Lextek – Chicago Lawyer’s Tek Talk

Here’s some scoops from the vendors at the New York LegalTech Show out of the gate this morning:

IGC Announces Results of Redaction Survey at LegalTech NY ‘12

65% of respondents were law firms, over 25% still redacting manually,
86% preferred electronic redaction for professional appearance

SCOTTSDALE, AZ – January 30, 2012 – At LegalTech NY today, Informative Graphics Corporation (IGC) announces the results of its Redaction Survey, which aimed to benchmark user adoption and attitudes toward electronic redaction software. Nearly 65% of the survey respondents were from law firms, clearly demonstrating the importance and prevalence of redaction in the legal industry.

Over 25% of participants were still doing redaction manually, with markers or redaction tape, 32% were redacting electronically, and nearly 38% were using a combined approach with paper-based and software-driven redaction.

Of respondents that had electronic tools, 86.3% of them preferred electronic redaction for its professional look, while 79.5% preferred it because it saved them time. 70.4% of participants thought their office would benefit from electronic redaction because of its efficiency, environmental friendliness and its faster, more accurate completion of redaction projects.

Andy Lowe, IGC Product Manager for Redact-It, said, “We would like to thank everyone that participated in the Redaction Survey; the feedback we received on the usage and needs of electronic redaction users was very valuable. IGC strives to create quality products that are truly useful and this survey has given us insight into what is most important to electronic redaction users today.”

The survey results can be viewed on www.redact.com and at LegalTech New York ’12 at IGC’s booth (#2401).

For more information about Redact-It, visit www.redact.com.

MEETandCONFER.COM

www.meetandconfer.com

Booth: 1518

MEETandCONFER.COM is a patent-pending e-discovery software platform that guides attorneys, their clients, and opposing parties through the required “meet and confer” process. The software was launched August 2011. The company will introduce a new functionality opening day of LegalTech New York.  A Budget Projector module will be integrated into the existing software.  It will allow users of the MEETandCONFER.COM system to estimate the costs of their e-discovery requirements as they proceed through the meet and confer process.  The Budget Projector will provide a snapshot of the total costs that will be associated with ESI requests during the meet and confer. This will allow the parties to assess the proportionality of their projected e-discovery costs with the value of the damages that are being sought.

The use of the MEETandCONFER.COM system provides consistency, defensibility and cost-effectiveness to the handling of this crucial aspect of the e-discovery process.  MEETandCONFER.COM simplifies the “meet and confer” process by defining, structuring, and confirming all of the e-discovery steps that are required to cost-effectively comply with the legal requirements mandated by Rule 26(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, as well as similar state court rules. The MEETandCONFER.COM process not only assists attorneys and their opposing parties to agree on the content of relevant data to be collected within budgetary constraints; it also documents that the appropriate steps have been taken to insure that all relevant data is preserved to prevent spoliation.  This web-based technology is used by lawyers, litigation support professionals, discovery project managers, judges and other legal staff.

Biscom

www.biscom.com

Contacts: Charlie Magliato, legal practice director and Richard Orlando, executive vice president

Booth: 1516

Biscom, the leading supplier of secure document exchange for the legal industry, delivers advanced technology that enables users to send and receive large files easily and securely. Biscom has been selected by a growing number of AmLaw 200 law firms to resolve the security, compliance, and file attachment challenges of email and FTP. Since 1986, Biscom has been providing enterprise document delivery and workflow solutions for Fortune 1000 companies. Learn more at www.biscom.com/legal.

New product: Biscom iPad app

The Biscom Secure File Transfer iPad App delivers secure ad-hoc file transfer capabilities for lawyers and litigation support professionals on the go. The Biscom iPad App allows for secure, encrypted receipt, access and delivery of documents and files, reducing the risk of data breaches related to mobile activity. The Received Deliveries view displays all of the user’s received Biscom deliveries (stored on the Biscom server) in the left panel and allows access to a specific delivery in the right panel. Access to deliveries are SSL 128 encrypted. Files included in the delivery can be viewed and downloaded to the iPad. For added security, downloaded documents can be accessed and viewed offline only by the Biscom iPad App The Biscom iPad App allows the user to compose and send securely to multiple recipients. The delivery can include notification and secure messages and files that have been downloaded by the app.

