InsideLegal

Hey Legal, What's the State of our Industry? ALM Intelligence Speaks

‘Pre’ Legalweek New York began today with various premium boot camp-style intensives but Tuesday’s ‘State of the Industry’ general session at 9AM (Grand Ballroom West) marks the official kick-off for Legalweek 2018. I had a chance to touch base with Steve Kovalan and Nicholas Bruch, both senior analysts with ALM Intelligence and tomorrow’s ‘state of the union’ session leaders.

Steve Kovalan
Senior Analyst, ALM Intelligence

Nicholas Bruch
Senior Analyst, ALM Intelligence

Check out this insightful Q&A before you head into the session tomorrow and you might be one of the smartest (but definitely most informed) folks in the room. I attended the 2017 session, really a useful, perhaps sobering way to kick-off the conference, and was constantly reminded that law firms are (still) lousy listeners when it comes to acting on as Kovalan and Bruch put it, the ‘changing field of play’, especially in terms of new competitors and evolving client demands. So as we head into this year’s session, the elephant in the room if you will is whether law firms have made any strides in terms of recognizing change and taking proactive measures to address increasing client as well as market demands?

IL: Before we dive into some of your findings, can you tell us a bit more about your research scope and focus for this project?

ALM: When we prepare for this presentation each year we try to do two things. Firstly, we reflect on what we are hearing from law firm leaders, law department leaders, and other leaders in the legal industry. We spend a lot of time talking to people in leading roles in the industry. It is important to us that this presentation reflects on those conversations and connects to the trends they are seeing in their own businesses and the narratives that we see forming out in the legal market which try to help explain why things are moving in the way they are. The second thing we do is take a deep dive into the data to help explain some of the trends and, when needed, debunk some commonly held beliefs that aren’t supported by the data.

IL: Last year, your state of the industry session was focused on three central themes: disruption, innovation, and revolution. How does 2018 compare in terms of focus areas? SK & NB: This year’s presentation certainly touches on the themes we discussed last year. Disruption is still a major conversation in the legal industry and you will see that trend continued in this year’s presentation. Our focus this year, however, is slightly different. We want to show people what the data says about the future of the legal market and provide a coherent view of where the legal market is heading over the next decade. IL: What are the top 3 significant data points, perhaps even ‘wow moments’ you will be sharing during your session?

ALM: Different parts of the audience will find different data points more compelling so we try to put something in the presentation for everyone. We suspect individuals from law departments and ASPs will find some of the insourcing data particularly compelling; the law firm audience will find the data on billing rates and GDP growth of interest and our analysis on the future of the legal market should be compelling and thought-provoking to all.

IL: You mention that based on your data analysis, the legal industry is undergoing a significant, if subtle, shift. What are you seeing?

ALM:  People tend to see things in extremes – either everything is changing or nothing is. That tendency is as true in the legal market as it is anywhere and you see it all the time. We're constantly hearing predictions about the “death of the hourly rate” or the “death of Big Law”. Our analysis suggests there is a shift happening in the legal market, but it’s not quite that dramatic. If we look at the legal market 20 years ago it was fairly straightforward – law departments managed the work and law firms did the work. This is obviously a generalization, but it is also broadly true. Law department’s primary task was deciding which law firms got what work and on what terms, while law firms did the vast majority of high and medium value work (and a fair amount of low value work). Today’s market is a bit more complex. Law departments still play the role of manager but law firms now share their market with in-house teams, alternative service providers, and increasingly, with the legal arms of The Big 4. The looming question for the future of the legal market is how all of this new competition is going to impact the space that law firms once owned. Many people seem to believe that the answer to that question is fairly straightforward – that law firms will lose market share at the expense of these new competitors. We believe the data suggests a slightly more nuanced outcome is more likely. We think some law firms will be highly successful. But we also believe that many will, indeed, loose share to new rivals. We think success in the future legal market will be based on a firm’s ability to provide a unique value proposition. Some firms will success because they have the scale to deliver services more cheaply. Others will succeed because they are profitable enough to buy the best talent. Regardless of the specific value proposition we strongly believe the market is moving to a world in which firms – whether they be law firms or ASPs – must be highly focused.

IL: Based on your analysis and insights, what major trends will be impacting the legal industry this year and further down the road?

ALM: 1. The Big 4: The Big 4 are coming for the legal market. The legal arms of the Big 4 are still largely underappreciated. We strongly believe that there is growing evidence that the Big 4 are targeting a position in the legal market which threatens law firms and traditional ASPs.

2. Consolidation: The consolidation we have seen in the legal market over the past several years is likely to continue and, probably, accelerate. We will see more law firm mergers and more ASP mergers. We believe it is highly likely that the Big 4 will go on a buying spree in the ASP market for example.

3.  Divergence: The data clearly shows that there is an ever-widening gulf growing in the law firm market. Law firms are growing more and more different from each other – in terms of profitability, size and operational models. We think we will see this trend continue and probably accelerate. In 10 years full-service law firms will look dramatically different from bet the company firms.

4.  Litigation Finance: The litigation finance trend has just begun and it is arguably one of the biggest and most exciting trends in the legal industry right now. It has the power to be a major force for change in the legal industry. It could, for example, spur new demand for litigation services (via an uptick in lawsuits). It could also spur changes in the way litigation is priced and managed.

5.  Law Firm Failures: We have seen quite a few law firm failures in the past years. Dramatic failures – with law firms going into bankruptcy – and less dramatic ones – with failing law firms “merging” into “white knight” firms. The data suggests this trend will continue and potentially accelerate. There is significant volatility in law firm financials. Many firms can withstand a single bad year – but few are in a position to withstand two or three bad years.

6.  CLOC Movement: We think the CLOC Movement – a term that we use to describe the changes going on in-house – will continue to evolve. Currently, it appears to be focused on in-sourcing. We suspect that will change in the coming years to a greater focus on vendor management and more sophisticated sourcing strategies.

IL: In 2017, you commented on the ‘changing field of play’ with various graphs and visuals. What are you seeing this year?

ALM: The trends we have seen on the client side – that we highlighted in the ‘changing field of play’ slide last year – have continued. Clients continue to report that they are in-sourcing more and that they are using ASPs more. We provide new data, particularly on the in-sourcing trend, in this year’s presentation. We're very optimistic about the future of the ASP market. In the short term, we think they have a lot of scope to grow in areas like litigation support, contracts, and due diligence. In the longer term, we think there are even more opportunities. We are less convinced about the future of the in-sourcing trend. The largest law departments may be able to effectively manage large portions of their legal work themselves. But we're not certain most departments will have the scale to compete with ASPs and law firms. We think in-sourcing is a transitionary step. As stronger alternatives grow, we suspect law departments will follow the direction of other support functions in large corporations. Most marketing departments, IT departments, and finance departments outsource large portions of their work. It is tempting to think law departments are an outlier – but we suspect they are not.

IL: Lastly, for anyone on the fence about attending your ‘state of the industry’ session on Tuesday at 9Am, what’s the one compelling reason you can give them to make this a ‘must see’?

ALM: The legal industry has gotten so large and complex over the past several years that it is easy to miss the forest for the trees. Many people live in their own bubble within the legal industry. Law firm partners are surrounded by other law firm partners. They might be highly aware of the trends within the law firm market and they probably know quite a bit about the law department trends as well. But, we suspect, most partners know very little about the happenings in the ASP world or the LegalTech world. The same can be said about individuals who work in ASPs, law departments, or LegalTech. This presentation is a chance to see the forest and the trees at once. To be able to see how the corner of the legal industry fits into the broader picture. We think that is incredibly valuable for most people, particularly business leaders. We are focused on what the data can tell us. We base our findings on imperial evidence, on analysis of large longitudinal data sets. Presentations like this one are meant to bring together some of our best research from the past year to provide business leaders with a set of facts to help them better understand the marketplace.

