FWBS and SOS have been in touch to say they also offer practice management systems that are embedded with Microsoft Outlook & Office. Their details are attached below,
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Monday, February 18
More Microsoft Outlook & Office embeds
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 18 Feb 2008 16:01 GMT
 4 Attachments
PMS within Outlook - the background info
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 18 Feb 2008 15:56 GMT
What looks like becoming one of the major trends in 2008 is the integration of case and practice management functionality within Microsoft Office applications, particularly Outlook. This week's Legal Technology Insider newsletter will be reporting on the trend however in the meantime here is some background information from two of the vendors who launched new systems at Legal IT in Islington, namely Pilgrim and DPS.
2 AttachmentsThursday, February 14
New Insider Readers Poll - what flavour of Office do you have?
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 14 Feb 2008 11:06 GMT
An IT director mentioned recently it would be nice to know which versions of Microsoft Office law firms were using as he was fed up of vendors trying to fob him off with the lame excuse that they couldn’t support his firm because “no-one else uses your version of Office”. So are law firms ahead or behind the curve when it comes to Office? Take part in our next readers poll to find out.
We are covering every iteration of Office since 1995 – although we also have an option for anyone using an earlier system (those would be the ones where the users manuals are written in latin). You can find the poll on the Insider website – www.legaltechnology.com – and, as ever, all responses remain strictly confidential. • The next version Office – slated for early 2009 – will apparently be Office 14. Microsoft are jumping direct from Office 12 (aka 2007) so as to avoid unlucky number 13. Tuesday, February 12
Blackberrys crash in the US
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 12 Feb 2008 09:57 GMT
Research In Motion (RIM) experienced a significant outage (hitting about 50% of its user base) of its BlackBerry wireless email service in North America yesterday. The cause of the outage, which began mid-afternoon Eastern time and lasted for several
hours, currently remains unknown.
This is the second major outage RIM has suffered in under a year. In April 2007 the service was down for at least nine hours. RIM subsequently admitted it was caused by an improperly tested software update at the company's data center. RIM also acknowledged that the outage was aggravated by the failure of its backup systems to perform as planned. STOP PRESS - apparently the outage was called by a RIM systems upgrade intended to increase network capacity.
US legal market - latest facts & figures
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 12 Feb 2008 08:11 GMT
Our thanks to JoAnna Forshee's team at Envision – www.envisionagency.com – in the US for drawing our attention to these latest figures on the shape of the US legal market...
• 97% of all US law firms and legal service providers have less than 25 employees (~10 attorneys). This represents a 2% increase compared to 2006 statistics. 65% of all US firms have just 2 to 4 employees, 9% higher than last year. • There are approximately 1354 law firms in North America with 100 employees or more (~40+ attorneys). Of those, 375 firms have 250 employees or more (~100+ attorneys). Firms with 100 employees or more account for less than 0.5% of the entire US law firm market. By way of some comparison, in the UK at the moment approximately 200 law firms employ 100+ fee earners. Monday, February 11
Guest article - automating the modern mailroom
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 11 Feb 2008 10:24 GMT
Dr Matt Lees, VP Data Capture Division at Basware UK, looks at what separates truly efficient automated mailrooms from the Post rooms of yesterday...
