The December edition of the Legal Technology Insider newsletter (issue 215) is now out. The digital version hit desktops during the past 15 minutes and the hard copy version will be arriving (subject to the Christmas post) from Thursday onwards.

Top stories include two pieces on the rise of 'cloud computing' plus the results of the latest readers poll – Reasons to be Fearful. We started out by asking whether firms had significantly amended their IT strategies since 1st September 2008. 35.5% of those responding said ‘yes’ they had – the remainder said ‘no,’ which means they are either oblivious to the recession or else revised their plans earlier this year. There again 58.1% of those responding said they had postponed, delayed or deferred IT projects since 1st September; 36% said they had cancelled IT projects; and, 60% said they had delayed, postponed, deferred or cancelled decisions on future IT procurement projects.

On an even more sombre note, nearly one third of respondents (32.3%) said they had already made IT staff related redundancies and lay-offs since 1st September and 41.9% were actively considering lay-offs. In other words, we could be seeing IT related job losses in nearly three quarters (74.2%) of law firms over the next few months.

In total, a mere 35.5% of firms said their current IT procurement plans were continuing unchanged – which suggests 2009 could be a very lean year for the legal IT industry. Asked why, 12.9% cited difficulties is securing credit to fund IT projects; 22.6% said they were reluctant to be seen spending money on IT at a time when they were laying off staff; and, 77.4% their prime motivation for cutting back on IT was continuing uncertainty about the economy and its impact on their firms’ business.

Responsibility for the UK Statute Law Database transfers today from the Ministry of Justice to The National Archives where it will be brought together with the existing official legislation publishing responsibilities of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO). The merger brings together within one organisation all the responsibilities for publication of UK legislation. It will integrate official legislation services from across the UK providing a single point of entry for the user, including access to primary legislation both in the form it was enacted and increasingly as it is revised; secondary legislation; Church Measures; and supporting documents. The service is designed for a wide range of audiences – members of the public, lawyers, professional users, law students, academics and officials.

The UK Statute Law Database is currently available at www.statutelaw.gov.uk and the HMSO legislation service at www.opsi.gov.uk/legislation/about_legislation – the National Archives is at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

The Legal Software Suppliers Association (LSSA) has announced an agreement with the Legal Services Commission (LSC) to govern how changes in LSC policy will be communicated to – and implemented by – LSSA members.
 
"I think that it's fair to say that the LSC has not always prioritised the impact of change on software vendors. Any changes in policy – including those which might seem relatively minor to the LSC – will potentially have a big impact on software providers," said LSSA chair Dominic Cullis. "However, following a recent Working Group meeting with representatives from both organisations, we are feeling much more optimistic about the LSC's ability and willingness to keep its promises with regard to how future changes will be rolled out to members of the LSSA."
 
A key element of this newfound partnership rests on the formation of this Software Vendor Working Group, a body which will help to create a formal channel for two-way communication between software vendors and the LSC. Cooperating at this level will allow the LSC to hear the views of software vendors first-hand, and to take account of these concerns when implementing change. The Working Group will also ensure that a representative range of vendors will now be brought into discussions at an earlier stage in the planning of policy implementation.
 
"We are very much aware of the impact of change on LSSA members, and recognition of this issue has reached the top level of our organisation," said  John Binks, Head of Provider Readiness at the LSC. "The Provider Readiness Team has implemented a sign-off procedure for all change requests where an impact on vendors is likely. This way, we can take the opportunity to seek the views of vendors on proposed changes, gain a better understanding of the impact they may cause, and factor that into the sign-off process. With this approach, we can ensure that the LSC understands the impact of change on software providers from the beginning, and factor into our plans proper provisions for making technical information available to vendors, along with sufficient time to prepare for change."
 
According to LSSA, even trivial changes can have a big impact on software vendors, as suppliers will need to review and understand the new specification, write and test the new code, make any necessary design changes, communicate the changes to clients, distribute the updated software, organise additional training, and then respond to any queries they receive about the changes from clients. As such, following the most recent meeting of the Working Group, both sides have agreed that any changes affecting case management software will only be requested by the LSC for implementation at two set dates in a year, in April and October. Furthermore, the LSC has promised that a clear description of the transitional arrangements – as well as requirements for access to old data – will be supplied, and that software vendors will be provided with all appropriate changes in reasonable time to allow for the development process.

