The Evolution of Information Governance

May 16th, 2013 → 9:38 am @ Ari Kaplan

I spoke with Garth Landers, the Director of Product Marketing at EMC, a global information management provider, who is responsible for the company’s pervasive governance portfolio.

We discussed the evolution of information governance, its trajectory, and key trends that are impacting that direction. He noted that organizations are increasingly focused on litigation readiness, realizing a measurable return on their e-discovery investments, and drafting practical data policies.

The key challenges are aligning the various custodians of the organization’s most important information and bridging the disconnect between legal and IT.  He highlighted that many companies lack the ecosystem for optimal information governance because ownership and accountability are often muddled.

Listen to our interview below:

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Document Review – There is an App for That

May 13th, 2013 → 1:11 pm @ Ari Kaplan

I spoke with Michael do Rozario and Brian Borskjaer, Special Counsel and Director of the firm’s Legal Technology Solutions team, respectively, at Corrs Chambers Westgarth, a prominent Australian law firm with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth.

We discussed Casefolio, the firm’s new award-winning document review app, its development, and the user experience, among many other topics.  When it received the Lawtech Award For Innovation in Legal IT at the 7th Annual Chilli IQ Lawtech Summit & Awards in 2012, one judge noted: “This iPad app is simply clever, innovative and delivers a truly ingenious and effective solution to the vexed litigation practitioner.”

Casefolio is available for free trial download in the US, UK, Canadian, and Australian iTunes stores. Corrs has also developed a converter that allows documents and metadata to be exported and imported from a range of litigation support databases, including Ringtail, Relativity, and Summation.

Learn more about Casefolio at http://casefolio.net and listen to our interview below:

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Reinventing Marketing With a Rocket

April 18th, 2013 → 2:07 pm @ Ari Kaplan

I spoke with Larry Port, the founder and CEO of Rocketmatter, a cloud-based legal practice management and time and billing software product, about Rocket X1, the company’s new Internet marketing agency and hosting platform.

We discussed the company’s mission to combine public relations, website design, search engine optimization, and marketing.  Port noted that by building accountability in marketing, leveraging analytics, and structuring a creative message, users will realize unprecedented results.

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Proof of Finding Philanthropy in E-Discovery

April 5th, 2013 → 1:57 pm @ Ari Kaplan

In the fall of 1990, I interviewed for a job that ended up changing the course of my life. The ad to which I responded was for a tutor in the then 1-year old Intergenerational Literacy Project, a collaboration between Boston University’s School of Education and the Chelsea Public Schools in Chelsea, Massachusetts. I had no experience, but wanted a work-study job that was meaningful and rewarding. It turned out to be both. 23 years later, this program continues its mission to improve the reading skills of adults and the literacy knowledge among pre-school and school-aged children.

When I learned about the release of Proof Finder, a unique venture by Nuix to offer its e-discovery and investigation software to users at $100 per year (limited to a maximum case size of 15 gigabytes), I interviewed its CEO, Eddie Sheehy (below), to discuss the endeavor as 100% of the proceeds from all sales are given to Room to Read, a global non-profit organization focused on literacy and gender equality in education.

In addition to serving as the foundation of a successful philanthropic endeavor, Proof Finder offers:

• Mobile device forensics with support for Cellebrite and Micro Systemation XRY mobile images.
• File system forensics including carving out full and partial deleted files and slack space.
• A hex viewer to examine the binary structure of files.
• Expanded clustering and near-deduplication capabilities.

To date, the results are remarkable as the company has donated:

• $44,000 toward the construction of a school in Nepal and the publication of local-language school books.
• $35,000 to help Room to Read build a school in Sri Lanka.
• $7500 to sponsor 30 girls to complete their secondary school education.

Watch the video below in which David Sitsky, Head of Development for Nuix, and John Wood, the founder of Room to Read, discuss their partnership and the release of Proof Finder 4.2:

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Reinventing Legal Training

April 4th, 2013 → 1:06 pm @ Ari Kaplan

I spoke with Desiree Moore, an attorney and the founder of Greenhorn Legal & Greenhorn Bold. Moore is also the author of: Thrive – A New Lawyer’s Guide to Law Firm Practice (American Bar Association, 2012).

We discussed her venture providing what she describes as “the foundational information law students and lawyers need,” her motivation for writing Thrive, and the launch of her on-demand practical skills training series, which focuses on professionalism, time management, communication, networking, and marketing, among other core competencies.

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Reinventing Cloud-Based Collaboration

March 28th, 2013 → 7:53 am @ Ari Kaplan

I spoke with Eric Hunter, the Director of Knowledge, Innovation & Technology Strategies at California-based Bradford & Barthel, as well as the Executive Director of Spherical Models, a business model innovation consultancy.

