InsideLegal

10 Practical Tips for LegalTech NY Attendees

New LegalTech NY (LTNY) attendees are often surprised at the pace and not as prepared as they could be to make the show work for them. Here a few tips from our 15 years of attending LegalTech. We've left out all the 'wear comfy shoes' and 'don't talk on your phone in a meeting'. 

1. There is no ‘cone of silence’!: You wouldn’t believe the things we’ve heard in the common areas of the Hilton over our 15 years attending LTNY. Consider the property a ‘hot’ spot in that you never know who is at the table beside you in the restaurant or is sharing the elevator with you, so be discreet!

2. Leave time to get where you are going: Particularly if you are staying in the Hilton. In years past, a 15 minute elevator wait was the norm. It seems to have gotten better since, but leaving a buffer is always a good idea. 

3. Multi-task: Often, vendor plans for industry events begin and end with working their booth. To maximize your investment, take advantage of all the opportunities available to network and/or promote your brand including connecting with partners, media, bloggers and additional industry associations on-site such as ILTA & ARMA.

4. Scheduling is paramount: I am sure by now you have glimpsed at the show schedule to see what is happening when. What about your own company’s schedule? Have you pre-scheduled meetings? You get the idea. Without a schedule and timeline of ‘what? where? when?’ for your LTNY team, prepare for chaos, frustrated colleagues and lost opportunities.

5. Share your learnings and insights garnered from sessions and floor conversations with your colleagues and fellow legal professionals. Twitter (#LTNY15), LinkedIn and even Pinterest are all good outlets for this.

6. Avoid meeting space hell: Unfortunately, one of the biggest challenges at LegalTech NY is finding open meeting space on-site, so prepare accordingly. Book a separate meeting space, locate a few off-site meeting options beforehand or direct all meeting traffic to your booth to collectively find appropriate space. We have managed to find a few choice places to meet, but then again, you don't expect us to publish those, do you? :-)

7. Social networking: The first word in social networking is SOCIAL. In an industry with the staying power of legal - no one ever leaves, they just change companies/firms - it is just as valuable to make social connections with peers and contacts. During social events, stay social! Don’t start listing the bullet points for your product or bust out a laptop/tablet for a ‘quick demo’. Seriously… we’ve had it happen… more than once!

8. Skip the 'convenience' of the coat check. In the past, recovering from hypothermia because I walked to the Hilton without my coat was less annoying than standing in the coat check line. Seriously. 

9. Don't hog the hashtag. There are many people that participate in the LegalTech NY social media world so be respectful and don't hog the hashtag! If you are including the #LTNY15 hashtag (which you should be), don't send tweets from multiple company/employee accounts. There are always a few people/companies that decide that social media success is based on the number of tweets they post. In fact, often those people are ridiculed and avoided, so don't be one of them! 

For Vendors:

10. Booth workflow: LegalTech NY attracts attendees from all walks making it different than an event like ILTA where everyone that stops by your booth may be a qualified prospect. Have someone act as ‘chief traffic coordinator’ in the booth and organize the flow of foot traffic to quickly qualify attendees that are truly interested in your product/service so you can engage them. Remember: Treat everyone with respect. Even if they are with a 2 person firm now, they may be hired by your largest client in a couple of years! 

LegalTech New York 2015 Agenda Word Cloud (& Comparison to Past Years)

In a few weeks, a few thousand people will convene at LegalTech New York (LTNY) for 3 days of exhibitions, networking and legal technology sessions. To give an overview of what will be covered in those sessions, we have again created the LTNY agenda word cloud, visually displaying the words/themes included in the event's agenda of sessions (minus days, times and people's names). FYI ... the size of selected words dictates how often they have been mentioned or referenced within the agenda (aka, how popular they are). [Click on image to enlarge]

 

This is the fifth year we have used the event program to create a visual snapshot of the main content themes and discussion topics. How does this compare to previous years? What topics made headlines in our word clouds for 2014, 2013, 2012 and 2011 (shown below)?  Here are some musings on 2015 and past year comparisons:

• Content wise, LTNY 2015 is heavily focused on information governance (IG), risk and compliance... particularly as it relates to eDiscovery, corporate security and information management. We heard it last year but this year it is loud and clear.. IG is no longer a sideline, add-on activity but a broader strategy of managing information overload. The time to simply check off IG and compliance tasks is over.
• So what happened to big data? I thought it was bigger than ever? Yes, but we are seeing two distinct trends ... 1) Big data is being rolled into IG, risk management and information management themes as opposed to positioned stand-alone and 2) analytics, a hotter than ever topic, is essentially a big data off-shoot. Case in point, the 2014 ILTA/InsideLegal Technology Purchasing Survey revealed that over 50% of responding ILTA member firms would use analytics as a primary big data technology. 
• Considering privacy and security are on everyone's 'major challenges' and 'top priority' lists, the topics themselves are somewhat downplayed. We suspect these topics are central to most information governance discussions which seem to be dominating this year.
• Last year we asked "where did the big pricing discussion go? Remember AFAs?" Session wise, LTNY seems to have moved on, although we did notice an increase in cost-related themes and sessions.
• Based on our five year comparison, the 2015 LTNY cloud has by far the most government focused content. IG, information management, compliance and increased regulations are all intertwined with government so this trend adds up. 

As a comparison, we have included the LTNY Agenda Word Clouds from 2014, 2013, 2012 and 2011.

 

 

Subscribe to InsideLegal for LTNY updates and market information and follow us on Twitter at @InsideLegal for timely updates. 

 

The word cloud was pulled from the agenda listed in the LegalTech NY Show Brochure from www.LegalTechShow.com.

A Look Back at InsideLegal's Top 10 Posts in 2014

Happy New Year! To help you kick off 2015, we will be publishing a variety of useful resources and posts on the legal space over the next couple of weeks. [Subscribe now to receive these tools via email.]

Before we look forward to 2015, we wanted to take a look back at InsideLegal's highlights from 2014, beginning with our 10 most read posts...

