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The Legal Industry as a whole has seen so much growth within their IT organizations over the past several years. Who would have thought years ago that some law firms would be considered “innovative” within Information Technology? If I told you ten years ago that a good percentage of AMLaw 100 Firms would have most of their IT organization fully in-house by 2013, would you have believed me?
New York Times reporter Steve Lohr published an article on March 24th entitled “Big Data is Opening Doors, But Maybe Too Many” which raised issues about Big Data and privacy, invoking the ever-terrifying Big Brother reference from Orwell's future-horror novel 1984. For lawyers and legal IT professionals, the privacy side of the big data discussion is certainly a primary concern.
Lohr recalls that big data spooked people back in the 1960's with the rise of the mainframe computer. Mainframes caused a broad spectrum of reactions, with some factions fearing the end of privacy as mainframes ingested and produced huge amounts of data, while other groups saw the great benefits in growth and innovation that mainframes made possible.
Legal organizations have had a non-existent relationship with the information technology (IT) groups that serve them. In many cases IT organizations remain to themselves and only interact with legal when something goes wrong, or they need to collect data for eDiscovery. IT organizations are responsible for managing user data, and making sure it is safe and available. Legal is responsible for corporate policies and making sure risk and liability is managed when it comes to that same data.
Google Authorship is a new feature recently launched by Google. While there are many new social technologies and tactics, this is one that your law firm and marketing department may want to pay attention to more fully. Here's the lowdown on how it works.
When your attorneys author and publish a blog post on the web and a client searches for that particular topic where the attorney's blog post shows up, the attorneys name and picture will appear in the Google Search results.
There's certainly been plenty written and debated in recent months on the topics of BYOD, mobility and free to air applications in the workplace. Each tends to be considered as an individual, albeit significant, challenge that law firm IT departments must address. My contention however, is that these new world phenomena, when considered all together, represent a shift in the IT landscape that is comparable to the move to client server in the 1990s and the explosion in the internet in the 2000s. In this column I will support that claim by setting these challenges in a law firm context and then consider how IT departments might realign their services to be effective in the new world.
Christy Burke reports from LegalTech 2013
Thousands of visitors, hundreds of vendors and 3 days action-packed with lots of information: LegalTech New York. Christy Burke was there and recorded some short interviews with exhibitors for Legal IT Professionals.
Christy asked about their companies, new products and impressions of the show. Below you will find all the interviews.
How to Procure Technology for Your Firm in a Financially Strategic Manner
The LegalTech Conference held in New York is billed as one of the largest and most important legal technology events of the year, and as a conference go-er for over 20 years, I agree for two reasons. First, there is the opportunity we all look forward to: the opportunity to recharge long term relationships and create new ones, and LegalTech provides a rich environment for this.
Social Networking Tools Increase Attorney Productivity, Work Product Quality and Client Relations
Social networking is more than just another communications medium. It has become the primary means of sharing knowledge and information for increasing numbers of individuals and organizations. Traditionally, businesses and law firms, especially, have been more concerned with the potential risks of adopting social network models into their workflows than with the profit-impacting benefits of social networking tools on their organizations. Deploying and adopting a social network based work flow system would enable a law firm to increase productivity and enhance the quality of the work product of its attorneys, and at the same time, increase client satisfaction.
Planning a trade show can take a lot of time and money to put a successful show together. Legal IT companies and legal software vendors want to get the most out of their booth space for a minimal price, but expenses can quickly rise soon after making the first expensive purchase - the actual booth space on the exhibit floor! However, your show doesn’t have to bankrupt you. Here are 7 helpful money saving tips for planning a trade show event.
For the past few years, business and relationship development have been an increasingly important focus for law firms. So much of business development centers on one-on-one conversations with current or prospective clients, where lawyers are able to mold their message to the unique needs of each individual. Likewise, pitches, proposals and RFP responses are also finely tuned and tailored to each deal.
For legal technology professionals involved in e-discovery, an ongoing challenge is to balance performance against cost. This is particularly true when selecting a review platform, because review is usually the most expensive, time-consuming and critical stage of the e-discovery process. Whether you work at a law firm or in-house at a corporation, you want a platform able to meet the demands of the case but that will not break the bank.
With the increasing popularity of cloud computing, the answer to that challenge often turns on whether an e-discovery platform delivered via the cloud-also known as Software as a Service-is right for you or whether a locally hosted, appliance-based platform better suits your needs.
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