Osborne Clarke no one-off say Integreon
Since Integreon first announced its outsourcing deal with Osborne Clarke in early February (which included the appointment of Osborne’s COO Chris Bull as Integreon’s European COO) Integreon’s president of global sales & marketing John Croft has told the Insider he is confident the deal is not a one-off but will be followed by other orders.

Croft continues “Since the announcement, we have met with the chief operating officers or other senior managers of many top 50 UK law firms. All approached us, not the other way round, and all are very interested in buying services from our shared services centre. None have expressed any concern that Osborne Clarke is an anchor client. Reaction to having Chris Bull on the Integreon team has also been uniformly positive. In law firm meetings I have where Chris has not been able to join, I have heard very positive feedback about hiring him and no expression of concern whatsoever.”

Croft added that the structure of the Bristol centre should also avoid any concerns, as along with shared delivery centres, where Integreon handles projects that are delivered to multiple customers, there will also be dedicated centres for individual firms (with highly secure access) where the work done in that centre is only done for that one firm for reasons of confidentiality.
  
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March's big deals

Jersey group selects Pilgrim Lawsoft
The Jersey-based legal and professional services business BakerPlatt Group has selected Pilgrim’s Lawsoft system as its new practice management platform. Commenting on the decision to roll out Lawsoft across the group’s three divisions (Forward, KYC 360 and the law firm Baker Platt) Baker Platt’s practice director Jim Scott (previously the FD at Ogier) said it was the “breadth and depth” of Lawsoft that impressed, with its ability to handle financial management along with CRM, workflows and document and email management.

Three more firms go with Microsystems
Three more firms in the UK – Mishcon de Reya, Milbank Tweed Hadley McCloy and EMW Picton Howell – have purchased Microsystems software for their document production environments.

Hammonds switch to DocsCorp
Hammonds LLP is to deploy DocsCorp’s pdfDocs Solutions Suite to help them manage document comparison, PDF creation, document bundling and metadata removal. The firm had previously been a Workshare site.
• Norwegian law firm Bugge Arentz Hansen & Rasmussen has selected DocsCorp’s compareDocs software to replace its Workshare DeltaView system.

London transport gets e-discovery
Transport for London (TfL) has awarded Guidance Software a contract to use its EnCase software to help process fraud, data audits, internal investigations and e-discovery projects.
www.guidancesoftware.com
 
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March’s big launch: Anlys BI
Anlys, a company (new to the Insider) that specialises in BI, has created a sales analysis OLAP (online analytical processing) cube for the law firm Watson Burton. Extracting data from the firm’s Pilgrim Lawsoft PMS and using Microsoft Business Intelligence Development Studio, the cube generates data that can be accessed directly using Excel. Looking to the future, plans include writing reports in SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) against the cube and extending the BI approach to include nominal ledger, accounts receivable and WIP.

The firm’s IT manager Jonathan Smith says the system “can provide much faster turnaround on ad-hoc information requests and give users the freedom to analyse data far more effectively than they could using Crystal reports.” Anlys director Steve Gray says an added bonus is many BI users already own most of the software (Excel, SQL) needed to get up and running with business intelligence.
www.anlys.co.uk

Amicus Attorney gets new UK distributor
Earlier this month, Toronto-based Gavel & Gown Software Inc appointed I-Quest Ltd (020 7902 1970) as its new distribution partner for its Amicus Attorney file, diary, contacts and schedule management software in the UK and Ireland. The move comes as Gavel & Gown seeks to build up interest in the UK for its new 2009 Premium Edition, which the company sees as offering an attractive practice management solution for larger law firms, whereas Amicus Attorney has traditionally been seen in the UK as a system for sole practitioners and small firms.

In terms of the impact of existing channels, Alan Roberts and his Gavel & Gown UK business continue to be an Amicus Attorney reseller and will continue first line support to their existing and any new customers. I-Quest, as distributor, will provide second line support to all resellers and is currently recruiting new resellers. The Insider understands that Geon Legal Solutions in Dublin has already been recruited and that ‘several others in the UK are close to signing’.