Day One Keynote General Session Presentation: Ethical Business in a Global Economy: Preventing Corruption and Bribery

From 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. this morning. Prosecutors and corporations rank the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the UK Bribery Act and the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention as top compliance priorities. In this session, John Frank, Vice President, Deputy General Counsel and Chief-of-Staff at Microsoft Legal and Corporate Affairs, will discuss the challenges and opportunities of building effective compliance programs to prevent and detect corrupt payments in a global business. Creating solutions that combine technology, ethics, culture and business process requires new skills and new approaches that are essential to success in our global economy.

DG

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It’s that time of year again for the mahvelous LegalTech Show in NYC hosted by our friends at American Lawyer Media at the New York Hilton in Midtown.  It’s typically a very exciting show that features new product announcements.  Each year, someone tends to shine brightly – we’ll follow up and let you know over the course of the show who that will be.  I like the show because of the opportunity to network with other product developers, legal support vendors and legal publishing companies.  I also get to kibitz with some of the usual suspects who have been working in this industry for several years.  Here’s a peek at what you’ll see in the exhibit hall next week:

Business Intelligence Associates/BIA (booth#1301)
At LTNY next week, BIA (http://www.biaprotect.com) is announcing newly expanded features of its TotalDiscovery.com online data collection tool, which include the ability to initiate collections for Social Media:  Facebook, Twitter, Webmail, Apple systems and more.  At the show, NYC-based BIA will be demonstrating these new tools, which will be officially available in March 2012.

Also, BIA is sponsoring all all-star eDiscovery CLE session on Tues, 1/31 from 4-5pm in the Hilton’s Sutton Center on the 2^nd floor.  Moderated by Judge Andrew Peck and featuring lawyers/eDiscovery gurus Craig Ball and Ralph Losey, the discussion topics will cover the proposed new changes to the Federal Rules, Pippins v. KPMG, data preservation challenges, and the use of artificial intelligence technology to aid legal document review.

Index Engines (booth#2105)
Index Engines (http://www.indexengines.com) debuts major announcements at LTNY, including a new Forensic Archive product and a new version of its Octane Platform (Octane v.4.3).
Here are the details:

• New Octane Forensic Archive for Litigation Hold provides forensic-level archiving of email, ensuring accuracy and defensibility when collecting and preserving sensitive corporate records for litigation hold.
• Octane Version 4.3 includes new processing enhancements to preserve files and emails at a bit-level from MS Exchange and Lotus notes email, as well as indexing forensic images and evidence files at speeds reaching 1TB/hour using a single node.

Informative Graphics Corporation/IGC (booth#2401)
Arizona-based Informative Graphics Corporation (IGC) (http://www.infograph.com) has two major announcements at LegalTech NY.  First, the company announces upcoming release of Brava 7.1, the latest release of its viewing/collaboration/annotation software.  Brava®7.1 includes a new Changemark® Viewer app for the iPhone, which allows users to collaborate on documents even when they are away from the office.  The new version also adds collaboration tools for video.

Second, IGC releases the results of its recent Redaction Survey, which was designed to capture adoption and insight regarding the use of electronic redaction technology in the legal and other industries.  The results will be announced on Mon, Jan. 30^th at LTNY and will be posted at http://www.redact.com.

AccessData Group (Booth: #1303/1305)

AccessData Launching New Summation Product Line at LegalTech New York

Summation has been completely redesigned to create a new review experience and run on AccessData’s unified database and processing engine. It is a web-based platform with alternative browser support (Safari, Firefox) as well as an offline mobile mode.

Summation includes early case assessment capabilities (data ingestion, processing, culling, export with multiple load file generation options and first pass review) and final review features (search, annotation, redaction, production tools and transcript support) in one product. This integration means that users have the ability to move data from the ECA stage directly to final review without exporting or re-processing. However users can still easily export data to other platforms via a number of channels including a number of competitor load files (Concordance, Relativity, iCONECT, Introspect, Ringtail) and EDRM XML. All stakeholders from IT to in-house teams to outside counsel to geographically remote users can efficiently and securely collaborate in Summation’s single platform without iterative processing and importing cycles.