1. Law Firm Technology: What Law Firms Said They Bought Last Year (broken down by firm size) (January 6)
2. ILTA's 2014 Technology Survey: An Early Holiday Gift for the Legal Tech Community (December 4)
3. Law Firm Technology Budgets: Who is Spending What (February 6)
4. InsideLegal[Tech] New York 2014: Privacy, Innovation and New(ish) Technologies (February 13)
5. 2014 ILTA/InsideLegal Technology Purchasing Survey Delivers Promise ... Increased Tech Spend (August 20)
6. ILTA 2014 Conference Registrants by Country (July 28)
7. LexThink.1 2014 'End of Irrelevance' Speakers Announced! (March 10)
8. LegalTech NY 2014 Agenda Word Cloud (& Comparison to Past Years) (January 23)
9. ILTA 2014 Conference Registrants by Firm Size (August 13)
10. ALA's Legal Management Goes Digital ... Looks Ahead with Future Legal Technology & Strategy (January 14)

Here are a few that didn't rank, but that we felt should have:

1. AALL Big Data Panel: Discussing Big Data Opportunities with Firm Partners (July 15)
2. InsideLegal[Tech] New York 2014: Essential Facts, Figures & Predictions (February 4)
3. What Technology ILTA Law Firms Said They Plan to Buy This Year (broken down by firm size) (January 27)

Stay tuned...

InsideLegal[Tech] New York 2014: Privacy, Innovation and New(ish) Technologies

Legal Tech New York 2014 (LTNY) is a wrap. We spent the last day of LTNY attending the keynote and finally spending some time wandering the exhibit hall meeting some of the familiar companies as well as some newcomers...

Donna Payne, Cullen Hoback, Lisa Sotto, Monica Bay

Thursday started off with the "Privacy & Security" keynote - both ‘hot’ topics no one seems to be able to avoid discussing anymore but even less people seem to have adequate solutions for. The panel, moderated by Monica Bay, Editor-in-Chief of Law Technology News, consisted of Cullen Hoback, Director of “Terms & Conditions May Apply”, a documentary focused on the erosion of our privacy in the increasingly online world; and Donna Payne, CEO of PayneGroup, ILTA Vendor Thought Leader of the Year 2013, staunch advocate of privacy rights, and one of the most credible and compelling speakers on privacy (and otherwise) we know. A last minute addition to the panel (and replacement for Trevor Hughes) was Lisa Sotto, privacy and cyber security partner at Hunton & Williams, and rated the No. 1 privacy expert for the past three consecutive years by Computerworld magazine.

The panelists began by stating their own relationships with privacy. One of the joint points of agreement was that privacy, although on ‘life support’, is quickly changing and that security (to varying degrees) is a critical component to maintaining it. Filmmaker Cullen Hoback pointed out that everything we now do digitally or otherwise has an agreement associated with it. Agreements, that according to the terms and conditions, can be altered by the company imposing it unbeknownst to the consumer.

In terms of our daily invasion of privacy, Donna Payne urged the audience to check out data broker Spokeo.com and search for available information and records for individuals. She originally told us about Spokeo a few months and we did a search and were shocked to see what all was included. (Note: You can have your listing removed.) She also shared a story of a friend who within 10 minutes of starting the search found a slew of private data points including her own social security number. Additional points the panel discussed focused on data ownership and data accuracy. Donna Payne argued that every consumer should have the right to own their personal information even if a personal cloud has to keep that information segregated from what is publicly available or given to vendors. Also, all the data points collected on individuals do not say who they are in totality but only provide a snapshot of who they are at a given point in time. On top of that, the information that is shared is often erroneous so it’s our personal obligation to know what it’s in our private records, especially medical and financial information.

The later part of the panel included a somewhat tense debate between filmmaker Hoback and lawyer Sotto concerning the service agreements companies force us to comply with. Hoback pointed out that companies can not only change terms and service agreements at any time, most of them are unintelligible to anyone but lawyers and vastly overreaching. Ms. Sotto argued that the law requires companies to include security and privacy notices and because those that are not 100% accurate can lead to major liability and prosecution on the part of the company, which leads to the vague language. And, oh yeah, she has been instrumental in crafting 100s if not 1000s of the contracts Hoback lobbies against in his film. The lively discussion concluded with audience questions, one of which brought up the topic of symmetry—basically the idea of an ‘eye for an eye’ when it comes to what companies can do with your information. A member of the audience shared a conversation with a customer service representative who told him that the service call would be recorded for quality and training purposes to which the caller responded he too would be recording the call. He was informed that the CSR could not continue the conversation.

In addition to the keynote, Thursday featured 15 educational sessions and was the last day for conference attendees to visit the 220 exhibitors on the trade show floor. We finally carved out time to roam the exhibit floor and have included a selective LTNY vendor round-up below.

LTNY Vendor Round-up

CoSign (by Arx) - Do you know the difference between digital and electronic signatures and when you need to use which for security, defensibility and a slew of other information governance and compliance related reasons? We do now thanks to CoSign, a global digital signature solution provider, and LTNY first-timer. While you can get all the marketing and promo details off the corporate site, we found three compelling reasons to check out CoSign as part of your legal technology plan … 1. Millions are already using it as part of businesses’ security procedures and legal compliance efforts; 2. Works with word processing and content tools legal professionals already own and use such as MS Office, Adobe Acrobat, Corel, etc. and 3. Integrates with prevalent legal DM solutions and workflow automation technology.  

LexisNexis (LN) - We met with Loretta Ruppert, LN's Senior Director of Community Management (although I secretly think she runs the whole company!) who caught us up on LN's shpw announcements beginning with the complete redesign of Firm Manager®, their cloud-based tool for law firm practice management. After more than a year of testing the new tech with hundreds of attorney users, the product managers were onsite to provide demos of the newly launched product. This news dovetailed with a recent LN survey on cloud-based technology forecasting a dramatic rise in adoption among independent attorneys. Attorneys in small law firms overwhelmingly cite “mobility and freedom of access” as the primary benefit of cloud tools, especially the ability to access case and matter information from virtually anywhere, and at any time. Last but not least, LN announced their partnership with LawToolBox to provide a special offer to help solo and small law firms manage their court deadlines. 

