It’s the last product, channel and people round up of 2015 so we thought we had best make it a bumper one, with updates from Barclays, LexisNexis, HotDocs, Aderant, DocsCorp and more.
People Moves
Described by one private practice head of risk as a “ground breaking and strategic legal operations director”, Andrew Dey is leaving Barclays after 15 years with the bank.
Dey, a founding member of the Legal IT Innovators Group, has been responsible for technology transformation projects within Barclays, including implementing case, document and knowledge management systems. Dey has also led a number of initiatives governing the exchange of data and collaboration between the bank and its external law firms, including agreeing an e-billing standard.
Barclays has seen a number of senior exits from its legal team this year, including EMEA GC Erica Handling, global GC of corporate and investment banking Judith Shepherd, and global head of financial crime Jonathan Peddie.
LexisNexis’ head of marketing Laura Whitehead is moving on to pastures new after seven years with the legal publishing and technology giant.
Whitehead said: “My time with Lexis has been extremely rewarding and I have been fortunate to work with some talented, hardworking people, many of whom I count as friends as well as colleagues. I am particularly proud of what the marketing team has been able to achieve over the years and I am sure the team will continue to stretch themselves and support the business in the future.”
Marketing enquiries should be directed to Michelle Gunter, who has stood in as head of marketing while Whitehead has been on maternity leave.
LDM Global has announced the hire of Sean Theron as its new director for the Caribbean region. LDM Global is a leading consultant to mid-tier law firms around the world, focusing on legal discovery management and computer forensics.
Prior to joining LDM, a discovery and computer forensics consultant to mid-tier law firms, Theron built one of the largest forensic technology practices in the Caribbean region at KRyS Global, where he was a manager. He has also helped government organisations with their fraud and forensics expertise while conducting training with their teams.
LDM Global’s CEO and President Chris O’Reilly said: “Besides his vast experience in eDiscovery, Sean is bringing an array of computer forensics and consulting skills to help clients identify risks and ensure best practices are being followed in all phases of their electronic discovery process.”
Channel News
BiasharaWorks, a subsidiary of Tanzania-based Mkenga Group, has joined NetDocuments’ channel partner network.
Led by Elsante Mnzava, founder of Mkenga Group, the BiasharaWorks team is positioned and trained to provide enterprise-level technology services to law firms and other organisations in Africa looking to modernise their technology landscape infrastructure.
“Law firms are no longer restricted to the four walls of the firm’s office,” said Steve Moulton, partner program manager at NetDocuments. “The market shift to the cloud is requiring law firms to seek solutions that increase their relevancy in an international marketplace with increasing client-demands for security, collaboration, and usability. BiasharaWorks is strategically positioned to train, consult, and implement NetDocuments throughout a large region and being able to offer NetDocuments will be a key piece to the BiasharaWorks business model moving forward.”
Information Governance Consulting Group has become an authorised service provider for Revolution Software’s Remove Disposition Manager (RDM) solution.
IGCG is a consulting firm specialising in the development and implementation of information governance programs and records management solutions for law firms and corporate legal groups, while Revolution Software is a provider of next generation software solutions.
The RDM solution strengthens information governance programs for legal by providing a unified platform for electronic and physical records dispositions and file transfers as well as the necessary task assignment, status, and approval processing.
“Revolution Software is expanding strategically to support the growing market demand for our solutions, particularly Remove, and IGCG brings a breadth of resources, experience and practical knowledge of defensible disposition that make them an excellent partner for our organization,” said Gino Colchico, COO of Revolution Software.
Leading document assembly provider HotDocs has announced a partnership with Serbia-based software solutions company Micro-BS.
Micro-BS will be able to offer its clients HotDocs’ automation solution, as an end-to-end document generation tool, or as part of a wider business process, such as BPM workflow, CRM or document management. For end users, HotDocs transforms frequently used documents or PDF forms into intelligent templates that provide custom document creation in less time and at less cost than traditional methods.
