Tag Archives: Legal IT

General IT

I’m getting old and tired, a bit like Legal IT software

2 Comments

This week I caught the news that the ZX81 hit 30 and that got me thinking about the computers I have owned.

Then the fun went out of computers. I mean take a look at the next lot. (don’t believe me, pull out the internet cable and see what you can do with that thing on your desk!)

  • PC (386 laptop with a massive 8 inch b&w screen)
  • PC (486 compaq from work)
  • PC (self built Athlon)
  • PC (water cooled over clocked P4)
  • PC (i5)

That first Commodore started me on the path to an IT career in applications development. Developing software in BASIC was the only way I could get that PET to do anything useful. The early days of the Spectrum as well led to plenty of coding, mainly due to the magazines at the time having code listings for games and projects. Also the plethora of magazines like INPUT (TV advert), that taught programming for the Spectrum and Commodore 64 amongst others.

These were the early days of home computing when there were many different machines, each with their own operating system. These machines had languages either built in or shipped with them on disks that allowed kids to experiment in programming.

Then came the PC (and to a lesser extent in the early days the Mac) and years of same old same old, with some improvements and iterations in the OS and just a little be faster hardware in each release.

So apart from a little nostalgia what’s the point in this post?

Well it’s tablets. The multiple different devices, the lack of standard operating system, the explosion in software development for them. It reminds me a little of the early days of home computing. The explosion of Apps is encouraging people to develop again. This could lead to a whole new generation of developers who enjoy coding, rather than build a web site in the hope of being the next Mark Zuckerberg.

From the developers of my generation came most of the stalwarts of the current Legal IT portfolio. The developers that come from tablet generation will maybe bring the next wave. I hope so, Legal IT software to me seems old and tired at the moment. It’s iterations of what we have already, better but not revolutionary.  Maybe the tablet will bring the change?

Share
General Legal IT

Outsourced!

2 Comments

Another week another outsourcing of legal support staff story, or so it seems in 2011. At the time of writing the latest is Allen & Overy and their move to outsource to Belfast. This follows other firms, like CMS Cameron McKenna giving it’s support staff the choice of Bristol or India.

It’s like the mid 90’s all over again. Well for me it is. At that time I was starting off in IT in the utilities industry. In the UK the government had privatised the regional electricity companies and they were suddenly in a competitive market. Very similar to the position law firms find themselves in now, a time when a fairly comfortable profitable market was suddenly plunged into an arena that was getting very competitive very fast.

The mantra was to cut costs and quickly. As a reader of Janders Dean’s blog points out “They’re doing this to cut costs aren’t they and if that means cutting some of the flab out of the headcount so be it. This is a business after all”. And as in the utilities then, it’s the same in law firms now, target headcount and target support functions.

I totally agree with the point in the quote above, that business needs to cut flab to remain competitive. And although not nice for those involved, good companies do tend to handle this well and look after the employees affected.

But it always reminds me of the story of East Midlands Electricity and what can happen if the sole focus of an outsourcing deal is money saving. You can read more details of what happened here and here, but the summary is that EME didn’t see the business changes that the deregulation of the UK’s domestic electricity and gas supply market would bring. And when those changes came they realised that there was no substitute for experience of an internal IT department and that there was a need for them to take direct control of all business-related IT projects. This led to a cancelation of a 12 year deal some 5 years early and a recreation of an IT department.

I think maybe A&O’s response is a better play, I’ve often wondered why a number of the London based UK firms persist in maintaining support functions in the capital, where the cost of offices and staff is much more expensive. So rather than outsource why not shift the functions to cheaper parts of the UK, say for example Yorkshire!!

Share
General Legal IT, Legal

Everything clients want from a law firm….

3 Comments

Have you ever thought that everything clients want from a law firm are things that our fee earner want from the Legal IT dept.?

I hadn’t thought of it this way until a colleague raised a number of points that were raised by some senior people from large global organisations at a recent conference.

"We want consistent service from a global service provider, even if it isn’t in the home market, we still want the same good service in a distant geography"

"We want a legal services team that really knows our business"

"Don’t do what we tell you, do what we need"

“We don’t want academic legal answers, we want relevant business explanations and solutions”

Change the wording slightly.