• I-Quest is also the UK distributor for a new document, records and workflow management system called FileHold, that is currently being trialed by a top 250 firm.
• The Amicus Attorney product suite now also includes a time, billing and accounts system, as well as mobile edition for Blackberrys and Windows Mobile PDAs.
www.i-questltd.com
www.geonlegal.com
www.amicusattorney.com

No ‘parking’ problems for Solcara offshore
Two Channel Island-based law firms – Carey Olsen and Mourant du Feu & Jeune – have selected and deployed Solcara SolSearch systems for search and KM-related work. Mourant, who also took Solcara’s Know How product, have used the Solcara software to underpin the firm’s new Morlaw portal, which head of KM Liz Machin describes as “one electronic home for all legal knowledge in three parts: knowledge, one stop search and news”.

Carey Olsen IT director Stuart Bush said the decision to go with Solcara came after considering the ‘build it or buy it’ debate. “Inhouse projects have the potential to grow out of all proportion. You start with one or two programmers. They need back up and before you know it you have an inhouse software company. I deliberately avoided that approach, partly because writing bespoke software or manipulating packages can end up becoming very expensive.” Bush says another disadvantage of creating bespoke systems is “You lose the input from other users. If you choose the same best-of-breed solution as other firms, you benefit from enhancements developed in response to suggestions from the wider community.”
• Case studies on the Carey Olsen and Mourant projects can be downloaded from www.solcara.com/mediacentre/

Solcara’s managing director Rob Martin said that while, in the current economic climate, many firms were ‘parking’ or putting on hold larger KM/DMS projects, they were still looking for quick wins to help deliver an immediate RoI and improve efficiencies, with the result that SolSearch was continuing to attract a lot of attention as a way of providing more efficient and effective searching across both internal and online information sources.

The ‘legislation connectors’ in SolSearch have also been enhanced to support the automatic parsing and targeting of federated searches of legislative resources so as to provide more specific results.
• The Insider understands that three other firms – two in London and one in Dublin – are also in the middle of SolSearch rollouts, with formal announcements to follow.
   
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Thought Leader #1
 
Emergency measures for emergency times...by Malcolm Simms, chief executive, Konetica
Having had the challenge of being Eversheds’ IT Director until December 2008, the cost-savings agenda is one I’ve considered extensively. As many of us have discovered already, the threat of recession immediately forces managing partners to make difficult executive decisions on headcount and budgets. In recent months I have worked with my team at Konetica and our technology partners (including Azzurri, Eurodata, Polaris, Ricoh, Teliris, Secon and Qubic) to review and work with a number of law firms, large and small, on streamlining their IT operations as the economic downturn crunches revenues.

This exposure has given us insight into opportunities that we believe are available to most, if not all, law firms. Here are my top tips for those looking to critically evaluate their firm’s IT expenditure...

Application support & maintenance: Application assessment and diagnostic tools allow firms to automate documentation, simplify their understanding and minimise errors in their existing application portfolio. Some firms have already cut relevant budgets by over 20% through using these tools.

Billing: Enhanced time capture and billing solutions can help firms prove their transparency and accountability in a time when customers are more likely to quibble their invoices. Cash management software can also help firms improve cash flow.

Leasing arrangements: Many firms lease much of their hardware. Downsizing means capacity is likely to be underused. Extending the period between renewal/refresh cycles can better utilise current stock. One firm generated immediate savings of £300k by extending its desktop refresh.

Print management: Implementing an integrated per copy strategy for printers and copiers can save firms on average 30% on current print costs.

Managed services: Moving to shared or managed services need not take years to put in place, especially when considering discrete parts of the service offering, such as firewalls, anti-virus, infrastructure management and the printer fleet. Firms are increasingly recognising the opportunity not only to cut costs and boost efficiencies, but also to save jobs by transferring staff to vendors.

Project portfolio: Reviewing all in-flight projects will determine whether the RoI is less healthy than 12 months ago, in which case projects may need to be cut or frozen. It is imperative not to cut existing or new improvement programmes without reviewing the relative complexity and overall costs involved. With careful analysis it often emerges that lower profile projects (which are usually less expensive and time intensive) may bring bigger advantages than larger scale new technology deployments.

