Here on Legal Tech Insider we've been asked to provide some odd services over the years, including sending a weekly joke to the terminally depressed (let's face it, it's not a bundle of laughs selling software to solicitors) and advising on dog training and animal welfare issues. However we've now been asked if we could organise an Orange Rag Lonely Hearts column. Our contact adds that she is not suggesting anything tacky – although she then goes on to spoil it all by saying her ideal partner would be "someone with a freely creative mind and not a blinkered techie". Hmm, the impossible may take a little longer.

For the record, today – February 29th – is Leap Year Day, the day when women are traditionally entitled to propose to men. We've already had one contact email in to say his girlfriend woke him from deep sleep at 4:00am this morning to ask him if he would marry her. He thinks he may have mumbled 'yes' before falling back asleep as he's now discovered they are going shopping for an engagement ring at lunchtime.

E-discovery and litigation support specialist Trilantic has posted onto its website the data protection rules for each country in the European Union. Trilantic's managing director Nigel Murray said the company recognised the need for easier access to information about the important distinctions between data protection rules within each EU member state, and, in an effort to help better educate their customers on these differences, Trilantic is providing specific details related to what steps must be taken prior to document collections and what must be done prior to shipping. The website address is www.trilantic.co.uk

Following on from the readers poll in the last issue of the Legal Technology Insider newsletter, Avanquest made Sharepoint the topic for debate at its most recent roundtable lunch for IT directors in London last week. The debate was led by independent consultant Neil Cameron and these are a summary of the main points to arise – and which tend to suggest there are currently more questions than answers.

•    Sharepoint is still perceived as all things to all men

•    One key point raised presented a multitude of not very clear answers – What exactly is your firm trying to achieve and do with Sharepoint?

•    Many IT Ddrectors felt that Sharepoint was or will become one of the few IT solutions that present a real test for IT to really listen and understand what the business needs and wants

•    Nearly everyone agreed that level of freedom of speech and interaction or even anarchy, Sharepoint could bring the benefits of Sharepoint into doubt WITHOUT clearly defined and policed policy’s and guidelines for use, CONTROL of use is key to maximise the benefits of Sharepoint but who will create these policies, IT, HR, partners?

•    How can firms who could rely completely on Sharepoint as their portal and access to a variety of key applications deal with Business Continuity and DR for Sharepoint???

•    It was clear that Enterprise Search was and is a key area of concern for many firms, will they continue in the future to store data in application specific silos with their own indexing and searching capabilities or will there be one Enterprise Search function for everything that enables users to find anything anywhere from their Sharepoint portal?


•    Some felt quite strongly that Sharepoint is and will continue to enable them to reduce the number of bespoke and niche applications they need

•    From Microsoft’s perspective Sharepoint is their number one business application in terms of sales, with over 100 million Sharepoint licenses, that’s one in 20 MS licensed PCs in the world using  Sharepoint!

•    One prominent IT Director guaranteed that in 5 years there would be no DMS as we know it today instead this would all be done through and using Sharepoint.  Neil Cameron Predicated that fairly soon any enterprise portal/intranet will be run with Sharepoint

•    The biggest issue for Sharepoint to be used as a DMS or any other document related application is version control which out of the box is totally unworkable for the Legal Sector, yes 3rd parties are starting to address this but right now it is a big issue for firms. A few have had to write something themselves to address this issue

•    Microsoft defined SharePoint as an Information Management Platform – it is a toolset with which a firm can create a multitude of applications.

•    It was generally agreed that the vendors to have/are/will suffer from SharePoint are: 1) Portal vendors 2) Web Content Management solutions 3) Workflow solutions

•    There are no (or no good) Blackberry integrations with SharePoint at the moment.

•    A key reason many firms were looking so closely at SharePoint was because it can significantly reduce their ongoing software maintenance costs.

•    In addition to the point above recruiting staff with SharePoint skills is and will continue to be easier than recruiting people with specific application skills.

Rob Lancashire of digital dictation specialists nFlow Software says he was stunned and amazed to find his company had been nominated for a prize in the 'most success of SpeechMike trade-in 2007' category (sic) at the recent Philips Speech Processing partner awards. nFlow did not win the award, which Lancashire says was hardly surprising as they handled no SpeechMike trade-ins at all during 2007. Here's a picture of the Philips team – or it may be a dress rehearsal for a remake of The Addams Family. (Have you spotted Lurch and Pugsley yet?)

It has taken us some time to establish what is going on – thanks to the usual evasive, porkie-pie wielding staff on the help desk – but there appears to be a major POP3 server failure at EasyNet, one of the UK's largest ISPs. The result is that email messages are taking on average 18 hours to reach us. Yes we did say 18 hours. So, if you need to contact the Insider asap, either phone on the landline or text to 07920583731.

• Latest report: normal service is now due to resume at round mid-day Wednesday. Haven't these companies heard of disaster recovery and business continuity services?

There is no doubt that electronic invoicing (e-billing) is one of the fastest growing trends in the client/law firm commercial relationship. We suspect that by now the majority of firms have been approached by clients (or one of the e-billing intermediaries) to enquire as to the law firm's capability to produce and deliver bills electronically.

Before looking at the specific issues faced by law firms approaching an e-billing initiative we need to distinguish between "full" e-billing as against the uploading of a PDF or Word copy of a paper bill or the keying of invoice details to a client or third party web site.

Full e-billing involves the production of an electronic file (usually in one of the LEDES formats) which contains not just the invoice header, matter information and bill totals but a detailed breakdown of time lines and expenses, coded using the UTBMS code sets for Tasks, Activities and Expenses. As is now the case in the US with full e-billing there is, or should be, no requirement to produce an equivalent paper bill.  

