The Legal IT Forum: The future (of legal IT) is up for grabs

15
Oct
2013

Joanna Goodman

I was privileged to attend the Legal IT Forum at Hanbury Manor. The format of this two-day event was practical and interactive, which kept everyone engaged and quickly built a collaborative and collegiate atmosphere. There was just one formal keynote presentation. Otherwise the mornings were devoted to panel discussions and the afternoon to short breakout sessions - strategy labs focusing on three themes: transforming data into business information; integrating cloud and onsite systems and new ways of re-engineering service delivery.

Keynote: Cynicism is the enemy of the future

In some ways, the keynote by futurologist Mark Stevenson echoed the presentations at ILTA in Las Vegas, as it included some amazing stories about what is being achieved with cutting edge technology including numerous instances of where technology and society are out of step. He used , and closed in on specific technologies - such as 3D printing and big data analysis - to highlight the opportunities and challenges presented by continuous progress and evolution. Products such as Nanoscribe, which will enable you to print a 3D printer is just one example of the impact of 3D printing on manufacturing.  

Technologist and scientist Stevenson is a former semi-professional musician and stand-up comedian. He is easy listening, and his stories were compelling, particularly the ones related to advances in environmental engineering and medical science. His keynote was full of interesting possibilities supported by literary and scientific quotations. His closing messages were motivational and upbeat - sometimes you have to break the rules to make real progress and that mistakes commonly lead to breakthrough.  However, technology can be used for good or evil and we need to help steer it in the right direction. “Cynicism is the enemy of the future,” said Stevenson, and I particularly liked his observation that Martin Luther King didn't say, “I have a plan”.

Mind the delivery gap: Legal IT does what?

This was followed by a panel debate between Janet Day Director of Technology & Infrastructure Services at Berwin Leighton Paisner, who also chaired the event, Derek Southall, partner and head of strategic development at Wragge & Co - and chairman of LITIG, the Legal IT Innovators Group - and well-known consultant Neil Cameron. Here there were three clear perspectives. Southall argued that law firms bought generalised products and then customised them heavily and that if there were more legal-specific products, firms would not have to do this. Day's counter-argument was that the legal vertical was not sufficiently lucrative to warrant big vendors developing tailored solutions. Cameron added that firms are not willing to pay for customised products and furthermore law firms have different requirements. Here there was some agreement, with Day highlighting the fact that firms customise Microsoft Office to such an extent that they spend considerable time converting the documents they send to each other. This led to Cameron's succinct definition of legal IT: basically, it unf*cks up documents!  The discussion moved on to process management and another Cameron gem. Apparently market entrants - like 'Riverdance Law' - compete through their mastery of process management (which I suppose is almost totally hands-free)!

Technology: Infection and transformation

The next session was a presentation of KM postcards from the US featuring consultant and commentator V. Mary Abraham, who previously led KM at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York. I have been following her AboveandBeyondKM.com blog for some time and recently commissioned her to write for Legal IT Today. Her co-presenter Eric Hunter is director of KM at Bradford & Barthel and has been at the cutting edge of legal technology and knowledge management for some time as a champion user of the public cloud - his firm deploys Google Docs - and heads spin-off consultancy Spherical Models which applies big data analytics to legal data to enable accurate forecasting to transform the firm's insurance litigation practice.

Abraham focused practical ways of using technology to transform the business of law. What makes law firm support functions great?' she asked. The answer was 'high infection rates' which sounded a bit worrying after all the medical references in the keynote, but actually related to a strategic opportunity for legal IT to 'infect' the firm with good ideas. 

Abraham and Hunter introduced the Technology Transformation Game, whereby we divided into groups and were asked to apply ground-breaking technology to some of the issues facing law firms today, with the winning team being announced at the gala dinner that evening.  This got everyone talking to each other and brainstorming. We had some good ideas, although the task was not taken entirely seriously: one suggestion was to use the 3D printer to print a few more legal assistants and combine them with augmented reality so that the firm would never be short of support staff! 

Should legal IT become more Shell-like?

Other interesting sessions included Janet Day's interview with Alistair Killich, Head of IT, Legal at Shell. What immediately struck me was that Shell's global legal department is bigger than most law firms. Unlike law firms, however, Killich tries to purchase as much of his team's technology out of the box and avoids customising it as far as possible. Killich is a former archaeologist who gave us some interesting insights into what is probably one of the world's largest corporate legal departments.

Strategy labs and panel sessions

We spent the afternoon in breakout sessions. I attended Dan Wales of BIPB Legal's presentation on client information management, Alex Holt and Mike Touhey of Steria discussing business agility with Chris Bull, and the über-cool Workshare team's session on BYOD (bring your own device) and file sharing.  Richard Neale of Esselar led a lively debate on enterprise mobile management, focusing on the post-Blackberry dilemma.

Day two focused on panel discussions on topical issues. I particularly enjoyed the session on knowledge and collaboration led by Rupert Collins-White of Legal Support Network, and the session on risk management led by Andy Maclusky of What Giants. The final sessions discussed issues around big data.

A perfect setting and a couple of memorable moments

I cannot sign off without writing something about Hanbury Manor. It is the first time I have stayed at an English country house hotel and it was a fantastic venue. The receptions and gala dinner were in elegant oak-panelled halls, and the sponsored bars stayed open very late. The service was perfect and friendly and even the coffee was good - no 'conference coffee' here.  Although the daily schedule was tightly packed, the gap between the end of the sessions and the evening events gave delegates a chance to catch up with emails and calls and take advantage of the hotel's facilities. 

In addition to being inspired by thought-provoking content and interesting people - some of whom I had worked with before, some I had interviewed on the phone but never met in person, and others I met for the first time - there were a couple of moments that made it personally memorable and I have promised to write about them!

Winning the team prize for our CRM gamification idea in the technology transformation game was one of my highlights - I was fortunate to be on the same team as Mark Stevenson, Chris Bull and Adrian Stafford from Linklaters. It was all just for fun and the prizes were chocolates, but it is rare that (non-famous) writers get a big round of applause. And this was the only legal IT event where I got to network while wearing a bikini (in the hotel's beautiful indoor pool - I also swam 20 lengths).  

Thanks again to organisers Matthew Robinson and his team and sponsors Steria, Kyocera, Ricoh, Proact, Tikit and Document Direct for a worthwhile and enjoyable event.