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Friday, November 6
And then we turned into Father Jack
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 06 Nov 2009 12:00 GMT
Imagine our surprise and delight at Villa d'Orange when a courier service delivered a carefully wrapped package marked Caution – contains glass. A quick look confirmed it contained bottled liquid and was from TM Search Choice. Was it a half bottle of champagne or perhaps a fine vintage wine, along with a crystal goblet, to promote their new local authority search service?
Strange, there was a glass – nice bit of Dartington – but it was a tumbler. And that certainly wasn't vintage wine in a screw-top bottle – in fact it was a clear liquid. Ah, maybe it was vodka – perhaps to celebrate breaking free of the Stalinist grasp of the NLIS hub?
No. It wasn't vodka either – it was water – to emphasise that TM's local searches are "drawn directly from source" (Geddit?) Water! At this point we found ourselves turning into the Father Jack character out of the old Father Ted TV series... Water! Feck! Drink! Feck! Still, at least TM got their plug.
Thursday, November 5
November American Insider out now
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 05 Nov 2009 17:00 GMT
The November issue of American Legal Technology Insider newsletter (issue #16) is out now. Top stories include one law firm's experiences with Windows 7 and the Bighand server-side speech recognition launch. The next issue is out on 3rd December. You can find the latest issue attached below – to receive it free of charge direct to your email in-box just email altisubs@legaltechnology.com
 1 Attachments
IRIS launch pay-as-you-go service for Scotland
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 05 Nov 2009 15:05 GMT
IRIS today announced the availability of IRIS Law Scotland, a brand new, fresh and modern practice and case management system designed specifically for Scottish law. With over 200 Scottish legal firms already using IRIS solutions, IRIS has harnessed years of experience and feedback to create IRIS Law Scotland. As well as being designed specifically for Scottish legal professionals, IRIS Law Scotland is supported by a dedicated team based in IRIS’ Bridge of Allan office.
Brian Welsh, General Manager for IRIS Legal & Property in Scotland, said; “IRIS Law Scotland is designed to ensure that Scottish law firms can evolve to benefit from increasing changes in market conditions. It is a fully integrated modular solution capable of fulfilling the requirements of any practice irrespective of its size or speciality.”
IRIS Law Scotland is available as a complete solution or as a range of stand-alone case applications including wills and executry, conveyancing, personal injury and debt recovery. The solution minimises costs and maximises profitability through the efficient management of cases and the wider practice. IRIS Law Scotland is also available through a highly secure, hosted environment and presents a radically new way to access and pay for functionally rich software. Options are available for delivery on a ‘pay-as-you-go’ basis, perfect for smaller firms who would prefer to concentrate on their legal clients than managing an IT system. Prices for ‘pay-as-you-go’ start from £95 per user per month.
• IRIS Law Scotland is supplied by IRIS Legal & Property Solutions (Scotland), formerly GB Systems.
www.iris.co.uk/lawscotland
Bighand launch server side speech recognition
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 05 Nov 2009 15:00 GMT
At the company's EMEA user conference in London today, Bighand launched its new Server-based Speech Recognition module aimed at organisations looking to further streamline administrative overheads in the current climate, or support an upturn in work as the economy recovers. The new voice-to-text module also supports voice submission from Blackberrys and smartphones, alongside traditional dictation hardware. The Bighand server-side speech recognition add-on is part of the latest v3.3 release of Bighand’s digital dictation workflow software.
The speech recognition module (which utilises the Dragon NatuallySpeaking Speech Server from Nuance Communications) includes both a speech recognition only option, where the Transcription Server sends the resulting text back to the author, as well as a speech recognition with proofing option where the Transcription Server sends the resulting text to a secretary.
The secretary performs any corrections, saves the document and then submits a copy of the corrected document. Once submitted the server-based speech file of the original author is upgraded, improving their results going forward. The author can still correct their own speech file if so desired. Moving the correction of the speech file to the secretary completely removes the time burden from the author and enables no change to their current working practices. As a result, even though there is minimal training, the author’s speech file continues to improve over time.
In testing the Transcription Server returned a 233 word initial recording with 178 words correctly recognized (76.4%). After the first correction, the transcription server improved to recognise 226 of the words (97%), and by the third submission the server based system recognised 232 words (99.6%).
