HotDocs Corporation, the document automation technology specialist, has just announced that Bond Pearce has adopted HotDocs for its document automation needs. The firm had previously been using Microsoft Word macros for the automated generation of custom legal documentation.
Bond Pearce implemented HotDocs to facilitate the replacement of its outdated Microsoft Word templates for standard correspondence. Andrew Honey, IT Development Manager, states "There were two key factors in the selection of the product. The first was the lack of dependence on experienced development staff to develop templates, and, the second, its scope for wider use as a component of business process and case management solutions provided by the flexible command line structure and API."
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Monday, September 27
Bond Pearce switch to HotDocs for document automation
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 27 Sep 2010 12:00 BST
Thursday, September 23
APAC news round-up
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 23 Sep 2010 21:15 BST
• Trio of new case management deals for CaseFlow
CaseFlow has announced three new deals: Carroll & O'Dea in Sydney has signed a deal that will see Caseflow deployed across the firm’s network of five offices. The project has started now and will see 140 users up and running by April 2011. Caseflow will replace the existing LexisNexis Axxia system to improve the firm’s case management and workflow system. Maurice Blackburn have decided to upgrade to their existing Caseflow system and have acquired 300 licences of the top-end Caseflow Outlook Client. Initially the implementation has been rolled out in the NSW and ACT offices with the software progressively being rolled out throughout the entire firm's offices in QLD and VIC over the next couple of months. The implementation will be assisted by Caseflow reseller Red Rain. And Thynne & Macartney in Brisbane has ordered 100 Caseflow Outlook Client Licences. Included in the Outlook Client suite is the Caseflow Enterprise.Net client that provides document assembly and workflow directly from within Microsoft Word as well as the ShowClause Clause Library solution. Thynne & Macartney is a member of the Kennedy Strang legal group (including Russell Kennedy in Melbourne, Kemp Strang in Sydney), all three member firms now use Caseflow as their case management solution. The implementation and training will be delivered by Caseflow reseller i2 Management Pty Ltd. www.caseflow.com.au • Phoenix Business Solutions wins Blake Dawson iManage deal Blake Dawson has selected Phoenix as their global support partner for their Autonomy iManage Worksite and Universal Search environments. The Phoenix team, based out of Sydney, and backed up with offices in London and Johannesburg, will offer global support to the firm which has Australian offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide, international offices in Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo, and an associated office in Jakarta. Chrissy Burns , Director of IT & Knowledge commented “Phoenix’ expertise around the Worksite suite of products, along with their impressive stable of administrator tools, is of significant value to Blake Dawson. Their ability to offer 24/7 support through their different office locations provides the responsiveness we require to support our lawyers in every location”. (Phoenix opened their Australian office in January of this year and have been providing assistance to firms in the area around their core competencies of Document and Knowledge Management, Enterprise Search and Time Recording.) • LexisNexis appoints two new directors LexisNexis Australia has announced the appointment of two new directors to the LexisNexis Pacific team. The new appointments will help advance the strategic direction for customer centricity and support future growth plans in Australia and New Zealand. Effective immediately, both directors will report directly to TJ Viljoen, CEO of LexisNexis Pacific and will be based in Sydney Chris Cook joins LexisNexis as Director of Practice Management, and is responsible for delivering content-enabled workflow solutions to meet the needs of legal professionals. He will undertake initiatives to create workflow and research integration to enable clients to increase productivity and profitability. Prior to joining LexisNexis, Chris held senior management roles at leading information and technology brands, servicing customers in the Natural Resources, Government, Financial Services and Manufacturing industries. Chris previously was Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Vice President at Computer Sciences Corporation and earlier held management positions with IBM and Fujitsu. Simon Wilkins joins LexisNexis as Director of Sales, and will partner with clients to deliver products and services that best meet the needs of legal, government and corporate professionals. He will work to develop deep customer insights to ensure that LexisNexis acts as a valued solutions partner. Most recently, Simon held a senior executive position at CCH Australia overseeing sales, operations and marketing strategy. He has in-depth understanding of technology, content and information solutions. • New Australian legal dictionary app for iPhone LexisNexis Australia has announced the launch of LexisNexis Butterworths Concise Australian Legal Dictionary (3rd Edition), a software application for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch mobile devices. The new app offers law students, lawyers and the general public the ability to immediately look up more than 7600 legal words and phrases in any location from their mobile device. The Dictionary is edited by Peter Butt, Professor at Faculty of Law, University of Sydney, and consulting solicitor to the New South Wales government and the High Court of Australia. The main features of the app include citations of current Australian judicial and legislative authority, extensive cross-referencing to make finding related terms quick and easy, a ‘History’ tab to quickly refer back to recent searches, and cross-references to Butterworths Australian Legal Words and Phrases. “The practice of law requires precise definitions of legal terms, some of which are complex and difficult to remember. The new app gives you a quick reference, so you don’t need a large dictionary or computer on hand – the definition you need is right at your fingertips,” says Butt. The app is now available on the Apple iTunes Store for purchase at AUD$19.99 (US$16.99).
