Today, technology has become more and more synonymous with productivity. Lawyers are turning to technology to not only get things done quicker, but also make their professional lives easier.
An article (registration is required) written by Lee Ann Enquist, vice president of Professional Development at West LegalEdcenter, addresses the emerging relationship between lawyers and the iPhone.
In Lawyers Enjoy New Level of Productivity with iPhone Technology, several attorneys shared their views on how the iPhone impact their professional lives. All believed that the iPhone allowed them to keep up-to-date with important information when they were on the go, but they also felt the CLE Mobile app was one of the most valuable assets of having their phones. (more…)
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The virtual practice of the law certainly got a lot of attention this week at the 2010 ILTA Conference. Technology is obviously at the heart of the matter.
A session at the conference yesterday titled “Technologies to Support the Virtual Practice” was led by Sally Gonzalez, a senior director at Hildebrandt Baker Robbins.
It set out to define the parameters of virtual practice and examine what technologies and management strategies best support the virtual practice and whether different collaboration and security strategies in such a setting are necessary.
“You’re now going to have project teams consisting of internal and external resources that are highly dynamic that need to exchange and work on information collaboratively across those boundaries and its going to require a completely different technology infrastructure in order to support that,” said Gonzalez.
Legal Current did a video interview with Gonzalez before her session, in which she explains what she wanted to get across to the attendees:
You can get the slides from the presentation here.
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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.
Enterprise 2.0, collaborative-based applications, solve inefficiencies caused by the inability to locate accurate information. This session at ILTA discussed why intranets do not suffice, single silo search is dying, and what is necessary to advance the firm’s productivity.
Across the board, law firms are realizing that an increase in transparency nets far greater productivity, and in-turn, profit. This knowledge sharing facilitates collaboration and reduces the time that attorneys spend searching for content. Enterprise 2.0 is at the very center of this movement.
Enterprise 2.0 tools: (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.
Recently some select firms have forgone the necessity to prove return on investment (ROI), for KM, portal and Enterprise 2.0. However for the vast majority, ROI justification remains a constant. In this session at the 2010 ILTA Conference, the panel examined the basics of metrics, how to measure productivity rather than busyness, how to measure engagement and concrete ways to measure portal and Enterprise 2.0 applications.
As a baseline understanding for this discussion, metrics are numbers to gauge progress, i.e. a quantifiable means to measure if there is a move from one point to another. Firms engage in this activity to evaluate success and decide what to fund.
Simply stated they create these objectives to see if they are materially advancing the goals of the organization. (more…)
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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…)
Posted by Andrew McLennan-Murray in:
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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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Time is everything to an attorney or litigation support team, especially when managing and analyzing cases.
Today, West announced West Case Notebook 2.0, the latest version of West’s case analysis and management software. The new version includes integration with WestlawNext and many other new features to help litigators organize, analyze and share essential case information.
In this video, Allison Guidette, vice president and general manager of Litigation at West, explains that Case Notebook 2.0 is part of the Westlaw Litigator set of integrated tools, services and content, which helps attorneys and staff be more productive:
We also did a short Legal Current interview edition audio podcast with Allison, in which she expands on trends in litigation, the benefits and features of Westlaw Litigator and recent and planned developments as customers’ needs evolve:
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Today is World Intellectual Property Day and Thomson Reuters, Legal, and IP Solutions are proud to partner with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to launch a program giving industrial property offices (responsible for intellectual property and copyright) and government and academic researchers in developing countries free access to global patent information.
The goals of World IP Day are to raise awareness for how patents, copyrights, trademarks and designs impact daily life; increase understanding of how protecting IP rights helps promote creativity and innovation; celebrate creativity and the contribution made by creators and innovators to the development of societies; and, encourage respect for the IP rights of others.
Our hope is that free access to scientific and technical knowledge, in particular knowledge in patents, fosters global innovation by enabling the development of solutions to the world’s technical challenges.
“The theme of this year’s World IP Day, “Innovation – Linking the World,” reflects the goal of this new program which aims to provide access for developing and least-developed countries to technical information found in patent databases”, said Yo Takagi, assistant director general, Global Infrastructure Sector, World Intellectual Property Organization “These databases offer sophisticated search and analysis tools as well as a wide range of other value-added features. Allowing developing and least-developed countries to more fully exploit their creative potential through the effective use of technical information found in these specialized patent databases will further link these countries into the global knowledge economy and foster the development of new solutions to technical challenges faced on a local and global level.”
Read the news release for more information on the program that WIPO and Thomson Reuters will be working together on.
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Like lawyers who work in their own practice or in firms or agencies, corporate legal departments also are being pushed to be more productive and efficient, says Mike Suchsland, president of Corporate, Government and Academic, for Thomson Reuters, Legal, in the April 2010 edition of The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel.
Suchsland’s article, titled “Next Generation In Legal Research Drives Efficiency, Productivity And Confidence For Corporate Counsel,” outlines the benefits of WestlawNext to corporate counsel.
Suchsland says:
We believe a search system with this level of power will transform early case assessments (ECA) for corporate litigators, which in turn can further drive down department expenses. In addition, the powerful search capabilities of WestlawNext may be beneficial in helping identify recovery opportunities or culling IP assets to determine which are worth protecting or could be sold. And, for general counsel who work with a company’s business development team, WestlawNext will serve as an essential tool in vetting acquisition targets to determine potential risks and upside.
Again, you can read Suchsland’s full article in Metropolitan Corporate Counsel here.
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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.
