Reinventing Professionals

I spoke with Steve Butterworth, the President of BigHand, Inc., a voice productivity and digital dictation application in the professional services market. We discussed the difference between dictation and speech recognition, encouraging the adoption by junior legal professionals, the role mobility plays and how BigHand address firm/user productivity, streamline workflows, and increase client service. My colleague, Brett Burney, discusses BigHand and the digital dictation trend in No Robotics from the February issue of Law Technology News.

I spoke with Mike Agron, the co-principal and executive webinar producer of WebAttract, an end-to-end service to drive demand generation via informational webinars, including project and technical management, collaborative content development, and high-impact audience recruitment. We discussed the history of WebAttract, the surge in interest and popularity in webinars, the types of webinars being promoted, and the biggest challenges in producing and delivering webinars.

I spoke with William Ho, vice president of Internet Products at Biscom, an enterprise document delivery company based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. He runs the Biscom Delivery Server division to help companies with their secure document needs (read Sean Doherty's review here). Previously, Ho was CEO and founder of vVault, the maker of online document storage and management software. We discussed Biscom Delivery Server and the distinction between complex secure file transfer and FTP. He noted that the evolution of standard file transfer programs is particularly relevant for the legal community. Ho also addressed the impact of the upcoming Massachusetts data privacy law on the future of secure document delivery.

I spoke with Brad Harris, the new Director of Legal Products at Zapproved, a software company offering web-based solutions that add accountability in business communication, and is the maker of Legal Hold Pro. We discussed the company's history and its move into the legal vertical, how Legal Hold Pro is unique in the marketplace, and prospective trends in this area.

At Legaltech New York Day 3, I spoke with Mary Mack, Corporate Technology Counsel for Fios, Inc. about the value of partnerships.

I spoke with Charles Moore, the founder and CEO of RocketLawyer about his experience as a first-time exhibitor at Legaltech New York.

At LegalTech New York Day 3, I spoke with Deborah Baron, the Vice President of Legal & Compliance for Autonomy about cloud computing and collaboration.

I spoke with Dean Gonsowski, the Vice President of E-Discovery Services at Clearwell Systems about the most misunderstood theme at the conference.

I spoke with Craig Carpenter, the Vice President and General Counsel of Recommind about predictive coding.

I spoke with Howard Reissner, CEO of Planet Data and Mark Yacano, a shareholder at LeClairRyan about partnerships between vendors and lawyers, the launch of Exego, and the importance of collaboration for client service.

I spoke with Richard Newton, the vice president of Business Integrity, which launched ContractExpress.com at LegalTech NY Day 1.

I spoke with Nigel Murray, the managing director of Trilantic, an e-discovery vendor based in London providing services to U.S. corporations and law firms managing their U.S. collections, processing and hosting for European document projects. We discussed the distinctions between the U.S. and European markets, considerations for U.S. attorneys removing data from the E.U., his predictions for 2010 and an upcoming educational track on the topic at LegalTech New York.

I spoke with Robert Owen, a partner with Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P. He is head of the New York location's litigation group, as well as co-head of the firm's E-Discovery and Information Management practice group. Owen is part of the core team that conceived of and has administered Fulbright's Annual Litigation Trends Survey since its inception in 2004. We discussed his New York Law Journal article, Seeking Ways to Set Limits on E-Discovery, in which he cites the factors that are leading numerous groups to initiate re-examinations of U.S. e-discovery rules, summarizes their progress and makes predictions for 2010. He noted that "we are alone among the nations of the world in having adopted a full pre-trial disclosure philosophy back in 1938" and "what we are seeing now is a confluence of efforts" by diverse groups to make litigation more manageable.

I spoke with Ray Zwiefelhofer, the new president of World Software Corporation, the maker of Worldox, a legal document management product. We discussed the company's history and his new role, the greatest technology challenges lawyers and legal staff are facing today, and the 2010 outlook. He predicts the continued growth of mobile and cloud computing, as well as consolidation in the industry.

I spoke with Lisa DiMonte, the CEO of MyLegal.com, a social network for professionals that matches people to opportunities in the legal industry. The site also aggregates and delivers information of interest to this community. We discussed the creation of MyLegal.com, the target audience, how MyLegal.com differs from other social networking platforms and its expansion plans for 2010.

I spoke with Nader Anise, an attorney and the CEO of LawyerWire.com, a media leads and press release distribution service to the legal industry. We discussed the genesis of LawyerWire, the types of queries that it shares with its subscribers and the future of interaction between the legal community and the media.

I spoke with Patrick Oot, the co-founder of the Electronic Discovery Institute, and co-author of a recently released study - Document Categorization in Legal Electronic Discovery: Computer Classification vs. Manual Review - on the effectiveness of technology in document review. Oot will be presenting his findings at the 2009 IQPC E-Discovery conference next week. We discussed the genesis of this study, his reaction to the results and the implications of the research on document review in 2010.

I spoke with Patrick Burke, Senior Director and Assistant General Counsel for Guidance Software, the makers of Encase, which is used by corporations for the collection and processing of e-mail and electronic information. Burke will be moderating a panel of judges and chairing the second day at the 2009 IQPC E-Discovery conference next week. We discussed the judges panel and the technology-related issues on which Burke expects the judiciary to focus in 2010.

I spoke with Kevin Werbach, a lawyer and professor of legal studies at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he focuses his research on Internet and telecommunications policy. Werbach served as a co-lead on the FCC review of the Obama Administration's Presidential Transition Team. He also founded the Supernova conference, which he describes as an "executive forum for the digital age." We discussed the new legal track at this year's conference (December 1st through the 3rd in San Francisco), including coverage of trademarks and intermediaries, privacy and the social web, and reforming copyright law, among others, as well as his goals for lawyers who attend. "I feel like value gets created and insight gets sparked when you put people in a room who are not necessarily always in a room together," he says.

I spoke with Rick Klau, the product manager on Blogger for Google, who was a contributor to the team that recently launched case law on Google Scholar. We discussed his work at Blogger, the purpose of the case law project, and its impact on the legal research landscape.