Legal IT show 2010
Posted by David on 11 February 2010
Spent the day yesterday at the Legal IT show in Islington, and I have no doubt the organisers have breathed a sigh of relief that the snow has abated and everyone who had planned to attend doesn't have a reason not to!
So, what's the verdict? Well, that's all a bit subjective really and depends on who you speak to. I had a chat with a number of technology vendors to small/mid-tier law firms who wished they had packed in more demo booths on their stands as they were busy all day, now that's a good sign, and at the other end of the spectrum I had a chat with a mixture of consultants and suppliers to large law firms who wondered why they were there. So like all events, conferences, exhibitions, award ceremonies and the like - there'll be some happy ones and some not so happy ones.
Has the day of the 'conference' passed and is there a future? Well, in my view yes and no respectively. More and more is done online these days, with obvious upsides to online being the time and cost saving aspect. However, what you'll never replace online is the enjoyment of a day out the office, having a face to face conversation (without the use of skype!) and the added value of things like round table discussions.
Here's my day in pictures.
Tagged: legal it show
Chrome River flows in to the UK
Posted by David on 01 February 2010
A press release hit my desk last week that will put a smile on the dial of a few people in the legal world - or at least anyone that has had any dealings with Elite.
Like so many of our favourite celebrities and sports personalities who retire - Kim Clijsters, Lance Armstrong, Take That, Spandau Ballet, to name but a few - Harry Townsend (pictured) the ex.Elite sales veteran is returning to the legal world as Regional Sales Manager for Chrome River the provider of spend management and expense reporting solutions to law firms (www.chromeriver.com).
Back in March 2009 Tikit & Chrome River announced a European reseller agreement.
In the LSN Discussion forum you'll find the following thread: Chrome River, Like it - love it or hate it?.
Tagged: harry townsend chrome river
SRA launches consultation - Achieving the right outcomes
Posted by admin on 22 January 2010
According to the SRA website "Outcomes-focused regulation is how the SRA will operate from next year, concentrating on the high-level principles governing practice and the quality of outcomes for clients, rather than tick-box compliance with rules.
"This [consultation] paper explains how the SRA intends to transform the regulation of solicitors and the organisations in which they work, and invites the engagement of consumer groups, the profession, and all those with an interest in legal services in the debate about how we deliver it."
Topics such as the Legal Services Act, Alternative Business Structures, the SRA approach to regulations, Code of Conduct, support for law firms, and similar are all covered and make for an interesting read.
If you want to take part in the consultation, you can do so on the Solicitors Regulation Authority website.
Tagged: legal services act sra solicitors regulation authority
Review: TheKnowList Awards 2010
Posted by David on 22 January 2010
Last night I was invited to the first TheKnowList Awards 2010, the premier event for Legal IT professionals. Many of you followers of all things Legal IT will know that these awards have taken the place of the Legal Technology Awards which were last held in 2009 so TheKnowList had it all to live up to and expectations were high.
The setting for the event was the Renaissance Chancery Court Hotel in Holborn which provided the perfect backdrop, and the awards were hosted by Clive Coleman one of the country's top comedy writers and former barrister - a full list of runners, riders & winners can be seen on the Legal IT Professionals website.
The night was certainly buzzing and everyone I spoke to seemed intrigued about the giant tardis-like structure which sat in one corner - great news for Vpod and LVN who were encouraging guests to record themselves throughout the night - the footage should prove interesting! I was lucky enough to be on Integreon's table, hosted beautifully by Chris Bull, COO who as you can see made sure everyone's glasses were topped up.
Like them or loath them, award ceremonies have clearly not lost their appeal and perhaps after the highs and lows of 2009 TheKnowList Awards were just the tonic (or should i say champagne) that the legal community needed.
Tagged: theknowlist awards legal video network
New Year, new career for some familiar faces in the legal world
Posted by David on 22 January 2010
Following my brief blog about Kay Betts leaving Elite, 2010 brings with it a string of other moves and appearances of some familiar faces.
Dan Tacone previously of Elite in the US has appeared at IntApp as President
Richard Hill previously of Elite (UK) has appeared at Tikit as Regional Sales Manager
Tony Barrett previously of TimeKM has appeared at HubbardOne as Account Executive
Jordan Adams previously Head of Sales at the ARK Group has started a new legal publication due to be launched in Spring 2010 called Law Firm Management (www.lawfirmmanagement.co.uk)
Tagged: elite timekm intapp hubbard one tikit
Legal IT Professionals release free iPhone App
Posted by David on 13 January 2010
Our friends over at Legal IT Professionals have today announced the release of their new "Legal IT News" application for iPhone. The free application is available for download on the Apple App store.