Sky Analytics - We appreciate start-ups and these Boston-based entrepreneurs are a fairly new (within last 2 years) entrant into the Legal Spend Management space. With a fresh approach to helping companies manage legal spend, and a highly intuitive and graphical user interface, Sky has made great strides within corporate legal. We first caught up with Sky at last year’s ILTA Conference and have been following them since. They gave us a quick demo comparing firms based on diversity scores (one firm had 99.2% men so I'm not sure that would qualify!), staffing across matters and hourly rate benchmarks. A recent press release states continued client growth within corporate legal and its legal analytics database which now includes over $3.1 Billion in legal invoices. 

iConect and Xera - The eDiscovery vendor featured its Xera hosted eDiscovery review platform built to optimize the review, analysis and production of electronically stored information. At LTNY, iConect premiered iView, its new custom-designed visualization engine for its review platform. Users will be able to use graphing tools to easily create charts which represent user activity, document coding, metadata and the inter-relations. iView features are ideal for reviewers and project managers, with the ability to create searches and review tasks from the interactive charts with one click. 

Thomson Reuters WestlawNext (WlN) - Do you remember when WlN launched at LTNY 2010? Thomson pulled out all the stops featuring a mini-orchestra at the press conference, Time Square digital signage (yes, on the BIG board) and even had the ‘Halal Guys’ wearing WestlawNext gear. Four years later, more than 52,500 legal organizations have made the switch to WlN including 88% of the Am Law 100, and 62% of the Fortune 100. Also, according to the helpful Westlaw LTNY booth staff, these numbers include 41,900+ law firms; 5,300+ corporations; 5,000+ government organizations and all 203 ABA-approved Law Schools. At LTNY 2014, they unveiled Westlaw PeopleMap (quickly find relevant info about people and their connections); Custom Pages (personalized to users’ specific research needs); and Patents (extensive patent resources for IP professionals).

NetDocuments - NetDocuments (ND) continues to make a name for itself in the cloud DMS/email management space … with clever integrations and partnerships; user-driven features and functions included in four annual software updates (check out the ND IdeaBank); and plenty of happy clients (check out the case studies). Last week, ND announced the development of two new technologies – ndOffice and ndConnect. The technologies embed core document management functions directly into Microsoft Office, Office 365, SkyDrive and Dropbox, bringing deeper integrations and increased functionality to the ND solution. Also, as of February 6, all ND clients will be able to download NetDocuments 14.1. The first release of 2014 includes updates and improvements such as: complete re-design of all List View pages (greatly improves the management of documents and emails and in particular the viewing of email messages); Full Federated Identity capability (allows those who are using Microsoft Directory Services to manage their NetDocuments user accounts via the Active Directory services); and a new login page (includes more features to make logging in more seamless and user-friendly).

AdaptiveSky - Welcome to your private cloud. AdaptiveSky is a “super-fast, super-secure, super-charged, private cloud network that is always on and always available.” The AdaptiveSky desktop provides users all of a firm’s legal applications and data, and is available on mobile devices, tablets or online. The start-up’s tagline is “by attorneys for attorneys” and as their site states … “we employ attorneys who kept the 'Esq.', dropped the billable hour, decided to embrace their 'inner geek' and go into IT.”

NeedleFinder - Houston-based Equivalent DATA is the company behind NeedleFinder, it’s end-to-end eDiscovery software platform designed to drastically reduce exposure and eliminate unnecessary delays. According to the LTNY booth crew, key differentiators include service, the ability to customize the solution and the overall flexibility. This might sound like a general marketing pitch but the new and rebranded version slated for April promises to deliver. We’ll let you know.

TITUS - Canadian-based TITUS enables organizations to classify, protect and confidently share information, and meet regulatory compliance requirements by identifying and securing unstructured data. According to the website, the TITUS Classification Suite includes the leading email, document and file classification and marking solutions that enhance data loss prevention by involving end users in identifying sensitive information. LTNY was the company’s first venture into the US Legal market and they hope their catchy “take out the eTrash” tagline will do more than raise eyebrows. Seems like the popular information governance angle would be worth pursuing as well.

Logikcull – We met with Logikcull's CEO & Founder Andy Wilson to learn more about his company's product and how it differs from the swath of eDiscovery and document review solutions competing for LTNY floor space and column inches. The short iPhone demo underscored the marketing promise -- ease of use and automation and Wilson's analogy ... "If eDiscovery is the bank, then Logikcull is the ATM" made sense in conveying mobility and again ease of use and access. In addition to that, true eDiscovery experts like Brett Burney and Sharon Nelson have reviewed and favored this new tech on the eDiscovery block, so who would argue with them? Seemingly we could not get enough of Andy, as the next day we saw him speak at ReInventLaw on "How to Build a Product in the Legal Industry that Lawyers Will Actually Buy". How a propos. 

LogRhythm - Another LTNY newbie, another Information Governance tool… "LogRhythm is a security intelligence company providing a balance of log management, reporting, event management, privileged user monitoring and file integrity monitoring to support security operations and compliance use cases." At first glance, this seems like an industrial strength solution so it will be interest to see how it adapts to the specific security needs of legal professionals.

BakerHostetler announces Information Governance Practice Group - A few days after we met with BakerHostetler's Judy Selby to discuss our upcoming legal big data initiatives, she and firm counsel James Sherer officially announced their new cross-practice group that draws upon the firm’s established expertise in the areas of Privacy and Data Protection and E-Discovery Advocacy and Management. According to Selby, information is the lifeblood of businesses today, but many entities are overwhelmed by the volume of their data, as well as associated privacy, regulatory, legal, and security concerns. "A comprehensive Information Governance policy provides an important accountability framework for the effective management of information that permits an organization to maximize its value while reducing associated costs and risks."

Overall, we were surprised at how many companies weren't announcing anything new at the show this year. While we barely scratched the surface of the 220+ vendors touting their LTNY wares, the companies above intrigued us for one reason or another. Are these technologies earth shattering and the ‘WOW factor’ we all want to see? Probably not, but we do see how law firms can utilize such tech tools to end up better, faster and more competitive than they started. Also, like we pointed out in earlier posts, LTNY was all about information governance (IG) ... how eDiscovery vendors are transitioning to offer a broader array of IG-related products/services and expertise, how law firms are shoring up their own IG expertise and how associations like ARMA are leading the IG education charge. What will the LTNY 2015 word cloud look like? We'll check-in next January and let you know. In the meantime, there was time for one more event...