September issue of Legal Technology Insider newsletter out now
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 23 Sep 2010 11:52 BST
The September issue of the Legal Technology Insider newsletter (UK & EMEA edition) is out now. The latest issue contains over 60 separate news items, with top stories including:
• Is the iPad disruptive technology? • FWBS wins Nabarro deal • Is the Legal Services Commission still fit for purpose? (The short answer is no, it's rubbish) • Phoenix push the international borders • Recruitment boom: good times here again? • Team Cannings back with JumpTo + Neil Cameron and Tim Hyman feature in our 10 years ago feature And digital dictation specialist OutSec is offering readers a free trial of its services. To qualify for the transcription of a maximum of 20 minutes dictation, open an account online before 30 November using the offer code 20MLT2010 - www.outsec.co.uk/newclient.php Here are two of those stories in more detail... FWBS wins Nabarro deal Nabarro LLP last week signed a deal to purchase the MatterCentre case and matter management system from FWBS. The software will be used to enable legal process improvements, including managing workflow, team working and document assembly, across a range of legal case types. The FWBS application will also be integrated with the firm’s iManage DMS. According to Insider records, this is the first top-25 win for FWBS, as well as its first implementation at a firm running an Elite PMS. The FWBS software already runs at Aderant, Miles 33, Tikit Firmware, Axxia and Paragon sites. Team Cannings back with JumpTo Back in the 1990s, one of the big names in litigation support, OCR and ESI was Bill Cannings’ Valid Information Systems with its flagship product R/KYV. Seven years ago Cannings sold Valid to Hummingbird (now part of Open Text) and trotted off into retirement. Now he’s back as the chairman of Chase Information Technology Services, a company run by Ben Shellie and Cannings’ son Nigel, who is a lawyer. Chase has created what Cannings describes as the holy grail of voice recognition, namely a forensic compliance system that can store, analyse and retrieve video and audio recordings, with the same ease that document archives can now be searched. Called JumpTo, the product uses a multi algorithm learning engine to process audio records without using phoneme spotting or having to train staff to use traditional boolean logic-type search engine methods. Chase see the JumpTo system, which is being offered on a SaaS basis, as an ideal tool for compliance departments having to sift through thousands of hours of recorded telephone calls but without having to replay and listen to every recording or else have them physically transcribed and then read. Other possible uses include media related litigation, elearning and training and public inquiry work. As a proof of concept, Chase has a number of sample video and audio files on its website, including John Prestcott’s testimony at the Iraq Inquiry, this year’s Budget Speech, a Slaughter & May ‘come and be a trainee’ podcast (Nigel Cannings used to work at the firm) and even – to show how JumpTo will work even with poor quality source material – a video cassette recording of the BBC news report of the death of Princess Diana, that has subsequently been digitised and uploaded onto YouTube. www.chaseits.co.uk/?vid=Prescott.flv http://tinyurl.com/chasesm http://tinyurl.com/dianavid1 www.chaseits.co.uk Wednesday, September 15
Abuse claims specialists nominated for BCS award
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 15 Sep 2010 10:24 BST
Specialist law firm Abney Garsden McDonald has been nominated as a finalist in the 2010 BSC (British Computer Society) UK IT Industry Awards. The winners will be announced on Thursday 11th November. Abney Garsden McDonald has been nominated in the Small Business Project of the Year category for its development of a case management system in the field of child abuse claims.
