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Friday, August 28
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 28 Aug 2009 22:12 BST
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 28 Aug 2009 15:00 BST
The Orange Rag will be publishing its next round-up of Asia-Pacific news this coming Monday PM (Tuesday AM Sydney time).
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 28 Aug 2009 10:02 BST
At a meeting with Steve Beuge, the CEO of Elite, earlier this week at the ILTA conference in Maryland, he told The Orange Rag that, in the wake of the A&O implementation, Lovells was "re-engaging" and back on course with its Elite 3E PMS implementation and now had a "better recipe for success and clearer vision of the final outcome".
Keeping with the culinary metaphor, the proof of the pudding includes the fact that... • over the past 60 days, five more 3E sites have gone live (there are now 24 organisations live on 3E) • and, this month (August) has seen three more 3E orders – one in Australia (an old Aderant site - see below) + one in the UK + one in the US. (The latter two are an Enterprise upgrade and a 3rd party legacy system swap out.) Beuge added that the company was now "starting to think about new products, new markets and possible acquisitions". That Australian win... Seventy lawyer M+K Lawyers, which has offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Victoria, has selected 3E as its new practice management system. The firm's chief financial officer Len Methananda said the firm selected Elite 3E because they needed "a practice management system that will easily scale as our business grows and also allow us to meet evolving and unanticipated client expectation." Adding that "We have been constrained by our current system's dated technology and its 'band aid' approach to new functionality." Orange Rag sources say the firm currently runs an old Aderant CMS system but had "stopped speaking to Aderant years ago" and that "the marriage had been over a long time ans it was only a case of when the divorce would be announced." Thursday, August 27
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 27 Aug 2009 16:49 BST
Just heard a tale from a vendor in the e-learning arena about one of their (now ex)( directors who had asked for compassionate leave because his father had died. Two weeks later the father phoned the company to ask them where his son was as he hadn't heard from him for some time. After getting over the shock of receiving a phone call from a dead man, the company did a little investigation & found out that the son was taking time off to set up a rival business.
Monday, August 24
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Aug 2009 13:32 BST
Last week long-time Axxia stalwart Doug McLachlan resigned from LexisNexis Axxia. His final day will be September 11th. Doug told the Orange Rag "It was 4th January 1984 when I joined Kienzle*, a mere 25 years. Long enough! Time for a late gap year."
LexisNexis Axxia told us that "There will be no direct replacement for Doug but we are actively recruiting for a Client Workflow Director whose primary focus is to develop industry leading processes that anticipate and accommodate new legislative and best practice changes across legal, tax and compliance related workflows." * Kienzle, later Mannesmann Kienzle and later still part of DEC/Digital, became Axxia after an MBO in the mid-1990s. The company was subsequently acquired by LexisNexis.
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Aug 2009 11:00 BST
Last week it was Lanyon Bowdler swapping out an IRIS Group AIM system in favour of Pilgrim LawSoft, this week its Brabner Street Chaffe swapping out an IRIS AIM Evolution system in favour of LexisNexis DNA. Here's the full announcement...
Brabners Chaffe Street LLP, one of the North West UK’s leading corporate and commercial law firms – currently standing at number #86 on the Insider top 250 chart – has selected LexisNexis Axxia dna as its integrated business management platform of choice. Replacing two legacy IRIS systems, LexisNexis Axxia dna will enable Brabners Chaffe Street to consolidate practice management and deliver operational efficiencies across its three sites in Liverpool, Manchester and Preston. The initial 10 year deal will immediately roll out the solution to 400 users and will expand in line with the firm’s growth. Brabners Chaffe Street chose LexisNexis Axxia dna for its integrated document and financial management functionality, workflow technology and business intelligence offering. It will allow the firm to modernise and automate matter administration and offer value added services to customers, giving the business a distinct competitive advantage. From a document management perspective, the solution will enable secure remote and mobile working for staff across the firm’s three offices, creating a single and integrated business environment in the firm. Allan Green, IT Director at Brabners Chaffe Street LLP, commented “Our previous system was made up of a disparate set of records. Strategically, deploying an integrated platform makes immense business sense for us. The comprehensive functionality within LexisNexis Axxia dna, especially for document and financial management, is excellent and enables us to avoid the complexities of integrating individual best-of-breed solutions, saving valuable time, money and effort. LexisNexis Axxia dna is technologically very advanced and well supported for the future, which also played a key role in our decision making.”
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Aug 2009 10:00 BST
Our thanks to Osman Ismail at DPS Software for this latest update on developments on the criminal legal aid front...