ReInvent Law NYC, a day-long conference devoted to law, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the legal services industry was held on Friday. We were only able to attend the ReInvent morning program but definitely appreciated the speakers’ short innovation talks (ranging from 6-10 minutes) and the prevailing messages: be passionate about what you do; try new ways to solve old problems; innovate now to reap rewards later; and take risks - some calculated, some ludicrous - but take them. Of the 12 sessions we witnessed, Joshua Kubicki’s made the biggest impact. Kubicki, the founder and President of the Legal Transformation Institute which invests in new business models for Legal, asked a group of legal start-ups to join him on stage and acknowledged their innovation, passion and courage for charting new waters with their legal ventures. The impressive group (see picture) received an energetic standing ovation by the ReInvent audience. 

Anyone that missed ReInvent, can cheer up since the rapid-fire innovation-themed Ignite Law (now called LexThink.1) event we have been co-producing with Matt Homann since 2010 is back for its fifth year. In fact, the site is up and we are accepting submissions if you would like to speak. This year's theme is “The End of Irrelevance” and everyone is allowed to submit a topic. Once the topics are compiled, we will begin online voting and the community decides which topics/speakers are chosen. If you haven't attended, don't miss it. It's a great event that takes place the evening of March 26, the eve of ABA TECHSHOW. We hope to see you there!

InsideLegal[Tech] New York 2014: Day One Musings

LegalTech NY (LTNY) Day One is in the books. Here some insights and first impressions:

Information Governance … the new eDiscovery?! Our LTNY 2014 word cloud reveals information governance (IG) as the most mentioned theme this year. This comes as no surprise as the adoption of effective IG has become critically important to law firms from a compliance, risk management and efficiency perspective. In turn, law firm clients are looking to see how their outside counsel govern their information in light of increased regulatory requirements for personal health information as well as a bevy of information of big data origins. Based on a few initial vendor conversations today, the lines of eDiscovery (EDD) and information governance are blurring. Established EDD vendors are adding IG tools to the collective toolbox in response to clients’ challenges to establish sound IG frameworks to in turn comply with their clients’ demands. We are particularly looking forward to ARMA’s track and three dedicated sessions focused on ‘IG secrets of successes for strategy and action’. In total, we counted 14 IG-themed sessions and 23 LTNY exhibitors (out of 220) focused on various information governance products and services ranging from secure data storage to email archiving and IG process and workflow management.

LTNY Exhibitors ... A closer Look: We have long tracked and reported on the trend of eDiscovery vendors taking over LTNY and 2014 is no exception. 85 of the 220 registered vendors (38%) [updated numbers for last minute vendors] touting eDiscovery solutions vs. 41% in 2013. 30 of the 64 sessions (including keynotes and plenaries) are EDD-themed and 11 of those are solely focused on the buzz around predictive coding and technology assisted review (TAR). 65% of the official LTNY educational sponsors are eDiscovery product and service providers. Here’s a closer look at some of the other breakouts:

• eDiscovery vendors 38%
• Cloud vendors (only touting cloud solutions) 3%
• Big data (companies marketing big data-type solutions) 5%
• Information Governance 10%
• Practice Management Systems (combination of client-server and cloud providers) 8%
• Document Management (some overlap with PMS and cloud providers) 18%

In the LegalTech News: We received countless press releases on exhibitors’ new offerings and LTNY premiers today. Here are a few standouts:

Exterro Launches Fusion Employee Monitor™: Exterro Inc., the leading provider of workflow-driven e-discovery software, today unveiled Fusion Employee Monitor^™, its newest application designed to mitigate the risk of corporate data spoliation caused by employment changes. Fusion Employee Monitor detects employee status changes to ensure that critical information tied to business activities, legal matters or regulatory actions is adequately protected. Read the full release here.

LexisNexis launches Firm Manager … a new application for law firm practices management in the cloud.  The product is designed for small law or independent attorneys and has been in beta for more than a year. Read the full release here.

HP Autonomy Extends eDiscovery Platform to the Cloud: HP Autonomy today announced a new cloud-based eDiscovery offering that provides law firms, partners and small and midsize businesses (SMBs) with a fast, easy and cost-effective path to leverage HP Autonomy’s market-leading eDiscovery platform. Read the full release here.

 

InsideLegal[Tech] New York 2014: Essential Facts, Figures & Predictions

LegalTech New York is here, again. The Super Bowl and Groundhog Day are over; the snow is here, so it must be time for another LTNY. This year marks our 15th LegalTech attendance and if you aren't able to be on-site with the 1,000s of attendees, 200+ vendors and countless legal technologists, consultants, media/bloggers and influencers from literally all over the place, tune in to our daily LTNY reports and recaps. To kick-off our 2014 edition, here’s our short list of pre-show topics, sessions to watch, trends to notice and conference stats.

LegalTech or eDiscoveryTech?! We have long tracked and reported on the trend of eDiscovery vendors taking over LTNY and 2014 is no exception. 82 of the 216 registered vendors (38%) touting eDiscovery solutions vs. 41% in 2013. 30 of the 64 sessions (including keynotes and plenaries) are EDD-themed and 11 of those are solely focused on the buzz around predictive coding and technology assisted review (TAR). 65% of the official LTNY educational sponsors are eDiscovery product and service providers. 

Big Data: Ready for prime time? We’ve likened the interest of legal big data in 2012 and 2013 to a ‘first date’ ... lots of uncertainty and nervousness about what’s next. Consider the 2014 ‘big data and legal’ relationship a serious one. New big data technologies are steadily emerging and established eDiscovery vendors are increasingly joining the big data mix with ‘industrial strength’ enterprise search and predictive coding/TAR technologies ready to assist legal professionals with more than ‘just’ tackling gargantuan sets of documents. Of the 7 dedicated big data sessions spanning two educational tracks by the same name, only three are not TAR/predictive coding themed, so the big data = eDiscovery stigma is still alive and well. 10 LTNY vendors are what we would label big data -- spanning predictive analytics and search, legal spend management and machine-enabled data processing. We did not include eDiscovery companies in this count, some of which are starting to promote aforementioned big data processing capabilities.

Information Governance: The LTNY 2014 agenda word cloud cites information governance (IG) as the hottest topic based on educational content covered in 14 IG-themed sessions. Consider IG as an umbrella topic including risk management, IT security, governance policies/procedures and privacy. Governance is an ‘equal opportunity’ hot topic, challenging law firm CIOs and other C-Levels, GCs and CISOs to come together and devise best policies and practices to protect their own and their clients’ information interests. We also counted 23 LTNY exhibitors focused on various information governance products and services ranging from secure data storage to email archiving and IG process and workflow management.