Server consolidation: By virtualising servers a firm can reduce not only their hardware management costs but also power and cooling costs. For example, if the number of servers is cut from 30 to three, the associated electricity bill alone could drop by as much as 90%.

Software licences: A careful audit may show unused licences or capacity. In one case unbundling a major software licence generated an immediate £1million saving.

System performance: Firms cannot afford to have the performance of existing systems impacting revenues. Nor can they afford to throw more money at new hardware, which often forms only 10% of the underlying cause of performance issues. Inefficient code (40%), poor technology tuning (30%) and inefficient design (15%) are usually the greater root causes of performance bottlenecks. The real causes of poorly performing applications can be accurately measured with specialist diagnostic tools so the right corrective action can be taken.

Telecommunications: Transferring services from your current carrier can achieve between 10% and 50% savings in line rental and call costs while still accessing the main carrier’s network. Mobile phone contracts should not be separate from your fixed telephony contract. By combining all your communication requirements onto a Next Generation Network (NGN) costs can be reduced even further.

Telepresence: Immersive telepresence and collaboration solutions offer a viable alternative to offsetting travel expense while maintaining the in-person meeting experience and increasing productivity. Most businesses that deploy telepresence systems pay back their investment in less than one year and in some cases in just months.

Unified communications on demand: Productivity across a firm can be improved through the integration of communication devices including email, voicemail, instant messaging and live meetings. As well as improving productivity this can reduce overall telephony costs by a further 10% or more.

Many of these changes are, of course, not just temporary fixes. They are part of sweeping changes that will permanently transform and energise IT services for law firms over the coming decade.
www.konetica.com
         
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Fresh on the radar

Despite the fact we are in the middle of a recession, there is no shortage of new businesses, including start-ups, dipping their toes into the legal IT market.

Hoffbrand goes it alone
After working for resellers for the past 25 years, legal IT industry veteran Paul Hoffbrand has decided to go it alone and set up his own business – Hoffbrand Consulting Ltd (01923 247707). Along with independent consultancy services on infrastructure, networked storage, server hardware, software licensing and supplier review, Hoffbrand will also be acting as the UK and Ireland agent for Litera Corporation, the developers of the Change-Pro document comparison software (yes, there is yet another alternative to Workshare) which recently went into Freshfields and Thomas Eggar. In addition, he’ll also be working with Sysero, who offer current awareness and knowledge management software that runs on Microsoft Sharepoint and SQL Server platforms.

New email filing software
Sabot Software (01908 255956) is currently trialling a new email filing product, designed for firms with 10+ fee earners. Called Topaz Filer, it works within Outlook and uses the familiar ‘drag & drop’ approach to filing. Pricing runs from £95 to £50 per seat (subject to volume discounts) and the software can be integrated with third party PMS, DMS and CRM applications – there is already an out-of-the-box integration available for SOS Connect software. Sabot has also set up a bunch of servers so prospects can test drive Topaz in a hosted environment without having to install the system internally.
www.topazsw.com

New VoiP supplier goes into Herts firm
Hertfordshire law firm SA Law has deployed a Zultys MX250 IP PBX unified comms/VoiP system. The system includes support for telephony, voicemail, fax viewing, call recording, instant messaging, Microsoft Exchange, plus Outlook contacts and email. The system implementation, including swapping out a legacy PBX and upgrading a BT ISDN service, was carried out over a weekend, so as to minimise disruption within the firm. The project was handled for SA Law by two companies new to the Insider. They were 500 Ltd (0845 0000 500) and Zultys’ UK distributor Siracom.
www.500.uk.com
www.siracom.co.uk