The overall total cost of ownership of the new back-end or server-side speech recognition module is estimated to be as little as one third the cost of existing client-side/desktop speech recognition solutions. The module is licensed per user or per server, with minimal training required, no client-side installation and, subsequently, no loss of billable time. Additional features include Citrix & Terminal Services compatibility, document templates & bookmarks, acoustic modeling, vocabularies configured in Bighand System Administration, default and custom speaker profiles for different users of Bighand, and support for distributed Transcription Servers.
Aside from the Server-side Speech Recognition module other new features within BigHand 3.3 include:
• Document attachments & links within the workflow
• New search engine & User Interface improvements
• Support for Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2
• 64-bit support extended to incorporate Terminal Client
• Splitting of voice files & extended external sound file support
• New & extended API for 3rd party developers
New podcast by Charles Christian
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 05 Nov 2009 09:00 GMT
Here's a link to a new podcast I was interviewed for by Charon QC of Insite Law Magazine – and yes, I'm talking all about legal technology trends...
www.insitelawmagazine.com/charonpodcast159.htm
Wednesday, November 4
Elite say 'we still dominate Big Law in the US'
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 04 Nov 2009 19:13 GMT
Elite has just released figures showing that a large majority of the AmLaw top 100 and 200 US law firms are customers of its financial and practice management software solutions. Based on the 2009 results, Elite customers account for 64% of the Top 50, 70% of the Top 100 and 65% of the Top 200. Elite add that their market share "is more than double that of its closest competitor." Elite also say "the market share looks the core financial systems installation. If they don’t use Elite for their primary finance and accounts systems, we don’t count them. Many vendor statistics muddle the data by counting a customer if they have any of a company’s products purchased or if a small acquired office still has their system. We believe that to be a misleading way to count the market share of the financial practice management applications. It’s always important to make this explicit clarification."
GlobalX becomes third NLIS licensed channel provider
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 04 Nov 2009 11:10 GMT
Land Data, the NLIS regulator, today announced a third NLIS channel license has been awarded. GlobalX Information Services (GlobalX), the largest provider of electronic land and property searches to the Australian legal community, has been granted the license and joins existing channels SearchFlow and Thames Water in providing authoritative electronic land and property search information through NLIS, to the conveyancing profession.
GlobalX has been providing online access to title searching and other land and property search services for conveyancers via its GXS.com.au portal since 1995. The company also offers a broad range of commercial information products as well as owning one of the largest legal practice management software solutions in Australia.
Last month the NLIS Hub reduced its transactional fees to channels by 50%. This cost saving will be passed on to conveyancers making the benefits of ordering an electronic search through NLIS even more attractive.
GlobalX Managing Director, Cameron Beavis is pleased with the company being granted an NLIS channel license. “The granting of an NLIS channel license offers GlobalX a dual opportunity. Firstly it provides GlobalX’s UK operations with immediate access to the broad range of the information products it requires to compete effectively in the UK market without the need for a large fulfillment team on the ground. Secondly, it provides a single source of UK information to deliver to our existing Australian customers in support of our anti-money laundering and international information strategies.
• GlobalX Information Services commenced operations in Australia in 1995 and was the first information services company to deliver electronic land titles to the Australian market. Since then, GlobalX has developed a broad range of information products servicing a wide variety of corporate customers in the legal, commercial and property sectors. GlobalX Information Services has offices in Brisbane and Sydney.
Latest smartphone trends
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 04 Nov 2009 09:05 GMT
For those of you considering developing apps for smartphone (Blackberry, Symbian etc) platforms, we've got some new data from Canalys comparing trends in Q3 2007, Q3 2008 & Q3 2009. As you can see, over the 2 year period both Symbian and Windows Mobile have lost about one-third of their market share, Blackbery has doubled its share and the Apple iPhone's share has rocketed by more than we can work out this early in the morning.
Workshare launch Powerpoint comparison software - updated
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 04 Nov 2009 07:52 GMT
If you belief Microsoft Powerpoint is the spawn of the devil, then don't read on. If you believe it does have a valuable role to play then this new product launch by Workshare should be of interest...