The cloud all grown up: Law Technology News’ latest cover story features Thomson Reuters’ new president and her quest to accelerate development of the company’s cloud and mobile technologies. Last month, LexisNexis published its “Cloud Technologies in the Legal Industry” report citing that 72.4% of the surveyed attorneys say law firms are more likely to use the cloud in 2014. These numbers also jive with what we analyzed and reported on in the 2013 ILTA/InsideLegal Technology Purchasing survey. So what’s next: Like we mentioned in our LTNY word cloud post, the time for talking is over with the focus on real world cloud applications beyond DR/BC and storage. David Whelan, manager of legal information for the Law Society of Upper Canada, also says so in his recent LTN piece ... “mobile apps are enhancing lawyer productivity and new tools are emerging to manage and integrate cloud services with existing web-based legal technology.” There are 17 companies offering practice, case and matter management products, some client-server but many of the being offered in the cloud or via SaaS model.

Sessions worth getting up for: With 58 educational options, as well as a daily keynote and plenary session to choose from, it might be tough to narrow down the ‘best bang’ for your educational buck.

·         Beyond the Buzz: Perspectives on Big Data & the Challenges of the Digital Age for Legal Practice [Tuesday, Track 3, 10:30-11:45] Explore big data tools & learn about real world applications

·         Day One Plenary Session: “Disrupt” for Lawyers - Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in the Legal Industry [Tuesday, Track 12:30-1:30]; international bestselling author Luke Williams shares ways legal professionals can innovate and disrupt

·         Information Governance Best Practices: Taking your Organization to the Next Level [Tuesday, Track 2:00-3:15]; Good IG primer presented by an esteemed group of panelists

·         IT: The Catalyst [Tuesday, Track 7, 3:45-5:00]; ILTA’s advanced IT track is always a LTNY winner. This session features rapid fire presentations on the power of IT as change agent

·         Total Cost of Ownership - Cloud vs. Premise: An Appellate Court-Style Debate [Wednesday, Track 7, 2:15-3:30]; Should I choose cloud-based software or software that’s installed at my office?

·         Day 3 Keynote: Privacy and Security [Thursday, 9:00-10:00]; The biggest challenge facing all of legal, co-presented by ILTA Distinguished Peer Awards ‘Thought Leader’ winner Donna Payne. A must see!

·         Measuring for Value: Addressing the Challenges in Measuring Performance Quality In and Outside of the Corporate Law Department [Thursday, Track 1, 10:30-11:45]; Kia’s Casey Flaherty, Lex Machina’s Josh Becker and Reinvent Law’s Daniel Katz look at metrics that can fully measure law firm and vendor value and quality.

Direct mail Noise: Is it worth it? We read a tweet last week of a legal professional exasperated with the barrage of vendor mailers and emails leading up to LTNY. He mentioned receiving 150+ emails/vendor communications and ‘I’m not even attending LegalTech”. We agree, vendor pre-marketing efforts are unprecedented this year. In fact, we have been collecting the ‘best and worst’ of the mailers and emails we have received ... done right, a mass email can actually solicit a positive response or a neutral delete. Done wrong (10 misspellings in a 50 word sales pitch or a 2000+ word ‘direct mail’ novel meant to ...) these expensive pre-show efforts can really back-fire and make sure you’ll be singled out, for all the wrong reasons. Our perfect example of what not to do is referenced above. That intro was the beginning ... of numerous errors and typos within the email introduction to their company. We do feel like we know them now! 

If you are in New York, we hope to see you this week ... on the exhibit floor, in conference sessions and keynotes, at the media and bloggers breakfast, or at Friday’s ReInvent Law event. 

LegalTech NY 2014 Agenda Word Cloud (& Comparison to Past Years)

Next week, a few thousand people will convene at LegalTech New York (LTNY) for 3 days of exhibitions, networking and legal technology sessions. To give an overview of what will be covered in those sessions, we have again created the LegalTech New York agenda word cloud, visually displaying the words/themes included in the event's agenda of sessions (minus days, times and people's names). FYI ... the size of selected words dictate how often they have been mentioned or referenced within the agenda (aka, how popular they are). [Click on image to enlarge]

 

 

This is the fourth year we have turned the event program into this type of word cloud, a visual snapshot of the main content themes and discussion topics. How does this compare to previous years? What topics made headlines in our word clouds for 2013, 2012 and 2011?  Here are some musings on 2014 and past year comparisons:

• So 2014 is the year of information governance and data (not necessarily 'big')... proactive risk management. How can we properly (legally/ethically/affordably) manage and control data? What is the intersection with eDiscovery and big data? ARMA, which in 2013 put together several high quality big data sessions, looks to be focused on information governance education in 2014. 
• Big data made a big showing in 2013 but didn't appear in 2012 or 2011. This year, even though there are a 2 dedicated 'big data' conference tracks, the topic itself appears a bit muted. Our conclusion: Most sessions and content themed big data on the agenda are actually eDiscovery related - see predictive coding, technology assisted review, etc. After all, the main big data track sponsors are eDiscovery folks. Include 'analytics' and 'metrics' and the slew of info governance topics and a more well-rounded big data picture takes shape.
• Considering privacy and security are on everyone's 'major challenges' and 'top priority' lists, the topics themselves are somewhat downplayed. We suspect these topics are central to most information governance discussions which seem to be dominating this year.
• What happened to law firm clients and corporate? Sessions focused on clients/serving corporate were a much bigger deal in years past ... a disappointing trend considering GC dissatisfaction with outside counsel is growing and not going away.
• Where did the big pricing discussion go? Remember AFAs? Session wise, LTNY seems to have moved on.
• The 'cloud' has officially left the building... but only in terms of being talked about and labeled. While everyone was talking about cloud solutions in 2011 and 2012, we couldn't find much talk of it in the agenda. Now, the true cloud focus is on real world applications beyond DR/BC and storage.

As a comparison, we have included the LegalTech NY Agenda Word Clouds from 2013, 2012 and 2011.

 

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Top 10 Big Data Facts in Legal

Recently, the Legal IT Insider (formerly The Orange Rag) featured an article on big data in legal written by InsideLegal's Head of Content, Jobst Elster. Below is the content of the article. 
 