Pannone catch the Metronet
Another supplier making its first appearance in the Insider is Metronet (0161 822 2580). The company, which specialises in wireless WAN communications, has just completed a project for Pannone LLP that uses wireless both to increase network bandwidth (by between 350-600%) and enhance the firm’s disaster recovery strategy, by giving it independence from network providers and obviating the need for network reconfiguration in the event of a disaster. Metronet use what they describe as ‘wireless last mile circuit delivery’ and while this is their first law firm project, a number of local authorities now use Metronet circuits for CCTV monitoring. Pannone’s IT manager Chris Styles said another plus point was that while some network suppliers were quoting a 90-day delivery time for new circuits and upgrades, Metronet worked with him to implement a complex technical strategy and deliver circuits within one month.
www.manchestermetronet.com
 
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Corporate news & deals

Autonomy acquires Interwoven
Last week Autonomy confirmed it had completed its acquisition of Interwoven. Although there have been some redundancies among administrative staff, the UK and EMEA legal sales and support teams remain unaffected by the change.

Interaction in Vulture partnership
LexisNexis has announced a strategic partnership with online marketing platform providers Vulture, that will see Vulture’s Vx Suite being integrated with the Interaction CRM. Vx allows users to create and manage all their marketing materials online, including websites, email marketing and pitch documents.

Tikit to sell Chrome River
Tikit has entered into a partnership deal that will see it market Chrome River’s new online expense management reporting service throughout the UK and Europe.

FWBS and PLC team up on content delivery
The Practical Law Company (PLC) and FWBS have teamed up to deliver PLC content inside the FWBS Matter Centre system, so fee earners have access to ‘contextual’ know-how materials within a matter centric workflow and document assembly environment.

AlphaLaw debt product roll-out
IRIS Legal has announced that as well as providing ongoing support for customers running AlphaLaw’s Esprit, Vantage and Uno software, AlphaLaw’s ClaimIT debt recovery system is to become one of IRIS Legal’s flagship products and will be made available to all IRIS customers. ClaimIT is designed to automate, simplify and generally improve the recovery of unpaid bills and invoices both in debt recovery agency and internal credit control scenarios.
   
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Readers’ poll: Too much information?
In our most recent readers’ poll, we looked at the boom in Web 2.0 social networking and messaging services and asked: are we facing information overload? This is what our readers had to say...

First of all we asked which Web 2.0 technologies they’d heard of or were familiar with. Between 90 and 96% were familiar with SMS text messaging, instant messaging and LinkedIn although recognition for Twitter, the newest technology, was marginally lower at 83%. We then asked about the business case for the use of these individual technologies and whether actual usage had increased over the past 6 months.

When it came to SMS, just under 29% of readers said there is a sound business case or serious business justification for using and supporting SMS – and only 17% had seen any increase in business SMS over the past 6 months. This is in complete contrast to instant messaging (IM) where 52% of respondents had identified a sound business case and 33% had seen an increase in IM traffic. Turning to LinkedIn, readers were divided equally, with 50% seeing and 50% unable to see a business case. Actual usage is also on the up, with 69% reporting an increase in usage.

Finally, we come to the new kid on the block – Twitter – with a massive 93.1% of readers saying they could see no serious business case for ‘tweets’. However this has not halted a 14% increase in twittering over the past 6 months.

Still on the subject of Twitter, we are collecting anecdotal evidence about its usage. According to a business development manager at a telecoms supplier we spoke to ”Twitter is one of those things that looks completely pointless until you actually start doing it. We use it to pick up advance notice of customer service complaints, so we can react proactively.”
• The latest legal world twitterers we’ve identified are Saturn27, who are just experimenting with the medium, and Scottish law firm Inksters, who believe they are the first Scottish firm on Twitter.
http://twitter.com/saturn27
http://twitter.com/inksters
   
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The Backpage

Bring on the Marathon men
Last month it was David Thorpe of Aderant announcing plans to run in the London Marathon on April 26th. This month we’ve got four more roadrunners preparing to do battle with blisters and cramp. They are Mark Garnish, the business development director of Tikit TFB – and a veteran of the Great North Run. Shoosmiths’ IS director David Bason who is hoping to raise money for Shelter. And the dynamic duo of Stuart Cowell and Paul Smith from the IT department at Davies Arnold Cooper, who will be taking part in their third consecutive London Marathon.
You can support all their charitable causes by visiting
www.justgiving.com/garnish
www.justgiving.com/davidbason
www.justgiving.com/dacpain