Even though most legal practice management systems can generate a LEDES format bill, which is a technically correct rendering of the legal bill, there are many other questions to be resolved before successful e-billing is possible.

Some of the key questions that law firms have to resolve before they can "go-live" with full e-billing are:

• Organisational - how do we ensure that matters are set-up correctly for e-billing? Do we have to re-organise our internal billing teams in order to accommodate e-billing?  Have we got the right processes in place to capture the client's matter information for putting on our e-bills? Are we able to upload clients' bills into the intermediary system and deal with the rejections and queries in a timely manner? Are our practice management systems able to produce the correct matter and timekeeper lists for uploading to the intermediary or client e-billing systems?

• Cultural - how do we ensure that our lawyers are entering the correct Task and Activity codes when recording time?  Are time narratives being entered correctly bearing in mind they are visible to the client? Are our e-bills compliant with the client's, often stringent, billing and submission guidelines?

• Statutory/regulatory - are our e-bills compliant with the various Tax rules, Regulatory bodies and other legislation? In the UK many firms produce both a legal "bill" and a separate Tax invoice. If the e-bill is to replicate both documents then these statutory/regulatory issues have to be satisfied. We have to ensure that our e-bills and other information sent to clients and intermediaries complies with, among others, the requirements of the SRA, HM Revenue & Customs, Data Protection laws, the Business Names Act and EU billing regulations. We should also ensure that the e-billing intermediary system handles these issues correctly and that the e-bill as seen by the client complies with all the appropriate regulations.

• Non-standard Billings - on our e-bills how do we represent the less straightforward billing models? For example, can we e-bill for fixed fee matters, third party bills and split bills. Can the e-bill reflect the offsetting of any client monies held on account against the bill total? Does e-billing impact the data that may be produced by the client at relationship meetings compared with the law firm's own billing data? Does the client want us to include written-off or non-chargeable time on our e-bills?

• Scope - we have to agree with the client and intermediary the exact scope of each phase of an e-billing project. Are both the law firm and client in agreement as to which law firm offices are required to generate e-bills for which client company in terms of both the geographic and legal entities? If the law firm has offices outside the UK then there are further issues to consider. In general terms we can say that in the US the legal and regulatory issues of law firm e-billing are well understood; in the UK we are getting there; but in the EU and other jurisdictions there are still issues to be resolved.
 
E-billing has been described as both a threat and an opportunity for law firms. Some individuals within firms see this new transparency in the billing process as a threat. No doubt there are risks that a law firm must manage as more detailed billing data is exposed to the client in a format that can be easily analysed and compared with data from competing law firms.

On the other hand firms can see e-billing as an opportunity to enhance the client relationship, and gives law firms an opportunity to work closely with the client on providing added value services over and above the delivery of legal advice.


Who benefits from e-billing?

The key terms often used to describe the emerging e-billing model are transparency, clarity and control.

Many in-house general counsel are seeing e-billing as a way to get better control of their legal costs and "spend management" is a term much used in corporate legal departments. The main benefit from the client's perspective is if all law firms are using the LEDES standards as well as the UTBMS codes on their e-bills is that this allows large volumes of detailed billing data to be initially validated and then analysed and compared by the client in order to better understand their legal "spend". This detailed work breakdown information, as well as the lawyers' time narratives/notes, are included on an e-bill and thus exposing much more of a firm's internal data to clients.

Other benefits to the client are that are claimed for e-billing are that it reduces erroneous charges, enforces compliance with the billing guidelines and ensures that the seniority and charging rates of lawyers working on a matter are known to the client. Some clients rigorously enforce their billing rules and e-billing does provide a way for these rules to be more strictly applied than with paper-only bills. While this strict compliance with the rules is more prevalent in the US, it is a possibility that in the UK we could be seeing more rigour being brought to bear in the enforcement of what can (and cannot) appear on legal bills.

The use of UTBMS Task, Activity and Expense codes and the level of detail included on e-bills allows the client to carry out a very detailed analysis of fee information and billing practices and the increased transparency that e-billing brings increases the risks for the law firm unless well understood and managed.

While on the surface this seems like a one-way street in the client's direction we should look for the benefits for the law firm as well. While there are the obvious (and hopefully tangible) advantages for the law firm in terms of faster authorisation and payment of bills there are some less obvious benefits as well. Law firms should not underestimate the potential use that they will be able to make of the additional information being collected in order to meet the needs of e-billing. Detailed information of the law firm's billing practices will be collected in order to produce e-bills and this data can then be analysed internally by the firm in order to compare department to department and office to office. E-billing also enforces more consistent billing and time recording practices, which again the law firm should be able to benefit from internally.
 
In addition, the e-billing intermediaries themselves are realising that in order to add value to the billing relationship they can provide the law firms with benefits as well. They can allow (with the client's permission) greater visibility of the status of un-paid invoices within the client's own authorisation and payment process as well as providing various analyses, for example, why invoices are rejected by the validation software or how long invoices are taking to be cleared for payment.  

E-billing must be approached in the right way and in a spirit of openness and co-operation but law firms and clients must not underestimate the effort required in order to implement a successful e-billing solution. In practice the least stressful e-billing implementations have been where the client, the intermediary and law firms have worked together on a common project basis, addressing all the issues in a co-operative and open way. This can only help to cement the client/law firm relationship in a positive manner.

