Time for another round-up on vendor channel news, this week featuring LOASys + DPS Software – Access Technologies + Databarracks – Phoenix Business Solutions + HP Autonomy – Worldox + Nikec Solutions + SAI – Advanced Legal – ARX + OpenText – Chrome River – Wilson Legal Solutions – Iridium Technology – DocsCorp + InfraForce – United Lex – Kroll OnTrack – Handshake Software
UK: Users of LOASys and DPS Software are now able to perform dictations straight from their smartphones, from any location with or without Internet access. The integration between the two products allows the processing of dictations as these are automatically transcribed by the LOASys voice recognition solution and saved as fully formatted Microsoft Word documents against the required case or matter in the DPS case management system Outlook Office. It is available as a DPSCloud hosted desktop application on a per user, per month basis, giving users more flexibility in deciding when to enable this option and how to use it. London law firm Bivonas is one of first DPS to sign up for this joint solution.
UK: Accesspoint Technologies, aprovider of IT services to the legal sector, has joined forces with secure email service provider, Databarracks, in a partnership. Peter Groucutt, managing director, Databarracks, said “It’s an exciting time in the legal sector, firms are beginning to embrace the scalability and cost benefits cloud services can bring, which is why we’re so pleased to announce our partnership with Accesspoint.”
EMEA: Phoenix Business Solutions, a provider of document and email management software and consultancy, has been recognised as HP Autonomy’s EMEA Partner of the Year for the third year in a row. In receiving the award Phoenix were praised for their growth and expansion globally. Roger Pickett, managing director, Phoenix, said “It is a huge accomplishment for us to be awarded the partner of the year award for the third time in a row. We are very proud to know that HP Autonomy recognises our aggressive growth strategy and aspirations to onwardly develop this very successful partnership.”
US: World Software Corporation and Nikec Solutions are combining their technical capabilities to provide an enhanced and integrated document workflow management solution. The integration of Worldox, World Software’s DMS solution and Nikec Binder, an electronic ring binder that is designed to replicate the look and feel of an traditional paper based folder, allows documents to be pulled directly from the DMS and updated, shared, sent marked-up and retrieved from within a single platform. Essentially this provides seamless integration of documents across an organisation’s workflow environment, all within a familiar, intuitive interface that the digital binder offers. Nikec Binder is distributed throughout the USA and Canada by Nikec Solutions strategic partner Systems Auditing Inc.
UK: Advanced Legal is on a talent hunt as part of its plans for further growth and expansion and looking to fulfil 12 roles in several departments including support, development and professional services, to join its existing workforce of around 250 people. Employees can expect to benefit from Advanced University, an in-house training facility which offers a variety of courses for staff.
US: ARX, a provider digital signature solutions, has announced the CoSign Connector for OpenText eDOCS. This is the latest addition to its long list of integrations with leading document and content management systems, which also includes HP WorkSite. Using CoSign, eDOCS users can add digital signatures to PDF files and Word documents stored in their eDOCS document library via a simple and swift “right-click, sign” process. Their digital signatures can be easily verified for signer identity and intent, and content integrity by any recipient.
US: Chrome River has appointment of Joseph Essas to its board of directors. “Chrome River was appealing to me for two reasons,” said Essas. “First, they are a very product-focused company always looking for ways to innovate and delight their customers. Second, I have great admiration for the integrity of the leadership team and their commitment to doing what’s best for their customers – an approach that I have seen pay dividends again and again throughout my career.” Essas has more than 20 years of experience in information technology, holding both executive management and engineering positions. He has served in his current role as CTO of OpenTable, the world’s leading provider of online restaurant reservations, since 2012. Previously, he was CTO and VP of engineering and operations for eHarmony and also VP of engineering at Yahoo! He is currently a venture partner at FirstMark Capital in New York.
UK: Wilson Legal Solutions, a provider of software and services to enhance law firm productivity and make the best use of Thomson Reuters Elite, has opened a new office in central London. The UK office will be headed by Steve Capon, who recently joined Wilson Legal Solutions as a senior director. Capon has nearly 25 years of technical experience, with the last 15 dedicated to the legal sector. Most recently, Capon served as head of global finance projects at Hogan Lovells. Previously he acted as development manager for Clifford Chance law firm.
US: Iridium Technology announced it has hired Soohyun ‘Soo’ Yoon full-time as a Senior BI Consultant to join their expanding global consulting team. Yoon will be focused on developing, implementing, and customizing Iridium BI and be the lead client interface for the GL and Expense modules. “We are extremely pleased to add Soo as a full-time staff member,” said Tom Jones, president of Iridium Technology. “With the recent changes in the legal BI marketplace, the demand for Iridium BI is rapidly increasing. To meet the high demands, we have decided to bring Soo on board full-time. Soo’s experience in mobile app development in multiple platforms and user interface design will also help us continue to bring additional improvements and features to Iridium BI.
