Another legal technology event "in the books" and, as usual, ILTA never disappoints. ILTA INSIGHT, celebrating its fifth year, was held April 27th in London. InsideLegal has been attending the ILTA event in the US for the past 11 years, but this was our first time at ILTA INSIGHT. Although the UK version is much smaller, the quality of the educational sessions, speakers and networking were up to par with the US Annual Conference held in August. While the credit for that is shared amongst the planning committee, speakers and sponsors, we attributed most of it to the ILTA staff - Peggy Wechsler and Judy Couvillion. As usual, they had every detail covered and made sure that people knew where to be, when to be in sessions and spent a great deal of time facilitating introductions and making the attendees feel at home.
We'll start with the Speakers/Board dinner that took place the night before the event and was attended by the INSIGHT planning committee and most of the event's speakers. The reception and dinner was sponsored by Lance Waagner, CEO of Intelliteach - the legal specific service desk outsourcing vendor that has recently opened an office in London - and was organized by Peggy Wechsler. I had the pleasure of being at one end of the table with Chris Dale of e-Disclosure Information Project; Peter Attwood of Simmons & Simmons; Jonathan Maas of Ernst & Young's Forensic Technology & Discovery Services team; Steven Whitaker, Senior Master of the Senior Courts of England and Wales in the Queen's Bench Division; and Peggy. The evening was a success: good food, great company and wonderful energy that would set the tone for Tuesday's conference.
The next morning began with the keynote by
David Morley, Senior Partner at Allen & Overy LLP. Prior commitments prohibited us from attending, but the delegates were still discussing the keynote well into the morning sessions. Also, fellow "INSIGHTer" Chris Dale provided a thoughtful event
recap including a few observation's on the day's keynote.
The morning sessions included Tools and Techniques for the Facebook Generation; The Evolution of Office (moderated by Nigel Blackwood of Wragge & Co.); Transforming our Business (BPM, BPA and BI) (moderated by The Orange Rag's Charles Christian); and The Future of the Traditional Desktop (moderated by Sidley Austin's Joy Heath Rush). The afternoon kicked off with LITIG's Review of Case and Matter Management Systems (moderated by Peter Owen of Lights-On Consulting); Electronic Working in the Royal Courts of Justice (Nigel Kelly of Her Majesty's Courts Service); 21st Century Collaboration (moderated by Joy Heath Rush); and Technology as a Component in Lord Justice's e-Disclosure Recommendations (by Chris Dale & Master Steven Whitaker).
The day ended with a recap session led by ILTA's President, Scott Christensen of Wildman, Harrold, Allen and Dixon and the ILTA INSIGHT Conference Chair, Janet Day of Berwin Leighton Paisner. A networking reception followed providing all delegates another opportunity to mingle with peers and follow-up on the day's 8 sessions. In our opinion, networking at INSIGHT was second to none and one of the intangibles that sets this event apart.
In addition, the ILTA program gave us the opportunity to meet new friends and catch up with old ones. First on the agenda, was meeting with Rupert White-Collins, Head of Content & Community, and Sarah Cox, Head of Client Services, for Legal Support Network. Legal Support Network is a community website for UK law firm professionals and organizer of popular regional legal networking events. Rupert recently joined LSN from Law Society Gazette and in his new role encourages online discussions and conversations particularly via the network's LinkedIn group. We also had the opportunity to meet Daniel Brown, CEO of TheKnowList which hosts TheKnowList Awards in London; Andrew Haslam, Project Coordinator at Lovells & Lead Consultant at Allvision Computing; and Darren Armstrong and Frances Anderson of Netlaw Media who are preparing for their event, Strategic Leadership Forum 2010 on June 16 in London.
It was also great to run into old friends such as Simon Price, European Director of Recommind, who we worked with in 1999 at ADERANT (CMS then) and Karen Jones, Publisher of Citywealth and Citytech.
For us, ILTA INSIGHT 2010 provided just that, insight into the UK legal IT market and a very hands-on opportunity to get to know our UK counterparts. 2010 was our first, but definitely not our last ILTA INSIGHT.
Comments