Get your Legal Week Tuesday started right by attending this state of the legal industry session at 9AM in Grand Ballroom West. 

 

“In Their Own Words”: Kris Satkunas of LexisNexis CounselLink

InsideLegal has long been showcasing legal thought leaders with our “ITOW” series. This edition is focused on Kris Satkunas and her LexisNexis CounselLink team’s newest mission…helping corporate legal departments improve the predictability of their legal costs (via AFAs), manage their budgets with more certainty and derive greater value from their work with outside counsel. Our Q&A is focused on a recent LexisNexis-sponsored AFA survey and key findings as well as their recently launched CounselLink Analytics’ role in helping legal departments navigate their ‘value’ challenge.  

IL: A recent ALM Intelligence Survey “Alternative Fee Arrangements for Law Firms and Legal Departments”, sponsored by LexisNexis, shows the billable hour remains dominant with much slower than predicted adoption of alternative fee arrangements. While nearly all the law firms surveyed have adopted AFAs and most respondents expect increased adoption, growth is slow, with AFAs accounting for less than a quarter of most law firms’ work. The same trend is evident on the corporate legal end. Kris, can you please provide InsideLegal with a top level recap of the findings?

KS: The biggest take-away to me is that AFAs are broadly used (by 99.5% of law firms and 82.6% of legal departments surveyed) but not deeply utilized. Both inside and outside counsel clearly see the importance of AFAs. Yet for many reasons, most are using AFAs sparingly. And both sides point to internal and external reasons for the lack of adoption. In other words, in house counsel fault law firms with resisting AFAs while few GCs have the expertise needed to leverage their own data to identify and propose alternative fee structures that might be amenable to outside counsel. The bottom line is that expanding the use of AFAs is proving to be a struggle for both inside and outside counsel.

IL: Do these findings surprise you?

KS: The findings don’t surprise me. I’ve had conversations with many corporate counsel who have expressed that they want to use AFAs more, but don’t really know where to start. A lot of them also suffer from the “my matters are all unique” syndrome, which is just another internal form of resistance to trying something new. What is a bit surprising to me is the high percentage of both inside and outside counsel who say they don’t have the data to determine appropriate AFAs. Most large corporate legal departments have e-billing and/or matter management systems and law firms have time and billing systems. All these systems contain a wealth of data. The problem is that gathering useful data is only the first step. That’s where CounselLink Analytics comes in. This service bridges the gap between raw data and decision making through delivery of specific recommendations on AFAs and on broader cost management strategies.

IL: Based on your understanding and knowledge, and as cited in the survey, why are AFAs not as widespread as expected or at least as publicized? Do you think corporate counsel’s cost predictability argument pro AFAs will spill over to the firm side?

KS: This is an industry that is slow to adopt change. We’re talking about a fundamental shift in a law firm’s operating model, and I believe that is going to take time to happen. We’ve seen AFAs increase a bit every year. Companies using CounselLink used AFAs for 17% of their matters in 2011, and that percentage has slowly increased each year. As to the cost predictability component, that may be a side-benefit to law firms, but what is really going to drive them to use materially more AFAs is their interest in retaining clients and winning new business.

IL: As you have mentioned, most legal departments have reams of data but aren’t sure how to analyze and interpret that data to identify inefficiencies and to quantify for corporate leadership, the value being generated by the company’s legal department. Please explain how CounselLink Analytics will help address this challenge and what other resources exist to help quantify value.

KS: Legal departments create value by among other things, managing risk, communicating clearly with internal clients, and by helping their organizations to avoid, minimize and manage legal challenges in the most cost effective manner possible. The goals of legal departments vary, but the adage about needing to measure in order to manage applies regardless of those goals. One of the ways CounselLink Analytics helps legal departments is by helping them identify and leverage specific metrics they can use to quantify the value they are creating. We also set up electronic dashboards or scorecards to effectively track, display and share that information with senior management. In addition, our services provide a framework, or methodology, to efficiently answer questions that arise as the metrics are distributed.

IL: Before joining CounselLink, you led the Redwood Analytics Think Tank to help improve law firm performance via the use of analytics and best practices. Please elaborate on this initiative and share with us any specific best practices and metrics that the think tank developed and/or published.

KS: The Redwood Think Tank was an independent research group founded by Redwood Analytics in 2006. The Think Tank conducted quantitative studies, developed and tested hypotheses, and suggested solutions to tough management issues. Members of the Think Tank were law firm leaders with a progressive outlook on firm management issues. One big topic we studied was client attrition. This study had a definite impact on how many firms thought about relationship management. We identified the factors most correlated with whether a client would continue to provide work to a law firm. There were 4 factors that we found to be the most critical, and believe or not, rate discounts were not among the top four! 

 

"In Their Own Words": SharePoint Evangelist Richard Harbridge

In our last post, we covered our experience at the ILTA SharePoint Symposium held a couple of weeks ago. One of the highlights for us was the day one keynote, 'Future-Proofing Your SharePoint Strategy', delivered by Richard Harbridge, Senior SharePoint Evangelist with Allin Consulting. After the keynote, InsideLegal's Jobst Elster had the opportunity to sit down and speak with Richard and get his take on SharePoint for Legal and what major trends to look out for in the forseeable future. The 7 minute clip includes a summary of Richard's keynote, the challlenge of increasing SharePoint user adoption, and a keen focus on SharePoint trends including hiring top talent; leveraging the cloud; mobility and social media.     

 Download keynote presentation & SharePoint resources from Richard here

"In Their Own Words": MyLegal.com's Lisa DiMonte

Last month, InsideLegal was invited to cover MyLegal.com's inaugural social media conference "Making the Case for Social Media". As reported in our event recap, MyLegal.com's founder and event brainchild Lisa DiMonte, put to great use her 30+ year court reporting and litigation support experience and delivered a value-added first time event. We wanted to follow-up since we were particularly curious about Lisa's passion for social media and to what extent the legal community has embraced her emerging MyLegal.com social network for legal professionals. Here is Lisa "in her own words" to provide more insight...

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your passion for legal and especially social media?

I’ve been in the legal industry for over 33 years and became a court reporter because I loved the idea of learning something new every day and meeting new and interesting people. During my court reporter training, I was fascinated by technology and utilizing technology to be more productive. As I gained more experience as a court reporter, I became more intrigued by technologies that were designed to help lawyers and other legal professionals become more efficient. My passion for people, technology and continual learning is being fulfilled by my work at MyLegal.com, where we help legal professionals use simple social media tools to get more clients and build professional relationships.

What is MyLegal.com and how do you see it helping lawyers meet their objective of running a successful practice?

MyLegal.com is a social network for all legal professionals, not just lawyers. So whether you’re a lawyer or a legal vendor, everyone seems to want the same thing - more clients. But there’s so much competition amongst firms of all sizes and there are so many choices, that many legal professionals are confused about where to start with social media or what to do, so they do nothing. I also think that many attorneys and legal professionals are risk averse. If you couple aversion to risk, with some of the state restrictions on advertising for lawyers, it’s no wonder that many legal professionals find it easier and safer to be in the stands as a spectator, rather than participating “on the field.”

