Journalist and attorney Manny Medrano spoke to ILTA Conference attendees this morning at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
His very personal speech touched on his heritage, his upbringing, his work as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney’s Office and as a legal affairs journalist and commentator.
Legal Current talked with Medrano after his speech, and given his experience as the Supreme Court correspondent for ABC News, we chose to ask him about the outlook for the current bench, in this video interview:
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As the 2010 ILTA Conference enters its third day, we wanted to bring you some interviews with several attendees about the importance of the annual conference and its impact.
We start with a video interview with one of the conference co-chairs, Meredith Williams, the director of knowledge management with Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz in Memphis, Tenn.
“From my own personal perspective this has been one of the most creative and professionally satisfying events of my life,” says Williams.
Hear more from Williams in this video clip:
Over the last two days we’ve also done several interviews with ILTA members and attendees about the conference. Each has given us different reasons for why they come to the conference so we encourage you to take some time to listen to each short audio comment below to get a sense for their varied responses.
Just click on each name, below, to play the audio:
V. Mary Abraham, Debevoise & Plimpton
Craig Ball, Craig D. Ball, P.C.
Gary Berger, Ogletree Deakins
Sean Brady, Vinson & Elkins (His views are his personal opinions, not of his firm)
Patrick DiDomenico, Gibbons
David Hobbie, Goodwin Procter
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The “Strategic Unity” theme of ILTA 2010 is all about uniting the business side with the practice side of the law. The theme is running strong through several of the meetings and an entire track of sessions that relate to the “Law 2020” initiative.
We talked with Randi Mayes, executive director of ILTA, about her thoughts on the conference so far:
Randi also oversees ILTA’s award-winning Peer to Peer publication and white papers.
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Editor’s note: Guest blogger Andrew McLennan-Murray is an applications integrator for Thomson Reuters, Legal.
Over the last 5 years, SharePoint has taken the legal industry by storm. Today, most firms have SharePoint installed, whether they use it as their primary intranet portal or in another capacity. Microsoft’s SharePoint is mostly known as a content management system and portal. Three firms set out on an exploration of what else SharePoint can do in their ILTA 2010 presentation, “SharePoint as a DMS: From Heresy to Orthodoxy.”
Loeb & Loeb presented their hypothetical thinking around SharePoint as a document management system (DMS). The firm’s current intranet leverages SharePoint 2007, which they chose due to its ease of use, ease of administration, and ability to organize content and clearly target internal audiences.
They say after their successful implementation of SharePoint as a content management system they began to question whether or not it could be used as a DMS and if they even needed to have a traditional DMS anymore. They decided to reassess what it was they wanted to get out of a DMS in the first place. Based on their research, they came up with the following:
-A DMS should give attorneys the ability to retrieve their document data quickly and accurately.
They asked themselves if they could use SharePoint to accomplish that goal, and they came to believe the answer was yes. Loeb & Loeb will be rolling out SharePoint 2010 in the near future and plan to test it as a DMS. (more…)
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It’s hard enough for a law firm or law department to keep track of its knowledge management right? So what about everyday, you and I, personal knowledge management?
You know, things like that jam-packed email inbox?
Sean Brady, information systems consultant at Vinson & Elkins, is leading two sessions this morning at the 2010 ILTA conference about personal knowledge management. They are titled “Managing Information Overload Through Personal Knowledge Management.” Michael McBride at Bricker & Eckler also is leading the sessions.
The program aims to address software and techniques to better manage information and become more efficient and effective in your work. The program description says “attendees will also explore the three components of good personal KM (aggregate, filter, share) and have a chance to try tools both inside and outside the firewall, including social media tools, that help manage information flows related to their professional lives.”
You can download the pdf of the presentation for more information.
in this video interview, he told us what he hopes attendees will get out of the sessions.
Brady’s views are his personal opinion and do not represent his firm.
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Editor’s note: Guest blogger Joe Raczynski, an applications integrator for Thomson Reuters, Legal, also is a technology evangelist who specializes in social media and portal technology. In addition, he has been a consultant in Web and wireless development.
