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Top 10 in this issue of Legal Technology
Insider:
1. Second
summer of speech recognition?
2. June's big deals
3. June's big launch: ContractExpress from Business Integrity
4. Leuw takes the helm at IRIS Legal
5. Elite say now we go global
6. Law Society says goodbye to its guid
7. Case Study #1 - DAC wanting to select future-proof storage and DR
8. Case Study #2 - Eversheds cut costs and waste with printroom revamp
9. New wins
10. The Backpage
Or log in to read this issue online: www.legaltechnology.com/latest
> Headline stories
> Other stories
> People & places
> Digital dictation news in brief
> New product launches
> European news
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Regulars
Useful links
> Legal Technology
web site
> Contact us
>
Jobs
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Latest events
> The Orange Rag
blog
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All about the Insider
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Headline
stories
Second summer of speech recognition?
At Tikit’s recent Word Day event, Bighand gave a demonstration of
speech recognition integrated with its digital dictation workflow system
that was so impressive it prompted a spontaneous round of applause from
the audience of IT managers, trainers and directors. Of course it’s
true the latest iteration of the market leading Dragon NaturallySpeaking
10 speech recognition software from Nuance is streets ahead of what we’ve
seen in the past. And, it seems pretty likely all the major DDS vendors
will be offering some form of desktop and/or server based speech recognition
with the next releases of their digital dictation systems. But, does this
mean the long awaited (and some people have been waiting for nearly 15
years) surge in speech recognition use is just around the corner?
The answer unfortunately is ‘not unless the price
is right’ for the cost of speech recognition remains a stumbling
block, with a single user Pro version of Dragon 10 costing around £550
and even volume server licences averaging around £350 a seat. We
asked some law firm IT directors for their views on pricing and their
response was even £350 a seat was still about £260 more than
they’d be prepared to pay in the current economic climate. Along
with the recession, an added factor here is that in comparison with digital
dictation software (where there are currently some excellent bargains
to be had when deals go out to competitive tender) speech recognition
is unattractively expensive. It remains to be seen if Nuance will revise
its pricing to appeal to a broader market but in the meantime there is
growing interest in Microsoft. It already offers Windows speech recognition
free as part of Vista and further enhancements are expected with the upcoming
Windows 7 release.
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June's
big deals
Aderant
adds two more UK sites
Aderant last week announced that UK top 30 firm Hill Dickinson LLP had
selected Aderant Expert to replace its legacy Axxia practice management
system. The firm will implement Aderant across its four UK locations as
well as its international offices in Greece and Singapore. “We needed
a truly global, next-generation business management system that could
help us take our firm to the next level,” said Hill Dickinson director
of IT & Operations Keith Feeny. “After examining many of the
options on the market, we believe that Aderant Expert is the right solution
we will need over the coming decade.”
• Aderant’s second win this month was at Hill Hofstetter LLP,
which was formed in January this year when the former Birmingham office
of Reed Smith (the firm are Elite users) split from its parent.
Firms sign
up for Open Text email filing
Open Text reports a ‘slew of new wins’ for its Email Filing
(eDOCS Edition) product, including Travers Smith, Farrer & Co, Shoosmiths,
Lovells, McCann FitzGerald and Dundas & Wilson. Open Text Email Filing
can be implemented in less than a week and the system offers different
modules including auto and bulk filers, as well as an ‘intelligent’
filing assistant.
SOS wins AIM/Peapod
swap-out
As part of a major IT restructuring, 32-user Windeatts Solicitors in South
Devon has selected SOS Connect to replace its legacy AIM system in Totnes
and the Peapod system at its Kingsbridge office.
• To consolidate their separate branch systems, long-time SOS users
Heppenstalls have upgraded to SOS Connect.
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June's
big launch: ContractExpress from Business Integrity
Business Integrity has launched ContractExpress for Microsoft Sharepoint,
a new system designed to help organisations create and manage (including
end of life archiving) business contracts. Business Integrity claim this
is a ‘legally safe’ self-service contract creation system
that ‘enables business users, rather than lawyers or contract managers,
to generate legal agreements in minutes rather than days or weeks’.