The application brings the latest legal IT news straight to your iPhone and the content can be stored on the device. To optimise the performance, only the introduction of news items are displayed, a ‘read more’ link takes users to the Legal IT Professionals’ website for the complete content. Three different ‘tabs’ are used in the application to separate the news geographically: Global, USA/Canada, and UK/Europe.
Downloading the LITP news application is easy: open iTunes on your computer and go the iTunes store. Use the search box in the upper-right corner to search for “LITP”. Alternatively, clicking this link will also take you to the application on the iTunes store.
Legal IT Professionals on LinkedIn
In addition to this great new iPhone app, if you're working in IT for a law firm, then consider joining the Legal IT Network on LinkedIn.
In addition to the usual news, discussions, events and jobs you'll find on LinkedIn, there's a number of useful subgroups to get involved in, including;
- Legal IT for Small Law Firms
- Law Firm Telecom
- USA Legal IT
- UK Legal IT
- Legal IT Vendors
- Law Firm Knowledge Management
- Legal IT Training
- Law Firm Practice Management Systems
- eDiscovery
- Legal IT Law Firm
- EU Legal IT
Join the Legal IT Network on LinkedIn here.
Tagged: legal it linkedin legal it professionals rob ameerun iphone apps legal it network iphone
Question: Is a there a new publication out of the Solicitors Accounts Rules as at 31st March 2009
Posted by David on 12 January 2010
Whilst we actively encourage people to post questions on the LSN discussion forum, we also regularly receive questions via email from a wide range of professionals in law firm management.
When we do, our first action is to identify an LSN networkpartner who can assist in answering the question and respond accordingly, letting them know who's helped us out.
So when we received the following question, we approached our latest networkpartner, Taylor Mowbray, and Janet Taylor was happy to assist. It's an interesting question that others may be interested in the answer, so I thought I'd blog it.
QUESTION:
Is a there a new publication out of the Solicitors Accounts Rules as at 31st March 2009?
ANSWER:
The very latest version of the SARs are dated 31 March and include all amendments – there have as yet been no changes since 31 March 2009.
The Law Society do publish an SAR manual priced at £24.95 but it's just a copy of the Rules which can be downloaded for free as a pdf from the SRA website.
The better manual is the Law Society's Solicitors and the Accounts Rules A Compliance Handbook, Peter Camp, which includes the rules plus lots of useful guidance and interpretation, as well as references to VAT issues and Money Laundering Regulations. It's in its 2nd edition, costs £49.95 and the ISBN is 978-1-85328-799-2
Just because it doesn’t mention viagra, it doesn’t mean it’s not spam
Posted by admin on 08 January 2010
Shortly before Christmas our discussion forum received a post entitled HR Software- What it can do for you, which, at first glace doesn't look like spam. It doesn't mention viagra or other drugs, fake software or my bank account... but when reading the post carefully you will notice that it says nothing useful. It reads like something that has been copied and pasted from a brochure, and certainly doesn't meet our forum rules - "share knowledge, experiences, feedback and information" within our community.
The only tangible piece of information is a link to an HR webinar run by Ciber Consulting. Have you ever heard of them? Neither had we. Well, according to their website "CIBER is an international IT provider supplying high quality solutions to customers in the private and public sectors all over the globe."
So why would a provider of "high quality solutions" post in our discussion forum and leave such a useless message??
The reason is the link and potential benefit in terms of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Google follows links all over the web and more links means more importance/ relevance for the site linked to. This practise is called link-building, and used effectively (and in the right way) can enhance the Google ranking of a website.
Why is this post spam? Because when we googled the link "www.ciber.co.uk/webinar/hrsmm/" we found that the same link had been posted on a lot of other discussion forums (for Accountants, Actuaries, HR professionals amongst others). The text is slightly different, but contains often the same keywords (link + keyword = higher importance for Google), which means that someone creative in writing took a piece of text and ensured that Google (and us) cannot find duplicate text. Google doesn't like duplication and certainly picks it up. But none of the posts have anything relevant to say.
What does Google make of this? It doesn't condone spam of any kind and its Hard fact about content spam makes for interesting reading.
So, who actually spammed the LSN discussion forum? The post is signed by Isobel at CIBER, but other posts have Amanda and Mandy as the author, sometimes based in London, other times in Cheltenham. As is common with many blogs and forums, we also have a facility to check IP addresses and members have to sign up. The email address used is ciber@agency2.co.uk - and Agency:2 are "the UK's leading social media agency". It's certainly interesting how a leading organisation in a field can behave in such an unethical way and conduct itself in a manner which is considered spamming.