E-billing definitions

LEDES - Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standards. These are the standard file formats used for the transmission of e-bills between law firm and client. The current LEDES format standards are: LEDES 1998B, LEDES 1998B-I, LEDES 2000 and LEDES XML 2.0 In 1995 Price Waterhouse convened a consortium of leading legal time and billing system and case management system vendors in order to define a standard electronic billing format for use by the legal industry. From this initial work the LEDES 1998B format emerged and is still used widely in the US. More recently other LEDES formats have been added to accommodate features such as VAT and multi-currency as well as other e-billing requirements outside the US. The LEDES standards and are now governed by the LEDES Oversight Committee (LOC). The LOC is an international, voluntary, not-for-profit organization comprised of legal industry representatives and is charged with creating and maintaining open standard formats for the electronic exchange of billing and other information between corporations and law firms. For further information see www.ledes.org

UTBMS - Uniform Task Based Management System. These are the sets of Phase, Task, Activity and Expense codes designed to provide clients and law firms with a common method for identifying the work breakdown and cost information of legal services. This standard was created in the mid-1990s by an industry group, which included the ABA and Price Waterhouse, but in 2006 the UTBMS Task Force merged its efforts under the LOC umbrella. There is now a LOC sub-committee charged with considering the future direction of the UTBMS codes used in legal e-bills. The original and most widely used Phase/Task code sets are those for Litigation, Bankruptcy and Counselling matters with the associated Activity and Expense codes. More recently new and amended code sets have been defined for Patent and Trademark matters and for Project/Transactional work. For further information see www.utbms.com

Legal Billing intermediaries. There are a number of organisations, mainly based in the US who, among other things, act as e-billing intermediaries on behalf of clients. Some of the key players in this market are DataCert, CT Tymetrix, Serengeti Law, Bottomline and LexisNexis/Examen. Although they have differing operating models they essentially provide a software link between a client and its law firms and are the first point of contact when e-bills are being submitted.  In simple terms, the intermediary software validates the law firm's e-bills against agreed rules and then either rejects the bill so that the law firm has to amend and re-submit it or, if valid, will pass the bill data to the client's own internal systems for authorisation and payment. They also provide the client with powerful software that allows the in-house legal teams to perform sophisticated analysis on the e-billing data submitted by the various law firms.

• Bryan King retired from Clifford Chance at the end of December. King was formally IT Development Manager at Linklaters from 1985 to 1994 and Lovells from 1994 to 1996. At CC he managed the firm's systems development function at the time of the 2000 merger and held a number of senior IS roles at the firm. Since 2004 he has been responsible for the firm's global e-billing projects and is available for a consulting role. Email bryan10king@btinternet.com

The Institute of Legal Cashiers & Administrators (ILCA) has begun the search for the best software supplier of 2008. The winner will be awarded the Software User’s Award at the Institute’s annual luncheon held at London’s Middle Temple in the autumn.

This will be the third year in which the award will be made following a large number of requests on the ILCA’s website Bulletin Board between members wanting to know what other members think about the legal software they use. Non-member software users can also take part by using the online questionnaire at www.ilca.org.uk. Last year four suppliers received scores over 90% with TFB plc narrowly edging out Cognito Software Ltd. to take the Award.
 
The best software supplier will be adjudged on 14 points, namely:
·     adequacy of training
·     ease of making postings
·     bank reconciliations
·     interest calculations
·     compliance to SAR’s
·     month end routine procedure
·     quality of help desk support
·     VAT return calculation
·     compliance with money laundering
·     nominal postings
·     bill postings
·     ease of reporting generally
·     upgrades
·     reaction time to regulatory changes
 
For further information please contact the Institute executive secretary Margaret Macdonald at ILCA, Marlowe House, 109 Station Rd, Sidcup, Kent, call 020 8302 2867 or visit www. ilca.org.uk

We've all heard about the 'Nigerian 419' email scams – a large stash of money in return for handing over your bank account details – however they usually involve the funds of some deceased African dictator. This week however we received our first one involving a law firm – a real law firm as it happens, the Irish and international practice of Arthur Cox. What is interesting about this scam is the fraudster has done his (or her) homework as the message uses the firm's real London address and the message purports to come from a consultant who really does work in the London office. The giveaways include the email address – if the transaction is '100% legal' as the message claims – why does the good professor not use his @arthurcox.com address? – and the bizarre language.

It's a fraud so be on your guard – here is the text...

Arthur Cox Solicitors
29 Ludgate Hill
London EC4M 7JE
England.
Tel: +44-702-403-6906
Email:robert_clark_solicitors2004@lawfirmassociation.com

How are you doing today? I hope my email reached you in the
right frame of mind and good Health. On behalf of the Trustees
of Arthur Cox Solicitors and Executor of the last wishes of
Late Mr. Williams Cole, I have decided to solicit for your
assistance in carrying out the Last wishes of my late client,
Late Engr. Williams Cole who died of Esophageal Cancer in July,
2004.My Late client had no wife and children and his only survi
ving relative passed on Last year.

According to the wishes of Late Mr. Williams Cole, 55% of the funds
should go to any charity organization or to the Needy/poor, while the
rest 45% should be for the beneficiary of the funds which is you if
interested.It is very obvious that Mr. Williams Cole wanted these
funds to be used for humanitarian purposes. What a Great Man! Be Rest
assured that this transaction is 100% Legal as I will provide you with
all necessary documentations for the release of the funds.

Endeavour to get back to me as soon as possible to enable me conclude
my Job.I hope to hear from you in no distant time.Please send me an
email to my personal email address at
robert_clark_solicitors2004@lawfirmassociation.com

Yours in Service,
Prof. Robert Clark{ESQ}
Arthur Cox Solicitors
Email:robert_clark_solicitors2004@lawfirmassociation.com

Wolferstans, in the South West has announced that it has selected Axxia DNA from LexisNexis Axxia as its new web-based platform for practice and business management. With the contract concluded just four days after LexisNexis’s acquisition of the PMS supplier, it is understood that the Wolfertsans deal is the first for the new business entity. Axxia DNA will be rolled out to 130 staff with immediate deployment of core functions including accounts, time recording, case management, billing, workflow, KPIs, reporting and contact management.