The National Grid is one of the first organisations to have deployed the
new system.
www.business-integrity.com
Leuw takes the helm at IRIS Legal
More senior managament changes at IRIS Legal, where Tony Bromfield resigned
as managing director, just over six months after taking over the hot seat
from Arlene Adams. IRIS Group chief executive Martin Leuw has taken on
the interim management role as MD until a successor is found. IRIS has
also recruited Greg Adams, previously with Borland Software, as its new
Legal Division sales director. Martin Leuw has also issued a statement
to legal market users, stressing that the division is successful, generating
total revenues of £22.2 million in the year to 30th April 2009,
with pre-tax profits of £3 million. He adds that during this period,
the legal division attracted 282 new customers (148 Laserforms, the other
134 case/PMS) and is now investing ‘in excess of 16% of revenues’
in R&D.
On the product front,
Leuw admits that 12 months ago there were stability problems with the
IRIS Law Business product (ILB – based on the Mountain system) but
says these have been resolved and additional functionality is being added
to ILB ‘to bridge the gap’ with the IRIS Law Enterprise product
(ILE – based on the Videss system). The next developments with ILE
– the post 1.9 roadmap – will be disclosed at the ILUA user
conference in October.
• You can find the full statement on the Orange Rag blog for 18th
June at www.theorangerag.com
• In other IRIS Legal news, the company has also acquired the support
contracts of AM Systems, who were the reseller for AlphaLaw software in
Northern Ireland.
Elite say now we go global
With the white knuckle ride of the Allen & Overy implementation now
safely under its belt, Elite’s UK/EMEA senior director for client
services Patrick Hurley told the Insider the company could afford to look
ahead as a global supplier of global practice management systems. This
includes not only a new focus on product functionality but also on the
operational structure of the company, to get away from the old Americas
and the ‘rest of the world’ attitude the company had in the
past. Reflecting this, Elite will be holding a mini user conference in
London this autumn (date still to be finalised) for UK firms unable to
attend this month’s annual user conference in San Diego.
• In other Elite news, DLA Piper this month went live with its rollout
of Elite Enterprise across its Central and Eastern European offices. And,
despite the fact Microsoft has now end-of-lifed its FRx reporting system,
Elite will continue to support users until May 2010.
Law Society bids guide goodbye
Following reports first published on the Insider’s Orange Rag blog
at the beginning of April, Peter Garner of the English Law Society finally
confirmed last Friday that the current 2009 edition of the Society’s
Software Solutions Guide would be the last for the foreseeable future.
Garner writes “As you are all well aware the planning for the Software
Solutions Guide is normally in full swing by this point in the year. I
know there have been rumours abound (sic) about the potential of not running
the Guide for 2010 but this is the first formal word on the situation.
I’m sorry to have to inform you that there will not be a Software
Solutions Guide for 2010. The economic slow down along side the considerable
reduction in the number of vendors eligible to enter the Guide means that
the Guide is no longer viable in its current guise. I hope it will be
possible to re-work the Guide as a whole, broaden its remit and freshen
its approach in order to deliver an ongoing service to the legal profession.
However this is not a possibility for 2009/10 as I’m yet to identify
what and how.”
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Case
Study #1: DAC wanting to select future-proof storage
Davies Arnold Cooper’s existing fibre channel SAN provided basic
backup, file, print and failover but it was only protecting specific parts
of their environment, and was proving to be costly, restrictive to upgrade
and having an impact on day-to-day business due to performance issues
and restrictions. DAC’s head of IT Stuart Cowell wanted to invest
in a more robust and cost effective solution that would ensure the firm’s
systems were fully protected with increased operational availability,
combined with the flexibility to grow in the future but without the worry
of large financial outlay.
The main project objectives
were to find an intelligent failover solution that would guarantee the
integrity of the data stored on it, protect the data from loss should
the platform suffer any sort of outage (from either system failure or
natural disaster) and provide minimal disruption to service in the event
of any disaster. “We required a virtualised, replicated disaster
recovery solution that would support our business critical applications.
We wanted an intuitive and easy to use solution that would allow us to
cost effectively upgrade as our capacity increased, whilst ensuring that
we were able to operate and access our data at all times” said Cowell.
“The investment made by the firm needed to ensure we future proofed
our storage and virtualisation environment allowing us to continue to
reduce our physical server load and virtualise our core business systems.”