Summation offers its integrated feature set as reasonably priced subscription or perpetual licensing models with no throughput charges for processing, hosting or data export.

Summation comes in three versions which range from supporting small teams and matters to the largest of organizations and cases. There are no feature or functionality differences between versions. They all support both ECA and final review.

• Summation Solo is a single user version designed for small cases and academic settings.
• Summation Express supports small collaborative teams and small to medium sized cases.
• Summation Pro is built for unlimited team and case sizes and comes in two options depending on the amount of processing power an organization needs.

Levit & James (booth#518)
Legal software company Levit & James (http://www.levitjames.com) will be showing a Customer Technology Preview of Best Authority 3 at the show.  Best Authority 3 is not yet available, but will be released later this year.  Current and prospective customers can go to the L&J booth to see the new software in action, with its Microsoft-like Ribbon interface, remarkably increased speed (4-20 times faster) and simplified editing features.

C2C (Booth #1461)

C2C (http://www.c2c.com) will be at booth 1416 to demonstrate how they are leading the way with innovative tools for data collection from email archives and PST files, some that don’t require involvement from IT resources.  Visit them at booth #1416 to see their latest advancements.

World Software Corporation (booth#328-330)
World Software Corp. (http://www.worldox.com) launches Worldox GX3 Professional at LegalTech NY. The new version includes an improved interface including enhancements in toolbars, folder tree, viewers and indexing.  GX3 Professional is also faster and has tighter integrations with MS Active Directory, more third-party integrations and server integrations.  In addition to launching GX3 Professional, World Software also announces upcoming releases of Worldox GX3 Cloud and GX3 Enterprise, two new deployment options for the Worldox technology which will both be released in mid-2012.

e-Stet (Booth: #1516)

e-Stet is a full-service provider of litigation technology services. They offer comprehensive solutions including hosted electronic discovery review, managed technology infrastructure, mobile data collections, mobile processing, defensibility consulting, backup tape restoration and artificial intelligence coding. e-Stet will be highlighting their Managed Litigation Services offering at LegalTech New York. Managed Litigation Services (launched 11/29) provides law firms, corporate legal departments and legal vendors full control of their litigation software of choice, over the web, hosted in a Tier 1 SAAE-16 infrastructure. It brings a client’s complete hardware and software infrastructure into the cloud.

Biscom (Booth #1615)

As lawyers increase their reliance on mobile computing, they are also creating potential data breaches when exchanging client information over unsecured networks. That’s why Biscom (www.biscom.com/legal), provider of the AmLaw 200’s most secure document exchange technology, will showcase its recently launched iPad app for its secure file transfer software in booth 1615.

We’ll see you in NYC!

DG

Posted in Lextek
Tags: AccessData, BIA, Biscom, business intelligence associates, C2C, e-Stet, IGC, Index Engines, Informative Graphics Corporation, Levit & James, Octane, summation, World Software Corporation

Tonda F. Rush is of counsel to King & Ballow of Nashville, Tenn., and president of American PressWorks Inc, a public policy firm in Falls Church, Va. In Tuesday’s Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, she analyzed the proposed Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act:

“The American Bar Association in February will be asked to endorse a proposed uniform law aiming at new standards for state government websites that host legal materials. The Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) is proposed by the Uniform Law Commission to address a trend, still in its infancy, of shuttering public printers and posting laws only online. But shifting an entire system of laws to online-only postings puts our legal system at risk.”

Read the full story here.

Rush asks in the article:

The question is not whether legal materials can be published online. The question is how much security, authentication, updating and archiving a state must be able to develop and maintain before it can trust the Internet as “official publisher.”

So, what are the answers for the framers of this legislation?

Adam Music

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Wedged in between holiday parties, the legal technology world is still chugging away with breaking news.  Here’s a roundup of top stories from the past week or so…

-          IP information management provider First To File passed its SSAE 16 audit for the third year in a row, without exception.  The completion of the SOC 1 (SSAE 16) Type II examination asserts that the company has maintained the most stringent controls needed to provide the highest quality and security of services to their customers.

According to First To File’s CEO James Bergeron, “SSAE 16 certification is the gold standard in customer protection and transparency and we are proud to have achieved this distinction.  Our clients will benefit from our continued adherence to the SSAE guidelines, and we are committed to upholding these principles for years to come.”