The major IT project forms part of a wider strategic review headed up by legal business development consultancy, Inpractice. Allan Carton, the Inpractice consultant leading that project explains the rationale for the modernisation: “Wolferstans decided that their future strategy for growing their business would see them focus on managing client and customer relationships more effectively. To put this into practice they are developing a highly collaborative working environment amongst their people, to streamline the way they work and to be more innovative in how they interact with clients and introducers. Axxia DNA is their chosen solution as it is the most cost-effective way for them of producing the results they want. It provides a range of integrated tools and technologies to enable them to build their whole business around one single database at the core, linked into all the key applications they need; not just to handle the legal work, but to help them run the business better.  

"Business process tools and document management will enable them to develop workflows to manage all aspects of the business from case management to critical HR functions associated with people development. Alongside sophisticated management reporting, these tools will also enable Wolferstans to be proactive in managing internal performance and how they interact and develop their relationships with clients. The new web-based interface is more intuitive and engaging for users to develop and use and the overall solution should prove to be cost-effective to maintain, with potential to continue development, scale up and support this business in the long-term.”

Encouraged by LexisNexis’s takeover of Axxia, the Wolferstans partners moved quickly to conclude the deal. Paul Woods, Senior Partner at Wolferstans comments: “As an existing Axxia user, LexisNexis have satisfied us on their commitment to applying their considerable resources to accelerate development of DNA along the roadmap originally set out by Axxia. That’s reassuring because we want to invest in a system that has enough capability built in to cater for the progressive changes we want to make, to support our ambition. We can also take advantage of other LexisNexis products being more readily accessible from fee earners’ desktops to help them manage their day-to-day interactions with clients more effectively.”

Almost two-thirds of the cost of the deal will be for services (training and development) as compared against hardware and software. The focus is on developing skills and knowledge within the practice to make sure that people develop solutions and use the tools that will become available to them and there is a commitment to introduce continuous improvements in the future. 

Due to the dates clash with the Legal IT Show in London, we were unable to make it out to New York at the start of the month for LegalTech, so we asked independent EDD IT consultant Andrew Haslam to take some soundings from the British contingent over there and prepare this report for The Orange Rag...

The dust has settled on LegalTech 2008, and next year the show will be even bigger, as even more of the Hilton is dedicated to exhibition stands. As ever, the event was dominated by all things electronic disclosure, as several UK visitors commented “Why don’t they just rename it EDD Technology Show?”  That being said, there were pointers to other trends in amongst the clamour of the “e with everything” vendors.

The thing to remember about LegalTech, it that, crowded and overwhelming though it might seem, what happens on the conference and exhibition floors is just the proverbial tip of an iceberg. The demonstrations, meetings, corporate parties and casual conversations that occur off-site are the vast “unseen” mass of interactions that makes this event the premiere occasion of the Legal IT calendar.

So what were the main points that came out of the show?

Large US corporates are renewing their KM initiatives, this time around driven by the spiralling costs of litigation and its associated disclosure demands, but also fuelled by regulatory pressures. All of this is leading back to renewed interest in search. The need to be able to index and search effectively is critical for EDD but are now being deployed across the enterprise. We are back to the mantra of “search is king”, but with the use of analytics software such as Recommind, Autonomy, Inference, etc. also in the mix.  

Reza Alexander of DLA Piper, who showed devotion above and beyond the call of duty by visiting LegalTech whilst on holiday in New York, was one of a number of UK litigation support professionals who commented on the rise of analytics software. “The use of data sampling methodology, and the emerging and finally accepted near dupe, data clustering and intelligent search technologies, to increase precision and confidence in high volume document review of electronic data”. Others commented on the steady adoption of Autonomy’s software by a number of vendors, with IntroSpect being the most high profile.

Reza’s picks for products to watch are kCura’s Relativity and Content Analyst, with Discovery Mining’s integrated analytic and document clustering also being singled out for praise. The new look IntroSpect also received a lot of interest, since they were taken over by Autonomy a lot of money has been pumped into the product and the new version showed the effects of it all. Pity they had to show their nervousness at the strength of the opposition by removing a banner for one of their competitors from a pillar too close to their stand for their liking. Simon Price at Recommind was busy throughout the week, with queues forming for demonstrations at one point.

The big four accountancy practices were very active at the conference and exhibition, with a couple of presentations questioning how long law firm litigation support services would be needed, as clients started to deliver on 3-4 year programmes to take information management and disclosure responsibilities in-house. As one CIO commented; ”We have 30 cases on the go around the world, 30 different law firms, 30 different vendors crawling over our data. I’ll take care of that and save a significant amount of money on economies of scale, and the law firms can do what they do best, which is provide professional advice, not act as a data collection bureaux.” Whilst the UK litigation support community is probably still safe in their jobs, the move into the arms of accountancy firms could add extra pressure on some of the smaller vendors in our marketplace.

The US adoption of Sharepoint as the core of their intranet environments continues with both Star Law and Incisive demonstrating integrated suites of products. It will be interesting to see how this fares over the next year, with Jan Durant at Lewis Silkin, sure to be keeping an eye on developments as her Sharepoint project unfolds. Also, as Ann Hemming, fresh into her first week at Tikit, commented; “Office 2007 seems to have reached tipping point in US law firms, with interest in training and Word template management very high”.

Several observers noted that this was finally the year that America really discovered the rest of the world. Unicode compliance, that is the ability to store and search foreign language characters sets, so long paid lip service to, is actually starting to be fully implemented in products, with Russian and Chinese/Asian alphabets being proudly shown off at a number of stands. Also, there was renewed confirmation of jurisdictional and data protection issues coming to the forefront, with Japan and Australia being quoted as countries joining the EU in opposing data being processed in the USA.  