Last month, we attended LegalTech New York for the 14^th year, and while many hot topics have dominated the headlines in years past, in 2013 it’s all about big data. Per our pre-show LegalTech agenda word cloud, big data was a main focus of the conference content agenda, surprising since it was a ‘no-show’ in previous LegalTech programs. What’s the big deal with big data? Why now? Who really cares?

In search of answers to these questions, we spent a good amount of time sitting in on ARMA’s big data sessions, interviewing big data panelists and vendors, and participating in related social media conversation. With that as the backdrop, here is our top 10 list of LegalTech big data facts and musings:

1. De-mystifying big data:  Just like cloud computing scared the daylights out of people less than five years ago (especially the security heads), big data is doing the same thing now. Since the biggest question with cloud computing in year one was “what is it?”, I suggest we start with Wikipedia’s big data definition:  “In IT, big data is a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing applications. The challenges include capture, curating, storage, search, sharing, analysis, and visualization.” The bigger point; before we all get high blood pressure re ‘BD’, let’s step back and start with a simple, yet useful definition.

2. What does it mean for law firms? Law firms don’t have a big data problem as much as they are challenged with what a big data world means to them, i.e., their clients’ big data issues. Firms will never reach a scale/capacity issue like government or Fortune 500 companies, but they will be expected to offer sound advice on data security, ethics, overall compliance and risk aversion as it relates to big data. A few US firms (i.e., Holland & Knight, Hunton & Williams and Goldberg Segalla) have taken the first step and opened separate practice groups (not necessarily profit centers, yet) focused on offering compliance and regulatory data management-geared advice.

3. Big data and technology:  Currently, big data is not always or primarily associated with technology, but it has potential if legal application and service vendors band together to re-educate the legal community on business intelligence and analytics tools. No lawyer gives a hoot about OLAP cubes and data decision points but providing them insight into their business with meaningful metrics will garner a favorable response. The same goes for relating the corporate big data challenge in terms they feel good about sharing with others. Use technology as an aid, not a crutch and start with minimal workflow disruption, a relatable interface and the ability to share and collaborate with colleagues and clients.

4. Who’s in charge?  Gartner predicts that by 2017, the CMO will control corporate IT budgets and will be a key stakeholder in the  big data equation.  If this is remotely true, will this potential seismic shift force marketing and IT as well as compliance to all play nice and work together?  Can’t IT help marketing push the envelope when it comes to data mining and client profiling by designing more useable analytics tools? And can’t the chief compliance officer clearly communicate security and ethical requirements with the expectation that related alerts and triggers are built into the technology to avoid risky activity?

5. What does it mean for legal vendors? Beyond building smart technology, legal vendors should focus on making their technology produce more accurate, predictable results. I had great conversations with Pete Mancini, cicayda’s data scientist, who firmly believes that “the confidence interval between one analysis and another is really what will differentiate systems and adoption.” He added that discussions with prospects and legal leaders made it abundantly clear that confidence in results is more important than anything else. To his point, I think analytics systems and even eDiscovery tools and enterprise search engines have all been too wrapped up in the process of what they set out to do versus simply doing what they advertised.

6. Current status:  InsideLegal took to the LTNY exhibit floor to ask legal vendors what they thought of big data and how they were addressing the challenge. We received blank stares and nervous laughter and this coming from established ‘household name’ vendors. If the technologists don’t know what they are dealing with, how can they assist their clients in navigating through the rough big data seas?

7. Big data and security:  The CISO (chief information security officer) is evolving into one of the key folks in the board room, especially as cloud deployments, big data, mobile lawyering and security in general continue to gain relevance in the legal environment. The CISO, currently more typical in corporate settings, is responsible for information-related compliance, handling everything from information security to risk management and disaster recovery/business continuity. Conference upon conference, the topic of security keeps creeping up to the top of the CIO’s ‘challenge’ list without much relief in sight. ‘Installing’ a CISO position not only adds accountability, but sends a clear message that security is job one at the firm and now someone besides the CIO has a vested interest in compliance and risk management.

8. Big data and searching:  Coping with big data, whether on the corporate or law firm side, will become much more manageable once search technologies evolve to become discovery platforms. In this scenario, system users don’t have to know what they are looking for or input specific key words to have search success. Other parameters, factors and characteristics are all evaluated and processed by an intelligent discovery tool that gives you the real information you are after. Military intelligence has been relying on discovery (vs. search)-based models for decades and, slowly but surely, a comparable level of sophistication is making its way into the private sector.

9. Data hoarding:  The cloud is NOT the answer for storing unlimited data, especially ‘dark’ data that we keep around just in case we’ll need it later (does your Outlook Inbox or archive remind you of this?). The eDJ Group recently completed its Defensible Deletion Survey and reported that 96.1% of respondents (out of 430 participating information governance professionals) agree that defensible deletion of information is necessary in order to manage the exploding volumes of digital information, while 37.3% indicated that lower priced cloud-based storage options present a long term information hoarding solution.

10. Do(n’t) believe the hype:  The big data hype is based on numerous opportunities to positively affect law firm business through better information sharing, information access and, most important, acting on the information we are given. 15+ years ago data warehousing was all the rage – today it can be information proliferation — using data continuously (as a steady flow versus periodic trickle)to help make smarter decisions instantaneously versus saving  the data, storing it and hoping we can at a later point in time  remember to retrieve and then use it.

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LegalTech 2013 Day 2 & 3 - Trends, Innovations & Big Predictions

We have for the most part shaken off our LegalTech NY (LTNY) hang-over so are now well positioned to share additional insights and goings-on from last week's legal technology bonanza.

Big data, bigger problems. Of course, big data ruled the LTNY roost - in buzz, content sessions, tweets, and overall conversation. We attended 3 great big data sessions on Thursday produced by ARMA

ARMA's Melissa Ebert w/Big Data Panelists - Barry Murphy, Julie Colgan, Galina Datskovsky, Eric Hunter, Rich Vestuto

- "Big Data-Big Hype or Big Opportunity", "Big Data in Practice" and "Does Big Data=Big Risk?" While we are committed to providing a series of in-depth big data profiles and articles within the next several months, what we learned about big data should raise many an eyebrow ...

big data is not 'just' an eDiscovery problem?   ...   big data does not mean business intelligence and analytics only   ...   big data is a massive challenge for corporations and law firms alike because of the dreaded dark data (old stuff we keep around 'just in case')   ... opinions differ on who should drive the BD bus -- the chief compliance officer? CIO? CISO? or maybe even the CMO, especially if the big data benefit is better client segmentation and profiling   ...   big data can be structured and unstructured, the key issue is what to do with it, how to handle it and how to police it.