Or, how someone else recently put it: "This is the cyber-equivalent of trespassing on someone's land ... for the sole purpose of plastering its advertisements."
Isn't this the norm? Isn't this what online marketing is about? It most certainly isn't and spamming has been around for a while in different disguises. Nokia got caught out in 2008 for a similar stunt, and maybe Ciber/Agency2 thought they have less reputation to lose than someone like Nokia.
Since Agency2 are a social media agency and we have had no luck to get some questions answered in private, we thought we try the public way. After all, that's what social media marketing is about.
So here are our questions:
1) Does CIBER condone the spamming of forums and was this part of their instructions to Agency2?
2) Will CIBER follow up with the forums that have been been spammed?
3) Does Agency2 feel this type of spamming is ethical social marketing and best practise? (after all, they have been shortlisted for an Econsultancy Innovation in Social Media 2009 award)
Tagged: discussion forum social media agency2 spam ciber consulting
Why do law firms only engage with fee earners when recruiting?
Posted by David on 21 December 2009
When a press release reached us at LSN about DLA Piper's new UK graduate recruitment microsite, it got me thinking.
My big question
Why is it law firms spend all this money on attracting graduates when support staff represent a significant enough percentage of the make up of any law firm to warrant similar investment, yet so rarely - if ever - have I seen the equivalent platform designed to attract 'support staff'? Just to qualify the terminology 'support staff', in my world that's anyone in Finance, IT, HR, Marketing, General Management, Knowledge Management or any of the operational/non-fee earning areas within a law firm, and depending on the size of your firm you could be some or all of the above.
Answers on a postcard
My assumption in respect of the arguments 'for' the spend will be along the lines that graduates represent the future fee earning capability of the law firm and that the spend is justifiable in order to attract the highest calibre graduates. It is also from these graduates that firms are most likely to make the biggest margins when it comes to charge rates, so again the expenditure becomes more easily justifiable against a clear return on investment.
However, I pretty convinced - and have been for some time - that support staff quite frankly get a bit of a poor deal when it comes to seeking out new opportunities and researching future employers.
As an ex-recruiter, albeit some time ago now, when the world of social media, photos on websites, video, podcasts and even websites were still 'coming into fashion', building a picture for a candidate of what it would be like to work at a prospective employer was challenging. Now however, with the evolution of multiple media channels and tools, like video, firms are able to create compelling reasons to prospective employees why they should join them.
And my point?
Well, my point being that whilst a few law firms have embraced the evolution of engaging with people outside their firm, many are still to do so, and when firms do engage on a recruitment level, its always driven by the need for fee earning staff. How often have I gone to a law firm website only to find out what its like to work for them as an lawyer, or associate or paralegal - whatever happened to what its like to work for them as a Legal Cashier or IT Analyst or Marketing Manager and so on.
Surely if one of the reasons that law firms engage with graduates via graduate recruitment sites is because of the potential costs saving proposition, then the same rule must apply to support staff? I can't believe that the so called 'war on talent' applies only to lawyers and fee earners, for I know many firms who strive to recruit the highest calibre support staff, primarily as they know that in order to provide the highest level of service externally, you have to establish the highest level of service internally.
My goal during 2010, and without wishing this to sound like a crusade, is to convince law firms of the merits of engaging directly with prospective employees who will populate the support/operational areas of their firm.
Roll on 2010
all I want for Christmas is…....
Posted by David on 17 December 2009
Possibly the most interesting bit of news in yesterday's LSN newsletter was the announcement that a London law firm are offering divorce gift vouchers to entice clients.
So if you're struggling for ideas this Christmas and happen to know anyone unfortunate enough to require advice of this nature, then look no further!
Tagged: christmas
about me
Hi, I’m David Sparkes the managing director and founder of legalsupportnetwork.co.uk
What you see in front of you is david's blog – my way of telling the world how I see it – and I hope you will get involved.
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tags
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recent posts
» Chrome River flows in to the UK
» SRA launches consultation - Achieving the right outcomes
» Review: TheKnowList Awards 2010
» New Year, new career for some familiar faces in the legal world
» Legal IT Professionals release free iPhone App
» Question: Is a there a new publication out of the Solicitors Accounts Rules as at 31st March 2009
blogs I read
» Kevin O'Keefe's Real Lawyers Have Blogs
» The Orange Rag
» Binary Law
» inpractice
» Law Society Gazette – In Business blog
» MorePartnerIncome
links
» Legal Technology Insider
» The Institute of Legal Cashiers & Administrators
» Association of Law Costs Draftsmen
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