A number of people found the updates on the Federal rules on civil procedure interesting, though as one observer rather wryly noted; “The UK concepts of proportionality and reasonableness seem to be making a welcome appearance in the US courts”. On this side of the Atlantic, the lack of case law, coupled with judicial indifference to the issue, continues to stifle progress. That being said, there are signs that the UK bench is awaking to the problems, and 2008 could well be the year that the mass of mid-tier law firms finally grasp the electronic “nettle” and we see real advances made.

Mixed reactions to the conference content, some found it excellent, others were disappointed by the lack of new developments, overall it was fair to say, that if you were a newcomer, then you would be very well educated, for the experienced there was a lot of repetition, with very few “nuggets” in evidence. The lack of new developments was replicated on the exhibition floor, with most people seeing signs of a maturing marketplace as products consolidated their functionality. On the all pervasive litigation support side, all software seems to be in varying stages of fully embracing electronic data processing, embedding analytics software and becoming fully Unicode compliant. As ever there was number of new US service suppliers, the trick is to see how many are there again in 2009, then bother to make contact.

Tikit’s Liam Flannigan took time out from meetings to collect the award for Interwoven Partner of the Year, and also open discussions with an EDD vendor in order to explore Tikit’s entry into the UK marketplace. Also showing their faces in New York were representatives from Delloites, Discovery Mining, Ernst & Young, Epiq (who arranged a very successful Super Bowl party in a crowded sports bar), Hobs Legal Docs, LDM, Legal Inc, Palmer Legal Technology, Recommind, and Trilantic (also a successful event host and conference sponsor). A number of these firms were finalising details of alliances with vendors and products, expect a rash of announcements over the next few weeks.

Trilantic’s session on International eDiscovery Rules and Standards was praised by a number of people, with one comment being; “It's apparent that privacy and jurisdictional concerns will grow in importance and complexity as the global nature of eDisclosure continues to expand, with each jurisdiction bringing its own challenges. It seems the growing need to consider off-shore eDisclosure reviews will also draw attention to these challenges. LegalTech provided an excellent forum for discussing such challenges with lawyers and litigation professionals from all corners of the globe.”

Both UK and US vendors expressed a slight backlash to the hordes of freebie collecting exhibition attendees, typically these delegates hail from small or one person law firm from Hicksville, Nowhere. They roam the halls, clearing stands of pens and “goodies” in locust like swarms. Many vendors are now retreating from the main floor, booking a hotel suite and running focussed client demos and user groups- so the conference is now spilling over into surrounding hotels.  

All the UK suppliers reported a very healthy show, with again a feeling that the market was maturing, with the bigger players starting to dominate. For many the show is the opportunity to catch up with clients and existing contacts, a number reported that they spent most of their time in meetings and private demonstrations, adding weight to the strategy of pulling back from the main exhibition floor.

The hot ticket of the corporate events, was an invite to the Lexis Nexis party, as Terry Harrison from Hobs Legal Docs put it; “1000 people in the swish NY bar Duvet – all ice sculptures, white leather loungers and drapes and an impressive aquarium containing jellyfish! I am told that it appeared regularly in the TV hit “Sex in the City”. Needless to say, your author did not qualify for inclusion in this august company.

Finally, a word on what, for many people is the main reason for attending the show, the chance to network and socialise. Some familiar faces re-appeared, with Michael Conde of LTL days making the trip from Canada to assess enterprise products, with assistance from Andrew Terret, the Mason’s Knowledge Manager back at the turn of the century.

The Brits that make it across the pond are a self selecting group of the key players in the UK legal IT environment. More than one person noted that they fitted a month’s worth of meetings into the weekend before and the days of the conference. Alliances are formed, information shared and initiatives developed. The fact that it all happens in one of the most exciting and vibrant cities in the world, and with a killer exchange rate, is a happy coincidence that adds to the charms of LegalTech. Roll on 2009!

FWBS and SOS have been in touch to say they also offer practice management systems that are embedded with Microsoft Outlook & Office. Their details are attached below,

What looks like becoming one of the major trends in 2008 is the integration of case and practice management functionality within Microsoft Office applications, particularly Outlook. This week's Legal Technology Insider newsletter will be reporting on the trend however in the meantime here is some background information from two of the vendors who launched new systems at Legal IT in Islington, namely Pilgrim and DPS.

An IT director mentioned recently it would be nice to know which versions of Microsoft Office law firms were using as he was fed up of vendors trying to fob him off with the lame excuse that they couldn’t support his firm because “no-one else uses your version of Office”. So are law firms ahead or behind the curve when it comes to Office? Take part in our next readers poll to find out.

We are covering every iteration of Office since 1995 – although we also have an option for anyone using an earlier system (those would be the ones where the users manuals are written in latin). You can find the poll on the Insider website – www.legaltechnology.com – and, as ever, all responses remain strictly confidential.

• The next version Office – slated for early 2009 – will apparently be Office 14. Microsoft are jumping direct from Office 12 (aka 2007) so as to avoid unlucky number 13.

Research In Motion (RIM) experienced a significant outage (hitting about 50% of its user base) of its BlackBerry wireless email service in North America yesterday. The cause of the outage, which began mid-afternoon Eastern time and lasted for several hours, currently remains unknown.

This is the second major outage RIM has suffered in under a year. In April 2007 the service was down for at least nine hours. RIM subsequently admitted it was caused by an improperly tested software update at the company's data center. RIM also acknowledged that the outage was aggravated by the failure of its backup systems to perform as planned.

STOP PRESS - apparently the outage was called by a RIM systems upgrade intended to increase network capacity.

Our thanks to JoAnna Forshee's team at Envision – www.envisionagency.com – in the US for drawing our attention to these latest figures on the shape of the US legal market...

