ILTACON 2022 is now over a week in the rearview, yet many of us attending still have ILTACON on the brain. After all, it’s hard to simply move on from 3,000 legal tech professionals, in one place, in the flesh, networking and socializing like the good old days. We won't go into all the Covid+ cases post conference. Here's a collection of what stood out to me:
Fresh blood …new vendors, US entrants, new energy
While we ran into the usual suspects of vendors and members, the 160+ exhibitor list included a fair share of first-timers. We talked to Early Stephens, CEO at Actionstep, a cloud practice management solution with roots in New Zealand, about first impressions: "I anticipated seeing deep experience and knowledge given the caliber of ILTACON attendees and exhibitors. But what really caught my attention was the dedication, even passion, at using technology to make life better for their firms and clients. That bodes well for the future of all of us in the legaltech space." Well said Early, it's that dedication to the 'craft' and passion for all things legal tech that had me returning for a 23rd time.
Another ILTACON newbie, who I spent considerable time with throughout the week was Cork, Ireland based Bundledocs offering cloud-based document bundling/binding and PDF editing. A mere startup four years ago, but already a market leader back home and throughout the UK and EMEA, their ILTACON team was led by CEO Brian Kenneally, marketing director Lisa Walsh, business development exec Aisling Murphy, and legal tech veteran Peter Zver, responsible for exposure and growth in North America. In fact, I was beyond thrilled when Peter reached out to me several months back to tell me he was starting a new chapter, after much success with Tikit (later Advanced), to get back to his 'start-up' and entrepreneurial roots and assume the role of vp of operations with a focus on growing the Bundledocs brand and product in North America. When they were not meeting attendees, networking with partners, and making introductions with the media assembled onsite, the Bundledocs team premiered Ireland's original superhero Cú Chulainn as part of Monday night's exhibit hall opening reception.
It was also great to catch-up with Simon Hill, appointed as Bundledocs' non-executive director back in March, and currently the CEO and co-founder of Xperate, a UK based software development company. Simon was just what the doctor ordered, who along with Peter, helped Brian and the team navigate the unchartered US legal tech seas and the many quirks of ILTACON. Watch this space for what Simon, Mark Garnish and the Xperate team will be creating and innovating in the months and year to come.
Feeding Super heroes: While business partners tried to up the ante with an ode to superheroes during the exhibit hall reception, Affinity Consulting dropped the mic, honoring their volunteer fire fighter colleague and his fire fighting brethren.
When he’s not working with Affinity Consulting clients, Dan Arntsen volunteers as a firefighter and first responder, something he’s been dedicated to for 15 years, serving his Madison, Wisconsin community.
With a hat tip to their real life superhero, the Affinity Consulting crew added a fundraiser to their ILTACON booth presence and by the time Thursday rolled around, reached their goal of buying lunch for 500 firefighters.
Rise and Run: Ari’s fun run has become a legal tech conference tradition. Organized by industry juggernaut Ari Kaplan, conference goers interested in an early morning jog have joined Ari since his first ‘rise and run’ at Relativity Fest in 2018. The 7th edition went down on Wednesday morning of ILTACON22 around National Harbor. Not only did Ari provide some cardio, he also made a donation in memory of #AlexHanan to the Lung Cancer Foundation of America on behalf of all of the attendees. Donations can be made here.
Joy’s got muscle. ILTA CEO Joy Heath-Rush really could not have a more perfect first name ... every time I see her, and it's been a while, makes me happy and in a hugging mood. This year was no exception. In order to make sure she wouldn't over extend and pace herself throughout conference week, Joy's BFF Nancy and close friend since high school insisted to tag along and protect Joy from the ILTACON Paparazzi and to be honest mostly herself. As Joy shared, "Nancy doesn't play, she'll slap your hand with a ruler if need be."
Legal tech themes that won't go away
So after several days of popping into sessions, chatting up lots of conference goers, bugging Beth Anne Stuebe and the ILTA TV crew, and talking with exhibitors, here are my recurring themes:
- Chasing data: Jeff Kosek with Element Technologies really summed it up best when I asked what stood out to him by conference week-end. "An overwhelming number of people I spoke with have so much data and applications, but NO idea how to compile that data, interpret it and predict better ways to run the law firm." So either vendors selling data analytics, business intelligence, data metrics/KPI tools and data integrations are doing a miserable job communicating their value prop or law firms are having a hard time defining what they want to measure, track and present and what questions to ask of their vendors. I am sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle but I don't see this pain going away for the foreseeable future.
- Integrate, integrate, integrate: Back in June, NetDocuments' Jed Cawthorne published an article in ILTA's Peer to Peer magazine entitled "Not All Integrations Are Created Equal" focused on providing a frame of reference when it comes to grading the quality and efficacy of integrations. Cawthorne recommends evaluating a tech partner's API Access (not all APIs are created equal either), UI/UX, integration with other tools, and closely evaluating the ultimate business goals central to said integration. I kept on thinking about this as many floor conversations I had focused on seeking new integrations or trying to resurrect an integration that neglected Jed's advice. As the legal tech cloud rush continues, integrations will surely become a bigger challenge before it is considered handled.
- Email's not going anywhere: This is today's reality as is the fact that some attorneys will continue to blow up their Inbox storage to the dismay of IT. With that being said, thanks to AI, ML, NLP and lots of vendor creativity and innovation, there are numerous ways to minimize related headaches and give users the email management tools they need (ideally, unbeknownst to them) to enhance, not impede productivity. Think Zero, NetDocuments ndMail and so on.
The skies are blue ... stop saying cloud: As far as I can tell, the only really positive thing that came of the Pandemic is the gold rush to the cloud. I have often wondered if other industries still qualify their technology like we do and how long cloud computing will be considered novel and risky by some. Well, the 2022 ILTA Technology Survey Executive Summary released last week reaffirms our new reality ... "the cloud ain't going anywhere"
Download the 2022 ILTA Technology Survey Executive Summary from us here....