Insider editor doing his one man show
We don’t like to encourage him, as it makes him conceited but Insider editor Charles Christian is premiering his new one-man show at the Brighton Fringe Festival on 5th May. Called Tales from the Digital Slow Lane, it is a series of stories about growing up in the 1960s and wondering what to do about the bomb beneath his bed. It starts at 6:00pm, tickets cost £8 and are available on 08444 771000 or online at www.fletchatstandrews.com

It was 20 years ago today...
We’re breaking with tradition today to report it was 20 years ago, in March 1989 while at CERN, that Tim (now Sir Tim) Berners-Lee first wrote a proposal for a ‘hypertext’ information management system involving URLs that he called the ‘WorldWideWeb’. Four years later in 1993, CERN announced that the WWW would be available free of charge to anyone and that same year saw the launch of the first graphical web browser Mosaic (later Netscape and now effectively Firefox). 1993 also saw Yorkshire computer scientist Jonathon Fletcher invent the web’s first search engine. Called JumpStation, it followed a similar approach to Google today. But, unlike Google’s founders, Fletcher, a postgrad at the University of Stirling, was unable to secure any financial backing for his search engine and in 1994 he discontinued work on JumpStation.
   
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The Insider web site

For the latest legal IT news, jobs, events and information, visit the Insider web site - www.legaltechnology.com, described by The Times newspaper as "the definitive online resource for legal technology information". And don't forget our breaking news blog The Orange Rag.
 
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People & places
 
DPL rebrands
Document assembly and wills & trusts systems supplier Documents Plus Ltd has rebranded as DPL Professional. The company also has a new website.
www.dplprofessionalsolutions.com

Bryant-Hunt joins Saturn27 UK
Visualfiles and Solcase case management systems implementer James Bryant-Hunt, most recently with Bournemouth-based Lester Aldridge, has joined the consulting team at Saturn27. Saturn27 is a LexisNexis partner.

Copitrak boosts UK operations
Copitrak Systems has appointed Damian Jeal to the newly created post of operations & business development director. Jeal, a long-serving Copitrak staffer and previously the professional services director, will effectively head up the London office, reporting to global MD Nicholas Child.

All change at AlphaLaw
Following its recent acquisition by IRIS, Simon Meehan has left AlphaLaw. Brian Welsh has taken over as general manager.

New appointments at LDM
Litigation support services supplier LDM Global has made two new senior management appointments. Steve Couling has been appointed head of global sales. Before joining LDM, he was the UK sales Manager for Toshiba’s B2B PC division. And, Alan Watkins, previously with Oxford Community Internet, has joined LDM as head of technology consulting.

Lightspeed has relocated
Lightspeed Systems Europe has moved to new offices at Whitegates, Alexander Lane, Shenfield, Essex CM15 8QF. The phone number is 01277 240630.

Simmans joins Inpractice team
Andrew Simmans, one of the most highly rated independent IT consultants working in the UK legal market today, has joined the Inpractice UK consultancy. Simmans’ specialist expertise includes Microsoft Sharepoint and systems integration, including helping firms pull together disparate legacy systems. Simmans also developed the Office Practice utility (see Insider 192) which a number of firms used to provide an alternative Word or Outlook interface to Axxia’s old proprietary interface. Other members of Inpractice UK now include founder Allan Carton, Bill Kirby and Richard Blasdale.
www.inpractice.co.uk

Orlando Milford joins Interaction team
Orlando Milford has joined LexisNexis as the director of professional services for the Interaction CRM product. Reporting directly to Daniel Von Weihe in the London office, Milford will be responsible for building the professional services business and oversee the delivery of Interaction-based solutions. For the past decade, Milford has been with the law firm Ashurst, including an eight year stint as head of applications development.
 
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Digital dictation news in brief
 
Philips announce new wireless and Blackberry options
Philips has announced details of a new Bluetooth wireless version of its SpeechMike dictation microphone. Called the SpeechMike Air, it has all the functionality of the widely used SpeechMike, including the ability to control a PC – but without the constraints of a cable.