•        97% of all US law firms and legal service providers have less than 25 employees (~10 attorneys). This represents a 2% increase compared to 2006 statistics. 65% of all US firms have just 2 to 4 employees, 9% higher than last year.

•        There are approximately 1354 law firms in North America with 100 employees or more (~40+ attorneys). Of those, 375 firms have 250 employees or more (~100+ attorneys). Firms with 100 employees or more account for less than 0.5% of the entire US law firm market.

By way of some comparison, in the UK at the moment approximately 200 law firms employ 100+ fee earners.

Dr Matt Lees, VP Data Capture Division at Basware UK, looks at what separates truly efficient automated mailrooms from the Post rooms of yesterday...


Companies are often under the illusion that deploying a mailroom scanning solution will improve their business efficiency. But that’s not the case. Simply digitising documents is only pushing the paper images around, and doesn’t actually remove the real obstruction. If the right technology and controls are not in place the chances of losing documents are actually increased!

It’s what happens after the scanning phase that counts. This critical second stage of processing where recognition and classification takes place before any OCR is attempted is the one that has the largest beneficial effect on mailroom efficiency. So how does one deploy this key step in mailroom automation?  And how can the relevant information be extracted from the paper documents as efficiently as possible to unblock the corporate workflow?

The critical step is the quick classification of all scanned documents followed by the application of auto-indexing techniques via OCR or ICR technologies.  OCR/ICR is relatively expensive technology to deploy but in practice it’s only necessary to process on average 1.5 pages of each document in order to correctly classify and index it.

Approximately 80% of the information used by an organisation is in the form of unstructured paper documents and, until recently, automatic processing was limited to documents with a fixed structure.  (Structured documents are defined as documents that contain information in the form that the receiving company wishes to receive them. Unstructured documents include other emails, faxes, online communications and paper documents that do not take this format.)

For organisations that scan and capture their documents, appropriate handling used to mean spending considerable time and effort sorting these documents prior to scanning, adding document separation sheets and manually classifying the document prior to data extraction – meaning a considerable amount of skilled sorting work both before and after scanning.

Auto-classification and recognition techniques further automate document handling by removing the need for intensive, manual post room sorting and document preparation tasks – all of which helps to take a significant bite out of overall processing costs. This type of intelligent automation software (such as Indicius and Xtrata from Kofax), provides advanced document classification, separation and extraction capabilities. Using OCR it can automatically extract machine printed or hand-printed text and printed data from scanned document images, removing the need for costly and time-consuming manual keying.

The extracted data adds to the intelligence already gained about the document aiding, separation and process routing of the document to a workflow queue, facilitating the indexing of the document for storage in a document management system or sending it direct to a business process. With recipient detail or an identifying case or account number extracted, the appropriate documents can be automatically routed to the right process destination: purchase orders to the sales and manufacturing departments, invoices to the finance Invoice Processing system such as Basware and so on.

At the end of the scanning process, images and the extracted data are usually released to a document management system, Case Management system or image repository to ensure security, safe archiving and auditability. This is vital to avoid lost documents. If the document management system links to core business systems such as ERP or CRM, this further automates and enhances processes.

So much for the theory:  how does this work in practice?  Let’s take a look at a real-life case study.

Countrywide Property Lawyers is one company who are benefiting from this classification technology. The legal firm deployed an advanced data capture and document processing solution to automate mailroom activity and the handling of the 25,000 legal documents received daily.

The solution automatically allocates 85% of incoming post, using Kofax capture modules, to the correct legal case. It also classifies 90% of post for staff, automatically identifying letters from lawyers, draft contracts and mortgage offers, helping to speed up business processes and ensure legal teams get essential legal documents by 10:30am on the day of receipt.  

The automated mailroom handles all business-related printed and hand-written documents, extracting key data and sending it along with an image of the mail to the case management system, which automatically routes the mail to the correct legal team for action.

Documents that cannot be auto-referenced are then sent as an image file to India, where they are eyeballed and manually categorised inside a Visualfiles case management system and sent back to the UK to the relevant legal teams.  As a result, only 5% of all incoming mail requires manual intervention in the UK – this has led to a 90% reduction in administration.

In conclusion, quick, automated classification underpins a successful mailroom automation solution for three good reasons.  

First, it’s simply good business sense:  it cuts transaction costs across the organisation by sorting the wheat from the chaff. Second, it improves relationships with customers, by accelerating transactions and ensuring records are kept updated. Finally, it also addresses expanding information management legislation, which specifies the need for companies to capture, track and control information – especially financial information – as soon as it touches them.  


• www.basware.co.uk  – 01606 331234

It's been a good week for IRIS. Not only has LexisNexis acquired Axxia – so IRIS is no longer the sole topic of conversation within the industry – but it has also won the Minster Law site, who will be swapping out Eclipse case management software AND Paragon accounts in favour of an IRIS Legal Office (aka Videss) integrated practice and case management system. Minster Law (originally Corries) is currently the UK’s second largest personal injury claims firm and, as part of its Horizon Change Programme, is planning to double in size over the next three years.

The £400k deal will see the enterprise solution deployed across Minster Law’s 400 strong workforce in York and Wakefield. Commenting on the deal, Minster Law's CIO Neil Boddy said: “In IRIS Legal we have found a business partner we can trust and who has the drive and commitment to match our own. They are the only legal IT supplier capable of helping us achieve our growth potential.”

* Anorak alert: IRIS, in common with LexisNexis, has a corporate logo that seems to be based on the Star Wars death star.

Following on from the acquisition of Axxia by LexisNexis – a deal that now makes Axxia and Visualfiles members of the same group, Michael Platt, the managing director on long-time Visualfiles partner SOS made the following statement...