Workshare today introduced Workshare Compare for PowerPoint, software which allows for fast, flexible and easy comparisons of Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. For the first time, PowerPoint users have an easy and intuitive way to track and manage edits made in PowerPoint slides – whether it is changes made by collaborators and reviewers, or within various versions of a presentation made by one individual.
Workshare Compare for PowerPoint provides PowerPoint users with an easy way to identify slides and slide elements that have been modified, deleted, or inserted. Users can initiate a comparison directly within the PowerPoint interface to identify changes to text, images, speaker notes, fonts, the slide master, and more. Whether comparing and identifying the differences in small presentations or those with 1000+ slides, Workshare Compare for PowerPoint provides ease of use and flexibility with multiple slide views, custom comparison themes, and reporting options that provide a complete history of changes. And after identifying the differences between presentations, Workshare Compare for PowerPoint enables users to easily combine slides from different versions into a single master presentation.
Key features of Workshare Compare for PowerPoint which appeal to frequent presentation writers and reviewers include:
• fast and accurate presentation comparison for slide decks
• ability to manage changes and save as a new Microsoft PowerPoint presentation
• use of colour-coding to enable users to easily locate changes
• display of source presentations as well as change summary in one view
• efficient review of PowerPoint slides, incorporating content from previous versions or edits provided by colleagues
• multiple options for comparing elements within slides and is easily configurable for colours and effects
• comparisons for slide moves, insertions and deletions; text and/or image changes; speaker note changes; textbox and hyperlink changes
Workshare Compare for PowerPoint is available now and a 14-day trial can be downloaded directly from www.workshare.com Pricing is subscription based at £110.00 per year – and here's a screenshot...
Update: We've since learned that "Partner and direct customers are eligible for special pricing promotions if they purchased full Workshare Professional prior to Nov 3, 2009, as long as they were current with support and did not purchase their licenses online. If a customer needs clarification on eligibility, they should contact their Sales Representative." Which roughly translated means that if you have 20+ licences on support, you get Compare for PowerPoint free as a thank-you for customer loyalty.
Tuesday, November 3
Lloyds banking group to move into legal process outsourcing?
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 03 Nov 2009 08:50 GMT
This story first appeared on Rees Morrison's excellent Law Department Management Blog yesterday and is by guest author Bob Unterberger - www.lawdepartmentmanagementblog.com
...The UK financial giant Lloyds Bank is close to buying CPA Global,
one of India's largest LPOs. The New York Times reports that Lloyd's
will purchase CPA Global for about $700M. Neither Lloyds or CPA Global
have confirmed a final deal.
The Lloyds-CPA Global deal occurs just as there's an LPO industry
shakeout. The smaller uncompetitive "mom and pop" LPOs are closing
down. Many boutique LPOs, generally specializing in only one or two
practice areas, failed to find the sweet spot. Some of India's larger
Business Process Outsourcing companies (eg call center providers)
have shuttered their LPOs out of fear of providing poor legal services
to current clients (and killing the relationship) or frustrated that
the legal "cycle" doesn't provide the immediate returns that BPO does.
Or both. Finally, a handful of India's larger stand-alone LPOs are
fighting for outside funding, and many are losing the battle. It's
worth noting that the Lloyds-CPA Global deal puts an actual value on
LPO. LPO numbers are dominated by misleading industry reports.
The shake up has led to deals like Lloyd's-CPA Global. Next, look
for India's BPO global giants to take on legal services in a big way,
having learned the lessons of those smaller players who dove into the
pool first... • Orange Rag Comment: Given that Lloyds is in the middle of some totally incomprehensible UK government prompted restructuring following the RBS and Northern Rock bailouts, anything is possible. We like the comment about "mom & pop" LPOs as, by coincidence, yesterday the Rag was contacted by PRs acting for three one-man-&-a-dog LPOs we'd never previously heard of, all trying to pitch us stories and get a mention on our hallowed pages – prompting us to wonder whether there are now more companies offering LPO services that there are law firms using them. CPA Global is one of the largest players in this market and its European staffers include Derk Kropholler (ex Aderant) and Jason Hulme (ex Informa).
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