That’s where MyLegal.com comes in. We help legal professionals use simple tools to increase their online presence and visibility in a professional and ethical way. Legal professionals create a professional profile on MyLegal.com and then associate their content with their profile. This content can include press releases, blogs, podcasts and videos that are geared at educating and not advertising. The more content that is associated with your profile; the more likely it is that you are going to be found by someone who is in need of your services. We eliminate the barriers to create and distribute the content with our easy-to-use tools, by providing our members with a simple template to create a blog or press release, or, alternatively, the ability to simply browse and upload their content or insert a link and tag it for search engine indexing.  

We are an all inclusive community and believe that one of the ways lawyers can be successful and competitive is by keeping abreast of new technologies and methodologies. Legal vendors are in the best position to keep lawyers informed in this regard because they are the ones who provide solutions to those problems. On the flip side, legal vendors need to know the issues and obstacles that interfere with lawyers' ability to practice law efficiently and effectively.

How does MyLegal.com interact and partner with the legal technology vendor community?  

As discussed, we provide the same tools and services for legal vendors as we do for lawyers. We help legal vendors promote themselves and their products through the posting and distribution of product demos, press releases and interviews on our talk radio show, “The Legal Exchange.” We also provide the online portal for vendor groups so they can share intellectual insights and develop best practices through the discussions and wikis associated with each group.

Once they start engaging with social media, what can or should lawyers expect? What should they not expect to happen?

Before lawyers and other legal professionals engage in social media, they need to understand that social media is not a silver bullet. In order to see results, the legal professional has to be authentic, consistent and committed. Authenticity is at the core of all relationships, whether online or face-to-face. Consistency is important because people want to know what to expect from you. And, finally, you need to be committed to your social media plan and goals because it takes time to build your network, establish your credibility and achieve your professional goals.

Lisa DiMonte 
MyLegal.com
Twitter: @mylegal

"In Their Own Words" Legal Thought Leaders Spotlight: Adrian Dayton

InsideLegal recently had a chance to briefly catch-up with Adrian Dayton at MyLegal's Making the Case for Social Media event where he was asked to speak on 'how to bring in business with social media'. When the dust settled, Adrian shared some more thoughts ... "in his own words".

Who are you?  Who is your organization?       What is your role?
I am Adrian Dayton, attorney, author of of Social Media for Lawyers: Twitter Edition, consultant to large law firms, and weekly columnist for the National Law Journal. My organization is the Adrian Dayton Company - I am the Founder and CEO, but at this point is is a small organization with just me and a couple of others.

How did you get your start with social media?
I have been using discussion groups since 2000, but I was turned me on to blogging and social media after creating a manuscript that I wanted to get published. A friend of mine that handled social media for Adobe and now for Symantech told me, "get on Twitter, start a blog." So I did. Within a few weeks, I brought in a client to the mid-sized law firm I was working with at the time. After that, I was hooked.

Your book "Social Media for Lawyers: Twitter edition" has been very well received. Why is this a must read? 
"Social Media for Lawyers: Twitter Edition" is not a technical manual, it is a basic step-by-step guide of how professionals can start using Twitter. I think it has been successful because it is easy to read, written in a conversational style, and provides plenty of practical take-aways. It has been out a year now, and the Amazon.com reviews have been extremely positive for the book.  

Please provide one ‘real world example’ of how one of your clients has made more money with social media?
Roy Ginsburg who authors the blog, Quirky Questions?, brought in a six-figure client through his blog. Many others have brought in smaller matters through Twitter, LinkedIn and even Facebook. It isn't really about social media though, it is about engaging people offline after making the first connection online. 

As you know, InsideLegal works closely with the legal technology community. How can legal technology vendors work with you or approach you as a resource?
Great question. I have worked with a number of vendors on product launches and making sure they get the most out of their new whitepapers/events/ projects. I am pretty picky about who I work with though, they need to have a compelling product that I believe, or I'm not going to share it with my network. That would be an easy way to lose the good will and credibility I have built up over the last couple of years engaging very regularly online.

What online resource (website, blog, etc.) is most useful to you (i.e., you use it every day)?
I love a few tools that I believe are an absolute must for anybody serious about using social media:

• TweetDeck - for Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook
• Bit.ly - to shorten links and track progress
• WordPress - by far my favorite blogging platform
• Google Analytics - to track traffic flow and sources of traffic

There are other variations of each of these, but these are the ones I use.

How can people contact you?
People can email me - [email protected] or shoot me a message on Twitter @adriandayton. I reply to all messages personally and am also available anytime by phone at (716)568-7695. 

Adrian Dayton ([email protected])
Adrian Dayton Company
716.568.7695
Twitter: @AdrianDayton

In Their Own Words: Legal Thought Leaders Interview Series

Here we are, a month removed from the ILTA 2010 Conference and for InsideLegal, our biggest takeaway was the re-affirmation of community in the legal technology space and specifically the contributions individual ILTA members and vendors make on an ongoing basis to provide a content and experience-rich environment for all, from the 20 year ILTA veteran to the first timer. In recognition of this dedication, volunteerism, subject matter expertise and intellect, we set out to capture the essence of some of our legal thought leaders ... "in their own words". Below are interviews with Joy Heath-Rush, Jonathan Maas, Norm Thomas, Brian Zeve, Bob Tennant, Randi Mayes, Peggy Wechsler, Lance Waagner, Donna Payne, Joseph Scott, Susie Krupa and Brad Sidwell.

[Editors Note: While we have found rich media such as video, podcasts, webcasts and the like to be en vogue, we are still on the fence about the efficacy of these media for our purposes - promoting the legal technology industry and its people. Since we are undecided here, we opted to intermingle old fashioned written content and commentary with concise, informal (albeit Blair Witch style - no, these were not professionally produced) video snippets ranging from 1.5 to 5 minutes in length. In the future, we will increase the quality of these videos. Our goal here was to catch-up with some legal industry leaders to garner impromptu feedback on the 2010 ILTA conference; find out about what they and/or their companies are excited about these days; and finally get their 'off the top of their head' candid insight on thought leadership and what defines thought leaders in our industry]

Joy Heath-Rush - Enterprise Multimedia Services Manager, Sidley Austin

A familiar face, Joy Heath-Rush from Sidley Austin, joined us to recap her ILTA experience as well as her involvement with InsideLegal's annual vendor education program. Unfortunately our trusty camera sort of died in midstream (ironic since Joy is the Enterprise Multimedia Services Manager for Sidley Austin) so you'll need to go to ILTA TV if you want to see Joy in full color. We revisited some of the points that Joy made during the panel when it came to selling to law firms and specifically asked her about the best ways to work with her from a vendor standpoint. We also drilled down into the RFP process because this is something that we're seeing more and more vendors spend a lot of resources responding to. This led to the question of who is actually driving the RFP process and where are they coming from? Joy made an interesting observation that a lot of the RFPs currently being issued are being driven by be the e-discovery market and specifically the need for discovery solutions by law firms. Also, based on the fact that there are so many vendors providing e-discovery services, RFPs are a way of managing that process. Lastly, we talked with Joy about the pure networking nature of ILTA and the importance of legal vendors establishing relationships, building credibility and earning members' trust and loyalty.

