Legal Technology

This Is Why Information Without Intelligence Is Useless

By Ari Kaplan
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

I spoke with T.M. Ravi, chief marketing officer for Iron Mountain Digital, the division of Iron Mountain that provides electronic information management.

We discussed Iron Mountain's recently announced information management strategy, e-discovery trends, ranging from cost reduction to client control, and location/media agnostic solutions for managing information.

Listen to our interview by clicking the button below.

Ari L. Kaplan, Esq.
Ari Kaplan Advisors
(646) 641-0600

All the Details on an All-In-One Solution

By Ari Kaplan
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

Manfred Gabriel is a managing director in FTI Technology’s New York office. An expert on e-discovery processes and tools, Gabriel helps lead FTI’s all-in-one legal document review service offering, Acuity.

Prior to joining FTI, Gabriel practiced antitrust law at Latham & Watkins and handled many large-scale second request and e-discovery matters.

We discussed Acuity, FTI's goal in developing the solution and the advantages of using a reference set of materials along with "suggested coding" tools.

Listen to our interview by clicking the button below.

Ari L. Kaplan, Esq.
Ari Kaplan Advisors
(646) 641-0600

Is "Outlook on Steroids" the Secret to Practice Management Success?

By Ari Kaplan
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

I spoke with Ron Collins, the founder and CEO of Credenza, a practice management software company, as well as the founder of Gavel & Gown Software, makers of Amicus Attorney.

We discussed the release of Credenza (described in this video), how it differs from Amicus Attorney, practice management trends, and what the introduction of Credenza signals about the evolution and the future of legal practice.

Listen to our interview by clicking the button below.

Ari L. Kaplan, Esq.
Ari Kaplan Advisors
(646) 641-0600

When You Put a Lot of Lawyers in Front of a Lot of Documents, You ...

By Ari Kaplan
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

"...increase the number of potential errors," said Paul Brabant, senior vice president for eDiscovery at Epiq Systems, a provider of integrated technology services for the legal market, during our recent interview.

We discussed IQ Review, the reliance on machine-based processes to determine the relevance of documents, as well as the defensibility of such efforts.

Listen to our interview by clicking the button below.

Ari L. Kaplan, Esq.
Ari Kaplan Advisors
(646) 641-0600

What Are the Key Considerations for Law Firm Management Concerning Data Governance?

By Ari Kaplan
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

I spoke with Dan Tacone, President of IntApp, a technology company that focuses on data governance within large global law firms.

Tacone was recently featured in the prestigious President's Corner column in Law Technology News.  Before joining IntApp, Tacone was the Senior Vice President of Global Customers at Thomson Reuters.

We discussed the key considerations for law firm management addressing data governance issues, the evolution of data governance since intApp's founding a decade ago, and the his predictions for data governance within the large law firm market.

Listen to our interview by clicking the button below.

Ari L. Kaplan, Esq.
Ari Kaplan Advisors
(646) 641-0600

 

What Do Law Firms and Retail Banks Have in Common?

By Ari Kaplan
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

I spoke with Jason Goitia, the founder of the Goitia Law Firm in Tampa, whose mission is to empower clients to use a Florida law firm online.  His website, FloridaVirtualLawOffice.com, allows flat-fee online document assembly.

We discussed the genesis of his firm, the advantages of operating a virtual office, the value of flat fee arrangements for his clients, and the similarities between the evolutionary trend in the law to those that have taken place in the retail banking industry.

Listen to our interview by clicking the button below.

Ari L. Kaplan, Esq.
Ari Kaplan Advisors
(646) 641-0600

 

Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 released to business customers

Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 have been released to business customers. The two products aim to "redefine" productivity, according to Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft Business Division.

With over 8 million people already using 2010, today's announcement is no surprise. And neither are many of the new features to the 2010 products, as they have been tested by firms like Clifford Chance and Katten Muchin Roseman LLP, and reviewed by consultant John K. Waters.

Brian Zeve, managing director for Microsoft’s Professional Services Industry unit, penned "The Top 10 Capabilities in Microsoft Office 2010 for Law Firms." Zeve's top ten points highlight new innovative tools like MailTips that, among other things, notify users when they are about to send an e-mail to a group or an individual outside the organization. The new Office Backstage view replaces the traditional file menu and the Ribbon now appears on all Office applications, which makes it easy for law offfices to include standard templates, notes Zeve.

Digital Demand software brings art to advocacy

Advocacy skills include writing skills and oratory used in and out of court. Technology brings art to those skills via multimedia files that can be included with your writing and presentations. The technology is not limited to PowerPoint -- and it is not limited to trial litigation software like TrialDirector.

There are many niche tools coming to the legal market with an aim to eliminate the traditional paper chase in compiling a story and developing an argument. XLR8R Studios Digital Demand software aims to facilitate the compilation of a demand letter and make it easy to incorporate multimedia into a package destined for an insurer or other parties that may be responsible for an injury or claim.

Digital Demand is licensed on a per-use basis and is compatible with Windows. An evaluation copy is available from their website.

As a Mattern of Fact

You may think the title to this post has a typo. As a matter of fact, it does not. It aims to bring your attention to the new Mattern of Fact blog authored by Mattern and Associates. The new blog aims to educate the legal technology community about support services and cost recovery, as well as the contracts that cover the work, the performance, and the costs -- and before the contract, the request for proposals and information necessary to come to an agreement with a vendor.

Robert Mattern and Associates goal is to ferret out strategies to make support services and cost recovery processes in law firms effective and efficient to reduce billable costs and recover revenue. The firm, and the blog, aims to provide "unbiased" information so readers can make intelligent and well-informed decisions.

When someone tells me they provide "unbiased" anything, my bias radar tunes in to the appropriate frequency. But Robert Mattern gets the benefit of the doubt after authoring "How to Face a Triple Threat" and "Law Firm Cost Recovery Is Here to Stay."

Back in the middle of 2009, Mattern was talking about cost recovery. At that time, it was probably too late to save some of the firms with their stern under hot water. But now, as the economy lifts, the Mattern of Fact blog may be a good resource for firms to control and recover costs for support services and contain billing rates.

Oversharing on the Web

By Conrad Saam
Special to the Legal Technology blog

At Facebook’s F8 conference in San Francisco last week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg rolled out a provocative new integration between Facebook and a select set of content partners. The concept is very interesting -- personalize every user's web experience by bringing in content from their individual social graph. What does this mean in English? When I visit a Facebook partner site like CNN, I get commentary from my social network about the content on that site. "Bill liked this article." "Mary tweeted that article." Read the entire article.