-          Cloud-based Clio released results of its Apple in Law Firms Survey, which show iPads and iPhones gaining market-share while Blackberry continues to falter.  Co-sponsored by MILOfest, this year’s results show that Apple products continue to have strong and increasing traction with small firm lawyers at the expense of previously dominant legal technology players, such as Research in Motion.

Widely-used products in the survey included iPhones, used by 60.9% of respondents; Dropbox, used by 25% of respondents; iCloud, seeing high adoption at 15%; and Android phones with usage at 13%.  Evernote, a note-taking app not included in last year’s survey, debuted at 14% usage.  OpenOffice had gained 2 percentage points since last year, showing that open source technology is appealing to solo and small law firms.  Clio showed a 22% adoption rate, more than double the 2010 adoption rate.

-          Informative Graphics Corp. announced that the Detroit PD’s Homicide Division has installed its Redact-It electronic redaction software.  Redact-It allows Detroit Homicide’s officers to quickly search for privacy information in electronic police reports and completely remove that data before sharing the documents with outside parties like the media.

Homicide Investigator Dwight Pearson explains, “In the Homicide unit, people’s lives and reputations are often at stake, so there is no room for error in handling sensitive information.  Redact-It software has completely modernized and streamlined the redaction process within our department.  We are not only saving time but are also serving the needs of Detroit citizens who trust us to protect them, and conduct our work quickly and diligently. I would highly recommend Redact-It to any law enforcement agency seeking a better way to redact.”

Have a safe and wonderfully technical holiday. Enjoy your tablets and smartphones, but remember to untether yourself to enjoy your families.

Dave Glynn

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New Data Suggests Significant Differences Between Large and Small Firms; Some Techniques Are Inconsistent With How Legal Buyers Use Social Media

NEW YORK, NY (December 21, 2011) – Vizibility Inc. and LexisNexis announced today the results of a survey conducted to shed light on the use of social media in legal services marketing. To illustrate the findings, the results have been released as an infographic. The research suggests a high degree of reliance on broadly defined social media marketing programs, with 81% of survey participants reporting they already use social media marketing tools and another 10.1% saying they plan to deploy social media marketing elements within six months. Furthermore, reliance on social media tools and how they’re measured differ significantly by firm size.

The survey found that a clear majority of participants consider social media an important part of their overall marketing strategy, with nearly half (48.5%) reporting that social media is “somewhat important” while another 31% believe the tools are “extremely important” to their total marketing efforts. A minority, 5% of responding firms, report not using social media.

“You have to measure the results from social media to justify it. Our new data reveals a split between small and large firms in social media marketing objectives,” noted Lawyers.com^SM Editor in Chief and LawMarketing Blog author Larry Bodine. “For example, among small firms, almost 71% of participants in practices with five or fewer attorneys said that they rely on social media marketing to generate new business. In contrast, among respondents from big firms with 100 or more attorneys, only 37% measure social media success this way. Large firms better get smart about social media if they expect it to produce new work.”

Actual social media use among lawyers, however, could be overstated.  This survey, as well the 2011 American Bar Association (ABA) Technology Survey Report, both recorded that 63.5% and 62% (respectively) of individual attorneys say they have LinkedIn® profiles. A search on LinkedIn, however, reveals only 393,338 U.S. profiles with the keywords “attorney,” “counsel” or “lawyer” in the current job title. This is less than one-third of all U.S. attorneys and half the rate of usage as reported by the participants of these two surveys when extrapolated across the 1.2 million attorneys in the United States.

“Of the respondents to our survey who reported that their attorneys had LinkedIn profiles, less than 20% said they were completely up-to-date,” said Vizibility founder and Chief Executive Officer James Alexander (http://vizibility.com/james). “In the face of a recent BTI Consulting Group survey which found that one in two legal decision makers are less likely to hire an attorney if their credentials could not be verified online, this discrepancy exposes an immediate action item for lawyers and legal marketers.”