"We want consistent service from the central IT dept., even if it isn’t in our office, we still want the same good service in a distant geography"

"We want a legal IT team that really knows our business"

"Don’t do what we tell you, do what we need"

“We don’t want technical answers, we want relevant business explanations and solutions”

Makes sense doesn’t it!

Now I’ve been pondering how to sum this post up. Is there an answer to all the problems of delivering a great service in those points raised? I couldn’t come up with a nice black and white answer, but then maybe this is a case of a problem shared is a problem solved?

p.s. thanks must go to my colleague in Asia for this post, the points are plagiarised from him. cheers Andy!

Share
General Legal IT

RIP Legal IT?

4 Comments

I read a couple of articles last year, one on the demise of corporate IT and another on how corporate IT has the same reputation as Carol Beer (the bank manager in the BBC’s Little Britain hit sketch show, “computer says no”). I agree with some of the sentiments in both of these articles, but not in the conclusion, that this is going to lead to the end of corporate IT in the former article or that this is generally the case that “IT says no” in the later. Here’s my response as to why.

Does the Corporate Legal IT dept need to be dragged into the future?

I spoke to one board level client who was stunned when he moved to his new company that he was unable to use his own laptop and iPad. The IT department instead set him up with a desktop that made him feel like he had been transported five years back in time.

But then I could as easily quote from an article like this one:

A company that runs two law centres has become one of the first two organisations ever to be fined for data protection breaches, after personal details of 24,000 clients were lost when an unencrypted laptop was stolen.

There are reasons that your work PC can be a pain compared to your modern quad core home laptop. But often there are very good reasons for this based on decisions that have been taken by the firm as a whole. It’s a balance and although I would wholly agree with the sentiment that corporate IT has to “say yes”, I’d also argue that it’s the business as a whole that needs to be dragged into the future as well and see IT once again as an enabler for the firm rather than just a utility service. See it as a former and you start to make joint decisions on what you want from IT for the firm, as the later it just becomes something you use.

So what about the End of the Corporate Legal IT dept?

Certainly Legal IT will change due to the three factors outlined in the article: 

  • The corporate acceptance of SaaS
  • The explosion of consumer technology
  • The economy

But it will change rather than die. Much as I’m sure that from the outside it can look like corporate IT is a dinosaur waiting for extinction, this is a generalisation. Most Legal IT depts are very used to change (they’ve been through enough of them in the last 10 years! Mergers, Growth, Recession, Globalisation etc) and so these factors will lead them to change yet again.

  • SaaS, yes it’s great but it still needs managing, it still needs analysis of the business needs/requirements, it still needs project management for implementing the service.
  • Consumer technology, Apple stuff still breaks you know and needs tech support.
  • The economy, if there’s one department that knows how to cut costs it’s IT!

So that’s my thoughts on these articles, what’s yours?

Share
General Legal IT

Top 5 Legal IT technologies of 2011

9 Comments

Happy New Year to you all!

Hope you had a good 2010 and I wish you all a great 2011. As per last year I thought I’d try a prediction of the technology areas that I will be big for Legal IT in 2011, so here it is my top 5 2011 list of legal IT technologies.

At #5 we have a new entry: More a grouping of technologies I’ve termed "Glue Tech”. The technology that sits between one or more core Legal IT services. Technology like IntApp that uses information in existing systems and applies logic to other systems. Also bespoke developed applications to join systems in ways that provide extra benefit for the lawyer. I also include workflow and case management applications like VisualFiles in this category, a recent visit to a smaller law firm highlighted some of the benefits joined up applications in VisualFiles can make to a business process.

Down two places at #4 we have Microsoft Lync. I think the instant messaging aspect of lync will continue to push into law firms in 2011, especially with the introduction of Office 2010. But the other features of Lync may take longer than 2011 to become widespread in law firms.

New in at #3 is a technology that will be very familiar, but maybe new to law firms and that is YouTube. Or at least similar online video capabilities, this has huge potential for IT training etc. Think about it, if you’ve a tech problem at home who hasn’t searched for a how-to video from YouTube?

Up three places to this years #2 is Mobile Applications. The Smartphone is here, the iPad is on a march and with Android and BlackBerry tablets are starting to come to market. That mobile application market that has exploded in the consumer arena is surely ready to crack the business market. We just need to crack the risk/IT security aspect to it!

