LexisNexis UK and Business Integrity, a leading provider of document assembly solutions, today announced a strategic partnership to deliver complete document assembly services. Business Integrity’s ContractExpress document automation technology is to be used to power LexisNexis online services. This will allow LexisNexis customers to benefit from increased efficiencies in their document production processes, as well as protecting organisations from the risk of using out-of-date information.
The first product from this partnership will be the addition of the Lexis Smart automated precedents capability to Lexis PSL, the practical guidance solution providing legal intelligence to lawyers across all UK practices.
Commenting on the announcement, Josh Bottomley, Managing Director of LexisNexis UK said: “This marks an exciting development for lawyers throughout the UK, and the next step in the delivery of our Legal Intelligence vision. Lexis PSL customers can now access LexisNexis expert content with the ease and simplicity of best-in-class document assembly. This will save them time and effort drafting documents and enable them to cover more issues, in more depth, adding more value to their end clients.”
Richard Newton, VP Europe at Business Integrity added, “We are delighted to work with LexisNexis, and share their vision for the future of legal services. The combination of first-rate content and automated document creation offers lawyers a compelling solution to better meet their clients’ needs.”
Available from September 2010 onwards, the new Lexis Smart capability will automate over 130 frequently-used precedents across nine practice areas, within the Lexis PSL practical guidance service. Using Q&A-style drafting, context-sensitive guidance and drop-down menus speeds up the process of document creation and also enables junior staff to handle more work, helping firms to increase their efficiency and profitability.
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Monday, August 23
LexisNexis in document assembly deal with Business Integrity
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 23 Aug 2010 09:26 BST
Wednesday, August 18
Guest article: is social networking in the workplace a ticking bomb?
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 18 Aug 2010 09:33 BST
by Alistair Purdy, senior partner, Purdy FitzGerald Solicitors
As social networking and collaboration tools that started out in the home start to become more acceptable in the workplace it appears that the business environment as we know it is gradually changing. One thing is certain; a major change in business culture brings new risks. As social data is shared between increasing numbers of sites the question of ownership becomes almost impossible to track. Early signs indicate that employers and employees alike are convinced that they own their social data. Perhaps it is time to ask some pertinent questions. For example, does social networking at work carry hidden legal challenges for both individuals and companies with potential for conflict? Are advances in technology once again outpacing the legal system? And if so, to what extent may companies be sitting on a ticking legal time bomb? The more business embraces social networking techniques to spread their messages and build their brands the more the dividing lines between personal and company data are becoming blurred. It is not unusual for a piece of information originating from one employee in one company to pass through various social networking sites becoming retouched as it does so. The legal position is at a very early stage of development. To date legal cases involving disputes between employees and employers over who owns that data have tended to favour the employer. In an early case involved the UK arm of a US business to business media publishing group (PennWell Publishing v Ornstein) it was ruled that the employer owned the Outlook contacts of a former journalist employee even though this list contained both work and personal contacts some of which had been brought to the company by the employee. This blurring between work and personal data has since spread far and wide. In another case (involving a former Hays employee) a recruitment consultant moved confidential contact information to his LinkedIn account. The court reported that the consultant had planned to set up his own company in direct competition using the contact database concerned. He had thought that once the contacts had been invited to connect to him and they had accepted on LinkedIn, their contact information ceased to be confidential because it had been seen by all his other contacts. This decision was one of the first to highlight the tension between businesses encouraging employees to use social networking websites for work but then claiming that the contacts and content remain confidential information at the end of their employment. It is a sign of things to come. Sooner or later firms face the very real danger that employees or former employees will routinely contest data ownership issues in the courts. An audit of 200 SMBs worldwide by the Internet filtering software company SpamTitan Technologies earlier this year revealed significant gaps in the measures firms are taking to protect themselves. Almost every company in the survey allowed Internet access and some social networking applications in the workplace. But while 76.4 percent said Web filtering, which helps companies define and manage policies for Web browsing at work, was important around half (49 per cent) of all respondents