The practice uses Eclipse's Proclaim software system and has utilised its integrated toolkit to develop a bespoke system uniquely tailored for this area of work. The system manages group and class actions, and is able to link together the often extremely complex information required to bring successful cases against individuals and/or care homes. Peter Garsden, partner at Abney Garsden McDonald, said "We are committed to helping the victims of abuse claim their legal rights and find whatever legal remedies are available to them. We are the largest dedicated team of specialised lawyers in this field in the country and include several of the UK's leading abuse litigation lawyers. The importance of a resilient and intelligent IT system in this area of work cannot be overstated. Using Proclaim we have been able to bring about successful outcomes in the most complex of cases, some with history going back 40 years or more. To be nominated for a national IT award is testament to both Proclaim's power and our dedication in building a uniquely bespoke system for this vital area of work." Tuesday, September 14
Axxia site switches to Timeslice
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 14 Sep 2010 11:56 BST
Win one, lose one. Levison Meltzer Pigott, a London-based family law & divorce practice has migrated from its legacy LexisNexis Axxia Arista system and gone live with Lawman from Timeslice. The firm says its selection team assessed a wide number of the competing systems available before ultimately picking Lawman. The firm is now using Lawman for financial accounting, billing, document and email management. Timeslice carried out a full conversion of accounting data from their Axxia system.
Comment: Firm drops Axxia in favour of Timeslice? This must say something about the state of the market but we're not quite sure what.
Brabners go live on LexisNexis Axxia DNA
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 14 Sep 2010 08:35 BST
Brabners Chaffe Street, a leading North West law firm. has consolidated its practice management technology onto LexisNexis Axxia dna. The 400-strong firm is now using this single platform, following a migration from multiple AIM legacy technologies. As well as consolidating multiple technology platforms, the firm seized the opportunity to take a helicopter view of its business, clients and processes. Following an extensive period of research and analysis, the team at Brabners Chaffe Street was keen to implement technology that significantly reduced the time spent on routine or administrative tasks, freeing up fee-earners’ time to focus on delivering expert legal services to clients.
“Having assessed our options, LexisNexis impressed us with the level of consultative support it could offer. This was not simply a technology refresh initiative; instead, we were reassessing our processes as a business, with the objective of identifying automation opportunities,” comments Allan Green, IT Director, Brabners Chaffe Street. “LexisNexis supported our business decisions, rather than stifling initiatives; we were not forced into behaving certain ways or adopting specific processes due to the limitations of the technology.” By implementing LexisNexis Axxia dna, the firm believes it will benefit from a central view of financial statistics and ledgers, CRM history, workflow related tasks, documents and emails at both a client and matter level. They anticipate that this, in turn, will lead to productivity gains as tasks could be delegated to relevant staff in the team, allowing fee-earners to concentrate more on billable activities and less on administration. Comment: although the Brabners' decision to switch from AIM to Axxia is not new, we thought this story merited coverage as it does nail a recent rumour that there's nobody in the UK actually running DNA in anger. Allan Green is a responsible, steady hand not prone to spin and hype, so his comments have added credibility.
Brodies drop Winscribe in favour of Bighand
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 14 Sep 2010 08:00 BST
Scottish-based law firm Brodies LLP has replaced its incumbent digital dictation workflow system (DDS) with BigHand’s enterprise software and BlackBerry application. The move to BigHand has improved the flow of work across the firm and significantly reduced the volume of calls logged with the firm’s IT team. The deployment of BigHand’s BlackBerry app is expected to deliver greater mobile productivity.
According to Legal Technology Insider records, Brodies previously ran a Winscribe DDS, originally implemented by Welgo. Monday, September 13
Microsoft releases beta version of cloud CRM application
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 13 Sep 2010 12:00 BST
Microsoft has announced the beta release of its next generation Microsoft Dynamics CRM product for cloud-based and on-premises deployments. The beta release marks the worldwide rollout of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online service from Microsoft's global datacenters and will be released to customers and hosting partners for on-premises deployment as Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.