Companies are often under the illusion that deploying a mailroom scanning solution will improve their business efficiency. But that’s not the case. Simply digitising documents is only pushing the paper images around, and doesn’t actually remove the real obstruction. If the right technology and controls are not in place the chances of losing documents are actually increased! It’s what happens after the scanning phase that counts. This critical second stage of processing where recognition and classification takes place before any OCR is attempted is the one that has the largest beneficial effect on mailroom efficiency. So how does one deploy this key step in mailroom automation? And how can the relevant information be extracted from the paper documents as efficiently as possible to unblock the corporate workflow? The critical step is the quick classification of all scanned documents followed by the application of auto-indexing techniques via OCR or ICR technologies. OCR/ICR is relatively expensive technology to deploy but in practice it’s only necessary to process on average 1.5 pages of each document in order to correctly classify and index it. Approximately 80% of the information used by an organisation is in the form of unstructured paper documents and, until recently, automatic processing was limited to documents with a fixed structure. (Structured documents are defined as documents that contain information in the form that the receiving company wishes to receive them. Unstructured documents include other emails, faxes, online communications and paper documents that do not take this format.) For organisations that scan and capture their documents, appropriate handling used to mean spending considerable time and effort sorting these documents prior to scanning, adding document separation sheets and manually classifying the document prior to data extraction – meaning a considerable amount of skilled sorting work both before and after scanning. Auto-classification and recognition techniques further automate document handling by removing the need for intensive, manual post room sorting and document preparation tasks – all of which helps to take a significant bite out of overall processing costs. This type of intelligent automation software (such as Indicius and Xtrata from Kofax), provides advanced document classification, separation and extraction capabilities. Using OCR it can automatically extract machine printed or hand-printed text and printed data from scanned document images, removing the need for costly and time-consuming manual keying. The extracted data adds to the intelligence already gained about the document aiding, separation and process routing of the document to a workflow queue, facilitating the indexing of the document for storage in a document management system or sending it direct to a business process. With recipient detail or an identifying case or account number extracted, the appropriate documents can be automatically routed to the right process destination: purchase orders to the sales and manufacturing departments, invoices to the finance Invoice Processing system such as Basware and so on. At the end of the scanning process, images and the extracted data are usually released to a document management system, Case Management system or image repository to ensure security, safe archiving and auditability. This is vital to avoid lost documents. If the document management system links to core business systems such as ERP or CRM, this further automates and enhances processes. So much for the theory: how does this work in practice? Let’s take a look at a real-life case study. Countrywide Property Lawyers is one company who are benefiting from this classification technology. The legal firm deployed an advanced data capture and document processing solution to automate mailroom activity and the handling of the 25,000 legal documents received daily. The solution automatically allocates 85% of incoming post, using Kofax capture modules, to the correct legal case. It also classifies 90% of post for staff, automatically identifying letters from lawyers, draft contracts and mortgage offers, helping to speed up business processes and ensure legal teams get essential legal documents by 10:30am on the day of receipt. The automated mailroom handles all business-related printed and hand-written documents, extracting key data and sending it along with an image of the mail to the case management system, which automatically routes the mail to the correct legal team for action. Documents that cannot be auto-referenced are then sent as an image file to India, where they are eyeballed and manually categorised inside a Visualfiles case management system and sent back to the UK to the relevant legal teams. As a result, only 5% of all incoming mail requires manual intervention in the UK – this has led to a 90% reduction in administration. In conclusion, quick, automated classification underpins a successful mailroom automation solution for three good reasons. First, it’s simply good business sense: it cuts transaction costs across the organisation by sorting the wheat from the chaff. Second, it improves relationships with customers, by accelerating transactions and ensuring records are kept updated. Finally, it also addresses expanding information management legislation, which specifies the need for companies to capture, track and control information – especially financial information – as soon as it touches them. • www.basware.co.uk – 01606 331234 Friday, February 8
IRIS - the empire* strikes back & takes Minster
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 08 Feb 2008 12:39 GMT
It's been a good week for IRIS. Not only has LexisNexis acquired Axxia – so IRIS is no longer the sole topic of conversation within the industry – but it has also won the Minster Law site, who will be swapping out Eclipse case management software AND Paragon accounts in favour of an IRIS Legal Office (aka Videss) integrated practice and case management system. Minster Law (originally Corries) is currently the UK’s second largest personal injury claims firm and, as part of its Horizon Change Programme, is planning to double in size over the next three years.