admitted not using one. At least 50 per cent of those without filtering said they were taking positive steps to secure themselves against the possibility of either attack or employee misunderstanding in respect of social networking applications. A further 16 per cent who had not yet done anything were intending to do something about it in the next 12 months. This still leaves a significant proportion doing nothing at all. Developments taking place in the US and the EU could soon provide a greater legal imperative for companies adopt formal social media policies. One such initiative is 2015.eu which calls for a charter of individuals’ Internet rights and aims to entitle Internet users to demand their information is removed from company systems even if it was collected with their consent. Elsewhere the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently warned that even positive statements by employees in social media postings may constitute endorsements or testimonials and create liability for companies. With so much information being posted online and shared the boundaries will continue to become increasingly vague. Companies need to introduce policies and procedures and deploy technology to help them manage every employee’s Internet usage at the individual level. We are in a new era and it is incumbent on every company to include a corporate social media policy alongside their social networking strategy. Without such clear social media policies many employees will be unaware of their rights and employers risk being drawn into costly legal wrangles with their employees over data ownership disputes. It is important to take steps well in advance to protect yourself or company. Failure to do so will potentially leave firms with significant data ownership-related legal wrangles. To date legal cases involving disputes between employees and employers over who owns that data have tended to favour the employer, but as we have seen all that could be about to change. Companies need to get to a point where they have sufficient measures in place for managing employee behaviour at the individual level. Tuesday, August 17
New white paper from Lexis
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 17 Aug 2010 13:43 BST
The LawyerLocator division of LexisNexis UK has just published a white paper exploring the potential impact of the Legal Services Act 2007. The paper is called The Future of Small Law Firms - Jeopardy or Opportunity? Although the white paper pulls no punches in terms of the threats to the long-term survival of High Street firms, the overall tone is actually optimistic albeit with the warning that small firms will have to gt their proverbial finger out if they are to survive. See attached PDF for the text of the white paper.
 1 AttachmentsMonday, August 16
Firm turns to Pilgrim to help with volcanic ash trail
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 16 Aug 2010 13:08 BST
City based aerospace and commercial firm Gates & Partners has purchased the pioneering LawSoft graphical Rapid Application Development (RAD) module to develop a specialist tool for claims related to the Iceland volcano ash cloud phenomenon.
Partner Paul Freeman comments “In due course this tool will have a much broader application across the firm but initially it is being designed to assist us with the significant flow of claims we have been dealing with in relation to the Ash Cloud. LawSoft’s workflow application will enable us to process these claims quickly and efficiently, making substantial time savings for both the firm and our clients.” Pilgrim’s COO Colin Kennedy added “Gates & Partners’ innovative use of LawSoft’s RAD capabilities is an excellent illustration of the flexibility of our software. The graphical nature of this module allows firms to quickly map out and deploy workflow orientated applications to users.” Wednesday, August 11
The man for IRIS - the users say 'yes'
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 11 Aug 2010 11:39 BST
Just over one month ago, Doug Hargrove moved into the hot seat as the managing director of IRIS Software's Legal Services division. Since then we've been getting reports from user firms that have met him – and the feedback is all positive.
Perhaps surprisingly, his track record in retail is seen as a benefit as he is used to managing large companies that have been created by the acquisition of multiple software platforms and which now need consolidation and a clear longer term strategy. Likewise, his retail background is also seen as giving him a clear perspective on the use of IT as a means of delivering value, benefits and services to user firms and their clients – as distinct from merely being a back office administrative overhead. As the head of administration at one firm, currently on the tipping point of defecting, put it "On the strength of our meeting with Doug Hargrove, we are now prepared to include IRIS on our next ITT whereas previously we would not have even considered them." Tuesday, August 10
STEP calls for cowboy will-writers to be ridden out of town
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 10 Aug 2010 12:00 BST
Interim results from a survey published today by the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), reveal the scale of the threat posed to the consumer from cowboys in the will writing market. The survey found that 75% of STEP members have encountered cases of “incompetence or dishonesty in the will writing market in the last 12 months” and prompted STEP to again call for better consumer protection.