The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 beta is available in English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Chinese. The beta of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 on-premises is available worldwide, and the beta of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is available in Austria, Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the United States. Those who want to download the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 beta or sign up for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online beta can do so at www.crm2011beta.com – in addition, you can follow the Microsoft Dynamics CRM community on Twitter at www.twitter.com/msdynamicscrm
Mishcon de Reya win for Recommind
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 13 Sep 2010 10:00 BST
London-based
Mishcon de Reya has selected Recommind’s Decisiv Search (formerly known
as MindServer Search) and Decisiv Email Management (formerly known as
Decisiv Email) solutions, as well as the QwikFind toolbar, to overhaul
the firm’s management of electronically stored information. Based on
Recommind’s CORE (Context Optimised Relevancy Engine) platform, the
deployment will form the backbone of Mishcon de Reya’s new information
management structure.
Recommind’s Decisiv Search solution will provide Mishcon de Reya’s 430 employees across its two offices with the means to work more efficiently by allowing them to instantly find and access a wealth of internal and external information. The solution will integrate with the firm’s existing databases, including Autonomy iManage and Solcara Know How for Documents, Aderant Expert and Lexis Nexis InterAction, as well as external content via integration with Solcara SolSearch, to create one comprehensive search infrastructure. With the added Matters & Expertise module, Mishcon de Reya’s employees will be able to easily locate colleagues with the most relevant experience and knowledge to answer a specific query, regardless of where they are based. The implementation of Recommind’s QwikFind toolbar will provide ubiquitous access to Decisiv Search from the desktop toolbar or from within Microsoft Office applications, ensuring the new search functions are always at the lawyers’ disposal. In addition, Decisiv Email Management will help Mishcon de Reya’s staff overcome major email management issues by providing the automated categorisation, filing and storage of email based information, including robust email retrieval functionalities. Highly accurate suggested filing capabilities can be tuned to automatically file emails where the system’s confidence exceeds a user-determined threshold. By using these automated tools and enabling staff to quickly retrieve the information and resources they need, considerable time can be saved allowing for more revenue generating activities. “We believe that in a knowledge driven business, it is not acceptable to have faster access to information on the internet as opposed to within the firm,” said Dr Nick Taylor-Delahoy, director of information technology at Mishcon de Reya. “Instead, we need to be drawing from our rich internal knowledge and information resources and Recommind’s technology helps us achieve this goal. Our existing solutions were nowhere near powerful enough to suit our needs, but Recommind will enable us to move away from working in a linear knowledge management manner towards being a more dynamic, X-centricfirm – with ‘X’ being anything from clients to, matters, referrers or partners. By clever use of Decisiv Search in particular, we’ll be able to unlock hidden information from disparate systems within the firm, helping our lawyers to work more resourcefully.” Having considered all the major market leaders, Mishcon de Reya selected Recommind’s comprehensive information management platform and supporting solutions because they are specifically designed to meet the needs of legal practices. For this reason, the firm will be able to start using the new solution far quicker and more cost effectively than having to spend valuable time and money customising a new system to understand the unique requirements of law firms. Comment: Recommind have always been an interesting company with what is, by modern standards, an old fashioned business model, namely they build applications that firms want and that actually work. Given they are an independent, fighting for a share of a market dominated by such big beasts as Autonomy, Open Text and Microsoft, their successes are all the more commendable. Friday, September 10
Bryan Roberts leaving LexisNexis
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 10 Sep 2010 08:27 BST
Although there are currently rumours flying around about LexisNexis UK's software business, they all seem to have been sparked off by one senior manager's decision to leave the company for ill health in the family reasons. Bryan Roberts, who headed-up mid-market sales for the LexisNexis Enterprise Solutions Business, is leaving the company – although he will be continuing to work with Lexis for the next couple of months until his official departure. And that's it – we wish him and his family good luck for the future. Prior to joining LexisNexis, Bryan Roberts was with Aderant.
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