And up two to take this years #1 spot is Office 2010 and Windows 7. Sure it’s not sexy tech and yes it’s Microsoft centric. No, it’s not social or cloud computing, but it is the bread and butter stuff of law firms whether you like it or not. Office 2003 and Windows XP need to retire and this is the year.

So the top tech in legal IT may not be cutting edge, but it reads to me like a true corporate IT list. Nothing frivolous, but no longer 5 years behind. Behind these applications I suspect there will be a push for technologies to control the vast amounts of data law firms are now generating, whether this is cloud or self hosted I’m not sure. If the legal and risk aspects can be ironed out then maybe cloud will start to grow.

As for social computing? I don’t think there will be any killer application that makes it’s way into Legal, but all the top five will bring some degree of social computing with them.

So that’s my five, am I on the mark or way off? Let me know in the comments.

Share
General Legal IT

End of year review

1 Comment

So the end of a another year of blogging. I started this blog at the start of 2009, right at the start of real turmoil in the Legal market. The worst recession in decades was in full swing and law firms were in a massive restructuring exercise that for some is still going on some two years later.

Over those two years in terms of Legal IT we’ve seen some of the big names of the past consolidate, some new players emerge and Legal IT become less niche in terms of IT and move closer to the main stream in terms of technology and demands on the IT departments.

In terms of this blog it’s been more successful than I could have imagined, it now averages about 1500 visits per month to the site and about 230 subscribers each day to the RSS feed. And this year I was short listed for the Computer Weekly blog awards.

So all that remains for this year is to take a look at my predictions for the top 5 Legal IT technologies of 2010 made at the start of the year.

#5 Mobile Applications

Well given the proliferation of iPads at ILTA and the rise of the Android and iPhone’s I would say I was right on the mobile device being big in 2010. But what about the Applications? Well until the devices become more widespread I don’t think there will much more than email or document access applications in law firms (there of course are plenty of Apps that can and will be used by lawyers as personal productivity applications).

#4 – Search

Lots of talk in 2010, with a few firms bringing in pilots for enterprise search.  Cost, integration and the “separate application” is holding this back I suspect. For those firms though who are iManage customers the IDOL engine is being introduced as part of their WorkSite 8.5 upgrades, this will bring experience of a major enterprise search engine to those depts.

#3 – Office 2010/Windows 7

Now this may not be “live” in many firms in 2010, but who hasn’t started looking at one of both of these products during 2010?

#2 Instant Messaging

Starting to make waves in 2010. It will be a slow uptake (a bit like email was back in the early 90’s) but like email I’m sure it will take hold. Maybe Lync will bring it front and centre next year?

#1 Speech Recognition

Well I was wrong on this one! Maybe more lawyers typing their own documents combined with good workflow in Digital Dictation systems is enough to cope with the shift in secretarial/fee earner ratios?

So that’s it, I may have been slightly off the mark with some technologies. But the others, maybe I was just a little early but they are starting to make it into some law firms. What do you think? Leave me some comments on what you think have been the main technologies making their mark in Legal in 2010.

So finally to finish 2010 a thank you to Legal IT Professionals who kindly publish my content on their site. And a big thank you to all who read and comment both here and over there. I hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year!

Share
General Legal IT

Simplicity rules

2 Comments

Anyone use Spotify? For those that don’t it is a service that allows you to play thousands of music tracks for free (with adverts) or for a small monthly cost (without adverts).

It recently launched a new version of its application that integrates a range on new social features.

So what’s this got to do with Legal IT? Well Spotify has done what a whole host of legal IT vendors have done for years, they’ve gone and over complicated what was a very simple application!

Software vendors (and I suspect this can be levelled at Legal IT depts too!) tend to feel the need to add functionality on release of a new version. Which is fair enough, but if you do your key task extremely well (like Spotify previously) why add to it?

There is a lot to be said for just keeping applications to the functions they do well, if you want to deliver a new version maybe think “what can we take away?”. As I quoted in a previous post : “Perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”, Antoine de Saint Exupéry.

Share
General Legal IT, Legal

Generation Y trainees about to shake up Legal and Legal IT

6 Comments

We’ve been away this Easter weekend to visit my wife’s family and whilst out yesterday I happened to get into a conversation with an ex-trainee of a Big Law firm. As I got on to explaining that I worked in the IT dept of a rival firm it was interesting to hear his questions and thoughts on Legal IT.