The £400k deal will see the enterprise solution deployed across Minster Law’s 400 strong workforce in York and Wakefield. Commenting on the deal, Minster Law's CIO Neil Boddy said: “In IRIS Legal we have found a business partner we can trust and who has the drive and commitment to match our own. They are the only legal IT supplier capable of helping us achieve our growth potential.” * Anorak alert: IRIS, in common with LexisNexis, has a corporate logo that seems to be based on the Star Wars death star. Thursday, February 7
SOS respond to Axxia acquistion by LexisNexis
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 07 Feb 2008 08:10 GMT
Following on from the acquisition of Axxia by LexisNexis – a deal that now makes Axxia and Visualfiles members of the same group, Michael Platt, the managing director on long-time Visualfiles partner SOS made the following statement...
“Firstly, despite widespread consolidation of software suppliers, SOS is not up for sale. Visualfiles already has 150 joint sites with SOS and only a handful with Axxia, so the Axxia user base offers the potential for Visualfiles to extend its market share. “Secondly, we would like to reassure SOS and Visualfiles customers that the high standards of professional services and customer care which they enjoy is unaffected by this announcement. We will continue to work closely with Visualfiles.” Visualfiles (* see below) has also declared that it will continue to support and where appropriate develop further integration with SOS Practice Manager. Visualfiles will also continue to work closely with SOS on joint opportunities, ensuring customers have the widest options available to them. Michael Platt added “Visualfiles new customers now have a genuine choice of best of breed solutions in the back office: SOS will appeal to some and Axxia to others. However our 20 year relationship with Visualfiles has resulted in a very detailed level of integration, and obviously this will be a plus factor for some firms. Our development into the front office and Visualfiles extension of back office solutions with the Axxia acquisition we regard as indicative of the organic growth of our respective companies.” * The Visualfiles statement, issued by LexisNexis Visualfiles chief sales officer Mark Armstrong, reads "The LexisNexis policy of developing both integrated and open solutions means that we will continue to work with a wide range of suppliers to satisfy the differing needs of our customers. Given the long standing relationship between Visualfiles and SOS, we would like to confirm that we remain fully committed to working closely with SOS in the future. We will continue to support and where appropriate develop further our integration with SOS software. We will also continue to work closely with SOS on joint opportunities, ensuring we satisfy (customers) current and future needs in the best possible way." • Amid all the excitement of the LexisNexis/Axxia deal – which was the only taking point at yesterday's Legal IT Show in London – one other piece of news slipped under the radar. This was the departure of Neil Ewin, the founder and chairman of Visualfiles, which was acquired by Lexis Nexis in 2006. We understand Neil has retired to spend more time with his money. Tuesday, February 5
The Axxia + Lexis deal
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 05 Feb 2008 17:54 GMT
Here is the formal announcement re yesterday's acquisition of Axxia System by LexisNexis. We should have more information on Wednesday, including the reaction of SOS – who for the past couple of decades have been Solicitec/Visualfiles number one partner in terms of PMS/case management integrations. Other points to note include...
• The price has not been disclosed – this is LexisNexis corporate policy however we understand the deal is not subject to any earnout. • Stuart Holden – who is remaining with the Axxia business – says the company was bought "for what the business is worth". He also added that the big attraction of LexisNexis – apart from the fact it immediately plugs Axxia into a global sales & support infrastructure – is that they want to take the Axxia DNA PMS product forward, as distinct from merely wanting to buy a user-base that would be migrated to A N Other PMS. • Holden said the product roadmap for Axxia DNA would ensure users have a secure future and added that he thought the LexisNexis strategy for its legal software portfolio (which also includes Visuafiles) was "brilliant". • Doug McLachlan will be retiring from the business in about 6 months. • Customers were informed of the deal before it was formally announced at 12:00 noon today. • And 'yes' it is true – because of uncertainty as to whether the deal would be finalised before the Legal IT Show opened its doors, the Axxia stand had to have 2 separate sets of artwork prepared: one with Axxia branding and one with LexisNexis Axxia branding. Here is the formal statement... LexisNexis, a leading global provider of business information solutions, today announced the acquisition of Axxia – a leading provider of back-office and integrated solutions in the mid-law segment in the UK. The acquisition of Axxia enables LexisNexis to offer a full suite of practice management solutions to the UK mid-law sector. Medium sized law