To assist with the
project DAC used storage experts Skye Consult. Following a review of current
systems, Skye recommended a combination of VMware High Availability technologies
(such as VMotion, DRS and HA) coupled with Dell EqualLogic PS Series of
iSCSI storage arrays, which leverage existing IP based LANs and WANs without
requiring any add-on software or staff training. The PS Series’
auto-replication capability provides point-in-time periodic replication
to remote sites. This method, easy to set up and operate, delivers multiple
restore points and application-consistent snapshots and clones that can
be restored in minutes. Skye also recommended creating a storage stack
for DAC’s environment with a mixture of SAS and SATA technologies
at their live site, and a large capacity SATA array situated at the DR
site. At the live site a Dell EqualLogic PS5000XV array was implemented,
with 16x146GB 15k SAS drives, the fastest array available, giving DAC
maximum performance for their business critical transactional data.
In addition to the
PS5000XV a further Dell PS5000X was added to the solution with 16x400GB
10k SAS drives, giving DAC a second tier of fast, high capacity disk,
set to run at optimum performance. Finally, at the live site a Dell EqualLogic
PS5000E SATA array was added. This SATA array will handle DAC’s
archive and backup data. It has also increased the solutions future scalability,
offering double the amount of storage of the SAS arrays combined.
By using the VMotion
for storage feature of VMware ESX 3.5, Skye quickly migrated the VMFS
volumes from the existing fibre channel solution to the new Equallogic
SAN, by utilising the fast data transfer capabilities of both technologies
ensured minimal disturbance to the existing infrastructure” With
the SAS & SATA storage stack now running at the live site, a further
PS5000E array was added at DAC’s remote DR site. Dell EqualLogic’s
inclusive out-of-the-box auto replication software allows the arrays at
each site to be mirrored, eliminating single point failure and providing
complete protection of DAC’s critical data. The project also gives
DAC inclusive software licences for replication, thin provisioning and
snap-shotting.
“It was a primary
driver for us that the solution we invested in was able to grow dynamically
without impacting our ability to work. With the Dell EqualLogic, we are
now able to add additional capacity on the fly, if we choose to, in the
middle of the working day, without any impact on our ability to conduct
our business. The PS Series from Dell EqualLogic stood out as a clear
choice due to its intuitive GUI, and its low total cost of ownership.
The money we saved by moving away from fibre channel has allowed us to
free up budget for other pressing projects. Following our review of different
technologies and suppliers, Skye stood out as a unique player in the storage
market and were the first to raise our awareness of the capabilities of
Dell EqualLogic and the iSCSI environment,” adds Cowell.
www.skye-consult.com
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Case
Study #2: Eversheds cuts costs and waste with printroom revamp
The sheer scale of Eversheds’ printroom operations creates challenges
when it comes to managing the cost. A project led by the firm’s
head of mobility & office IT Paul Carris found the incumbent print
infrastructure was made up of devices from a range of suppliers. “Virtually
every office,” says Carris, “had developed its facilities
independently, which meant that there was no central strategy to enable
individual offices to learn from best practice, no pooled purchasing power
and it was also difficult to identify how many and what type of devices
were being used.” The huge array of suppliers also meant there was
no enterprise-wide consistency in terms of service level agreements. A
decision was therefore taken to address these problems by selecting a
single strategic print partner to supply the print infrastructure for
all of Eversheds’ UK offices.
Carris led his team through an extensive tender process to find a suitable
supplier. Ricoh, Canon and Pitney Bowes all tendered before Ricoh’s
proposal, developed in conjunction with Equitrac, was selected. “From
a technological perspective, the breadth of Ricoh’s hardware offering
and its partnership with Equitrac meant it was ideally placed to support
our strategy. We needed to know the most appropriate device would be used
to produce each print job and that we would have full visibility of the
associated costs. Ricoh was also the only supplier to offer to put its
staff in our offices at all times. This dramatically reduces the number
of problems we encounter and the time machines are out of service, compared
with traditional support agreements,” said Carris.
Another factor was Ricoh’s environmental credentials. Eversheds
has gone to great lengths to improve its ‘green’ capabilities
and is now recycling 70% of its total waste and has reduced energy usage
by 10% in line with its sustainability strategy – so it was imperative
the successful supplier would uphold the same environmental values. Ricoh’s
ISO14001 and Carbon Trust accreditations were seen as a key indicator
of its long-term green activities and, as Eversheds is working towards
the ISO standard, this helped to cement the deal. Ricoh also offered advice
on how Eversheds could reduce paper wastage, by introducing duplex as
standard, testing A5 printing and encouraging staff to ‘think before
they print’.
