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Friday, August 28
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 28 Aug 2009 10:02 BST
At a meeting with Steve Beuge, the CEO of Elite, earlier this week at the ILTA conference in Maryland, he told The Orange Rag that, in the wake of the A&O implementation, Lovells was "re-engaging" and back on course with its Elite 3E PMS implementation and now had a "better recipe for success and clearer vision of the final outcome".
Keeping with the culinary metaphor, the proof of the pudding includes the fact that... • over the past 60 days, five more 3E sites have gone live (there are now 24 organisations live on 3E) • and, this month (August) has seen three more 3E orders – one in Australia (an old Aderant site - see below) + one in the UK + one in the US. (The latter two are an Enterprise upgrade and a 3rd party legacy system swap out.) Beuge added that the company was now "starting to think about new products, new markets and possible acquisitions". That Australian win... Seventy lawyer M+K Lawyers, which has offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Victoria, has selected 3E as its new practice management system. The firm's chief financial officer Len Methananda said the firm selected Elite 3E because they needed "a practice management system that will easily scale as our business grows and also allow us to meet evolving and unanticipated client expectation." Adding that "We have been constrained by our current system's dated technology and its 'band aid' approach to new functionality." Orange Rag sources say the firm currently runs an old Aderant CMS system but had "stopped speaking to Aderant years ago" and that "the marriage had been over a long time ans it was only a case of when the divorce would be announced." Monday, August 24
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Aug 2009 13:32 BST
Last week long-time Axxia stalwart Doug McLachlan resigned from LexisNexis Axxia. His final day will be September 11th. Doug told the Orange Rag "It was 4th January 1984 when I joined Kienzle*, a mere 25 years. Long enough! Time for a late gap year."
LexisNexis Axxia told us that "There will be no direct replacement for Doug but we are actively recruiting for a Client Workflow Director whose primary focus is to develop industry leading processes that anticipate and accommodate new legislative and best practice changes across legal, tax and compliance related workflows." * Kienzle, later Mannesmann Kienzle and later still part of DEC/Digital, became Axxia after an MBO in the mid-1990s. The company was subsequently acquired by LexisNexis.
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Aug 2009 11:00 BST
Last week it was Lanyon Bowdler swapping out an IRIS Group AIM system in favour of Pilgrim LawSoft, this week its Brabner Street Chaffe swapping out an IRIS AIM Evolution system in favour of LexisNexis DNA. Here's the full announcement...
Brabners Chaffe Street LLP, one of the North West UK’s leading corporate and commercial law firms – currently standing at number #86 on the Insider top 250 chart – has selected LexisNexis Axxia dna as its integrated business management platform of choice. Replacing two legacy IRIS systems, LexisNexis Axxia dna will enable Brabners Chaffe Street to consolidate practice management and deliver operational efficiencies across its three sites in Liverpool, Manchester and Preston. The initial 10 year deal will immediately roll out the solution to 400 users and will expand in line with the firm’s growth. Brabners Chaffe Street chose LexisNexis Axxia dna for its integrated document and financial management functionality, workflow technology and business intelligence offering. It will allow the firm to modernise and automate matter administration and offer value added services to customers, giving the business a distinct competitive advantage. From a document management perspective, the solution will enable secure remote and mobile working for staff across the firm’s three offices, creating a single and integrated business environment in the firm. Allan Green, IT Director at Brabners Chaffe Street LLP, commented “Our previous system was made up of a disparate set of records. Strategically, deploying an integrated platform makes immense business sense for us. The comprehensive functionality within LexisNexis Axxia dna, especially for document and financial management, is excellent and enables us to avoid the complexities of integrating individual best-of-breed solutions, saving valuable time, money and effort. LexisNexis Axxia dna is technologically very advanced and well supported for the future, which also played a key role in our decision making.”
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Aug 2009 10:00 BST
Our thanks to Osman Ismail at DPS Software for this latest update on developments on the criminal legal aid front...
The Legal Services Commission (LSC) has announced that the two pilot schemes to test best value tendering (BVT) will go ahead. Plans have been set out to test the tendering process for defence work carried out by solicitors in police stations and magistrates' courts. Testing in the two pilot areas, Greater Manchester and Avon & Somerset, will commence in July 2010, and will be fully evaluated. If successful, BVT will then be introduced in all other areas of England and Wales after 2013, a longer evaluation period than LSC committed on. Following extensive consultation, the LSC has modified its plans for BVT. Modifications include: • Maintained and improved quality requirements for all firms who take part in tendering, and quality requirements for delivery of service throughout the contract for sentence • Introduction of a variable cap on an individual firm's market share, so that firms have greater freedom to bid for higher volumes of work • Introduction of a 10% tolerance quota for 'own client' work, so that BVT firms can work on 'own client' cases outside their home area • Acceptance of the online bidding system for tendering, which was preferred by the majority of firms • A decision that BVT contract holders should have exclusive rights to work in magistrates' courts to further protect their access to cases DPS Software will be updating their DPS Crime application to handle the tendering process once the LSC have confirmed the specification for software providers. Friday, August 21
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 21 Aug 2009 10:31 BST
We know some readers are still getting excited about the finances of the IRIS Group – but spare a thought also for Incisive Media, which owns Legal Week in the UK and American Lawyer Media (which runs the LegalTech shows) in the US. Our thanks to Media Week + PaidContent.co.uk for this information...