Jonathan Maas - Assistant Director, Ernst & Young

After Joy, we had a chance to catch up with Jonathan Maas, 30 year litigation support industry and litigation technology veteran, and current assistant director of Ernst & Young's Forensic Technology & Discovery Services team in London. Jonathan, who spoke at several ILTA sessions and attended several others, made an interesting, perhaps even controversial, point (controversy?! all in a day's work for Mr. Maas) related to cloud computing. Specifically, he thought it was sort of peculiar that cloud computing is this huge buzzword and clearly the number one show topic but in his mind, he really didn't see the difference between cloud computing and software-as-a-service and other web-enabled delivery methods for technologies and services. His point being that there is virtually no differentiation or anything that sets cloud computing apart from what's already being done aside from an updated catch-phrase. His point reminded us of our recent legal cloud computing interview with Microsoft's Norm Thomas and his statement that Microsoft has been involved in cloud development for the past 15 years but not many consumers realize that because it wasn't called cloud computing back then and it did not apply to highly visible consumer services.

Brian Zeve & Norm Thomas - Director & Manager, Microsoft Professional Services

On the heals of InsideLegal's recent interview with Norm Thomas focused on Microsoft's legal cloud strategy, we wanted to catch up with Norm and his colleague Brian Zeve, who leads the charge for Microsoft's legal vertical efforts, to collect their thoughts on legal futures; Microsoft's commitment to the legal industry; and also explore to what extent the cloud 'rubber' has hit the road for the company. With the cloud topic being hot and very apropos for Microsoft, we asked Brian to share Microsoft's top benefits of cloud delivery versus others. While most of his answers (cost savings and infrastructure consolidation/streamlining) reflected industry standards, his bigger point about the significance of increased collaboration and interoperability was our biggest take-away. On the topic of thought leadership, Brian believes having a business vision, as well as the ability to identify and overcome future obstacles, before they become show stoppers, are critical ingredients.   

Bob Tennant - CEO, Recommind

Next we caught up with Bob Tennant, Recommind's CEO, to talk about his impressions of ILTA 2010, information governance, its increasing relevance in the legal eDiscovery space, as well as the launch of the company's predictable costs in eDiscovery initiative based on its Predictive Coding technology. According to the company's ILTA release, the Axcelerate Review & Analysis solution (based on predictive coding) allows law firms to offer fixed-fee arrangements for document review, a major breakthrough in the industry's ongoing efforts to better predict and reign in eDiscovery costs. On the topic of thought leadership, Bob mentioned the importance of forward thinking and compared it to hockey, stating the desire to move to where the puck will be, versus where it currently is. 

Randi Mayes & Peggy Wechsler - Executive Director & Program Director, ILTA

What would an interview session be without talking to the energetic go-getters who coolly orchestrate the ILTA conference year after year ... Randi Mayes, ILTA's Executive Director and Peggy Wechsler, ILTA's Program Director. While Randi focused her video snippet on how vendor partners can work with the organization on providing members with content and thought leadership via the various publication and media vehicles, Peggy provided an insider's view on final attendance numbers, vendor participation and 2011 conference location details (Nashville!). One of the key points, gleaned from both Peggy's and Randi's comments on thought leadership, was the importance of commitment to legal and the energy, sacrifice and time it takes to establish credibility and earn respect within the ILTA community.   

Lance Waagner - CEO, Intelliteach

We caught up with Lance Waagner, CEO of Intelliteach and former CIO of Atlanta-based Kilpatrick Stockton, who had just wrapped up a successfully panel session focused on helpdesk and deskside support. The session, which he co-presented with Tony Hartsfield and Franklin Stevens of Bryan Cave, drew 135 law firm support managers and user services personnel looking for practical ways to provide better helpdesk support while increasing analyst morale and keeping user satisfaction high. In fact, Lance's video snippet speaks to the Guru's Guide he and his analysts developed in order to provide law firms with heldpdesk statistics and metrics in order to help measure satisfaction and helpdesk efficacy.

Donna Payne - CEO & Founder, PayneGroup

A short time later, Donna Payne joined us and continued the thought leadership conversation we first kicked off earlier in the week during the vendor education program's legal thought leadership panel discussion. Donna, who juggled running PayneGroup's booth with four speaking slots during the conference, is an ILTA fixture, not only as a valued and trusted vendor partner, but also as a peer and thought leader to the entire ILTA membership. Whether she is travelling the country as part of ILTA's Office 2010 presentation tour or having one-on-one technology conversations with leading firms' managing partners, Donna has always applied the right mix of subject matter expertise, industry knowledge and straight-up business acumen. 

Joseph Scott - Vice President & General Manager, CompuLaw/Deadlines on Demand

Joseph Scott, GM of legal calendaring solution provider CompuLaw and Deadlines On Demand, took time out from an extremely busy CompuLaw booth to share his ILTA experience. It was good to hear Joseph reiterate 'the economy has rebounded' message and talk about loosening purse strings of large firms pursuing calendaring and docketing solutions. Joseph, who spends much of his time speaking with firm risk managers and attorneys throughout the country about the malpractice risk associated with calendar and deadline-related errors, provided a unique slant on our thought leadership themed question. Specifically, he identified thought leaders as those that ask questions no one has asked before and in turn pursue answers. Asking those 'wow, I never thought of that' questions according to Scott is a lot more important and impressive than 'talk leaders' who repeat what others have already espoused before them.  

Susie Krupa - Industry Principal, Professional Services, SAP America

We were delighted to spend a few minutes with Susie Krupa who shared with us what SAP and its professional services vertical partner, Tata Consulting Services, are up to in legal and also gave us an insider's view on the G100 Global CIO Forum, a meeting of the world's top law firm CIOs, which occurs on ILTA day one. Susie represented SAP as part of a G100 financial management panel discussion (along with Microsoft, Elite and Aderant) and talked about how the global company's leadership and track record in other professional services (such as accounting) can go a long way in helping law firms embrace and adopt future technologies that will define their organizations 5-10 years from now.

Brad Sidwell - Vice President & General Manager, LexisNexis InterAction

One of our last interviewees at conference was Brad Sidwell, responsible for LexisNexis Interaction. Brad shared with us InterAction's big ILTA conference news - the release of InterAction 6.0 for Microsoft Outlook and corresponding positive ILTA attendee feedback, and had a lot of fresh perspectives to share on legal technology, the ILTA community and thought leadership. In terms of the big product news, Brad, the former CIO of Troutman Sanders, also shared with us his company's core product principals, no doubt critical in the development of InterAction 6.0. Specifically, he cited increasing CRM user adoption rates (which they hope to achieve via common workflow within Outlook); renewed focus on partnerships, specifically Microsoft; and embracing Office as a platform (vs. an application) and as such being able to embed InterAction services/functionality within the new framework.

While ILTA 2011 is roughly 11 months away, the news, views, and insights shared by our legal thought leader interviewees can be put to use now and reflected upon over the next year. While it is commendable to occasionally focus on specific technology themes (cloud, virtualization, etc.), the topic of thought leadership, and the subjects broached by those we consider 'thought leading', will be shared and commented on by InsideLegal for a long time to come. 

“In Their Own Words”: Microsoft’s Legal Cloud Computing Strategy: Not 'All or Nothing'

Cloud computing is without a doubt the biggest 2010 technology trend, buzzword, initiative, pipedream … not only in legal, but across any number of verticals. Call it what you may, but with every mention of “we’re going to the cloud”, comes the chatter from naysayers who claim cloud alternatives are not yet proven, not yet widely available, and definitely not viable for large scale, enterprise level, business use. Enter Microsoft, who with a 15 year track record of delivering cloud solutions, is still being pulled into the "not yet ready for prime time/unproven" debate.   

So, in order to more accurately understand what legal hosted services Microsoft is currently offering, how these complement and/or enhance its proven desktop suites, and why there is a viable Redmond-based alternative to Google Apps after all, InsideLegal opted to go straight to the source and chat with Norm Thomas, Microsoft’s Industry Market Development Director, Legal Industry Solutions.