Two thirds of respondents reported coming across hidden fees which were not outlined in the stated price for a will, and 63% had direct experience of cases where will writing companies had gone out of business and disappeared with their clients’ wills. Just over one third had encountered cases where incompetence had led to significant additional tax bills. Chief Executive David Harvey said: “This research shows how widespread cowboy will writers have become and it is clear those who charge a fee for writing a will should now be regulated. They must have an appropriate qualification, and they must have proper indemnity insurance. Soon the consumer will be protected by new regulation in Scotland and this benefit needs to be extended to cover the rest of the UK." Examples of malpractice included a company which approached young mothers in shopping malls, telling them their children would be taken into care after they died if they failed to make a will. One consumer was charged £12,000 up-front for executor services only for their family to find the firm involved had gone out of business not long after, disappearing with their wills and money. In June the Legal Services Board launched a review of the threat posed to consumers in England & Wales by unprofessional will writers and is currently seeking evidence of consumer harm. The Scottish Parliament is currently going through the process of regulating non-lawyer will writers through the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill.
Blandy & Blandy roll out Pilgrim DMS
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 10 Aug 2010 09:57 BST
Thames Valley law firm Blandy & Blandy, which swapped out Axxia Arista in favour of the Pilgrim LawSoft PMS in late 2006, has now rolled out Pilgrim Client Matter Inception workflows, Probate case management and an ambitious complete installation of LawSoft’s integrated Document Management & Assembly System.
Nick Burrows, Blandy & Blandy joint managing partner said “We were keen to exploit the efficiency and risk management gains afforded by the LawSoft Document Management and Assembly module. Our objective was to have all documents created and saved within LawSoft so that we could ensure consistency of content and presentation, which is difficult to achieve without a tool such as this. This, supplemented by our own in-house development skills, has allowed us to come up with an extremely powerful, flexible and easy to use document management and production solution which, I’m pleased to say, has more than matched our initial vision.” Applications Manager, DBA & In House Trainer Raheela Fernandes added “The LawSoft document assembly and workflow tools, along with my existing Visual Basic skills, have enabled me to build a system that now means close to 100% of the firm’s documents are created from LawSoft Quick Launch or from a LawSoft workflow. This method of document production has allowed for greater uniformity and consistency across the firm as well as better control over document creation. The accuracy and efficiency gains have been tremendous.” Wednesday, August 4
Infinite data retention means infinite waste & inefficient ediscovery
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 04 Aug 2010 14:24 BST
Symantec Corp today released the findings of its 2010 Information Management Health Check Survey. This finds that a majority of enterprises are not following their own advice when it comes to information management. 87% of respondents believe in the value of a formal information retention plan, but only 46% actually have one. Survey results also found that too many enterprises save information indefinitely instead of implementing policies that allow them to confidently delete unimportant data or records, and therefore suffer from rampant storage growth, unsustainable backup windows, increased litigation risk and expensive and inefficient discovery processes.
“Infinite data retention results in infinite waste. Enterprises see the value of a solid information management plan, but too many still follow the outdated practice of keeping everything forever,” said Brian Dye, vice president of product management, Information Management Group, Symantec. “The sheer volume of data is growing exponentially, so trying to keep everything consumes large amounts of storage space and demands too much of IT's resources. As a result, businesses spend far more time and money on the negative consequences of poor information management and discovery practices than they would by working to change them.” Survey Highlights: • Gap between enterprise information management goals and practice. Most enterprises (87&) believe a proper information retention strategy should allow them to delete unnecessary information. However, less than half (46%) actually have a formal information retention plan in place. • Enterprises are retaining far too much information. 75% of backup storage consists of infinite retention or legal hold backup sets. Respondents also stated that 25% of the data they back up is not needed for business or should not be kept in a backup. • Enterprises are misusing backup, recovery and archiving practices. 70% of enterprises use their backup software to implement legal holds and 25% preserve the entire backup set indefinitely. Respondents said 45% of backup storage comes from legal holds alone. In addition, enterprises cited that, on average, 40% of information placed on legal hold is not specifically relevant for that litigation. Using archiving and backup together provides immediate access to the most pertinent information while allowing enterprises to retain less. • Nearly half of the enterprises surveyed are improperly using their backup and recovery software for archiving. Additionally, while 51% prohibit employees from creating their own archives on their local machines and shared drives, 65% admit that employees routinely do so anyway. • Differences in how IT and legal respondents cited top issues for lack of an information retention plan. 41% of IT administrators don’t see a need for a plan, 30% said no one is chartered