The Legal Services Commission (LSC) has announced that the two pilot schemes to test best value tendering (BVT) will go ahead. Plans have been set out to test the tendering process for defence work carried out by solicitors in police stations and magistrates' courts. Testing in the two pilot areas, Greater Manchester and Avon & Somerset, will commence in July 2010, and will be fully evaluated. If successful, BVT will then be introduced in all other areas of England and Wales after 2013, a longer evaluation period than LSC committed on. Following extensive consultation, the LSC has modified its plans for BVT. Modifications include: • Maintained and improved quality requirements for all firms who take part in tendering, and quality requirements for delivery of service throughout the contract for sentence • Introduction of a variable cap on an individual firm's market share, so that firms have greater freedom to bid for higher volumes of work • Introduction of a 10% tolerance quota for 'own client' work, so that BVT firms can work on 'own client' cases outside their home area • Acceptance of the online bidding system for tendering, which was preferred by the majority of firms • A decision that BVT contract holders should have exclusive rights to work in magistrates' courts to further protect their access to cases DPS Software will be updating their DPS Crime application to handle the tendering process once the LSC have confirmed the specification for software providers. Friday, August 21
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 21 Aug 2009 18:00 BST
Good to see that marketing and merchandising really does work – this pix was taken last weekend in deepest, rural Norfolk (England).
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by
Charles Christian
on Fri 21 Aug 2009 15:00 BST
One of the regular features of every ILTA conference is 'vendor bingo' – which encourages delegates to visit as many exhibitor booths as possible, in return for which they have a chance to win some very generous prizes. In keeping with the trend toward virtualization at many of this year's industry tradeshows, the 2009 ILTA conference in Washington, DC is upping the ante by featuring an online version of its vendor bingo game via its arrangement with LegalQB.com. The contest starts on Monday 24 August on the virtual exhibit hall site www.legalqb.com/tradeshows and is open to all registered ILTA members – whether attending the conference or not – with a $500 American Express gift card prize for the winner.
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 21 Aug 2009 10:31 BST
We know some readers are still getting excited about the finances of the IRIS Group – but spare a thought also for Incisive Media, which owns Legal Week in the UK and American Lawyer Media (which runs the LegalTech shows) in the US. Our thanks to Media Week + PaidContent.co.uk for this information...
"B2B magazine publisher Incisive Media is reportedly close to sealing a debt-for-equity swap led by the company’s management. Media Week reports that the Computing publisher’s management, led by global CEO Tim Weller, are set to buy an intial 10% stake, potentially rising to 24%. The company is currently 59% owned by PE firm Apax Partners and other shareholders include Ingenious Media and Caledonia Investors. "The company also reveals that Incisive’s lenders, led by Royal Bank of Scotland, turned down a takeover bid from AIM-listed media investment firm Critical Information Group last week, which was joined by Peter Bazalgette as a non-executive director in June. Incisive’s UK and Asia CEO James Hanbury says that was a “sign of the banks’ confidence that they know we’ve got a good business and strong management”. He doesn’t expand on the debt-for-equity deal, saying only that “there is a deal being worked on at the moment.” Incisive breached one of its banking covenants in February, it has been closing magazines and in March it asked staff to take one week’s unpaid leave." Here's a copy of Tim Weller's memo to staff from earlier this year... “All, You may have seen this morning’s coverage about Incisive Media in the FT which has mentioned that the UK side of the Company is not expected to meet the current tests on its banking covenants. I would like to update you on where we are and to reassure you by explaining what this all means. Incisive Media, as you know, is a great business with leading brands in its chosen markets but we are currently under revenue pressure due to an unprecedented set of economic circumstances and their impact on our end markets. As a result, the UK 2008 profits dipped below the level agreed with the bank when we took on our loan in 2006 as part of taking the company private. It is important to note that the issues we face in our markets and with our lenders are no different to those faced by a myriad of other businesses in the current climate (in the media sector and other sectors). It is also important to emphasise that the issues being talked about in the press are purely financing issues centred on the UK Company’s balance sheet and the amount of debt the UK business has. The US has a separate financing agreement. Our businesses continue to be very profitable and cash generative at the operating level. In that sense, it is business as usual and it is important that we remain focused and committed to our day-to-day roles and concentrate on hitting our 2009 budget. We expect the Group to emerge from these difficulties in a stronger position with a sound platform for future growth as the market recovers and we resolve our financing issues. As James, Bill and I have mentioned before and experienced in the past, the nature of our business means that just as it can suffer in the downturn as advertisers tighten their belts so it will bounce back quickly when things turn for the better, as they surely will. We are confident that our shareholders and the lenders will be supportive of the Group while it addresses the UK financing issue. We are driving the process pro-actively to get to a satisfactory solution and are working with an experienced advisory team to assist and guide us through the process. I reiterate again that Incisive Media is a sound business, certainly with challenges, but with everyone working together we will emerge stronger from this. I will keep you updated as the process moves forward. In the meantime, thank you for your support and continued hard work. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me. Tim” |
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