Those who have been following Microsoft’s steady move into legal within the last decade undoubtedly have heard of or seen Norm at major legal industry events including ILTA’s Annual Conference, LegalTech, ABA TECHSHOW and ALA’s Annual Conference. Along with Brian Zeve, his boss and Managing Director for Microsoft’s U.S. Professional Services Industry, Norm has been expertly carrying the company’s legal enterprise strategy torch and seeking honest feedback from legal IT thought leaders and firm decision makers. 

Our conversation comes on the heels of our coverage of Bradford & Barthel's move to Google Apps that beckoned the question, “What is Microsoft doing in the legal cloud, and why don’t we know about it?” In response to that coverage, several InsideLegal readers posted comments and wrote in with questions related to Microsoft’s scope of cloud services, specific functionality, licensing and security concerns, and broader business and legal vertical strategy inquiries.

Here’s InsideLegal's exclusive Q&A with Norm:

PRODUCTS: LEGAL CLOUD SOLUTIONS, FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS

IL: Please provide some background on Microsoft’s cloud offerings and clearly articulate what is available now. What will be coming later? And when?

NT: Microsoft has been in the cloud for more than 15 years now and our cloud services are pretty diverse. You mentioned that a lot of people are familiar with Google and that’s because that is what they use at home. Our cloud services include Hotmail, launched 17 years ago, with 350 million users, Xbox Live with more than 6 million active accounts and even Windows Update services date back to Windows 2000 and XP. So when people ask if we’re doing this to catch up, we like to point them to this strong history. Overall, cloud-based services offer Microsoft almost as many benefits as they do to law firms. And while our biggest competitor for new user acquisition is previous versions of Office and Windows, we see that making the move to the cloud addresses a lot of upgrade bottlenecks and concerns. Specifically, the ease of migration, upgrade and deployment in the cloud environment has made a big difference for users and IT.

With respect to the legal industry, we have offerings that allow customers to take advantage of cloud computing on their terms, meaning that we deliver software, tools and guidance that enable them to realize the benefits of cloud computing with the reliability and security of on premises software. One is Windows Azure, focused on developers and software development in the cloud, and the other is Microsoft Online Services – Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online, Dynamics CRM Online, etc. - that makes it easy for law firms to leverage and rapidly deploy familiar Microsoft products as flexible services. 

These Online Services essentially give you various deployment options - run it on the server, run it in the cloud or on the client. With Office Web Apps, the browser experience will be lighter but requires no additional training and speaks to our approach that you don’t have to put all or nothing in the cloud. While we have trouble imagining fee earners editing 400 page commercial lease agreements through a browser, there will be hybrid scenarios where certain workloads are out in the cloud and others remain on the desktop. On top of that, all this is also enabled on mobile devices so there’s no new user experience and associated learning curve. The changes to the end user are invisible. 

IL: Why is there the general market perception that Microsoft is playing cloud "catch-up" and lagging behind other, more agile players (even if just perceived) like Google?

NT: The entire industry’s IT mentality needs to expand and understand the cloud is not an “all or nothing” proposition. And, Microsoft is already handling certain workloads out in the cloud (virus scanning, spam filtering, archiving, DMS data stores) and developing hybrid options in many other areas.

In many respects, we are all collectively going to be staring down the barrel of a gun if we take the entire law firm infrastructure and the desktop environment and expect attorneys to be satisfied using only the browser. What Microsoft says is, "software is software." You can run it anywhere you choose, whatever makes the most sense for your firm. If you want to take parts of your messaging environment and put it out on the cloud, you can do that on our data center, keep it on premise as most firms do now, or work with a Microsoft partner’s data center, or even turn your own server farm into the firm’s private cloud data center. This scenario might be a good solution for firms that are in a consolidation phase and are looking to streamline server infrastructure. In doing so, legal IT can alleviate a great deal of costs, inefficiencies and create what we call economies of skill, by freeing up internal resources in the operations and maintenance environments. 

IL: What was made available this year in May when Office 2010 was launched to all business customers? 

NT: In May, Microsoft introduced Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010. Included in this launch was Microsoft Office Web Apps, the online companions to Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote. Office Web Apps allow users to work from virtually anywhere, providing easy access to documents while preserving the look and feel of a document regardless of device. So, all the applications are all available with an Internet connection and "deskless" workers can access apps from a SharePoint cloud for example. Again, Microsoft is truly committed to the cloud and is taking all the knowledge gained from 15 years of cloud development and making all its products feature compatible no matter where they are located. Currently, 70% of Microsoft’s 40,000 employees who are involved in building software are working on entirely cloud-based or cloud-inspired projects; this will be 90% by the end of this year.

IL: How does the Office Web Apps/online feature set compare to the familiar Office desktop? 

NT: In general, use of the Office desktop applications is not required to use the Office Web Apps. However, many common usage scenarios will involve use of the Web Apps in conjunction with the desktop apps - using Office Web Apps for fast, lightweight editing and easy sharing, and using the desktop applications for deeper editing and full functionality. Microsoft Office Web Apps are the free online companions to the Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote applications that you already use. They enable you to access and edit your documents from virtually anywhere, as well as share and work on documents with others online, even simultaneously. They are entirely web-based and available via Windows Live, so there's no additional software to download or install. They can be used from virtually any computer whether or not it has Microsoft Office installed. 

LICENSING, SECURITY AND RELIABILITY

IL: Where do you see Microsoft moving from a licensing perspective for its software products as the industry moves towards cloud-hosted collaboration, and a pricing model based on a per user annual fee?

NT: Currently, existing Enterprise Agreements make it difficult to accommodate additional users and honestly present complex scenarios when user counts fluctuate. With Microsoft Online Services, firms can acquire licenses based on the number of months they need access (think summer associates) and how many new users they want added and for how long. This creates a new level of flexibility that did not previously exist. Still, stable user environments provide more economic licensing solutions since there is more predictability at play. All of these scenarios are addressed as part of Microsoft’s service provider licensing agreements (SPLA). 

IL: How will cloud solutions satisfy lawyers on security, confidentiality and return of data?

NT: This is a very valid and formidable concern and dictates different solutions based on geographies and local laws. For example, German law will not allow documents to leave Germany if your client is the government so how could you adhere to these requirements in a cloud scenario? Microsoft provides options for dedicated data centers for Microsoft Online Services to ensure that clients know where their documents are being stored. There is also premise security - the concept of controlling the physical premises where the document resides. Matter security, which is a really big deal in legal, also takes into account the potential need for ethical firewalls, to protect data from potential conflict scenarios within the firm.

IL: How does Microsoft’s 99.9% availability guarantee differ from others and what do you offer clients during downtime? 

NT: Microsoft’s guarantee states that if you incur any downtime we will repay you financially versus giving you additional service time. Our standard guaranteed reliability is 99.9%, with no minimum number of consecutive minutes of downtime required in order to be considered downtime. To us, a minute of downtime is downtime. There’s no minimum threshold. In some industries such as banking or finance, customers will pay extra for extreme reliability (referred to as the four “9’s” of uptime guarantees). In legal, Outlook and Exchange would fall into this mission critical category as well. 

OFFICE 2010/ONLINE SERVICES LEGAL CLIENT DRILL DOWN

IL: Who does Microsoft see as its ideal law firm client for the Office 2010 Online Services offering?

NT: Any firm that has a heavy reliance on messaging and data storage with concerns about eDiscovery/client confidentiality coupled with the managerial challenges that come from broad geographic dispersion. This means a lot of the U.K.’s Magic Circle firms are showing more interest in Online Services at the moment than some U.S. firms are. Typical firms would have major storage requirements and look to offload all that data to a trustworthy source enabling them to focus on how their users interact with their desktops.