with that responsibility, and 29% cited cost. Legal cited the top issues as cost (58%), lack of expertise to build a plan (48%), and no one chartered with the responsibility (40%). Symantec make the following recommendations... • Enterprises need to regain control of their information. The costs of waiting for the perfect plan are far outweighed by the benefits of being proactive. • Backup is not an archive, and it is not recommended to use backup for archiving and legal holds. Enterprises should retain a few weeks of backup (30 - 60 days) and then delete or archive data in an automated way thereafter. • By using backup only for short-term and disaster recovery purposes, enterprises can backup and recover faster while deleting older backup sets within months instead of years. That’s a huge amount of storage that can be confidently deleted or archived for long-term storage. • Implement deduplication everywhere within applications and within a backup environment. Enterprises that deploy deduplication as close to the information sources as possible free network, server and storage resources. When deduplication is combined with shorter retention periods, enterprises enable tapeless disaster recovery via replication for better SLA. • Enterprises should also develop and enforce information retention policies (what can and cannot be deleted, and when) automatically. Automated, policy-driven deletion creates less risk than ad-hoc, manual deletion. The 46% of respondents that have a retention policy should consider taking immediate steps to begin executing those policies. Paper policies that are not executed can be a litigation risk. • Use a full-featured archive system to make discovery as efficient as possible. Companies can then search for information more quickly – and with more granularity than they would in a backup environment. This will reduce the time and cost it takes to evaluate litigation risk, resolve internal investigations and respond to compliance events. • Enterprises should deploy data loss prevention technologies to measurably reduce their risk of data breaches, demonstrate regulatory compliance and safeguard their customers, brand and intellectual property. IT administrators should look for a solution that discovers, monitors and protects confidential data while providing insight into the ownership and usage of information. The survey was conducted in June 2010 and is based on responses from 1,680 senior IT and legal executives in 26 countries.
Eversheds awards Trovus CRM/web intelligence deal
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 04 Aug 2010 10:07 BST
Trovus, a specialist in developing actionable intelligence based on profiles of website visitors (and also one on the newest partners for the LexisNexis Interaction CRM platform) has announced a new contract with Eversheds to help the firm identify behaviour and buying signals from web intelligence about clients and prospects. The solution is already providing Eversheds with valuable client and prospect knowledge that assists its business development teams in engaging at the optimum time.
Eversheds wanted Trovus to work with its business development teams to transfer the skills needed to gain insights into key clients and prospects through the web intelligence gathered. The services provided by Trovus to Eversheds include a series of workshops to maximise the value of intelligence from Trovus company profiles. Already the large volume of information gathered is supporting Eversheds’ business development teams in their engagement with fee earners, along with marketing campaigns such as client communications and search engine optimisation. Importantly, the solution integrates with Eversheds’ CRM initiatives. Trovus closely integrates with the InterAction CRM to allow customers to match Trovus's rich data profiling of website visitors with customer records held in the InterAction system, helping organisations build a deeper, more complete picture of the companies that visit their website and the relationship history that lies behind these visits. www.trovus.co.uk Tuesday, August 3
Some ethical barrier links
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 03 Aug 2010 14:00 BST
Last week the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) announced that amendments had been made to rule 4 of the Solicitors Code of Conduct 2007 and that the accompanying guidance had now been approved by the Legal Services Board and were now in force. As these rule changes had been expected in three months' time in October, Alison Thorpe, the EMEA sales director for ethical barrier software specialists The Frayman Group (contact athorpe@fraymangroup.com ) thought there might make interesting reading...
The amendment extends the circumstances in which firms can act with the use of an information barrier where the confidential information of one client might otherwise be at risk because of instructions from a new client which has an interest adverse to the other client. The rule formerly only allowed a firm to complete work already started for a client using an information barrier; the amendment allows firms to accept new instructions where it is apparent at the outset that there is adversity between the clients, and confidentiality could be at risk. Acting with the use of an information barrier to protect confidential information remains subject to stringent conditions in the rule including the requirement that the safeguards used in setting up and operating the information barrier must comply with the law. Most firms will not have the infrastructure to set up legally compliant information barriers and they should, therefore, continue to be used with extreme caution. View rule 4.05 with 13 July 2010 changes highlighted http://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/change-tracker/code-of-conduct/rule4.page View guidance to rule 4 with 13 July 2010 changes highlighted http://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/change-tracker/code-of-conduct/rule4.page#TOA-Guidance-paragraph-32 |
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