Today at the typical law firm the onslaught of various mobile devices abound. The firm is now confronted with requests to support a fractious market of iPhones, the BlackBerry and Androids. Not only must they deal with devices, they also grapple with various platforms and specific applications. This hodge-podge environment of disparate devices can be a major challenge. This session at the 2010 ILTA Conference explored how firms deal with mobile devices and policy.
Firms have taken three approaches to mobile device management: (more…)
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Editor’s note: Guest blogger Andrew McLennan-Murray is an applications integrator for Thomson Reuters, Legal.
Throughout the course of the last five years law firms have been working to deploy universal and enterprise search systems. Law firms generate an enormous amount of data, so the challenge of selecting and searching the right data is often overwhelming.
At ILTA 2010, the session “Successful Universal Search Implementations” invited firms to share their best practices. Among the firms sharing their recipes were Sheppard Mullin, Gibbons P.C., Cassels Brock, Bracewell & Juliani LLP and Howrey LLP. Between them, they covered an impressive breadth of technologies including SharePoint powered by XMLAW, Recommind’s MindServer, Microsoft’s FAST ESP, Autonomy’s IUS, and West km.
Each firm commented on the complexity of the current technology landscape for universal search. They urged the audience to take a hard look at all available options before making a purchase decision. Rachelle Rennagel, CKO of Sheppard Mullin also gave the following tips on ensuring your firm is even ready to consider implementing a universal search plan: (more…)
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Editor’s note: Guest blogger Joe Raczynski, an applications integrator for Thomson Reuters, Legal, also is a technology evangelist who specializes in social media and portal technology. In addition, he has been a consultant in Web and wireless development.
As social media has ballooned in popularity and use, law firms have had to wrestle with the myriad of implications on the organization. Staff and attorneys who increasingly use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube can cause serious issues for the firm. This session at the 2010 ILTA Conference focused around the various aspects of a firm developing a social media policy.
Here are some important points to consider when crafting your social media policy: (more…)
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Editor’s note: Guest blogger Joe Raczynski, an Applications Integrator for Thomson Reuters, Legal, also is a technology evangelist who specializes in social media and portal technology. In addition, he has been a consultant in Web and wireless development.
Massive collections of information are inundating law firms. With multiple points of integration, interfaces, and varying disciplines this further muddies the waters. This session at ILTA answered questions relating the issues of organizing and managing content across all firm repositories to reduce silos, improve data quality, facilitate KM and ensure full and accurate firm records.
The goal of most firms now is to devise an ECM (Enterprise Content Management) system which includes connecting all of the following silos of information: email, DMS, KM system, records management system and others. (more…)
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Business author and speaker Jason Jennings opened the 2010 ILTA Conference this morning in Las Vegas with a keynote speech titled “Five Secrets to Put Strategic Unity on the Fast Track.”
One of the things he addressed concerned how businesses and organizations – including law firms – should forget about having a mission statement for their work and instead focus on a noble purpose.
“The fastest companies in the world, the most productive organizations in the world, the ones that do the best job growing organically, seem all to have a shared noble purpose,” Jennings said. “It’s not a mission. It’s not a vision. They have a shared noble purpose that gives people a pride in being involved in working for the organization.”
In a video interview with Legal Current after his speech, Jennings told us what he heard from several ILTA members, as he took time to talk with them to help him prepare for his presentation:
A longer excerpt of our interview with Jennings is featured in this Legal Current podcast.
Jennings’ latest book is Think BIG – Act Small, which profiles the leadership of the only ten companies in the world to have grown both revenues and profits by double digits every year for ten consecutive years. Earlier this year, he released Hit the Ground Running, A Manual for New Leaders, that profiles and reveals the tactics and strategies of the ten American CEO’s who’ve created the greatest amount of economic value since the year 2000.
His previous books include It’s Not The Big That Eat The Small – It’s The Fast That Eat The Slow and Less is More.
You can learn more about Jason Jennings at http://jennings-solutions.com.
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Thomson Reuters, Legal, President & CEO Peter Warwick offered his perspective on the company’s approach to the current economic reality in a panel discussion, “Adapting and Thriving in a Challenging Economy”, at the Minnesota Venture & Finance Conference.
The launch of WestlawNext brings a significant advancement in the way professional legal research is done.
A discussion about online privacy and “The End of Forgetting,” with law professor Jeffrey Rosen.
