire purchasing process more efficient. McCullough Robertson, a long time Swerdlove client, has acquired an enterprise license, enabling all 350 staff including partners, lawyers and support staff to use OpenPurchase for purchase requests, if required or desired. McCullough Robertson previously operated without an integrated purchase order system. In selecting OpenPurchase, the firm sought out fully-functional automated purchase order software that integrated with its Elite Enterprise practice management system. By integrating purchasing technology with the back-office accounting system, purchasing order requests will be linked and considered within the General Ledger budget to improve the firm's purchasing processes and cost management. Survey reveals leverage gap A recent survey of 175 practice managers undertaken by LexisNexis and The Australian Legal Practice Management Association at the ALPMA Summit in August 2009 revealed a significant ‘support staff gap’ between law firms’ ideal levels of resource and those they are actually employing. Over 40% of practice managers believed that their current leverage ratio was 1.5 support staff or more per lawyer. However, a similar amount (44%) believe that the ideal ratio was 1 member of support staff for 2 or more lawyers – a considerable difference that has an important impact on the bottom-line of legal businesses. The disparity underlines the need for comprehensive practice management solutions to reduce complexity and improve efficiency across the legal industry. The findings also revealed that practice managers do not see cost reduction as a business priority currently, preferring to concentrate on improving the efficiency and performance of their processes. Only 10% of respondents noted that driving down costs was their most pressing challenge, as opposed to 30% citing maximising efficiency and a further 20% concentrating on performance improvement. TJ Viljoen, LexisNexis Pacific CEO, commented “With clients demanding efficiency and better performance, we can expect to see a transformation in the way that the legal world operates. It is often said that when one door closes another one opens, and this is never truer than of a law firm in an economic downturn. However, the disparity between the optimal numbers of support staff and lawyers working together in law firms and the true figures is a concern that we must take very seriously. Practice management is an essential part of each and every law firm, and we should be ensuring that each firm has the correct balance of staff to maximise its impact.” Tuesday, October 13
Lexis launches Australia's first consolidated email alert service
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 13 Oct 2009 01:00 BST
LexisNexis has launched Australia’s first legal alert to cover third-party content as well as cases, legislation and journals with real-life editorial selection. Called LexisNexis Total Alerts, and powered by Ozmosys, it deliver one daily email combining the best information from numerous news alerts and daily law updates.
Lexis say Total Alerts 'is not a hit-and-miss alerting service but is true to its name in providing a single, comprehensive update of the day’s legal news, monitored and selected by a qualified editorial team. By consolidating the numerous emails that legal professionals currently receive, Total Alerts is doing away with multiple alerts, adding more time to lawyers’ days while giving them the latest developments ahead of their clients.' Total Alerts covers 32 available topic areas, including cases, legislation and journal articles, as well as the ability to add third-party news or legal information alerts and feeds. Each of the topic areas are monitored by qualified legal editorial teams to ensure high-quality content. “LexisNexis Total Alerts does not replace your preferred individual information sources. For example, if you love a particular news alert from a certain publisher or want to continue receiving case updates from another source you can do this; it is entirely up to the individual. The value of LexisNexis Total Alerts is the consolidation of many alerts and emails into one email alert, plus the benefit of trusted, hand-selected content and summaries from our editorial team, sourced from CaseBase and LawNow Legislation”, says TJ Viljoen, CEO, LexisNexis Pacific. For large firms or organisations with a centralised knowledge management division, the alert can be managed by an administrative tool that allows tailoring to develop the email alert to cover an individual’s practice area, clients and information needs. It allows the knowledge management team to maintain control over the subscription process with third-party sources. |
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