You get the picture, this topic is filled with intrigue and ARMA's sessions helped underscore the associated threats and opportunities. Big data is the next buzzword that will definitely not fizzle or fade for a while to come.

Emerging legal roles to keep an eye on. On a recent webinar hosted by One North Interactive and Goodwin Procter's marketing director, we were introduced to the emerging legal interactive marketing role of content curator and content merchandiser (organize and manage legal content like your grocery store products). That started us thinking about what additional 'new' job titles we'd encounter in New York.

• The CISO-chief information security officer (not to be confused with Cisco (NASDQ: CSCO), Sysco (cafeteria food) or Sisqo (thong song)) is evolving into one of the key folks in the board room, especially as cloud deployments, big data, mobile lawyering, and security in general continue to gain relevance in the legal environment. The CISO, currently more typical in corporate settings, is responsible for information-related compliance handling everything from information security, to risk management and disaster recovery/business continuity.
• The other title we saw and had not heard much about is the data scientist or chief data scientist, not an evil doer in a white lab coat, but an oft numbers (and algorithm) obsessed smart guy (or gal) who likes to tinker with analytics and artificial intelligence. Of course, this is an incomplete description, but in legal, these guys are being hired by forward-thinking technology companies (mainly eDiscovery vendors) looking to advance their technologies and their clients ability to use them (and profit from using them). Data scientists interest us so we'll be profiling this persona a bit more in future posts.

Vendor Notables. A tradeshow like LTNY couldn't happen without the support from the 224 exhibiting companies. Unfortunately, we were only able to spend a total of 4+ hours on the exhibit floor, but with the help of some number crunching, friends in high places sharing the scoop on the LTNY 'wow factor' and our own observations we came up with some notables...

• While big data dominated the sessions and overall show content, we (only) counted five vendors that centered their exhibit and booth presence around big data - IBM, EMC, StoredIQ, Content Analyst and Nuix. The last 3 of these are eDiscovery vendors.
• The largest non-EDD vendor category was by far practice management (we counted 15 vendors) including 4 newcomers per LTN - AgilePoint Inc., CLM Matrix, Doculogix Inc. and New Zealand-based ActionStep Software.
• 

  Symantec's eDiscovery Cab & Food Truck
  The buzz of the year in terms of vendor promotions goes to Symantec, with the eDi$covery Cab, a takeoff of the Discovery Channel's hit game show, the Cash Cab which challenges players to answer a series of progressively difficult questions. LTNY attendees were able to test their eDiscovery knowledge in Symantec's eDi$covery Cab with Cash Cab host, Ben Bailey. In addition to the eDi$covery Cab, there was a food truck hosted by Symantec with free food for all who received coupons in the Symantec booth. 
• Returning after a few years outside of the industry, was former CaseLogistix CEO, Roe Frazer with his new company, cicayda, a cloud-based eDiscovery supplier. The former CaseLogistix gang (Roe, CTO Jason Cox and Operations Guru Suzy Mills) is all about simple and easy to use interfaces (like what they did with CaseLogistix) and price disruption in the complicated world of eDiscovery pricing. At LTNY, cicayda launched their first product fermata, their secure, cloud-based legal hold product with simple, $5 per hold LTNY pricing as well as a 30-day free trial. 
• The prize for 'is this really legal tech' in my book goes to AppearByPhone.com, a service that enables court appearances by phone for attorneys and judges alike. The service (making phone calls) greatly simplifies the process of court appearances without attorneys phyically being there. Maybe traffic in some parts is so bad, calling in a (legal) friend, is the best way to go.

Technology-assisted eDiscovery selection. As most InsideLegal readers know, we have been tracking the proliferation of eDiscovery vendors at LTNY for the past 6 years and have statistically verified their impressive 'dominance by numbers'. With countless 'e-something' vendors trolling the legal seas for clients (91 of them exhibited at LTNY 2013), how can a law firm or corporation find what they are looking for? While the old school printed 'buyer's guide' is collecting dust next to CDs and external hard drives, a new generation of online supplier search tools is emerging. We heard about 3 while in NY:

• George Socha's Apersee website boasts a database of 1,200 eDiscovery providers that anyone looking for eDiscovery, litigation support or simply a shoulder to cry on can access and request service quotes. Providers can bid on jobs and projects, but based on what Socha told us, the early bird gets the worm with typical inquiries yielding 30+ responses within the first hour of posting. In addition to product/service listings, the site includes a 'news & events' section that features industry news, a press release posting section and an EDD event directory. At a minimum, interested companies should complete the free provider profile, which will add them to the database.
• Well-respected UK consultant Andrew Haslam of Allvision Computing, in conjunction with Legal IT Insider (which was recently consolidated and redesigned if you haven't seen it) is launching a free  Buyer’s Guide to Litigation Support Systems. According to Charles Christian, the guide will "combine practical advice on system selection with the most definitive collection of vendor and software information in the UK ..." We met with Andrew in NYC and he mentioned that the final stages of compilation are now under way and that the PDF guide will soon be available as a download from the Insider website. If you haven’t submitted an entry, email Andrew immediately.
• Lastly, the eDiscovery Matrix powered by the EDJ Group is a trusted resource for eDiscovery professionals and customers to quickly find, follow and compare legal technology software and services listed across a wide array of categories in an unbiased, moderated environment. The site states it is a transparent, dynamic research tool that should be in the arsenal of anyone in the eDiscovery industry.  Being listed in the eDiscovery Matrix is free and can be completed here. We briefly spoke with EDJ's co-founder and principal analyst Barry Murphy about this and learned that free registration is the starting point to not only being recognized as an industry player, but also advantageous when working with him and his colleagues.

Media & Bloggers Breakfast. As has become an InsideLegal tradition, our LTNY day 2 began with the 14th edition of ALM's editor's breakfast -- a informal 'meet and greet' where all  attending ALM editors introduce themselves and their publications. This year's event was identical to past events and after the introductions, again translated into a 'feeding frenzy' with a room full of vendors (dare we say 50+ separate entities) seeking to pitch editors on their wares. While many publishers have doubled down on digital products and reader offerings, ALM is still print-heavy with all of the editors that showed up managing at least one print periodical (ranging from weekly to quarterly). Of course, law.com and Law Technology News' (LTN) online presence are the most prominent, but at least here, the printing press is still in use.