Philips manager Wolfgang Spannlang said the new device had been under development for a long time (Philips first looked at wireless 10 years ago) and was only being launched now because the company had overcome the problems with Bluetooth pairing, data buffering, power consumption (upto 8 hours on one battery charge) and what happens when a user moves out of range (the Speech Mike Air has a range of 10 metres) that other wireless mike devices had struggled with in the past. SpeechMike Air, which comes in two versions – the push-button Pro and the traditional slider-switch Classic – will be available from this autumn, price circa £400.
• Philips has also released version 1.2 of its SpeechExec for Blackberry DDS product. New features include enhanced server and connectivity functionality, as well as an imprved insert mode.

Merged firm standardises on nFlow v5.0
The recently merged firm of Cullimore Dutton (previously Birch Cullimore and Mason & Moore Dutton) has upgraded and standardised on nFlow’s new v5.0 product, with 53 staff now using the Microsoft .NET-based digital dictation system. IT manager Stephen Roberts said because the merged firm is split between two locations, one of the attractions of the nFlow system is that it does not require any client-side configuration. Instead, all user device and hardware driver configuration can be managed centrally from the server. Birch Cullimore previously used nFlow v4.0 and the merged firm plans to integrate nFlow DDS with its IRIS Law Business case management software.

Bighand unveil plans for 2009 conference
Bighand has announced plans for its fourth annual EMEA user conference, which will take place on 5th November 2009 at Vinopolis (London SE1). Gold sponsors include Research In Motion, Olympus, Grundig and exhibitors to date include Accuro, Global Secretarial and Voicepath. Attendance at the conference and after-party is free for Bighand clients, with over 150 delegates expected to attend. To register as a delegate, or for more information about sponsorship or exhibiting, please email jo.beckwith@bighand.com
  
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New product launches
 
Legal Inc in Clearwell deal
Litigation support services provider Legal Inc has obtained the exclusive UK rights to host Clearwell Systems’ highly rated
e-disclosure platform. The Clearwell system (which it is claimed can reduce processing costs by up to 80%) was one of the standout products at this year’s Legal Tech New York. To arrange a demo of the software contact Nick Pollard at nick.pollard@legalinc.co.uk

More MDA Searchflow launches
MDA Searchflow has added two more offerings to its product portfolio. The first is an electronic land referencing service, that allows conveyancers to overlay and store title documents against a map, to provide a clear visual representation of the full extent of property ownership, including gaps, ransom strips and other potentially problematic issues. The second offering is a new, easy-to-order range of legal indemnity insurance from TitleSolv, CLS, First Title and Norwich Union/Aviva.
www.searchflow.co.uk

Eclipse tackles consumer credit litigation
Eclipse Legal Systems has launched a new case management module aimed at the rapidly expanding consumer credit litigation market. The new module enables firms to manage ‘payment protection insurance’ (PPI) cases for consumers who believe they have been missold insurance on mortgages, loans and credit cards. Eclipse sales director Russell Thomson said the module was a logical extension to the company’s Proclaim case management software, which was already widely used to manage endowment misselling and excessive bank charges claims.

Kroll Ontrack adds early case assessment
Kroll Ontrack has launched the Ontrack Inview Analysis Module, an early case assessment tool designed to help legal teams streamline e-disclosure by providing early visibility into case data before any data processing and review begins. Kroll say Ontrack Inview, which is available from this month, is a timely product as in times of shrinking budgets, the early case assessment features offer potential efficiency gains and expense reductions.