IL: In a recent interview with CNN Money, Stephen Elop (President of Microsoft Business Division) stated that over 8.6 million people were testing Office 2010 prior to release. How large is your beta testing initiative in legal?

NT: We had three large law firms in our Technology Adoption Program (TAP) for SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 and two in the Exchange 2010 TAP program including a Global 20 firm that was part of the Online Services beta for the 2010 release. There are a lot of on-ramps to early adoption including the product design stage, early alpha, beta, and public preview stage. The difficulty in legal in terms of Online Services adoption is the nature of the heavily customized desktop combined with the perception that cloud computing means "all or nothing." While many firms have outsourced their document repositories or messaging archives, there are currently no AmLaw 200 firms running their entire Exchange, SharePoint or SQL workloads in the cloud using Online Services. In a year from now, we expect that to be a very different story. We have already started with Wave 15 (new version of Office) planning and have technicians sitting with firms to better understand their content management and specifically e-mail management needs.

IL: According to Elop, Office’s #1 competitor is previous versions of Office - that seems especially true in legal where change takes time and upgrades are often a wait and see decision. How are you addressing this ingrained hesitation and what are you communicating to the skeptics who’d rather let somebody else go first?

NT: With the Windows 7 and SharePoint and Office 2010 releases, change management has been less of an issue. We are actually getting pulled forward by law firms instead of the other way around. Their requests are actually helping us understand what the benefits of our platform are – both on premise and in the cloud - and telling us what aspects of the solutions need to be addressed as they migrate rapidly. Our technology partners are integral in the product planning phases so they are collectively helping us with end user adoption just as we help them with their compatibility issues. At the point of launch, it has been less of a show and tell about what the product can do and more about moving forward with what we have already proven can be accomplished in the legal technology community.

FUTURES & PREDICTIONS

IL: Do you see the end of traditional desktop software suites for law firms? What does the legal desktop look like in 10 or 20 years from now?

NT: In the future, Microsoft sees three screens; the desktop, mobile device, and TV, with a seamless environment across all of them. No matter where you are, you’ll have access to the same functionality and features. We call this “continuous services.” It will be less about what the legal desktop looks like but more important to understand how lawyers and their clients want to work now, in the future, and how Microsoft can support them. Here are some predictions: Will we be getting away from word processors? Absolutely not. Will we start to collaborate differently? I think we will. Will we store and file things differently? Probably. Will we continue to differentiate between records management and document management? No, here we are already seeing the lines blurring. Will it matter what repository things are kept in? No, this will become increasingly virtual and abstract. Instead, the focus will be on access. It’s less about what the screen looks like but more about the working behavior, how much is verbal, how much is touch and how will the graphical user interface evolve to a natural user interface? I think Bill Gates is right, we’ll be able to interact with our computer more verbally, which will understand us better and emulate predictive behaviors and know our standards and requirements. 

In terms of futures, more and more firms are embracing "blue sky thinking" rather than confining themselves to the next dot-rev of their DMS, and taking the blinders off when it comes to what can be done. Increasingly, clients are asking what the law firms are using so you can say many firms have leapfrogged and shed their former "technology laggard" labels. 

Editor's Note: Disruptions welcome. The bigger point is that the new opportunities afforded by cloud computing and the increasing willingness for all participants to embrace the possibilities, points toward a very bright future. Software giants like Microsoft can continue to supply core applications, but at the same time really push the envelope when it comes to new developments such as cloud offerings and natural user interfaces; technology partners can tap into the development platforms like Windows Azure to develop new offerings for completely new target markets, and law firms who previously had to work with disparate, incompatible systems and were relegated to leveraging old technology, are now embracing collaborative cloud alternatives. Finally, law firm clients, who really turned up the pressure on their outside counsel to share information and automate processes, are recognizing that some firms are leveraging technology to help them and their corporate clients more effectively compete.

If you have comments on this piece or questions for Norm, please email us.

RELATED RESOURCES

• “Fact-based Comparison of Hosted Services” Norm Thomas, Microsoft Corporation, ILTA White Paper: Make the Leap to Office 2010
• Microsoft Online Services data sheet
• Microsoft to Meld Cloud and On-Premise Management, May 21, 2010, V3.co.uk 
• Microsoft Cloud Services 
• Total Cost of Ownership with Windows Azure

"In Their Own Words": Bradford & Barthel Responds to Questions from Legal Tech Experts About Their Move to the Cloud

InsideLegal posted an interview conducted by our Head of Content, Jobst Elster, with Eric Hunter, Director of Knowledge Management for California-based Bradford & Barthel LLP (B&B), a 75 attorney (211 employee) firm, which has embraced Google Apps. In that original post, Eric explained the strategy of taking his firm completely to the cloud. This was the first time we had heard of a firm this size making that move - not just for file storage, etc., but having Google Apps replace Microsoft Office as well and thought it was intriguing. Well, our readers agreed and we received many questions from the industry - consultants, technologists, law firm CIOs, etc. We selected a few to be answered directly by Eric Hunter.

Question submitted by Tom Mighell of The Kennedy-Mighell Report   "Does the relative lack of features in Google Docs pose any issues for the firm? Many law firms need to be able to create Tables of Authority, end notes, citations, captions – Google Docs does not currently have any of these features. Further, users currently cannot use columns or add watermarks. Some of the features Google Docs and Word do have in common are very rudimentary (at least for now) in Google Docs – how will firm lawyers adjust to this?"

Hunter:  Google Docs is an evolving product, as is the entire Google Apps suite. That's why it's paramount for law firms to involve both their Technology and Knowledge Management departments in investigating Google Apps. As the suite evolves, so will their knowledge sharing processes. We're slating our rollout with Google Docs to match our estimate of the product's projected functionality upgrades to match Microsoft's Suite. Google has stated publicly that Docs will continue to evolve, but in the interim, businesses should keep their current solution. I recommend the same for law firms. B&B is in a position where we are ready to invest and upgrade our infrastructure in multiple points, and at multiple junctures. We're confident our return on investment is worth timing our rollout as the Google Apps solution evolves. We also understand it is in Google's interest to continue to upgrade their suite to compete with Microsoft as quickly as possible, especially with Microsoft rolling out their 2010 suite and Windows 7 for businesses. Law firms should definitely investigate, but maintain a critical eye on product evolution and progress. 

Mighell: "One other feature where Word is superior (in my opinion) is in Track Changes – in Google Docs you can review the revision history and add Comments, but you cannot manage changes in a collaborative way – is this a concern to the firm?"

Hunter:  The collaborative feature our firm currently utilizes most in Google Docs is the ability for Docs to integrate seamlessly with Google Sites. We're leveraging this functionality towards how we see our document management solution evolving. Though Word is still superior in many respects in functionality, we see this functionality matched by Docs as the product evolves. It's in Google's strategic interest to do so, and we're confident they have the financial resources and incentive to make it happen quickly. From an investment perspective, we're consistently thinking 18 months ahead. We're offering a training session on the Google Apps Collaboration Suite, and it's integration from a strategic perspective for law firms and their clients this August, at ILTA 2010 in Las Vegas.

Question submitted by JoAnna Forshee, CEO – InsideLegal  "We received a lot of questions/comments on this topic-What other vendors did you consider?"