Bloggers Breakfast

Immediately following the media event was the Bloggers Breakfast, following a similar structure, with the exception that non-ALM bloggers are allowed to participate. Although Laptopmag.com recently listed the blog as part of its "13 Tech Terms You Should Never Say Again" (on it's blog I might add), we were extremely encouraged by the Bloggers Breakfast turnout and interest by the many vendors that stuck around. After our introduction, we spent a good hour engaging with attendees and exhibitors about InsideLegal and answering questions, clearly indicating that blogs are far from dead and that the thirst for legal information and related tech news is not quenched by a long shot. [Editors Note: We will be posting a list of bloggers in attendance.]

Keynote fatigue. In our LTNY day one recap, we pondered whether the traditional keynote might be on it's way out the door and after having witnessed day 3's key address as well, I have to say it may be so. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a thought provoking, intriguing, 'rally the troops' sort of kick-off but with some of these speakers and topics I really wonder what the motivation is. While Tuesday's senior law firm partner bored us with US justices factoids, Thursday's main act spent a mere 25 minutes talking about habits and motivation/rewards, an intriguing presentation, but too short. New York Times investigative reporter and author Charles Duhigg got us all excited with cute examples and videos of how changing habits can get the best out us, only to end it (with us hanging) upbruptly and saying his goodbyes. We weren't able to attend Wednesday's judicial perspective' talk show-style keynote, but by all accounts, it was well received. However, I still wonder if these hit the mark. If the idea is to motivate, excite, and give attendees a good reason to get up early after long hours at the bar, I don't think LegalTech's keynotes were the answer.  

LegalTech 2013 Day One - eDiscovery, Big Data, Musings

Well, LegalTech New York Year 31 is here - 220+ vendors, untold consultants, technologists and literally unknown numbers of attendees (we have been lobbying for event attendance numbers for years), have taken over the construction zoned Hilton and 3 floors of exhibit space. With 13 past LegalTech participations to our name, we have developed a set of expectations we judge the annual tech bonanza by:

eDiscovery or more… Yesterday’s post revealed the 2013 exhibitor breakdown and 6 year trending. 41% of all vendors in NYC are peddling eDiscovery wares, a 4% decrease from last year - seemingly due to last year's wave of M&A activity. Nonetheless, this reflects a 12% EDD vendor increase since 2008. Interestingly enough, we counted a 15% decrease in total exhibitors (262 in 2008 vs. 224 in 2013) during that same time span. So, for now, there’s no stopping the EDD train.

Innovation & market disruption: When is the last time you went to LegalTech and witnessed true innovation, perhaps even market disruption, that left you gasping for air? While we can’t remember one ‘best of’ moment, Thomson Reuter’s WestlawNext launch in 2010 was pretty impressive, if primarily from a production standpoint. While we admittedly only spent 30 minutes or so on the exhibit floor today, a thorough review of the show guide and several conversations with fellow conference goers confirms that nothing super cala fragilistic expialidocious will emerge from the 31^st edition either.

Content: Did anyone say Big Data? You can take a look at the word cloud we compile each year from the LTNY agenda and see the focus on Big Data. Last year, the term Big Data wasn't mentioned on the LTNY agenda, but this year 3 of the 21 LTNY session tracks and 9 of the 58 conference sessions are Big Data themed. ‘Making Big Data Meaningful for the Legal Market’ looks at practical applications of ‘BD’; ‘Big Data and the Business of Law’ tackles analytics and related decision making; and ‘Information Governance in a Big Data World’ analyzes the risks and rewards of leveraging (or stopping to ignore) big data.

Commercialization: Anyone following our past LTNY coverage, knows we are not big fans of toilet sponsorships (I think that happened in 2010), but the reality is that ‘logos everywhere’ is the status quo. With that said, we know, as usual, big $ was spent on track sponsorships - 21 tracks had 20 vendor sponsors, 17 of which were EDD. In addition, 17 of the 25 sponsors (68%) of this week’s keynotes, plenary sessions and super sessions are EDD vendors. Getting back to sponsorships, on our way to Tuesday’s keynote we were handed Huron’s "We See Things Differently" 3D glasses (haven't seen the special effects yet) and greeted by numerous eDiscovery adverts including Kroll Ontrack’s elevator door sponsorships and literally being interrupted in the middle of a meeting by someone handing out ESI Roundtable logo flashing necklaces in the common areas of the hotel.

Global appeal: How many non-US vendors and companies are here? We counted a handful and noticed a few newcomers from across the pond. But, based on insight from Charles (‘yes, I really am not in NY’) Christian of the Legal IT Insider, the UK delegation is smaller than usual with many European legal IT professionals opting to travel over for the ILTA Conference each year and check out LTNY every few years. This seems to be the consensus as at least 5-7 UK contacts that we typically meet with each year aren't in attendance this year.

Meeting space: To any one reading this that hasn't experienced it, this might come off as trivial, but not having options for meeting folks while onsite is a real fail. LTNY is notorious for having very little open meeting space and 2013 is the worst case scenario. The popular Marketplace restaurant and adjacent Starbucks (where we conduct 60% of our meetings) are closed for renovations. The Bridges Bar where normally people go to meet and conduct business has been temporarily converted to a breakfast and lunch spot (just during LegalTech) which requires full meal purchases. I realize that's additional revenue, but it would have been much better had LegalTech left that space open for meetings as there are plenty of options to grab a meal within a block of the hotel. Also, it would have been really helpful to have a heads up before the event for alternate plan making. Of course we are resourceful and have forgiving and flexible meeting partners, but being worried about finding an empty chair is one problem that can easily be avoided. We scored a table in the lobby area today and had no less than 12 desperate people come to ask us if we would be leaving any time soon. It was a mad house!

Is the keynote dead… The keynote today was given by a senior Am Law 100 partner talking about the U.S.’s supreme court justices and their race, religion, political affiliation, university training, etc. and did not really fit the conference's theme of technology. In fact, technology was only mentioned once - "Everything I need to know about legal technology, I get from my granddaughters." Based on what we heard at the keynote today, the concept should be ‘revisited’ or the model changed to really promote high quality, appropriate content. Stay tuned for our verdict come Friday’s ‘post’ post.