No rest for the weary on day 2 of LegalTech - which is more and more looking like a ray of economic sunshine for 2010 (see some vendor reactions below). Tuesday kicked-off with the annual ALM Editor's breakfast hosted by Bill Pollak, Monica Bay and the rest of the ALM editorial crew. Publications represented included the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Corporate Counsel, Law Technology News, and Law.com. The room was near capacity with many legal vendors pitching their products and mingling with editorial contributors including legal technologists and bloggers. While ALM's early morning program also included the annual blogger's get-together, we continued our "legal connections" theme and set off to reconnect with several of our media colleagues including Adam Schlagman of LJN’s Legal Technology newsletter and Sean Doherty, Legal Technology Editor of Law.com. Next we connected with Larry Smith, formerly ABA LPM Director, to learn about his new ALA Executive Director-ship and the ALA’s plans of overseas expansion, especially into China and other Asian markets.
With Monday's mega announcements "out of the way" we were focused on covering enough show floor ground to capture things new and novel at LegalTech. Another Thomson Reuters acquisition was announced on day 2, although it didn’t warrant a billboard in Times Square or an ice sculpture on the Eagan campus. The latest company to be purchased by Thomson Reuters is SuperLawyers, an attorney ratings system for consumers from Key Professional Media. “Super Lawyers is an extraordinary complement to our business,” said Christopher Kibarian, president, Business of Law. “Attorneys rely on word-of-mouth and recommendations to build their client base. We’re pleased to be able to provide the attorneys selected to the Super Lawyers list with additional support and services to achieve greater visibility and recognition for their accomplishments.” Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Next up was PayneGroup and the new integration of its Forms Assistant product with SmartRules from RealPractice. According to John Sroka, CIO of Duane Morris and user of the integrated application “the integration will allow our staff quick access to up-to-date court rules and information with the single click of a button while working within a pleading. You cannot get more efficient than that.” Along with this announcement, PayneGroup and RealPractice are offering firms an exclusive FREE trial to try SmartRules for 30 days.
Phoenix-based Omega Legal recently launched eCop, which automates the billing review process to catch errors before they are billed. According to software specialist Steve Bentley, "This application is only available to Omega clients and is saving firms money by significantly reducing rejected, appealed, or written-off time entries."
CRM veteran Cole Valley were discussing their early adopter program for their new version (9.30) with sortable mass mailing capabilities.
Litéra, fresh off its acquisition of SoftWise and integration of Innova into the product mix, arrived in New York ready to take on Adobe with the introduction of LDF, a PDF management application at a fraction of the cost and complexity of other products. LDF gives users the ability to manage their PDF documents. William Robertson, EVP of Client Development, told us LDF plans to ship within the next 60 days after beta testing is complete.
Applied Discovery's big deal news according to a chat at their booth revolves around RPM (Review Performance Metrics), a new review management offering that allows litigation support professionals to see understand and maximize review performance by providing a dashboard with monitoring tools.
DocuLex announced customized workflow surrounding its flagship Archive Studio document management software and IBM Software are fairly new player (3 years and counting) in the eDiscovery scene touted early case assessment software.
One of today's most potentially profound news items centered around ILTA's Sharepoint for Legal Symposium taking place Wednesday at the Hilton, 9:30-4pm in Concourse A. ILTA's Microsoft Peer Group chaired by Kara Portwood invites everyone to the seminar focusing on SharePoint 2010 and the impact it will have on legal. In speaking with Kara, we learned that anticipated attendance has surpassed 175 (75 more than last year's SharePoint event), and that the program includes a Microsoft SharePoint 2010 product preview, presentations by XMLaw and Handshake Software, and finally actual user SharePoint case studies by ILTA member firms. The session will be of value to anyone looking to review new features inside SharePoint 2010 and looking to explore the topic of SharePoint 2010 as a viable document management system.
As promised, here's a sampling of random soundbytes on the success of the show from the exhibit floor:
Shirley Gorman, Vice President of Client Relations for PayneGroup, said that the traffic was constant and much better than last year.
The famous Adriana Linares with LawTech Partners (helping out in the Adobe booth) said, “Show traffic has been great, great attendees, but where's the WiFi? Isn’t this a technology conference?” This was a sentiment shared by many - including InsideLegal! It's very hard to cover a show without being able to connect to the internet - ah, the little things!
According to Dave Haucke, VP of Marketing for ISYS Search Software, this is their 16th LegalTech NY and traffic is as strong if not stronger than in the past.
Steve Bentley, software specialist for Omega Legal said that there were more qualified prospects than before – possibly due to the lack of a third floor which condenses the traffic across just 2 floors.
Cole Valley’s President Jeff Reade said he feels like the industry is definitely on the upswing, firms are getting over their nervousness of the economy and midsize firms have money and are beginning to spend it.
Well, wrapping up day two to get ready for the 3rd and final day. The big buzz for tomorrow is definitely the keynote -"I3: The New Convergence of Intelligence, Intuition and Information" - featuring speakers: Malcolm Gladwell, Author of Outliers, Blink, and The Tipping Point; Dr. Lisa Sanders, Internist, New York Times Columnist, Author of Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis; and David Craig, Chief Strategy Officer, Thomson Reuters; and the ILTA SharePoint Symposium. Tune into InsideLegal.com (and sign up to get our newsfeed automatically) tomorrow for more information and if you have an announcement you would like us to consider including, please email us. 'Til then...