Hunter:  We looked closely at Cypress and Microsoft. Microsoft's cloud hosted collaboration suite is extremely impressive, and I'm managing a session on how their 2010 suite integrates with Windows 7 at ILTA 2010 in Las Vegas this August. I will continue to watch Microsoft's product, and how they evolve. 

Ultimately though, we chose Google. Google demonstrates an incredibly innovative out-of-the box approach to their business model and evolving collaborative product model. We see this consistent forward thinking approach to their Apps platform strategically integrating within our line of business and best supporting our long term strategy in Knowledge Management and Technology. 

 

Question submitted by Scott Johnston, CIO - Harrison Pensa LLP  "This line from the terms on Google Apps is the one that would concern me:  “1.7. Data Transfer. As part of providing the Service, Google may store and process Customer Data in the United States or any other country in which Google or its agents maintain facilities. By using the Services, Customer consents to this transfer, processing and storage of Customer Data.“ My fear is that Google decides to subcontract to another company who then subcontracts to a fourth party (against the original agreement of course) and the potential for privacy and security could begin to break down. Could it be the equivalent of the "data in the dumpster" scenario when data shows up randomly on someone’s desktop somewhere in the world?"

Hunter:  An excellent point, and a question best placed to Google directly by every law firm and business investigating. Though I can't speak for Google on their general policy for privacy and security, I will say, that it is in each cloud hosted vendor's strategic interest to negotiate with any client regarding their data privacy and security policy. Each relationship is unique, and specific to the line of business in question. I will say that Google has shown a willingness to work with B&B with our multiple concerns related to our line of business. Our client's data privacy and security is of the upmost importance to us, and we wouldn't have made this transition if we weren't confident their privacy and security would be more secure with Google, than with our previous solution.

Johnston:  "Aside from that, kudos to B&B for trying it. Someone has to of course. I also wonder what the exit cost/strategy is should the cloud solution fail. Let's say you are on the cloud for a couple of years and then one finds the solution to not be suitable. Now you have to put your infrastructure back in place - licensing, hardware etc. and at a minimum 10 to 1 cost which could be $500+ per user plus the cost to try to get all of your data out of the cloud and back into your DM. Of course, on a licensing perspective you would be looking at about a 4 to 1 cost just to repurchase compared to software assurance which you undoubtedly gave up after two years."

Hunter:  Our exit strategy is to choose another cloud hosted vendor. I don't see the per user per year evolving SaaS cloud hosted product model changing; the cost savings are too great. I see it becoming a standard, and the products for that standard improving. How can a three year traditional licensing product upgrade model compete with an evolving collaborative product that upgrades every few days, few weeks, few months for the same cost every year? I see both Google and Microsoft moving in this direction. With Google and Microsoft competing in this arena, law firms not only have an immediate choice to choose from, but a projected choice. The competition between Google and Microsoft will only improve their respective product suites over time, from a security, functionality, and usability perspective. As both vendors are competing heavily, it is in both of their strategic interests to make an exit from one platform and transition to another as seamless as possible.

Question submitted by Jorge Colón, Founder – The Online Bar Association  "How do you handle help desk or service issues with Google Apps.  I understand that for $50 per year it’s up to the buyer to resolve not Google." 

Hunter:  Google offers both telephone and email support. I've found both the telephone and email support to be immediate and responsive. This was a huge test for us during our product testing phase. The amount of help from general forums, online tutorials, online videos and third party vendors offering support is also extremely impressive. Using 'Groups' and 'Sites', is actually improving our internal helpdesk and user support model, as we expected during testing and investigation. We're restructuring our user support model and streamlining our processes based off the collaborative nature of the suite.

Colón:  "Was the decision also based upon an assessment of Google Apps being adopted globally like MS was in the last 20 years, or is this irrelevant?"

Hunter:  Studying Google's business model, and how they're competing with Microsoft past, present and future on a global scale was key to our senior management's decision in moving to Google Apps, and is something we continue to analyze daily. Where does Google make it's profit, what's driving their model? Where does Microsoft make it's profit, what's driving their model? How are they currently positioned, and where are they moving strategically? How do Google and Microsoft continue to enhance handling of their client's data, privacy and security? The more Microsoft and Google compete head to head in search, cloud hosted collaboration suites, video, voice, the drive towards unified messaging and mobile integration; the better it is for business and law firms investigating and using their products. It is in both companies' strategic interest to develop their respective suites to meet their client's needs, including lower cost, evolving collaborative functionality, and enhanced data security/privacy with the same expectation for global integration.

Question submitted by Jobst Elster, Head of Content – InsideLegal  "It’s well known that Google promotes '99.9% uptime'.  How do you handle/plan for that other .1%?"

Hunter:  The other .1% is both planned and unplanned down time. Based off our projected analysis comparing that .1% to our now previous solution, it amounts to far less downtime than we experienced in our previous solution. We've already experienced a portion of this .1%, and it's been a seamless experience. This is another area we see only improving with Google, Microsoft, and other cloud hosted vendors as they continue to compete.

InsideLegal: We'd like to again thank Bradford & Barthel and Eric Hunter for telling their story and for answering the questions that popped up from the original post. We will be continuing this series with our next post coming from an extensive interview we recently had with Norm Thomas, Industry Market Development Director for Microsoft's Legal & Professional Services, highlighting Microsoft's cloud strategy and current offerings. Stay tuned to InsideLegal.com...

In Their Own Words: Legal Administrators - The Law Firms' Field Generals

Last week, we attended the Association of Legal Administrator's 39th Annual Educational Conference & Exposition in Boston and judging by conference attendance, which was up approximately 40% to 1,300+ from 2009, the event was yet another indicator that the worst of the latest economic recession is behind us. In addition to the ideally located convention space (with close proximity to literally 100s of shops, restaurants and watering holes), the choice of Boston as host city attracted many for additional client networking and meeting opportunities.

The ALA show is like no other (except for maybe the ABA Annual) in our legal technology space because it offers much more than "just" technology solutions. Case in point, of the 192 exhibitors in Boston (vs. 186 in 2009), only 75 vendors (less than 40%) sold legal technology software/hardware/consulting services. Over 60% of the booths touted anything and everything involved with day-to-day law firm administration and office management ranging from architectural services to insurance products, office supplies, staffing providers and translation services.

This broad mix might surprise some, especially those unfamiliar with the expansive list of job duties handled by your 'typical' legal administrator (often also referred to as office manager, director of administration, executive director, office administrator or chief administrative officer).In connection with the ALA Annual, we though it fitting to further 'de-mystify' the legal administrator and explain what they care about, how they perceive technology and why they attend the annual conference. Some exhibitors have even argued that legal administrators are not the right audience for legal technology vendors since they only care about IT 'a little bit'. We decided to ask a few administrators and see if this is true:

IL: What are your daily job duties as an legal administrator...

Joan Wean - Legal Administrator, Hamburg, Rubin, Mullin, Maxwell & Lupin, PC:  I am responsible for the day-to-day administrative and personnel operations of HRMM&L, working directly with the Managing Partner. I assist in the development of operating policies and evaluation of growth opportunities within the firm and am involved in recommending a multitude of firm purchases ranging from liability insurance to office furniture. I have spent the last 18 years at the firm and currently support all 75 users including 30 attorneys. 

Glenda Raley - Cincinnati Office Administrator, Ulmer & Berne LLP: I am one of four administrators (reporting to the firm's executive director) supporting 175 attorneys across four offices in Ohio and Illinois. I truly do a little bit of everything and must be well versed in new technologies, new HR policies and the latest insurance options, just to name a few.