“Firstly, despite widespread consolidation of software suppliers, SOS is not up for sale. Visualfiles already has 150 joint sites with SOS and only a handful with Axxia, so the Axxia user base offers the potential for Visualfiles to extend its market share.

“Secondly, we would like to reassure SOS and Visualfiles customers that the high standards of professional services and customer care which they enjoy is unaffected by this announcement. We will continue to work closely with Visualfiles.”

Visualfiles (* see below) has also declared that it will continue to support and where appropriate develop further integration with SOS Practice Manager. Visualfiles will also continue to work closely with SOS on joint opportunities, ensuring customers have the widest options available to them.

Michael Platt added “Visualfiles new customers now have a genuine choice of best of breed solutions in the back office: SOS will appeal to some and Axxia to others. However our 20 year relationship with Visualfiles has resulted in a very detailed level of integration, and obviously this will be a plus factor for some firms. Our development into the front office and Visualfiles extension of back office solutions with the Axxia acquisition we regard as indicative of the organic growth of our respective companies.”

* The Visualfiles statement, issued by LexisNexis Visualfiles chief sales officer Mark Armstrong, reads "The LexisNexis policy of developing both integrated and open solutions means that we will continue to work with a wide range of suppliers to satisfy the differing needs of our customers. Given the long standing relationship between Visualfiles and SOS, we would like to confirm that we remain fully committed to working closely with SOS in the future. We will continue to support and where appropriate develop further our integration with SOS software. We will also continue to work closely with SOS on joint opportunities, ensuring we satisfy (customers) current and future needs in the best possible way."

• Amid all the excitement of the LexisNexis/Axxia deal – which was the only taking point at yesterday's Legal IT Show in London – one other piece of news slipped under the radar. This was the departure of Neil Ewin, the founder and chairman of Visualfiles, which was acquired by Lexis Nexis in 2006. We understand Neil has retired to spend more time with his money.

Here is the formal announcement re yesterday's acquisition of Axxia System by LexisNexis. We should have more information on Wednesday, including the reaction of SOS – who for the past couple of decades have been Solicitec/Visualfiles number one partner in terms of PMS/case management integrations. Other points to note include...

• The price has not been disclosed – this is LexisNexis corporate policy however we understand the deal is not subject to any earnout.

• Stuart Holden – who is remaining with the Axxia business – says the company was bought "for what the business is worth". He also added that the big attraction of LexisNexis – apart from the fact it immediately plugs Axxia into a global sales & support infrastructure – is that they want to take the Axxia DNA PMS product forward, as distinct from merely wanting to buy a user-base that would be migrated to A N Other PMS.

• Holden said the product roadmap for Axxia DNA would ensure users have a secure future and added that he thought the LexisNexis strategy for its legal software portfolio (which also includes Visuafiles) was "brilliant".

• Doug McLachlan will be retiring from the business in about 6 months.

• Customers were informed of the deal before it was formally announced at 12:00 noon today.

• And 'yes' it is true – because of uncertainty as to whether the deal would be finalised before the Legal IT Show opened its doors, the Axxia stand had to have 2 separate sets of artwork prepared: one with Axxia branding and one with LexisNexis Axxia branding.

Here is the formal statement...

LexisNexis, a leading global provider of business information solutions, today announced the acquisition of Axxia – a leading provider of back-office and integrated solutions in the mid-law segment in the UK.

The acquisition of Axxia enables LexisNexis to offer a full suite of practice management solutions to the UK mid-law sector. Medium sized law firms can now rely on LexisNexis for both content and complementary IT infrastructure enhanced with workflow solutions.

The Axxia acquisition is a further step towards LexisNexis’ goal to be a comprehensive solutions business by combining local and global strategic acquisitions with existing content products. This move also complements the acquisition of Visualfiles in 2006 that provided a market leading case management front-end solution for the mid-law market. The addition of Axxia enables LexisNexis to offer fully integrated workflow-based solutions enhanced with relevant content for the mid-law market in the UK, building on the heritage of LexisNexis Butterworths publishing and understanding of the information used within law firms.

LexisNexis has also implemented a global reorganisation which sees the appointment of Kate Holden as Senior Vice President of Global Practice Management Solutions to oversee the development of solutions to meet local and global customer needs. “LexisNexis offers customers integration of front and back office, with all the resulting benefits, such as improved efficiencies with seamless movement from one application to another, and relevant content automatically pre-populating searches and check lists. This one-stop-shop offering helps our customers to maximise productivity and profitability, reduce malpractice risk, enhance client interaction, and make well-informed case and matter decisions,” said Kate Holden, Senior Vice President of Global Practice Management Solutions, LexisNexis.

“LexisNexis already offers a Practice Management Total Solution in the US and we are keen to bring this successful approach to the UK,” adds Josh Bottomley, Managing Director, LexisNexis UK.  “We have seen this comprehensive business solution bring tangible benefits to clients integrating everything they need to excel in the business and practice of law - from calendaring and time management to legal research, case assessment, document drafting and client relationship management, and it means one point of contact to resolve any integration issues rather than a panel of suppliers.”

Stuart Holden, Managing Director, Axxia comments, “Although both businesses serve similar organisations, the product portfolios at Axxia and Visualfiles are extremely complementary. Both Visualfiles and Axxia hold leading positions with their respective offerings. Visualfiles has a first class reputation for its case management software and Axxia’s key strength lies in integrated front and back office solutions. With both Visualfiles and Axxia in the LexisNexis stable, we can offer our customers an unparalleled wealth of knowledge and experience across a broad range of markets. This will significantly strengthen our ability to deliver the leading portfolio of integrated and open solutions that satisfy the widest range of customer needs.”


And here are the notes...

Strategy and integration

How will the company be structured post-acquisition?
Axxia will join the UK Practice Management portfolio, part of LexisNexis’s Global Practice Management solution line.