"B2B magazine publisher Incisive Media is reportedly close to sealing a debt-for-equity swap led by the company’s management. Media Week reports that the Computing publisher’s management, led by global CEO Tim Weller, are set to buy an intial 10% stake, potentially rising to 24%. The company is currently 59% owned by PE firm Apax Partners and other shareholders include Ingenious Media and Caledonia Investors. "The company also reveals that Incisive’s lenders, led by Royal Bank of Scotland, turned down a takeover bid from AIM-listed media investment firm Critical Information Group last week, which was joined by Peter Bazalgette as a non-executive director in June. Incisive’s UK and Asia CEO James Hanbury says that was a “sign of the banks’ confidence that they know we’ve got a good business and strong management”. He doesn’t expand on the debt-for-equity deal, saying only that “there is a deal being worked on at the moment.” Incisive breached one of its banking covenants in February, it has been closing magazines and in March it asked staff to take one week’s unpaid leave." Here's a copy of Tim Weller's memo to staff from earlier this year... “All, You may have seen this morning’s coverage about Incisive Media in the FT which has mentioned that the UK side of the Company is not expected to meet the current tests on its banking covenants. I would like to update you on where we are and to reassure you by explaining what this all means. Incisive Media, as you know, is a great business with leading brands in its chosen markets but we are currently under revenue pressure due to an unprecedented set of economic circumstances and their impact on our end markets. As a result, the UK 2008 profits dipped below the level agreed with the bank when we took on our loan in 2006 as part of taking the company private. It is important to note that the issues we face in our markets and with our lenders are no different to those faced by a myriad of other businesses in the current climate (in the media sector and other sectors). It is also important to emphasise that the issues being talked about in the press are purely financing issues centred on the UK Company’s balance sheet and the amount of debt the UK business has. The US has a separate financing agreement. Our businesses continue to be very profitable and cash generative at the operating level. In that sense, it is business as usual and it is important that we remain focused and committed to our day-to-day roles and concentrate on hitting our 2009 budget. We expect the Group to emerge from these difficulties in a stronger position with a sound platform for future growth as the market recovers and we resolve our financing issues. As James, Bill and I have mentioned before and experienced in the past, the nature of our business means that just as it can suffer in the downturn as advertisers tighten their belts so it will bounce back quickly when things turn for the better, as they surely will. We are confident that our shareholders and the lenders will be supportive of the Group while it addresses the UK financing issue. We are driving the process pro-actively to get to a satisfactory solution and are working with an experienced advisory team to assist and guide us through the process. I reiterate again that Incisive Media is a sound business, certainly with challenges, but with everyone working together we will emerge stronger from this. I will keep you updated as the process moves forward. In the meantime, thank you for your support and continued hard work. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me. Tim” Thursday, August 20
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 20 Aug 2009 18:00 BST
Here's an interesting PDF showing the Fortune 500's top 100 fastest growing companies in the world today. RIM, the makers of the Blackberry, are in 1st place, Apple is #39 and sitting between them at #15 is Open Text. The only other legal market player we could spot was FTi Consulting at #61, seven places higher than Google at #68. There again Green Mountain Coffee Roasters are at #11, the Chipotle Mexican Grill is at #83 and True Religion Apparel at #95. Clearly there is a gap in the market for a company that specialises in biretta-enabled Mexican coffee-flavoured document management systems for hand held devices?
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 20 Aug 2009 10:29 BST
The Institute of Legal Cashiers & Administrators (ILCA) has just announced the winners of its 2009 survey on how highly do legal accounts software users rate their suppliers. The winner this year was Solicitors Own Software (SOS) with their Connect product – and, knowing the company and its services, we believe this to be a genuine and well deserved recognition. But, looking at the rest of the field, we can only repeat the comments we made last year, namely that the
appearance of some of the vendors in this list is, to say the least, bizarre.
Of course it would be crass to suggest some vendors may have actively campaigned to turn out good marks in their favour – as has been a problem with some other legal IT industry awards and surveys in the past. However, we are sad the ILCA has not tackled the issue of the lack of an objective level playing field as to what constitutes a good quality of service. Vendors of modern full-blown multi-user practice & financial management systems with more demanding law firm sites are required to provide a far higher quality of service (including out-of-hours support) than vendors with smaller, less ambitious users just running single user accounts packages that have barely evolved beyond the green screen era. And, how do you balance the respective merits of a vendors with hundreds of user sites with a vendor with just a few dozen sites? To put it bluntly, these survey results suggest that apparently the users of some systems are pretty damned ecstatic to receive even crap service. Sorry ILCA but you've blown it, the credibility issue we identified last year has not been addressed.