firms can now rely on LexisNexis for both content and complementary IT infrastructure enhanced with workflow solutions. The Axxia acquisition is a further step towards LexisNexis’ goal to be a comprehensive solutions business by combining local and global strategic acquisitions with existing content products. This move also complements the acquisition of Visualfiles in 2006 that provided a market leading case management front-end solution for the mid-law market. The addition of Axxia enables LexisNexis to offer fully integrated workflow-based solutions enhanced with relevant content for the mid-law market in the UK, building on the heritage of LexisNexis Butterworths publishing and understanding of the information used within law firms. LexisNexis has also implemented a global reorganisation which sees the appointment of Kate Holden as Senior Vice President of Global Practice Management Solutions to oversee the development of solutions to meet local and global customer needs. “LexisNexis offers customers integration of front and back office, with all the resulting benefits, such as improved efficiencies with seamless movement from one application to another, and relevant content automatically pre-populating searches and check lists. This one-stop-shop offering helps our customers to maximise productivity and profitability, reduce malpractice risk, enhance client interaction, and make well-informed case and matter decisions,” said Kate Holden, Senior Vice President of Global Practice Management Solutions, LexisNexis. “LexisNexis already offers a Practice Management Total Solution in the US and we are keen to bring this successful approach to the UK,” adds Josh Bottomley, Managing Director, LexisNexis UK. “We have seen this comprehensive business solution bring tangible benefits to clients integrating everything they need to excel in the business and practice of law - from calendaring and time management to legal research, case assessment, document drafting and client relationship management, and it means one point of contact to resolve any integration issues rather than a panel of suppliers.” Stuart Holden, Managing Director, Axxia comments, “Although both businesses serve similar organisations, the product portfolios at Axxia and Visualfiles are extremely complementary. Both Visualfiles and Axxia hold leading positions with their respective offerings. Visualfiles has a first class reputation for its case management software and Axxia’s key strength lies in integrated front and back office solutions. With both Visualfiles and Axxia in the LexisNexis stable, we can offer our customers an unparalleled wealth of knowledge and experience across a broad range of markets. This will significantly strengthen our ability to deliver the leading portfolio of integrated and open solutions that satisfy the widest range of customer needs.” And here are the notes... Strategy and integration How will the company be structured post-acquisition? Axxia will join the UK Practice Management portfolio, part of LexisNexis’s Global Practice Management solution line. Kate Holden will oversee the Global Practice Management portfolio with Edouard Tavernier driving the strategy. Stuart Holden will continue to oversee the Axxia portfolio working with Dan Marshall, who will be directing all operations across the UK Practice and Productivity Management business. Will Axxia be run as a separate business or integrated with LexisNexis? Axxia will be fully integrated with the LexisNexis business within the next six months. What is LexisNexis’ mission? To help our customers to become more efficient, productive and profitable through the provision of integrated workflow-based solutions enhanced with relevant content. Why has LexisNexis acquired Axxia? LexisNexis is committed to delivering a solutions strategy offering product and service combinations that address customers’ specific needs and fit into their existing workflow, to enhance productivity and profitability. As the leading integrated solutions and back office provider for medium-sized law firms, Axxia has an installed customer base of 220 law firms and over 20,000 users. This makes it an extremely attractive proposition for LexisNexis to combine with its existing portfolio for medium-sized law firms. The acquisition of Axxia will accelerate the delivery of content-enabled workflow solutions for medium-sized law firms. What will happen to the Axxia corporate brand? What will happen to other brands, such as dna* and Artiion? To provide the most consistency and clarity in our communication with customers, the company will immediately fully align with the LexisNexis corporate brand. Axxia will become the umbrella name for a product family within the UK LexisNexis Practice Management portfolio. Product brands acquired from Axxia will include the Axxia name (for example, "Axxia Artiion", “Axxia dna*). The Axxia product family will be treated in the same way as the other product families within LexisNexis UK - Butterworths, Tolley, Visualfiles etc. Does LexisNexis plan to acquire other companies? We are committed to providing our customers with leading practice and productivity management solutions and will continue to explore all avenues that may help us achieve this goal. LexisNexis acquired Visualfiles