Originally published on February 8, 2011 in our free BigLaw newsletter. Instead of reading BigLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.
LegalTech New York often serves as a gauge as to where the legal technology market is headed. Legal technology vendors bring on the buzz to entice lawyers and IT professionals with their latest app, gadget, or widget.
I have attended LegalTech New York since 1999. Its mantra, "The Most Important Legal Technology Event of the Year" seemed to finally ring true as the recession slowly sloughs off. Many attendees would admit that LegalTech served as more of a job-hunting tool during the recent recession. This year, thank goodness, it was back to its "old self." I sensed positive vibes.
Below you'll find my LegalTech New York report geared specifically for those of you in large law firms and corporate legal departments, the two core constituencies who subscribe to TechnoLawyer's BigLaw newsletter.
Autonomy: Hear Me Roar
The fanfare was typical with Thomson Reuters/West and LexisNexis challenging each other to be the main event. But this year another giant — Autonomy — made a big splash on the first level of the exhibit hall affectionately referred to as "Wexis." Through aggressive advertising and expanding its booth space across a hall with an adjacent meeting room, Autonomy was hard to not notice.
Innovation a Buzz Wreck but Greenshoots Exist
Let's discuss the technical innovation at the show — or lack thereof — what I call the Buzz Wreck!
However, greenshoots exist. For example, midsize technology vendors as well as startups are tackling cloud computing and offering tighter technical integration. Many companies demonstrated how to leverage technology to gain better control of who is doing what, where, why, and when.
Another trend — consolidation through mergers and acquisitions. For example, DTI acquired Daticon EED late last year. It was hard to miss DTI's presence as just about every directional sign throughout the show bore its logo. While DTI is more aligned with service-bureau work for law firms, it uses many of the top rated discovery and litigation management products such as Clearwell, iCONECT, and Relativity. Once perceived as a small player in the eDiscovery market, DTI is now well positioned against Applied Discovery, Fios, and Kroll Ontrack.
Strategic partnerships are also flourishing. Vendors are teaming up when it enables them to deliver greater value to their clients. Post-recession, stability and reliability from a legal technology company has become so much more critical.
Finally, I noticed what I call "wrap-around" software. Take Wave Software for example. It has processed discovery data for years, but this year it acquired and integrated iFramework project management software to help legal teams get a better grasp on projects as they march through the litigation workflow process. The iFramework technology provides a "wrap" around other applications.
Executive Summaries of Key Conferences
Finally, I would like to recap three key conference sessions in case you missed them.
Round the Table With Women in eDiscovery: Myth Busters
Panelists explored three myths associated with bringing electronic discovery in-house. Babs Deacon, Cynthia Bateman, Joanne Lane, Ellen Kuplic, Emily Cobb, and Alison Grounds shared their insight and opinions about these three "myths":
Myth 1: The only way to conduct eDiscovery successfully is to let your outside counsel handle the entire process.
Myth 2: Always engage in full forensic collection of drives. Never permit self-collection by clients/custodians.
Myth 3: An organization without a high litigation profile doesn't need to implement a litigation readiness program or have preferred discovery support vendor relationships in place.
As expected, the conclusion is that black and white answers rarely exist. But the discussion and debate over each topic provided good arguments on both sides of the issues, at least helping to uncover factors that should be considered when making these decisions.
Leveraging Technology to Achieve Quality and Competitive Excellence
Weather was an issue for some as was the case for two panelists who couldn't make it in Tuesday morning. Moderator Brad Blickstein, of the Blickstein Group, and panelist Kim Townsan of United Technologies engaged in a good discussion centered on delivering value — whether in-house delivering to key stakeholders or outside counsel delivering value to their clients — by effectively using technology.
Highlights from this session included:
• A big piece of delivering value centers around alternative pricing models — pricing based on achieving results as opposed to billable hours. As Ms. Townsan pointed out, hours are not valuable to clients; results are.
• Leverage in-house IT resources to effectively use your data for process mapping, and identifying trends and actual cost drivers to determine where fixed costs might exist. Implement technology that will truly make work processes more efficient.
• Employ a good matter management system for all outside counsel to keep information consolidated.
Why the Legal Industry Needs to Change and Embrace Technology
This session offered an interesting perspective of technology in the legal industry by a panel of judges. The session was moderated by Joseph FitzGerald of Symantec and featured Hon. Dennis M. Sweeney, Hon. David J. Waxse, and Hon. Ron Hedges.
The judges discussed such issues as evolving industry standards and what one referred to as the "consumerization" of IT in which employees (and their employers) seek to consolidate personal- and work-related applications, devices, etc.
Judge Waxse discussed the need to use technology in the context of having "just, speedy, and inexpensive" trials, reminding the audience that case issues should drive the use of technology so counsel should agree at the outset as to what comprises these issues.
Judge Sweeney talked about the impact of social media on trials, sharing some interesting examples of jurors being disqualified mid-trial as a result of their activities on social networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter. His Honor advised that lawyers need to catch up to modern day juries.
(Disclosure: DTI and Wave Software are clients of Edge Legal Marketing.)
Written by Amy Juers of Edge Legal Marketing.
Photo: Fulbright & Jaworski CIO Scott Preston (left) and Client Profiles CEO Whit McIsaac (right) at LegalTech New York. Photo provided by Client Profiles.
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