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 20 Aug 2009 08:34 BST
Is Pilgrim LawSoft set to become the preferred choice for firms wanting to replace their legacy AIM systems? Lanyon Bowdler is a firm that employs around 180 people with offices in Shrewsbury, Telford, Wellington and Ludlow. It has plans to expand in the very near future and as part of its growth strategy has decided to select a new integrated practice, case, document and marketing management system, namely Pilgrim LawSoft. The firm is moving from its IRIS AIM system after assessing a number of different suppliers and products.
Assisted by Peter Owen of Lights-On Consulting, the firm attached a significant level of importance in the suitability of the software for their business model, together with "the ability to develop a long lasting stable relationship with a supplier who is committed to the legal technology market". The firm’s Finance & IT Director Dave Grattage, who was previously the AIM Computer Users Association (ACUA) chairman, said “It became clear during the exhaustive selection process that LawSoft is the most comprehensive and well thought out system of its type. Pilgrim also demonstrated a clear desire to actively work with clients in moulding the future product roadmap which was very refreshing and was an important factor in our decision. We have now started the project and it is going well. We expect to reap a number of benefits from using the system and we feel LawSoft will play a key role in driving our business forward.” Tuesday, August 18
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 18 Aug 2009 11:00 BST
WinScribe announced today the release of the newest version of its digital dictation workflow management suite: WinScribe Dictation Version 4.0. The new version has many new features including a new secretary client that provides easier identification on dictations, easier team working, and an enhanced dictation job filtering option. The release also provides improved control of organization workload through advanced reporting tools and the ability to upload dictations from a wider array of manufacturer independent input devices.
WinScribe has enhanced its mobility suite with this release as well. It is now possible to upload dictations from WinScribe’s popular dictation application for BlackBerry Smartphones using the BlackBerry device as a USB device granting users the ability to quickly upload dictations captured on the device without having to rely on wireless signal strength or availability in order to do so. “WinScribe Dictation v. 4.0 has evolved purely from customer feedback,” explains Matthew Weavers, Chief Executive Officer. “Continuous innovation through reinvestment into R&D means our customers always have the best product we can provide. This is what makes a sustainable business and helps to maintain a market lead whilst others play catch up. Building on our philosophy of providing an easy to use yet flexible interface to WinScribe users, version 4.0 sets the standard for representing workflow data in a way most suited to the users’ requirements. Its functionality is matched by its modern look and feel which will be familiar to users of Microsoft’s latest Office product. Version 4.0 just delivers more: more productivity, more ease of use, more features and more customization opportunities,” said Weavers. Philips, a strategic partner of WinScribe, is offering a trade-in initiative in conjunction with the release of this new version. Under this promotion, current WinScribe customers that upgrade to Version 4.0 can return older dictation hardware from any manufacturer and receive the latest product from Philips at significantly discounted prices. Clients interested in taking advantage of this promotion are encouraged to contact their WinScribe sales representative or authorized WinScribe partner for more information. WinScribe will be conducting live demonstrations of WinScribe Dictation Version 4.0 at the following events: • International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) Annual Conference August 24 – 27, 2009, Gaylord National, Washington, DC (Booth 637) • New Zealand LawTech Summit August 27 – 28, 2009, Intercontinental Hotel, Wellington • Australia LawTech Summit September 17 – 18, 2009, Hyatt Coolum, Sunshine Coast, Qld.
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 18 Aug 2009 08:53 BST
Aderant
today announced it has purchased a suite of DMS/ECM (Enterprise Content
Management) applications developed by StarLaw. The acquisition adds integrated
document management, records management, and email management solutions to
Aderant’s product portfolio.
“Acquiring
StarLaw’s advanced applications enables us to greatly expand the breadth
of solutions we are able to deliver to law firms,” said Michael
Kohlsdorf, President and Chief Executive Officer for ADERANT. “This
transaction moves ADERANT closer to becoming a single-source software vendor
for law firms, providing integrated solutions for both the front and back office
that reduce IT complexity and costs.” Early
adopters of the ECM application suite include Cooley Godward Kronish LLP and
O’Melveny & Meyers LLP. ADERANT
is currently working on the next generation of its new ECM applications. The
new document management application will enable firms to effectively control
and monitor electronic content throughout the entire document lifecycle process,
including storage, retrieval, modification, review, and preservation. The
records management application will archive, track, and retrieve all
firm-protected electronic and physical content. The email management
functionality will allow attorneys and legal staff to efficiently file and
organize all relevant email messages as well as associated attachments. |
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