We discussed his firm’s transformation to a completely Google Apps environment and his team’s efforts to create a social media-like atmosphere the leveraged internal champions to motivate this shift by 100 lawyers and over 250 users. He recommends developing a clear workflow and to give users time to adapt. Hunter also discussed how his success at Bradford & Barthel fueled the creation of Spherical Models.

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Disrupting Legal in Six Minute Increments

March 21st, 2013 → 7:33 pm @ Ari Kaplan

I spoke with Matt Homann and JoAnna Forshee, producers of the annual LexThink.1 legal innovation conference, which is being held in Chicago on Wednesday April 3rd on the eve of the ABA Techshow. Homann is the well-known founder of LexThink, a legal innovation consultancy, as well as the creator of the popular [non] billable hour blog. Forshee is the CEO of InsideLegal, which she describes as “the insider’s guide to doing business in legal technology.”

Homann noted that LexThink.1 started 4 years ago as Ignite Law. Participants have 6 minutes (as in one-tenth of an hour of billable time) and 20 slides, which rotate every 18 seconds, to convey their ideas on this year’s theme -  disruption. Prior sessions focused on the future of law, the future of legal tech, and client service. (I had the privilege of participating in the inaugural event in 2010, with a session called: What I Learned About the Future of Legal Marketing From Playing Wii Bowling With a 4 1/2-year old.)

Ten speakers selected by “more than one thousand votes cast” online will cover a variety of topics ranging from Big Data or Big Brother (Eric Hunter) and Don’t Do What You’re Good At (Jay Shepherd) to Knowing the Unknowns (Roe Frazer) and LegalZoom is Eating Legal’s Lunch (Mark Britton).  The only participant, who has appeared in all four productions is Will Hornsby, who will be discussing Gaming the System: Are lawyers ready to game-up?

Forshee notes that speakers typically rate the difficulty of the experience at about an eight on a ten-point scale and Homann suggests that in addition to practice, participants should focus on their transitions to get comfortable telling a story in equal segments.

Those interested in following the sessions on Twitter can search for the Hashtag: #lexthink.

Listen to our extended interview below:

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Angry Birds for E-Discovery

March 14th, 2013 → 5:25 am @ Ari Kaplan

I spoke with Roe Frazer, the founder of Cicayda, a Nashville-based software company providing cloud-based e-discovery tools; Case Logistix, now owned by Thomson Reuters; and, Digome, a digital marketing firm.

Frazer noted that the name of his new venture, Cicayda, comes from the quest to find a rare blue-eyed cicayda and compared it to a legal team’s search for documents in the era of big data.  Calling it “Angry Birds for e-discovery,” he highlighted that Cicayda offers an app-like look and feel for all of the company’s offerings.

Frazer’s goal is make software that lawyers can use while bringing “transparent pricing and price sanity” to the marketplace through a pay-per-use model.  He considers this new offering “iteration 0.0″ because he expects that customers will drive future development through social media channels.

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Reinventing Executive Recruiting

March 7th, 2013 → 6:04 am @ Ari Kaplan

I spoke with David Netzer, the founder of the legal industry job site, LitigationSupportCareers.com, where companies, including law firms, litigation support providers, e-discovery vendors, and government agencies, among others, advertise open positions for the legal vertical. It also offers a searchable resume database, as well as resources for career development.

We discussed the genesis of LitigationSupportCareers.com (created in 2008), how it is distinct from other “niche” job boards, the costs of use, and its potential for reinventing the executive recruiting field.  Netzer advised that in addition to expanding its robust resume database, LitigationSupportCareers.com is developing partnerships with other job sites, adding multi-lingual features, and launching on different human resources platforms and applicant tracking systems.

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The Canadian Perspective on What to Expect in 2013

March 1st, 2013 → 7:14 am @ Ari Kaplan

I spoke with Cynthia Nerland, the Business Development & Communications Manager at Dye & Durham Corporation, a British Columbia-based legal support services firm, about her expectations for the Canadian legal market in 2013.

Among other developments, Nerland predicts a rise in the number of international mergers.  She cited the 2012 combinations of Canada’s Fasken Martineau and Johannesburg-based Bell Dewar, as well as SNR Denton, Salans LLP and Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP effort to form Dentons, as evidence of this trend.

She advised that to prepare for these changes, legal support services providers need to be mobile and leverage multiple platforms. Nerland also expects more lawyers to blog and engage in social media to raise their profiles in the recovery.

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