In addition to ensuring that professional profiles are up-to-date across online legal directories and profile sites, the new research also reveals basic search engine optimization best practices for social media are not being followed.  For instance, in the United States only 4% of legal titles on LinkedIn profiles contain the word ‘Lawyer,’ as compared to 23% with the word ‘Counsel’ and 73% with ‘Attorney’.  Yet, of the average monthly Google searches for these three keywords, 38.8% contain the word ‘lawyer’, 3.5% contain ‘counsel’ and 57.7% contain ‘attorney’. To ensure placement in search results, marketers need to ensure that professional profiles contain the keywords being used by the buyers of their services.

For a copy of the results, view or download the infographic at http://infographics.vizibility.com.

About Vizibility Inc.

Vizibility Inc. (http://www.vizibility.com) delivers the world’s first online identity management platform for individuals and professional services firms. The Vizibility platform is being integrated into websites and businesses where it enables their users to curate, organize and share individual online identities via SearchMe^TM buttons, links and QR codes. U.S. Patents 7,831,609 and 7,987,173. Other patents pending. Find us in Google at http://vizibility.com/news.

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by Patricia Ann Hale

‘Twas the night before trial, and all through the house
Not a desktop was stirring, not even its mouse.
The ESI was managed by IT departments with care
In hopes that compliance and disaster recovery would better they fare.

The end users were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of integrated practice management all danced in their heads.
And Social Media in her kerchief, and I with my apps
Had just logged off our iPads for the night to take pre-LegalTech naps.

When out in Twitter there arose such a twatter,
I sprang from my DMS to cross-profile the case and the matter.
Away to Windows 2010, I saved my work in a flash,
Tore open my Outlook, and my teeth gave a great gnash.

So many emails, so many red exclamation points!
Don’t these people ever take a break? It jostled my joints.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
The Cloud, the Cloud; oh beauteous wonder, it’s finally here!

Now eDiscovery! Now Legal Hold! Now Predictive Coding!
Now Information Governance, don’t be so foreboding!
To the left and to the right of the EDRM!
Dispersed custodians? Collections identifies all of ‘em!

Oh legal technology, dressed in software or SaaS
Improve my efficiencies, boost my productivity at last!
A bundle of joy and services for attorneys in house or out,
No longer peddlers of old-fashioned wares about.

Give me your EDRM, your indexing power
Your collection tools and forensics unsoured!
Oh, your cheery integrations that keep time and billing
With just a single tap of my finger, how thrilling.

You adorn PC, RIM and of course, that Mac, an ‘i’jolly old elf,
Oh sometimes I laugh, in spite of myself!
The bloggers pun punning all in their stead,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

I sprang to my iPad, with a sigh of relief and a whistle
As away all my anxieties flew like the down of a thistle.
LegalTech will soon explain all; there’ll be no fright–
And until then, Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!

Patricia Ann Hale is Founder of Proxy Public Relations LLC (www.proxypr.com), a New York City-based media communications firm specializing in the legal and legal technology industries.  Thanks to Patricia for being so creative this holiday eve! DG

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If you looked back at 2011, you might think of declaring it the year of the tablet. Apple released the iPad2 in March, and wound up topping CNET’s tablet category in its best-of-year wrapup. HP countered with the TouchPad on July 1 – and then announced it would discontinue all of its webOS devices less than seven weeks later. Amazon’s Kindle Fire hit the market on Nov. 14, and has its fans and detractors.

HP’s move took third place in CNET’s Tech Turkeys of 2011. (The top spot went to Netflix’s decision to split into two wings, spinning its DVD-by-mail service into an entity called Qwikster – a plan that was quickly abandoned.) The iPad and Fire were numbers 1 and 3 among gadgets in Time’s Top 10 of Everything. And all three made the PCWorld top 100 products of 2011 list.

As the year draws to a close, tablet tech dots the best of/gift guide lists. Computerworld even has three separate categories for tablets in its roundup. The iPad makes appearances in PCMag’s holiday gift guide and its best products of the year list.

With each new tech toy advance comes the promise of increased productivity across the professional spectrum. “There’s an app for that” isn’t just an ad campaign. It’s a way of doing business, communicating with colleagues, and promoting your brand.

So as the calendar turns over to 2012, we’re asking: What was the one product or app that influenced your daily work? What worked and what fell flat? And what would you like to see in the new year that would help you the most?

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