Adopting the new print
infrastructure has enabled the firm to improve its operations and services
in a number of ways. The integration of Equitrac software with Ricoh’s
hardware means the firm gains a clearer picture of its print systems and
costs, as well as to more accurately attribute rechargeable costs to clients
in each of its business areas.
Ricoh has also helped address subsequent business requirements as they
emerge. For example, it was involved in supporting Carris and his team
through Eversheds’ recent re-location to Wood Street, London. And,
there are already several projects in the pipeline. As part of Eversheds’
environmental commitment, Carris and his team are looking at how to cut
the volume of paper consumed and are developing plans to create a paperless
office, facilitated by Ricoh’s scan-to-file functionality.
“Eversheds is
committed to increasing the level of mobility and security of the documents
it prints – to the benefit of both staff and our clients alike,”
adds Carris. “Follow-you-printing will allow staff to send a job
to print in one office and securely unlock the job when they arrive at
another of our locations. Not only will this mean they don’t have
to physically carry documents from one place to another, it will also
increase the security of those documents by taking them out of transit.
Ricoh’s support and expertise has been outstanding. We have already
reduced print costs by 10% per annum which is fantastic.”
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New
wins
Eversheds
select eBillingHub
Eversheds LLP has selected eBillingHub to support its electronic billing
activities. The firm will run the system in conjunction with its Elite
PMS.
Manches is
latest Microsystems win
Manches LLP has become the latest firm to purchase Microsystems software
for its document production environment.
100 use Lees
go with Proclaim
Lees Solicitors LLP, which employs 100+ staff across its offices on Merseyside,
has selected Proclaim from Eclipse Legal Systems as its new accounts,
case and practice management systems platform.
Three new
TFB wins
TFB has three new wins for its Partner for Windows software with: debt
recovery specialist Jennings Law, Bayleys Law in Manchester, which is
swapping out SOS, and Crellins Carter in Surrey, which is replacing a
custom system. Crellins is also installing email and PDF management.
Two more firms
deploy DTE Axiom
Two more law firms – Bond Pearce and Stephenson Harwood –
have completed firm-wide deployments of DTE Axiom time recording systems
supplied by Phoenix Business Solutions and integrated with the firms’
Elite and Aderant systems.
Farrer &
Co in three year telcoms deal
After using telecoms consultancy Source 8 in the selection, Farrer &
Co has awarded SpiriTel a three year contract to migrate all voice calls
to a SIP (session initiation protocol) platform, which is expected to
save around 55% on call charges.
e-know.net
celebrates virtual engagement
Managed service provider e-know.net has signed up family law specialists
Woolley & Co – which describes itself as a virtual law firm
– as a new customer. The firm went live earlier this month with
e-know.net delivering Microsoft Office 2007 and Exchange, Adobe Acrobat
IRIS Laserform electronic forms, Sage Accounts and SmartStamp plus SOS
Business and SOS Family on a fully hosted basis.
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The
Backpage
Dodging tacks
in the name of charity
Congratulations to Fiona Hamilton, the professional services manager at
IRIS Meridian Law’s Fleet Street
office, who last month completed in the Etape Caledonia cycling event
across the hills and lakes of Perthshire. Not only did she complete the
81 mile course for the second year running, knocking about an hour off
her 2008 time and raising £425 for Macmillan Cancer Support in the
process, but she also had to contend with sabotage when part of the course
was littered with tyre puncturing tacks spread by protesters complaining
the road had been closed without their consent. Fortunately for Fiona,
she was able to avoid the tacks – though the event was halted for
a couple of hours so the course could be made safe again.
The Insider
reboots next month
Starting with next month’s issue of the Insider (July), we are moving
to new print and distribution processes, which will mean that, for the
first time, advertisements in the print edition will be able to be reproduced
in full colour. We will also no longer be producing the HTML edition as
most of our subscribers now prefer the PDF version.
Insider editor
parting the fringe again
If you caught Insider editor Charles Christian doing his surprise stand-up
performance at the recent Tikit Word Day in London and want to hear more,
then make a date for the Buxton Fringe Festival in July. Starting a three
day run on Sunday 12th, Christian is performing his new one man storytelling
show The Boy with the Bomb beneath his Bed at the Underground Venues beneath
the Old Hall Hotel in Buxton town centre. Don’t worry, each show
only lasts for 60 minutes!
www.undergroundvenues.co.uk
3Kites is
three
Congratulations to Paul Longhurst, Melanie Farquharson and Tony Pullman
of the 3Kites consultancy which this month celebrates its third birthday.