It left me thinking that anyone waiting for the current tech savvy trainees to give us Legal IT professionals an easier time ought to stop reading this post now as I’m about to depress you!

In fact if this trainee was typical of those joining law firms then the demands on Legal IT are going to get worse (or better if you’re up for the challenge). A couple of points stood out:

  1. Frustration at the pace of change in corporate IT. The bemusement at why law firms can’t keep up with software like he could at home. “We were still on Office 2003!” he commented as though this was a ridiculous situation. My comments on the difficulties of upgrading thousands of PC’s got a kind of “So what?” reaction.
  2. They do understand the IT dept but only the roles of those at the coal face. The service desks and IT support staff. They are unaware of the size and roles in the rest of IT.

Now this may have just been the situation in that particular law firm, but I doubt it. The challenge that stands out to me from this is twofold:

  1. The struggle of getting the old lawyers to use computers is going to change rapidly into a demand from new lawyers to use the latest computers and software. This I’m sure is starting to happen already, but it will only increase. Why shouldn’t a lawyer be able to do with his work kit what I’m doing now with my own kit (writing a blog post on my laptop travelling up the M5 whilst connected to the internet via my windows phone which is acting as a wireless hotspot! **).
  2. There needs to be better engagement at the trainee stage with IT. Get the trainees involved in the IT strategy early in their careers may reap benefits later.

Things are not going to get any easier for Legal IT, the demands on the corporate IT dept won’t drop off they’ll just be different.

Oh and the challenges for Law Firms generally won’t get easier either. This guy got disillusioned with the long hours, no life culture of city law and quit to pursue other interests. Generation Y is going to shake things up in law in more ways than one!

** to the iPhone users out there. That windows phone is not only acting as a wireless hotspot, it’s also playing MP3’s through the car stereo and scrobbling to tracks to last.fm. That’s multitasking!

Share
General Legal IT

Top 5 Legal IT technologies of 2010

9 Comments

Happy New Year to you all!

Hope you had a good 2009 and I wish you all a great 2010. For me what better way for me to start the blog this year than conforming with a blogger tradition and compiling a list.

I thought I’d try a prediction of the technology areas that I will be big for Legal It in 2010, so here it is my top 5 list of legal IT technologies for 2010.

 

#5 Mobile Applications

The Smartphone is well and truly main stream now (thanks mainly to the iPhone, but also Windows Phone, BlackBerry’s and Android phones). And 2010 will be the year it moves from just being an email device in the hands of fee earners. It’ll be the year of an explosion of business applications on mobile devices.

#4 – Search

I think this will be a big year for search technology, in particular IDOL. This will initially be driven by the numbers of firms on Autonomy’s iManage WorkSite product moving to the latest 8.5 version with IDOL. But once it’s in I think search will start to grow as a key technology in 2010.

#3 – Office 2010/Windows 7

After 18 months of “make do” most firms will start to look at these two products together. After all I suspect almost all law firms are on Windows XP still and Office 2003, right? I also think there will be a fair few mid-sized firms who go down an alternative route and go to OpenOffice in 2010 (like Ford & Warren Solicitors in the UK. A Law Firm in Leeds with 200 desktops are using Openoffice 3.0 now).

#2 Instant Messaging

MSN Messenger comes to Legal IT! After years of being the #1 consumer product for Generations Y & Z this will be the year Instant Messaging breaks into the corporate world in a big way (including Legal IT). There will be lots of arguments against, but 2010 will be the year for IM starts becoming a standard business tool.

And Finally……

#1 Speech Recognition

I remember this being touted as the killer technology back when I started in Legal IT in the mid to late 90’s. But the technology has advanced sufficiently to warrant a return in a big way in 2010 (Nuance have been working on the technology and have acquired all those names of old, IBM ViaVoice, Dragon Dictation etc – just this week they bought SpinVox).

I think also the general shift in secretarial/fee earner ratios will mean fee earners will do more of their own document production (also I think younger lawyers are more comfortable doing this anyway). Speech recognition is perfect for addressing this, giving you a quick start on your document. 

 

So that’s my list, one for a review at the end of the year. What do you think? A accurate list or a sure fire way to get myself on a list of infamous quotes on 31st December 2010?

It’ll take a lot to beat this quote, my favourite from a list circulated this week on twitter:

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” 1977 — Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) 

Although when you think about it now, he’s probably right. Do we really want a computer or just an internet device in our home?

Share