more than a year ago. Isn’t Axxia operating in the same space? Although both businesses serve similar organisations, the product portfolios at Axxia and Visualfiles are extremely complementary. Both Visualfiles and Axxia hold leading positions with their respective offerings. Visualfiles has a first class reputation for its case management software in both mid and large law and Axxia’s key strength lies in its integrated front and back office solution. With both Visualfiles and Axxia in the LexisNexis stable, we can offer our customers an unparalleled wealth of knowledge and experience across a broad range of markets. This will significantly strengthen our ability to deliver the leading portfolio of integrated and open solutions that satisfy the widest range of customer needs. Does this acquisition change existing relationships with 3rd party suppliers? No, we are delighted to be in a position to offer our customers the widest possible choice. Our policy of developing both integrated and open solutions means that we will continue to work with a wide range of suppliers to satisfy the differing needs of our customers. Products/technology What will be the technology platform resulting from the combination of Axxia, LexisNexis and Visualfiles? LexisNexis currently operates many different technology platforms through which we deliver a broad range of solutions and capabilities to our clients. As we develop new solutions within our Practice Management portfolio, we will work closely with our clients to select whichever technology platform is most appropriate for their particular needs whilst ensuring that our underlying architectural decisions adhere to key principles: • Ability of our solutions to integrate with a broad range of 3rd party systems • Use of mainstream, future-proof technologies • The provision of a clear evolution path for existing LexisNexis customers Over time, the mix of technologies we use will evolve to suit the changing needs of the market. Rather than be led by technology, we will be driven by an overriding desire to deliver compelling solutions that genuinely improve the productivity and profitability of our customers. How will the product portfolios be integrated over time? LexisNexis will accelerate the execution of existing product roadmaps whilst over time developing a range of new offerings through the combination of LexisNexis and Axxia capabilities. Integration between Axxia and LexisNexis products will take various forms, from the launch of standalone product modules to the development of fully integrated suites of back office and front office solutions. Examples of such integrations include: • Strengthening the integration between Visualfiles case management solutions and the Artiion back office system • Developing integration between dna* and best of breed LexisNexis applications (e.g. InterAction) • Combining dna* with LexisNexis Legal and/or Risk & Compliance content to create distinctive value propositions for legal practitioners Customer Support What support benefits can customers expect from the combination of Axxia, LexisNexis and Visualfiles? We aim to deliver “Best in Class” in all aspects of the customer experience and will strive to continuously improve all aspects of our customers’ contact with us – content, user interfaces, customer services, billing, etc. We are determined to accomplish unparalleled support and delivery and have committed significant investment in order to achieve this. Both LexisNexis and Axxia have developed solutions that, following the initial system implementation, enable business users without an IT background to create and maintain complex applications with the minimum of tuition. This approach protects customers’ investment and maximizes profitability. On a broader level, both LexisNexis Visualfiles and Axxia share a passion for innovation and a commitment to developing and delivering customer-driven solutions. Will there be any changes to my account manager? We will evaluate the ways we interact with our customers on an ongoing basis to ensure we are delivering the highest quality relationship management. Customers will be notified if there are any plans to change the way their accounts are managed. Whom should customers call for product support? We will be working to quickly align our infrastructures, including our customer contact points. Meanwhile, customers should continue using the existing contacts, and we will ensure enquiries are dealt with by an advisor who can handle their issue. Whom should customers call for invoice, statement or payment queries? We will be working quickly to align our billing infrastructures, but at present customers should continue to use their previous Customer Support team. Any changes to the contact points will be communicated to customers in advance.
MAJOR ACQUISITION - FULL DETAILS LATER TODAY
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 05 Feb 2008 08:54 GMT
One of the UK legal market's largest IT suppliers has just been acquired. Full details to follow, post embargo, later today. Finding out about their future plans could be one of the best reasons for visiting the Legal IT Show, which kicks off at the Islington Business Design Centre tomorrow (Wednesday).
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