Longhurst says during this time, 3Kites worked for more than 20 organisations,
including winning four new customers in the last quarter.
www.3kites.com
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Other
stories
Elliott
takes on role at Legastat
Josef Elliott, the managing director of records management specialists
Oyster IMS, has taken a non-executive director position with Legastat
Ltd, the print, copy and scan bureau based behind the Law Courts in Carey
Street. His brief is to raise Legastat’s profile in the lit support,
e-discovery and document management fields. The first moves have been
to sign partnership deals with US-based Encore Discovery for hosted litigation
support and Irish firm Softco for software-as-a-service (SaaS) document
management.
DPS roll out new products
DPS Software has rolled out three new add-ons for users of its accounts
and case management software. The three are... A disbursement control
module for criminal practitioners to automatically complete expenses claims
and add them to the appropriate CDS claim forms. A reports scheduler,
to ensure specified activity within a firm can be regularly monitored
without having to individually chase fee earners and department heads
for progress updates. And, an AGFS billing module, so solicitors who have
been granted rights of advocacy can have their legal aid bills produced
quickly and easily within the DPS solicitors accounts system. One of the
first firms to implement the AGFS billing module was Wood Green, London-based
criminal practice Stuart Miller & Co.
www.dpssoftware.co.uk
PISCES launch new HIP workgroup
PISCES has launched a new workgroup – called HIP v2.0 – to
address the issues that will arise from the new HIP regulations. These
mean HIP providers will have to incorporate a Property Information Questionnaire,
an EPC (or predicted energy assessment) and sustainability information
for new homes within the Home Information Packs they deliver to estate
agents. To participate in the new HIP v2.0 workgroup, you need to be a
member of PISCES. For more information call Monika Horner on 0191 230
8094 or register via the website.
www.pisces.co.uk
Management changes at Tikit
The last month saw Tikit make two senior management appointments. Former
Thomson Elite international vice president (and before that Keystone Solutions
founder) Kaye Sycamore, has been appointed Tikit director of sales &
marketing. TFB managing director (TFB is now part of the Tikit group)
Simon Hill has been appointed director of professional services.
Harding joins Knowhow Consulting
Mark Harding, most recently with Solcara and before that Bighand, has
joined Tony Foy’s Knowhow Consulting as the company’s new
head of sales & marketing. Harding says the consultancy, which has
moved on from just KM to include broader DMS and information management
work, is currently involved in pilot projects using DocsCorp PDF tools,
Open Text, Microsoft Sharepoint and Wertheim Global Solutions (developers
of specialist utilities for Open Text) with a number of law firms and
patent attorneys.
www.knowhowconsulting.co.uk
+ www.wertheimglobal.com
IRIS users association launched
Following the amalgamation of the AIM Computer Users Association and the
Videss User Group, last week saw the formal launch of the IRIS Legal Users
Association. ILUA is an independent, voluntary, self-funding organisation
and is also opening its doors to users of other IRIS Legal software systems.
The first chairman is Steve Williams of Ashton Morton Slack, a former
ACUA chair, and non-practising solicitor Peter Wetherman will be ILUA’s
secretary. For details email secretary@ilua.co.uk
or visit www.ilua.co.uk
More Bar chambers opt for hosted solutions
Long-time Meridian Law users Godolphin Chambers in Cornwall have switched
over to Meridian Law Hosted services, as an alternative to the set managing
its IT operations internally. Senior clerk Andrea Hellings said along
with reducing the pressure on an already stretched clerking team, migrating
to a hosted solution gave the set access to services they’d previously
lacked including remote working, better support services, the latest version
of Microsoft Office and improved security.