ISO launches claims assessment service
Insurance Services Office, a provider of personal injury claims services in the UK, has launched a personal injury claims assessment service (PICAS) designed to digitise the entire claims process, with both insurance companies and law firms being able to share and exchange data on such things as medical reports from referring doctors. ISO say a pilot, involving three insurers and two RTA personal injury claims firms – Parabis and Cogent Solicitors – demonstrated a reduction in the lifecycle of low-value personal injury claims, from about 290 days to less than 140 days.
www.iso.com

‘Repair & upgrade’ – not ‘new & dispose’
Given the state of the economy, with organisations trying to utilise existing equipment rather than buy new, Azabia Business Services (0844 478 0035) which specialises in IT support services for smaller businesses, is now offering a ‘repair and upgrade’ rather than ‘new and dispose’ approach to IT hardware and telecoms equipment.
www.azabia.co.uk
 
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New wins
 
Sapphire shines for Bedell
The Jersey-based legal and fiduciary group Bedell has awarded the security consultancy Sapphire a contract to test and ‘significantly strengthen’ the firm’s external-facing security systems, so as to be able to demonstrate to clients and prospects that it has adopted a best practice approach to network security. The project includes implementing more secure firewalls and authentication for remote access, based on Microsoft’s Intelligent Application Gateway.
www.sapphire.net

New draft billing goes into Wragges
Wragge & Co has taken delivery of a new draft billing system. Called PreBill Manager and developed by US software developers Randy Steere LLC, the system was ordered in December, installed by Saturn27 at the end of January, and rolled out firmwide by late February. The new system, which runs in conjunction with Wragge & Co’s Aderant PMS, replaces an earlier report and paper based process that utilised a combination of Business Objects and Crystal Reports together with fee earner matter management and frequently manually amended billing guide reports.

FFW to save on print
Field Fisher Waterhouse has appointed Right Document Solutions (020 7466 4700) to deploy 40+ Ricoh MFDs and printroom systems, along with the latest eCopy scan management and Equitrac Professional cost recovery and print management software to improve the tracking and recharging of print costs.
www.right-group.com

Thomas Eggar say goodbye to standalone fax machines
Thomas Eggar LLP has said goodbye to the last of its traditional fax machines and switched over to a RightFax fax management system integrated with Outlook to permit sending and receiving of faxes straight from the desktop.

Three more firms select SOS Connect
Three more firms have selected Connect integrated case and practice management systems from SOS. The three are Thorne Segar Solicitors in Minehead; new London start-up Cooke Young & Keidan – who were up and running with the software two days after the hardware and networking were installed; and 40 user Chebsey & Co in Beaconsfield who have swapped out an old Lawbyte system.

Four more firms select TFB Partner for Windows
Four more firms have selected the Partner for Windows system from TFB to provide their case and practice management functionality. They are HJ Legal in Surrey, which operates in the oil and gas sector; Goldman Law, also in Surrey; Barnet Family Law in Hertfordshire; and new start-up Appleby & Co in Scarborough, who are specialising in wills and probate work.

Upgrade time for IRIS customers
Elmhirst Parker LLP (newly created by the merger of Parker March and Elmhirst Solicitors) has selected IRIS Law Enterprise as its new case and practice management systems platform. Parker March were long-time IRIS (Videss) Legal Office users, while Elmhirsts ran SOS. Another long-time Videss site – Ison Harrison, which has over 140 staff – has also announced plans to upgrade to IRIS Law Enterprise. In two other IRIS deals, Dover-based Mowll & Mowll is upgrading to IRIS Law Business – the firm is a long-time IRIS (Mountain) Foxpro user. And, Howells in Yorkshire has bought the IRIS Meridian Law Connected RAGFS (Revised Advocates Graduated Fee Scheme) application as a hosted services solution to support its legal aid billing in the post-Carter environment.
 
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EMEA news in brief
 
Morningstar implement two DMS sites
Morningstar Systems has implemented Interwoven Worksite DMS projects at two more professional services organisations in the Benelux region. The two are the Belgian accountancy firm Vandelanotte and the Dutch law firm Boels Zanders. Both firms said the need to manage increased volumes of email traffic, along with their attached PDF and Word documents, was a key factor in opting for document management systems now.

Dutch law firm Van Doorne NV has completed a firm-wide rollout of Bighand digital dictation. The project, which was handled by Morningstar Systems, included rolling out Bighand’s Blackberry and Citrix applications, as well as an integration with the firm’s Interwoven Worksite DMS.
www.morningstarsystems.nl
 
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Contact us

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