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Joanna Goodman
TikitTFB Partner for Windows: in IT for the long-term
| 19 January 2012
January – a new year and a new start. When people and businesses traditionally think, ‘Out with the old and in with the new’. Conversely, TikitTFB’s practice, case and document management system Partner for Windows has just celebrated its 13th year. TikitTFB’s Business Development Director Mark Garnish shared his plans for the next five years with Joanna Goodman.
B2B technology news sites – and LITP is no exception – focus on swap-outs: where firms have replaced their practice management and other systems with the latest products to hit the market.
KM rises to the ‘more for less’ challenge at the VQ Knowledge Management and Strategy Forum in Stockholm
| 17 October 2011
VQ Knowledge Management and Strategy forum in Stockholm was organised by VQAB’s Ann Björk and Helena Hallgarn, former knowledge managers at Vinge, Sweden's second largest law firm. It was an interesting and useful event with thought-provoking presentations and excellent hospitality and networking at The Grand Hotel. Over 130 delegates attended. It was good to meet leading lights in Swedish law firms and catch up with legal IT providers including Autonomy (now part of HP), Recommind, OpenText and BusinessIntegrity and hear presentations from Rob Ameerun of Legal IT Professionals and Chris Bull of Edge International, among others.
The keynote speaker was Professor Richard Susskind, whose presentation was based on the concepts in his bestselling book ‘The End of Lawyers?’ Susskind repeatedly describes his book as, “The End of Lawyers – Question Mark”, presumably to clarify that the title indicates a question for discussion rather than what would be a rather alarming statement at a law firm conference!
Tikit ClientConnect – It’s not just who you know, but how you know them
| 02 August 2011
Joanna Goodman interviews Tikit's CEO David Lumsden
Tikit ClientConnect is the very latest CRM offering to hit the legal technology market, launched on 20th July. Its press release describes it as a game changer. Joanna Goodman spoke to Tikit’s Chief Executive David Lumsden to find out more.
What was your motivation in deciding to create a new, legal-specific CRM system? What were the business drivers?
We looked at what was out there and saw that a large number of products focused on the high-end of the market. We decided there was room for a new product that would bring large-firm CRM capability to SME firms.
Legal IT Cloud Xperience – a broader perspective
| 04 May 2011
Keynote speeches by Charles Christian, Daniel Pollick and David Bennett
Spring is the busy season for legal IT events and along with the usual UK events – the Legal IT Show, LEX 2011 and ILTA INSIGHT – I recently had the privilege to travel to The Netherlands to attend Nobel’s Cloud Xperience. This review covers the legal technology stream where most of the keynote speeches were delivered by speakers from the UK. I also refer to one Dutch presentation on the use of social media in law firms. Jeroen Zweers, Manager ICT and Facilities at Dutch law firm Dirkzwager took the time to give me an interview about his firm’s unique award-winning knowledge management system, which could well be of interest to LITP readers.
Allen & Overy – a new appointment and a new app!
| 26 October 2010
First interview of Allen & Overy's new CIO Gareth Ash
In his first interview since his appointment as Chief Information Officer at Allen & Overy LLP, Gareth Ash speaks to Joanna Goodman about launching the A&O Connect app, his strategy and challenges going forward.
Gareth Ash has been CIO at Allen & Overy LLP (A&O), since August 2010, when IT director Jason Haines was promoted to finance director.
Gareth’s former role as global head of service delivery, involved running all operations, data centres, security and disaster recovery. He was responsible for the migration of the firm’s in-house data centre to a third party and the fit out and move of the London office to its Bishops Square premises.
Looking back at the Legal IT Leaders Think Tank
| 24 May 2010
Legal IT Professionals was media partner to Chilli IQ’s Legal IT Leaders Think Tank held at The Grange St Paul’s Hotel in London on 18th and 19th May. Joanna Goodman reports from the event.
The Grange St Paul’s Hotel is obviously the current favourite for legal IT events in London as I attended ILTA INSIGHT here on 27th April, but I am certainly not complaining about spending another day at this elegant and well-equipped venue.
The Legal IT Leaders Think Tank was a smaller event aimed at the decision makers in legal IT. Jenny Katrivesis and her team put together an interesting selection of presentations and discussions addressing major strategic considerations and current hot topics, notably e-discovery, cloud computing, legal process outsourcing as well as sessions led by sponsoring organisations Hubbard One, Mimecast and Elite.
Legal IT Show, clouds, tweets and virtual reality!
| 15 February 2010
I attended the first day of London’s Legal IT Show last Wednesday. Although it is sometimes considered the poor relation of the more glamorous New York event, following last year’s diary clash, this year the events were a week apart, enabling the keenest legal IT followers to attend, present or exhibit at both – with time in between to travel/recover!
The weather was better too. Although there were a few flurries of snow in London, we had nothing like the white out which hit attendance rather hard in 2009. This year, although the event occupied a noticeably smaller area of London’s Business Design Centre and there were clearly fewer stands, attendance seemed to have improved on last year, with all seats taken at Speakers’ Corner for many of the sessions on the first day.
Electronic evidence and e-discovery forum 2009 and ESI Trends
| 26 October 2009
Legal IT Professionals was selected as media partner to the electronic evidence and e-discovery forum 2009, held at the Victoria Park Plaza Hotel in London on 20th and 21st October. Joanna Goodman reports from the event.