• Stuart Hall, senior clerk at Northampton Chambers, says since
migrating from Meridian Law LAN to Meridian Law Hosted last year, it has
become easier to adhere to the Bar Council’s BarMark practice management
quality standard as “all our internal IT related issues are directed
straight through to the IRIS technical team, who guarantee quality assurance
as they work on tight SLAs.”
www.iris.co.uk/meridianlaw
Travelex get legal focus
Although the name Travelex is probably most widely associated with airport
bureau-de-change operations, the company also has a commercial arm offering
a range of international payments processing services that help businesses,
including over 500 law firms, handle international payment both more efficiently
and considerably cheaper than traditional banks with their charges and
slow turnaround times. As part of a strategy to increase its profile in
the legal sector, Travelex has appointed Graeme Ventris (07884 313847)
as its new legal sector business development manager.
www.travelexbusiness.com/uk
It
was 10 years ago today...
Stories reported in the June 1999 Insider included news that... Microsoft
was launching Office 2000 in the UK. This was the first version to include
XML and had a list price of £420 for the Pro edition. The launch
prompted US IT analysts Forrester Research to predict XML would “take
off over the next three years” and replace PDF as the portable file
format standard for documents. Solicitec, now part of the Lexis empire,
reported its trading year to June 1999 was its best ever with a turnover
of £5million and pre-tax profits up 200% to £750k. And, exhibitors
who had attended that month’s SOLEX show at the Barbican were complaining
it was the most poorly attended event in recent years. “A complete
disaster” and “leads down by 60%” were just some of
the comments. The event’s new owners Imark said the problems were
largely inherited from the show’s former owners Truemist.
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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
A consultancy formerly known as Prince
Legal sector outsourcing and offshoring specialist Prince OMC has renamed
itself OMC Partners. Ian Prince of OMC said changes in the outsourcing
world plus the consultancy’s own expansion “meant it was time
to rethink how we presented ourselves to the world.”
• In a related development, OMC has appointed David Ellis as a new
partner in the firm. Ellis, who was previously at Cap Gemini and an associate
partner at PwC, has 10 years’ experience of the outsourcing and
offshoring industry. OMC partner Jack Diggles said they were expanding
the team in response to the growing interest they were seeing from both
law firms and inhouse counsel.
www.omc-partners.com
Jeff Hodges
leaving DataCert
After nearly 10 years with DataCert, most recently as VP Market Leadership
but probably best known in Europe for his time setting up EMEA operations,
Jeff Hodges is leaving DataCert “to pursue some new opportunities
and professional interests that have been presented to me”. He resigned
on June 1st but will remain to facilitate the transition until June 30th.
Hodges adds “Though I have not yet made my final decision, I plan
on staying within the legal community and expect to see many of you in
the marketplace.”
CCL Forensic
move home
Security investigation specialists CCL Forensics has moved from its Payton
House, Stratford address to new premises as Unit 36, Cygnet Court, Timothys
Bridge Road, Stratford-upon-Avon CV37 9NW.
www.ccl-forensics.com
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Digital dictation news in brief
Dictation
now available in the Cloud
We’ve heard of Software as a Service (SaaS) but next month nFlow
goes live with its new Cloud-based Dictation as a Service (DaaS) solution.
Called nFlowLive.com, this is a rich-client/service oriented architecture
application that also includes secure data backup, disaster recovery and
free online training. It will be available through a range of pricing
options, from per-minute dictation-based fees through to yearly contracts.
It will also support integration with 3rd party PMS, case and document
management systems and hardware from all the major vendors, including
Philips and Olympus.
SRC claim
largest UK Blackberry rollout
SRC last week announced that over the past three months it has rolled
out the Winscribe Blackberry digital dictation module to more than 450
users. This figure includes a 200-user rollout to one top 50 firm, which
is believed to be the largest single UK legal rollout to-date. Firms using
Winscribe Blackberry from SRC now include Beachcroft, Blaser Mills, Farleys,
Field Fisher Waterhouse, Forsters, Hugh James, Hill Hofstetter, Macfarlanes
and Pannone.
New Winscribe
DDS webinar with Charles Christian
Winscribe is hosting a live webinar in 10 days’ time on the topic
of the efficiency benefits to be gained from building digital dictation
and workflows into the document creation process. The webinar, which will
feature Insider editor Charles Christian as guest speaker and facilitator,
will also include a preview of Winscribe’s new version 4 DDS software.