Orange Rag sources report that there are likely to be only 11 suppliers listed in the upcoming edition of the English Law Society's Software Solutions Guide – compared with the 15 featured in the 2008 edition. One known departure is JCS, which has been acquired by Cognito Software and already has a place in the guide, and it is rumoured that the IRIS Group is cutting back on the number of its entries. No doubt the suppliers remaining in the guide will get very excited about all these departures – but the question is does anybody outside the small firms 'we buy about £30k of software every six years' set actually read or care about the guide anymore? As Videss, in their still-independent pre-IRIS days said, when they pulled out of the guide after the 2003 edition: it's a lot of marketing money to spend on a directory entry that merely generates inquiries from firms that are too small to afford our software anyway...

Reports suggest that the Law Society may now rethink the format of the guide. And about time too, it is way past its sell-by date and needs an urgent refresh. In fact as long ago as 2004, the guide's founder John Miller was talking about a major revamp – but then he left the Law Society and inertia set in. In the meantime, if you can get hold of back copies of the guide, treat yourself to looking at the mugshots of all the directors featured on the supplier profile pages and ask yourself 'where are they now?'

The IRIS Group are still on the march with the acquisition on Friday of AlphaLaw – we're still awaiting a formal announcement however last Friday (4 December) Simon Meehan sent this letter out to the company's customers.




• No purchase price has been disclosed. AlphaLaw is a trading name of Management Support Systems Ltd.

Is this the start of a new force in legal publishing? The law publishing department at the Oxford University Press (OUP) has launched 3 new online services:
 
Oxford Reports on International Law – www.oup.com/online/oril/
Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law – www.oup.com/online/law/epil/
Investment Claims – www.oup.com/online/ic/
 
The publisher says "This is just the beginning of our commitment to offering law resources to practitioners and scholars in multiple formats" – which sounds like they are muscling into the territory that has traditionally been dominated by the likes of Thomson/Sweet & Maxwell/WestLaw and LexisNexis Butterworths.

Although OUP has a reputation for being a primarily academic press – they have just published Richard Susskind's new book The End Of Lawyers - Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services* – OUP has been publishing in the practitioner sector since 2001 and the acquisition of Blackstone Press. According to Alison Bowker, head of marketing (medicine & law) "It is now a core part of our law publishing programme, and in 2009 we’ll publish in the region of 100 new works and new editions. Our approach is to bring the values of OUP as a scholarly publisher – quality, fair-dealing, and partnership – to the practitioner sector. We focus on subject areas where opportunities exist for the development (and sometimes acquisition) of current works and the creation of new ones, whether in book, looseleaf, journal or online form. Our lists in IP and competition law, banking and finance, arbitration and public international law are all gaining strong reputations, and of course our stable contains some of the key Blackstone copyrights and series."
 
Bowker adds that she would be grateful to hear people's views and what they think of OUP as a practitioner publisher?

* One of the blurbs for Susskind's book says: "Susskind remains the only writer today who can put the future of lawyers and the legal professions on the agenda at the highest levels of government, the judiciary, the legal institutions, major corporations – and law firms."

PISCES yesterday published two new standards...
• Lease Delivery Standard Version 2.0
• Portfolio Information Exchange (PIE) – opens for member review until 22 December
 
Lease Delivery: Based around the exchange of data between a Legal Advisor and their Client or Client’s Agent this version incorporates changes submitted, since the release of Standard Version 1.0, as well as the Lease Summary Standard (previously a different Standard). PISCES now welcomes Members and Non-Members to adopt Version 2.0 and apply for Compliance. For PISCES Members only there is free technical and implementation advice available. To download this standard follow this link http://web.pisces.co.uk/public/StandardsItems.aspx?ID=25
 
PIE (Member Review opened until 22nd December 2008): This Standard is aimed at the transfer of core portfolio data between different property management systems. Following release of Standard Version 1.0 (February 2008) a number of changes were submitted. This version now incorporates all the changes received as well as re-use of the Lease Component (from the Lease Delivery Standard Version 2.0). Opened only to PISCES Member organisations the purpose of this Review is to approve the changes made, before Version 2.0 can be published. To download this standard follow this link http://web.pisces.co.uk/public/StandardsItems.aspx?ID=26

In the comments that followed last week's posting about the departure of Arlene Adams from the IRIS Group, a couple of readers remarked that they were sad to hear that Steve Chivers – who headed up the Laserform practice management systems business – had also gone. So we caught up with Steve to find out what he had happened... and he told us that he had resigned from IRIS on his own initiative because he felt (after two-and-a-half-years with the group – and immediately prior to that he had been the managing director of the then still independent Laserform LFM Partnership Solutions division) it was time for new challenges. The net result is that he will be joining the Cognito group – which since earlier this year also includes the JCS business – with responsibility for sales and business development. We wish him well.