The Electronic evidence and e-discovery forum 2009 was organised by AKJ Associates, which organises events focusing on business risk, corporate strategy and security management – key elements in managing electronically stored information (ESI) and e-discovery.
The timing of the event was fortuitous, coming only a couple of weeks after the 8 October judgment in the case of Earles v. Barclays Bank Plc by His Honour Judge Simon Brown QC in which Barclays’ award of costs was reduced due to its failure to conduct adequate searches of its electronic data.
Need to know!
| 13 August 2009
Joanna Goodman tells about TheKnowList and replies to comments on her previous column
Although it is only a few weeks since my last column, I thought I’d let LITP readers know that August sees the launch of TheKnowList, the first independent directory for the legal IT community featuring leading law firms and suppliers across all product categories. I have to confess an interest as I am the editor of this essential – and stylish – A5 reference guide which is currently being distributed to UK law firms. To order your free copy – wherever you are – go to www.theknowlist.com.
TheKnowList offers a comprehensive directory of legal technology products and services. The editorial section comprises 21 features highlighting the key technologies that support modern law firms of all sizes, ranging from major infrastructure systems to flexible SaaS solutions.
Making IT personal – or not!
| 10 July 2009
Notwithstanding the economy, it is still conference and event season in the legal sector. I recently attended a meeting of the Adelaide Group at Berwin Leighton Paisner, which is organised by IT director Janet Day. The superb presentation by Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty was very well-attended, but the same could not be said for other legal IT events. Apparently, the Strategic Technology Forum in Spain was not as busy as usual. The reasons for this can be driven by politics as well as costs. ‘Our firm is making people redundant, so it doesn’t look good if we go off on a beano, whether or not the IT department has the budget for it,’ explained one IT director. IT departments are under pressure to achieve more with less and to present the right image both within the firm and externally – both within the legal sector and the legal IT industry.
Into the cloud
| 09 April 2009
By now you will have heard that Legal Technology Journal is no longer being published, hence the extended gap between LITP columns. I have to start by thanking people who e-mailed saying they’ll miss the LTJ. So will I – it’s sad to dismantle a really good team. But life – and legal IT – must go on. I’m a freelance writer and I continue to cover the legal and technology sectors – more news to come so watch this space as I’ll be looking for comment and input!
It could be said that Legal Technology Journal and the Legal Technology Awards went out with a bang. More than 450 people attended the awards and as someone who does a lot of work by e-mail and on the phone it was great to meet the legal IT crowd – not least the founder of this site.
As this is my first LITP column for 2009, I thought I’d highlight some of the latest trends: new challenges and new technology.
Firms are still focused sharply on Green IT, especially if it saves money while it saves the planet. As everyone also knows, London’s Legal IT Show was quiet compared with previous years. Was it the recession, a reluctance to travel – or was it the snow in London – an unusual occurrence which ground our public transport system to a halt? The keynote speech by James Woudhuysen focused on Green issues and their impact on IT. His book – on economics, energy and IT – is erudite and well written, which isn’t surprising given that James is a lecturer at de Montfort University, but it occurs to me that for an environmentalist, he is using an awful lot of paper. It says nowhere in the book whether it was printed on recycled paper…please correct me if I am wrong…
Three ways to add value in a downturn
| 28 December 2008
IT can improve efficiency, foster innovation and support your firm’s green credentials.
December’s news focused on the credit crunch and an obsession with shoppers’ footprints in London’s West End as early sales finally tempted Christmas shoppers. While some features pages focused on thrift, others asked whether we could really spend our way out of a recession. This doesn’t seem a sensible approach. I doubt that many individuals or families will be throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to save the UK economy and the Prime Minister’s reputation. And it definitely won’t be the case when it comes to law firms’ expenditure. Since my last column – and I know that it has been a while – I have spoken with a number of law firms in the UK and Europe, and certainly all the sensible ones acknowledge that the economic situation is transforming the nature of their work, which has focused on reorganisation, restructuring and insolvency as well as distressed transactions. Law firms are necessarily involved in the rescue deals that are hitting the headlines, so they are only too well aware of the impact on business.
Although some of the biggest firms report excellent half-yearly figures, the big picture in the legal sector is blurred by the fact that many are undertaking work that is driven by the financial crisis and the economic downturn – insolvency and litigation departments are particularly busy. Notwithstanding this, the slowdown in transactional and real estate work has led to many firms announcing redundancies. The imminent danger is the possibility of a gap between the end of the ‘clean up’ and the market picking up again. Firms that do not consider their medium to long-term strategy risk falling into that gap. Law firms, like other businesses, are looking harder than ever at their own spending.
Value to the business
Where does that leave the IT department? Technology is critical to all modern businesses so ‘value add’ needs to focus on providing reliable and responsive systems and support as any downtime is expensive, wasteful and frustrating. Speed and user-friendliness are top priorities in order to make the best use of lawyers’ expensive time. In a cost-conscious business environment, it is more important than ever for IT directors to work closely with the business and demonstrate the return on investing in systems and applications that fit and support the business in terms of hard savings achieved through efficiency improvements and reduced manpower. As you are no doubt aware, there have been a number of high-profile redundancy announcements in law firm support departments too. Although it makes sense to outsource some services, this critical strategic element represents the core value of IT directors and their in-house teams.
