LegalTech New York 2012 ... day three ... less meetings, less sessions, less time on the exhibit floor but not any less activity and the same high caliber of networking as earlier in the week. Wednesday started a bit slower with a lot less traffic in the Bridges Bar (8/8:30ish) surely due to late night vendor parties.
We kicked things off with a brief catch-up with Law Technology News technology editor Sean Doherty who seemed genuinely excited to be honing his focus on product reviews and 'under the hood' sort of tech reviews. Sean and his handful of freelancers are targeting an average of 1.5 reviews per week beyond the 'Testdrive' column which appears 6 times per year as part of LTN. While the reviews are a mixed bag, Sean mentioned looking at the vast array of practice management solutions as a next focus area.
Adriana Linares, our longtime friend and the most dynamic legal trainer we've seen, has announced the launch of the LawTech Training Center in Winter Park, FL (outside of 
Orlando). Adriana has been working with law firms for more than 14 years and has created the LawTech Training Center to bring her services to law firms - from solos to large - in the Central Florida area. Part of Adriana's mission is to make people comfortable enough with their technology to let it work for them. As she says, "Training is the #1 reason for successful software implementations and the lack of it is the #1 reason for failure." If you are in need of training for yourself or your staff, don't hesitate to contact Adriana (who also offers webinar training) who covers Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, Email & Domain Management, as well as many legal software programs. Adriana also hosts both the Law Practice Management Job Board and the Legal Technology Job Board.
Andy Adkins was attending LegalTech NY this year in a new role in...well, a long time. Last year, Andy joined Steptoe & Johnson, a law firm with over 200 attorneys, as CIO. We chated with Andy about his new role as 'purse string holder' for the firm's tech spend which lead to a conversation about relating IT 'pains' to staff and partners. Case in point, Andy who has been looking at new email archiving solutions, first had to relate the stroage 'problem' to his folks in terms they would understand: "When we were discussing the volume of space that email backup takes I used the following comparison- the entire printed collection of the U.S. Library of Congress is 10 terabytes, 1 Terabyte = 50,000 trees made into paper and printed, and our firm is currently at 2 terabytes and growing.
Prior to joining Steptoe, Andy's career spans more than two decades as a consultant, author and executive. He was one of the first consultants in the country devoted solely to legal technology and specifically practice management solutions, helping law firms and governmental offices automate numerous processes. In 1997, Adkins established the Legal Technology Institute at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.
Next, we met up with Ari Kaplan, legal speaker, author, and ghostwriter, who has spent the last year promoting this book, "Reinventing Professional Services: Building Your Business in the Digital Marketplace". Dubbed as the 'Tony Robbins' of legal, Kaplan excudes enthusiasm when discussing new business development for legal professionals, the relevance and use of social media as well as the value of personal interaction and follow-up. If you have not met Ari, check out his website or catch him at one of his many speaking gigs.
Coinciding with day 3 of LegalTech was the publication of KMWorld's February issue which included a feature on KM innovators in the legal field. We had a chance to chat with Bradford & Barthel's (B&B) Eric Hunter, one of three law firm leaders profiled, and past contributor to InsideLegal in the area of cloud computing, Google Apps deployment, and innovative KM via collaborative cloud deployments. We have been helping Eric and the firm publicize technology and change management innovations for the past few years and have seen interest in cloud and social media integration grow exponentially. What started as a legal 'interest' story has evolved into a business growth and client service story and caught the attention of non-legal publications such as KMWorld and others. This week, Eric was in New York to participate in ILTA's Advanced IT programming, co-presenting with several of his ILTA colleagues on 'Six Technologies You Should Know About'.
Over lunch we met with Randi Mayes, Peggy Wechsler and TJ Johnson of ILTA. Their next event is ILTA INSIGHT UK that will take place in London, May 8-9. There is no registration cost for delegates from ILTA member law firms and law departments. This year's show is being expanded from one day to two and will be featuring a full exhibit hall being managed by LegalTech. Also, they are expanding their SharePoint Symposium, being held June 12-13, to have an exhibit hall as well (exhibit info here). This event will feature two days full of educational and networking opportunities for professionals working with SharePoint in their firms or law departments.
We ended our afternoon once again roaming the vendor floor and chatting up several exhibitors. While the overall consensus was that traffic and technology interest was up this year, the inability to know precisely how many attendees make their way to LegalTech events has resulted in frustrated vendors and marketing executives. When exhibitors are paying a base price of $6,450 per booth - not to mention the thousands of dollars in event costs, travel and staffing - they have a right to know how many people are attending and most every other show discloses that information. This frustration beckons the question when (if ever) legal conference organizers will be held accountable for attendance numbers and other demographic statistics via a show audit.
Speaking of audits and accountability, InsideLegal has launched the 2012 Legal Vendor Marketing Survey aimed at providing legal marketing and spending benchmarks that are commonplace in other industries but that don't exist within the legal community. Knowing what vendors are spending on marketing and getting a better feel for what marketing strategies work and why is vital in developing a sound marketing effort. Our original survey (in 2008) received responses from 92 legal vendors and we'd love to exceed that this year. Everyone that completes the survey will receive the final results report as well as the results from the 2008 survey.
As we survive another Groundhog Day, we hope lots can be learned from the 31st LegalTech Conference. LegalTech NY 2013 will be held January 28-30. On to our event Ignite Law 2012 (now called LexThink.1) and ABA TECHSHOW 2012 ...
Check out InsideLegal's other LegalTech NY 2012 posts:
LT NY preview (incl. exhibitor landscape)
LT NY Day 1 recap (incl. ILTA Advanced IT track coverage)
LT NY Day 2 recap (incl. ALM Blogger Brekafast 'blog role')