Kate Holden will oversee the Global Practice Management portfolio with Edouard Tavernier driving the strategy. Stuart Holden will continue to oversee the Axxia portfolio working with Dan Marshall, who will be directing all operations across the UK Practice and Productivity Management business.

Will Axxia be run as a separate business or integrated with LexisNexis?
Axxia will be fully integrated with the LexisNexis business within the next six months. 

What is LexisNexis’ mission?
To help our customers to become more efficient, productive and profitable through the provision of integrated workflow-based solutions enhanced with relevant content.

Why has LexisNexis acquired Axxia?
LexisNexis is committed to delivering a solutions strategy offering product and service combinations that address customers’ specific needs and fit into their existing workflow, to enhance productivity and profitability.

As the leading integrated solutions and back office provider for medium-sized law firms, Axxia has an installed customer base of 220 law firms and over 20,000 users. This makes it an extremely attractive proposition for LexisNexis to combine with its existing portfolio for medium-sized law firms. The acquisition of Axxia will accelerate the delivery of content-enabled workflow solutions for medium-sized law firms.

What will happen to the Axxia corporate brand? What will happen to other brands, such as dna* and Artiion?
To provide the most consistency and clarity in our communication with customers, the company will immediately fully align with the LexisNexis corporate brand. Axxia will become the umbrella name for a product family within the UK LexisNexis Practice Management portfolio. Product brands acquired from Axxia will include the Axxia name (for example, "Axxia Artiion", “Axxia dna*). The Axxia product family will be treated in the same way as the other product families within LexisNexis UK - Butterworths, Tolley, Visualfiles etc.

Does LexisNexis plan to acquire other companies?
We are committed to providing our customers with leading practice and productivity management solutions and will continue to explore all avenues that may help us achieve this goal.
LexisNexis acquired Visualfiles more than a year ago.

Isn’t Axxia operating in the same space?
Although both businesses serve similar organisations, the product portfolios at Axxia and Visualfiles are extremely complementary. Both Visualfiles and Axxia hold leading positions with their respective offerings. Visualfiles has a first class reputation for its case management software in both mid and large law and Axxia’s key strength lies in its integrated front and back office solution. With both Visualfiles and Axxia in the LexisNexis stable, we can offer our customers an unparalleled wealth of knowledge and experience across a broad range of markets. This will significantly strengthen our ability to deliver the leading portfolio of integrated and open solutions that satisfy the widest range of customer needs.

Does this acquisition change existing relationships with 3rd party suppliers?
No, we are delighted to be in a position to offer our customers the widest possible choice. Our policy of developing both integrated and open solutions means that we will continue to work with a wide range of suppliers to satisfy the differing needs of our customers.

Products/technology

What will be the technology platform resulting from the combination of Axxia, LexisNexis and Visualfiles?
LexisNexis currently operates many different technology platforms through which we deliver a broad range of solutions and capabilities to our clients.

As we develop new solutions within our Practice Management portfolio, we will work closely with our clients to select whichever technology platform is most appropriate for their particular needs whilst ensuring that our underlying architectural decisions adhere to key principles:
•    Ability of our solutions to integrate with a broad range of 3rd party systems
•    Use of mainstream, future-proof technologies
•    The provision of a clear evolution path for existing LexisNexis customers

Over time, the mix of technologies we use will evolve to suit the changing needs of the market. Rather than be led by technology, we will be driven by an overriding desire to deliver compelling solutions that genuinely improve the productivity and profitability of our customers.

How will the product portfolios be integrated over time?
LexisNexis will accelerate the execution of existing product roadmaps whilst over time developing a range of new offerings through the combination of LexisNexis and Axxia capabilities. Integration between Axxia and LexisNexis products will take various forms, from the launch of standalone product modules to the development of fully integrated suites of back office and front office solutions. Examples of such integrations include:
•    Strengthening the integration between Visualfiles case management solutions and the Artiion back office system
•    Developing integration between dna* and best of breed LexisNexis applications (e.g. InterAction)
•    Combining dna* with LexisNexis Legal and/or Risk & Compliance content to create distinctive value propositions for legal practitioners

Customer Support

What support benefits can customers expect from the combination of Axxia, LexisNexis and Visualfiles?
We aim to deliver “Best in Class” in all aspects of the customer experience and will strive to continuously improve all aspects of our customers’ contact with us – content, user interfaces, customer services, billing, etc. We are determined to accomplish unparalleled support and delivery and have committed significant investment in order to achieve this. Both LexisNexis and Axxia have developed solutions that, following the initial system implementation, enable business users without an IT background to create and maintain complex applications with the minimum of tuition. This approach protects customers’ investment and maximizes profitability.

On a broader level, both LexisNexis Visualfiles and Axxia share a passion for innovation and a commitment to developing and delivering customer-driven solutions.

Will there be any changes to my account manager?
We will evaluate the ways we interact with our customers on an ongoing basis to ensure we are delivering the highest quality relationship management. Customers will be notified if there are any plans to change the way their accounts are managed.

Whom should customers call for product support?
We will be working to quickly align our infrastructures, including our customer contact points. Meanwhile, customers should continue using the existing contacts, and we will ensure enquiries are dealt with by an advisor who can handle their issue.

Whom should customers call for invoice, statement or payment queries?
We will be working quickly to align our billing infrastructures, but at present customers should continue to use their previous Customer Support team. Any changes to the contact points will be communicated to customers in advance.

One of the UK legal market's largest IT suppliers has just been acquired. Full details to follow, post embargo, later today. Finding out about their future plans could be one of the best reasons for visiting the Legal IT Show, which kicks off at the Islington Business Design Centre tomorrow (Wednesday).