The webinar takes place 12:30-1:30pm on Monday 6 July. To register email
events@winscribe.com
Hunters track
down DDS solution
Hunters Solicitors, which has offices in London and Northampton, has deployed
nFlow’s v5 all new Microsoft .NET based digital dictation system
to 74 users. The firm’s IT manager Theresa Fryer said nFlow was
selected over the competition for its suitability in a thin client environment,
including its support for server-based administration, so updates and
upgrades can be rolled out centrally within minutes without any need for
client-side configuration. The implementation also includes a web upload
portal that allows fee earners to remotely upload dictations into the
nFlow workflow from any PC without the need for drivers or installed software.
Firm launches
Euro document centre
Munich-based firm Norr Stiefenhofer Lutz, which now has offices across
Germany, Central and Eastern Europe (including Moscow) as well as in New
York, has deployed Philips SpeechExec Enterprise digital dictation system
as a key element of its new Document Centre. Launched in April this year,
the Document Centre provides a centralised document processing resource
to support the firm’s 300 fee earners and multi-site operations.
A growing number of lawyers at the firm are now also using Philips SpeechExec
for Blackberry option to support mobile and out-of-office dictation.
Southwark
roll out DDS over Citrix
The Legal Services Team at the London Borough of Southwark – one
of the largest inhouse legal departments in the London local government
sector – has rolled out Winscribe digital dictation, supplied and
implemented by SRC, to 80 users. Because the authority delivers its IT
services across a farm of 50 Citrix servers, one of the determining factors
was Citrix support. The authority’s IT manager Brendon Beggs said
compared with the competition, SRC/Winscribe “demonstrated a superior
Citrix solution” and understanding of thin client environments.
Winscribe also rated higher with its Blackberry functionality, which Beggs
described as “better thought out and clearer,” while SRC “offered
a better approach” to integration with legal team’s Axxia
DNA case management system.
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New product launches
Laserform
launch new IHT400 system
IRIS Laserform has launched its new IHT400 Full system for probate practitioners.
The system comprises all 25 of the recently introduced HMRC IHT400s, including
schedules, linked together as a single ‘intelligent’ form
for automatic data population and calculation. An information sheet is
available on the Laserform website.
www.iris.co.uk/laserform
Getting more
bangs for your bucks
Following a project with Scottish law firm Aberdein Considine (that optimised
the firm’s network performance so instead of having to upgrade,
they were only using 60% of their available bandwidth) InTechnology, in
conjunction with WAN optimisation specialists DBAM, has launched a free
‘intelligent network traffic management’ (INTM) audit service
to offer similar benefits to other firms. According to InTechnology’s
legal sector manager Mark Halpin “there’s always the risk
that certain applications may monopolise or poach bandwidth from others,
inflicting unwelcome degradation on other parts of the network. Simply
throwing more resources at a problem rarely works, particularly when you
can’t even be sure that it will fix the underlying issue. You have
to act on facts and the audit is there to provide the facts.” Halpin
can be reached at mark.halpin@intechnology.com
• InTechnology has published a new guide for law firms considering
migrating to IP telephony. Called Top 10 Tips for a Smooth Migration,
it can be downloaded free of charge from this address:
www.intechnology.co.uk/MainPage.aspx?ID=365
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European news
Dijkstra Voermans buy Epona CRM
Mid-size Dutch firm Dijkstra Voermans has selected Epona’s ContactManager
software as its new CRM system. Epona, who are planning to launch the
system into the UK later this year, say the selection process came down
to a run-off between Epona and CRM4Legal.
www.epona.com
Norwegian
firms select iManage
Two Norwegian law firms – Schjodt, one of the largest in the country,
and BA-HR, have selected Autonomy iManage Worksite as their new DMS platforms.
The systems are being implemented by Morningstar Systems (a subsidiary
of the European I.R.I.S Group) with a firm-wide rollout scheduled for
early 2010.
www.morningstarsystems.nl
• Remaining with I.R.I.S, the company has launched new versions
of its scanning software. This includes IRIS Capture Pro 9, with modules
capable of automatically scanning, sorting, indexing, capturing data from
and archiving all kinds of documents including invoices and forms.
www.irislink.com
Austrian e-gov agency
picks Open Text Austria’s Federal Computing Centre, which supports
the Ministry of Justice and has become the platform for the country’s
e-government initiatives, has standardised on Open Text’s ECM Suite
to handle content management. The AFCC (officially known as the Bundesrechenzentrum
GmbH) now handles 30 million documents annually and the Open Text system,
running in conjunction with the agency’s SAP applications, manages
more than 5 terabytes of information.
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