John S. Kirk - Director of Administration (& Chair of ALA Vendor Relations Committee) Manko, Gold, Katcher & Fox LLP: We wear many hats and juggle lots of responsibilities. In my case, there's roughly a 25% time split for HR, IT, Finance, and facilities management and general admin. Educating myself on new trends, new technologies, and policies is paramount to performing my job.

IL: What role do you play in the technology purchasing process?  How important is technology to you as an administrator? 

Joan Wean: Technology obviously plays a critical role in our firm but as far as day-to-day technology goes we rely on mindSHIFT for everything. They do it all in terms of IT services and hosting as well.

Glenda Raley: My biggest role in technology purchasing is that of end-user champion. I listen to what our users want and what they need to serve our clients and then communicate this to the appropriate decision makers and influencers. In terms of decision making, I make technology recommendations (again based on user feedback and what I see at shows like ALA) and take them to the firm's Executive Director.

John S. Kirk: Technology is no longer just a tool but touches on all facets of my daily firm work. I am constantly reaching out to vendors and educating myself on new tools and systems that will make our firm's operation more efficient and productive.

IL: Why did you attend the 2010 Annual ALA Conference & Expo?

Joan Wean: I look forward to the educational sessions and the business partner interaction during exhibit hall hours. 

Glenda Raley: I attend the annual conference to scope out new trends, network with peers, and spend time visiting vendors at the exhibit hall.

John S. Kirk: Education is as important as networking with peers and vendor partners. As chair of the vendor relations committee, I appreciate the partnering and interaction that takes place at conference between our members and business partners. 

This concludes our much too short dialog with these legal administrators, but hopefully paves the way for many more conversations.  We'd love to hear from legal administrators about their roles.

In Their Own Words: Law Firm Innovators Bradford & Barthel's "Operation Google Apps"

InsideLegal attended ILTA's INSIGHT London event last week and was particularly impressed with the session focused on the future (or end of) the traditional desktop. This panel discussion was moderated by Joy Heath Rush of Sidley Austin and included Tim Warburton of Linklaters; Eric Hunter of Bradford & Barthel; and David Hamilton of Davies Arnold Cooper. Most notably, we (and the rest of the INSIGHT crowd) took notice of one of the first 'real world' legal examples (as far as we can tell) of cloud computing and what is possible when law firms visualize and eventually realize the opportunities made available by cloud-based platforms and true collaboration suites. With that said, we recently had a one-on-one with Eric Hunter, Director of Knowledge Management for California-based Bradford & Barthel LLP, a 73 attorney (207 employee) firm, which has embraced Google Apps.

IL:  Welcome Eric. Thanks for taking time to chat with us about how Bradford & Brathel is computing "in the cloud" and why, after a few short days at ILTA's INSIGHT London conference, you have earned the new nickname "Google Apps Eric". For starters, give us a bit of background on your firm, role and job duties.

B&B:  Founded in 1997 by Thomas Bradford and Donald Barthel, Bradford & Barthel, LLP (B&B) is the industry leader in the aggressive defense of Workers' Compensation, Subrogation, and Employment, and Labor matters. B&B's 73 attorneys (on a growth path to 85 by the end of 2010) are spread throughout its 12 California offices. I have been with the firm since 2005 and prior to my current position as KM Director have been involved in project management and as developer/administrator for the firm's ADERANT Expert financial management solution. It is also worth noting that my current role is a hybrid of IT and KM and that all 6 of our IT/KM group members led by firm management see the value of integrating technology and KM via our Google Apps strategy. I am also a big ILTA supporter and currently serve as track chair on the annual conference planning committee.

IL:  What was the business case for moving B&B to the cloud? 

B&B:  The firm had a real need to find more cost effective, collaborative, flexible and efficient options for communicating and sharing files and information trapped in disparate systems, in documents on desktops, and in a multitude of electronic communications. We looked at the risk management aspects of going to a software-as-as-service model versus the additional infrastructure (servers and the like) and licensing considerations if we went the standard MS Office upgrade route. Upon review of various collaboration suites including Google Apps and the associated real-world benefits (vs. the risks), the senior management team gave us the green light to move forward with a cloud strategy.

IL: Can you detail your Google Apps roadmap?

B&B: Sure. B&B's cloud roadmap is based on a 24 month execution plan touching our users' critical applications and workflows including email, calendaring, intranet, extranet, video, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and document management system. Phase 1 which has been LIVE since April 16th included hosted exchange, intranet and calendaring and, after some pilot testing in February, was rolled out firm-wide within 30 days in March. Phase 2 includes our documentation solution (Google Docs) and will involve a complete switch from MS Office to web-based, collaborative documents, spreadsheets and presentations. This will be complete by fall (end of Q3, beginning of Q4). The 3rd and final phase involves the creation of a cloud based document management system leveraging the entire Google Apps Collaboration Suite and will commence in Q1 2011 and should take 12 months to complete.

IL: How did you create buy-in for your Google Apps strategy across the firm and the 200+ user base?

B&B: We wasted no time communicating this to all users and went office-to-office talking about the roadmap and introducing the overall concept. We also established weekly webinars to ease the transition and learning curve. By getting support and buy-in from management and department heads early, we had the leverage necessary to implement change.  As an aside, since our Phase 1 roll-out, we have gotten exclusively positive feedback and comments from our users.

IL: Can you list the biggest benefits you have already realized since the initial Google Apps roll-out and cite any specific ROI/cost savings? 

B&B: Substantial benefits include user collaboration; licensing and hardware-related cost savings; IT resource savings; B&B's ability to build-out a true KM solution based on technology (Google Apps); user access and mobility; and 99.9% uptime reliability (a Google Apps guarantee). Also, in terms of ROI, we determined that the annual subscription model - $50 per collaboration suite user and $13 per email archiving user - is projected to provide a cost savings of 10:1 versus our previous solution. In terms of the aforementioned user collaboration, we currently (as part of Phase 1) use the video and voice chat feature combined with document sharing for video, training and web meetings, both internally and with our clients.

IL: What words of wisdom do you have for your law firm peers looking to deploy a collaboration suite such as Google Apps?

B&B: Fortunately there are a lot of cloud computing resources, but I advise to focus on these five points in particular:

1. Look at the available collaboration suites to see what best suits the firm. Also, take Google Apps and the others for a test drive. At $50 per user it won't break the bank to set up a testing environment and see if a cloud setup would work firm-wide. 
2. Analyze exisiting infrastructure and determine a realistic migration time table.
3. Look at the firm's current business model: How do you currently communciate with users and clients? How can you re-distribute and share info to maximize collaboration and how will this change the firm's business process.
4. Take a hard look at how data is stored and how this will effect the firm. For example, UK/European firms need to know where data is stored based on their clients' regional regulations. Also, clients need to be educated on how data is stored and secured.
5. Assuming cloud data security is accounted for with heavy hitter vendors such as Google and Microsoft, firms should focus on application integration and how cloud offerings can integrate with bread and butter systems such as time & billing and accounting software. 

Thanks Eric!  InsideLegal looks forward to following Bradford & Barthel's progress and learning about more firms that are embracing the cloud.

Related resources:

• Google Apps for messaging savings calculator
• Law2020™: An ILTA multi-year, multi-platform educational programming initiative focusing on the ways in which law firms will have to adapt in order to thrive over the next decade. June kicks-off Law2020 with a themed issue of Peer to Peer including an article by Eric Hunter: "Collaboration in the Cloud - The Paradigm Shift and Staggering Cost Reduction".
• Bradford & Barthel Blog: Technology Forecast: Clouds Ahead. This firm blog post details B&B's cloud strategy and associated user and client benefits.