GERMANY: DocsCorp has announced a new strategic partnership with Infraforce GmbH, a German company specializing in strategic IT security consulting and software for many of Europe’s top companies. Infraforce was previously a leading reseller for Workshare and has resold its products to more than one thousand organisations across Europe including many law firms. Under the new partnership, Infraforce will sell DocsCorp’s document comparison (compareDocs) and metadata management (cleanDocs) software in addition to pdfDocs. COMMENT:
We understand Infraforce switched because of concerns that national data protection laws in Germany could inadvertently be violated by users through running software with cloud components and felt more comfortable with DosCorp’s solutions.
UK: UnitedLex, a provider of legal services and cyber risk solutions, today announced it has expanded its London office by more than 25%, reflecting significant demand from existing and prospective clients for its legal support and cyber security services. Specifically, UnitedLex has added manager and associate-level resources, increasing its UK office capacity to more than 75 professionals, to support the legal needs of its anchor clients including Credit Suisse and other leading multi-national corporations and law firms. UnitedLex expects continued growth in the UK through the course of 2014 and beyond. Among the many legal support services that UnitedLex offers in the UK are data processing and hosting, data collection and forensics, managed document review, cyber security services and patent monetization.
GERMANY: Kroll Ontrack reports its new ediscovery data centre in Germany is fully operational. The launch coincides with the development of www.ediscovery.com/eu a new online resource that provides up to date information about ediscovery developments in Europe and with the release of ediscovery.com Onsite, a portable, self-contained ediscovery solution.
Tim Phillips, managing director of Kroll Ontrack International Legal Technologies said “As part of our ongoing commitment to our clients globally we are responding to the need to carry out ediscovery locally. Many of our European clients are part of global operations, but privacy and data protection laws make it critical for them to rely on local ediscovery solutions to respond to legal demands for data in litigation and investigations. We have reacted by providing an in-country solution in Germany and an onsite solution that can be rapidly deployed to other countries.”
According to Dr. Michael Rath a partner at Luther Rechtsanwälte, “Handling electronic evidence is a real challenge for companies in Germany. Not only do they have to handle a vast volume of company data that often needs to be interrogated but also comply with complex data protection and privacy laws, which restrict the international transfer of personal information. Technology solutions play an essential role in navigating these stormy waters. In-country and onsite data processing options for Germany are greatly welcomed and will undoubtedly reduce risk and cost for our clients in domestic and international investigations and litigation.”
US: Handshake Software Inc has announced its six month corporate update including increased demand for Handshake Software solutions in particular SharePoint-based portals; extranets and enterprise search solutions among Am Law 100 firms; high service, support and upgrade satisfaction rates among the acquired Thomson Reuters’ OneView (former XMLAW) business; availability of Handshake Software Release 3.7; 20% staff growth and office expansion; and the completion of key strategic partnerships and technology integrations involving LexisNexis, Microsoft and Manzama. “We are thrilled to see the legal market’s enthusiasm when it comes to deploying the latest versions of SharePoint and leveraging Handshake technologies to get the most out of their investment from their line of business applications and Microsoft products,” sais Doug Horton, President & CEO of Handshake Software.
Handshake software currently provides SharePoint-based intranets, extranets, enterprise search, document and email management to 50+% of the AmLaw 100, and 45+% of the AmLaw 200/NLJ 350 with total users exceeding 100,000 across 10 countries. Since September 2013, 8 AmLaw 100 firms have selected Handshake’s intranet and enterprise search solutions. Specifically the inclusion of the FAST search engine within SharePoint 2013 has resulted in a huge uptick in Handshake Search projects, totaling 20 since January. Here’a a link to a new Handshake case study.
Handshake was also chosen by LexisNexis to support and integrate Lexis Search Advantage (LSA) into SharePoint 2013 Search and Manzama, which has partnered with Handshake to build a “next generation” Handshake based SharePoint Web Part leveraging Manzama content to provide clients with current information and knowledge from news sources, blogs and social media outlets.
The Handshake team grew by 20% within the last six months and added key personnel across Sales, Consulting and R&D. Significant executive-level hires included Glenn LaForce, a 12 year LexisNexis veteran, now heading up Handshake’s sales efforts, and Steve McHargue, a legal portal evangelist with over 20 years experience and former large firm CIO.