Lois McLuckie, Senior Marketing Manager at HotDocs, said: “With a skilled team of engineers and consultants, Micro-BS is ideally placed to offer the sale, integration and implementation of HotDocs across Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia. A partner based in the Balkans is a fantastic addition to the HotDocs family and will ensure that our end users and new clients in this area have access to local expertise.”
Wins
Aderant, provider of business management solutions for law and professional service firms, has announced that Am Law 100 firm Venable LLP is now using Aderant Expert and plans to add on to their Aderant legal software suite in the future.
Venable is using Aderant Expert for firm financials, time entry and management, billing and pricing structures and more. Additionally, the firm plans to implement Aderant Expert Paperless Billing in the near future.
“Aderant Expert provides us with increased capabilities,” said Venable’s COO Bruce Sidell. “As a firm that has been growing steadily in recent years, it has been important for us to streamline and automate processes through the use of technology as much as possible. By having a more efficient and robust financial solution, Venable will be able to better serve evolving client needs.”
Metamorph Law has chosen Pracctice Limited’s Osprey suite of cloud-based legal software as its core technology platform.
Metamorph Law has been created as a vehicle to acquire, transform and aggregate existing high street law firms in a market currently worth around £8bn per annum, focused mainly on residential conveyancing, wills, probate, family law and some routine work for local businesses.
The group recently announced it had been successful in its initial fund raising and is set to launch at the start of January 2016, with plans to acquire over 50 firms in the next five years. It is anticipated that the first deal with be completed close to the end of Q1 2016.
Metamorph Law’s CEO Simon Goldhill said “We have an ambitious acquisition plan and swift and painless technology integration is vital. Having a cloud-based platform will give us the flexibility and means to bring a stream of businesses that may be located across the country onto a single platform with the minimum of fuss and bother and without the headache of dealing with numerous physical servers spread across the land.”
Thomson Snell & Passmore has adopted Exen’s SmartEye Business Intelligence and Management Information solution.
The firm will be working with Exen, a provider of management information to mid-tier UK law firms, to deliver performance dashboards to all fee-earners along with automated management reports and detailed profitability analysis for the management team.
Exen Managing Director Graham Moore said: “We’re really pleased to be invited to work with Thomson Snell and Passmore. Although the firm has a very long historical tradition, it is great to be supporting them in their modern, forward-thinking approach to law firm management.”
Zylpha has been selected as a supplier on G-Cloud 7, the Crown Commercial Service’s procurement framework for cloud-based computer services, hosted via the Digital Marketplace.
Zylpha’s secure legal document bundling will be available to the public sector through this framework. This widely acclaimed system saves significant amounts of time and eliminates the costs of paper-based files, physical storage and courier services. The software also delivers secure communication, as the electronic files are encrypted before they are sent. As part of Zylpha’s G-Cloud 7 offering, the public sector will be able to use bundling with a host of case management and document management systems including Visualfiles, Peppermint, Proclaim, Civica, Iken and more.
Commenting on the news, Zylpha’s CEO Tim Long said: “We have received a great deal of interest regarding our products from government bodies. Naturally, therefore we are extremely happy to be part of G-Cloud 7, which provides central government departments, executive agencies and public bodies with a rapid and cost effective method of accessing and purchasing government approved IT Cloud products and services. We look forward to assessing those areas of government where our services can work best.”
Solicitors Case Management Systems (SC@MS) has acquired the FormsPlus legal forms business from infolaw. infolaw has supplied its forms to the UK legal profession since 2005.
SC@MS director Terry Frost said: “We have first-hand knowledge of the excellent forms packages, having used the forms for a good many years now and so we jumped at the chance of taking over from infolaw. The forms will complement perfectly our case management systems in particular.”
Upgrades
DocsCorp, a global leader in integrated document workflow solutions and technologies, has announced a new release of its document comparison tool compareDocs, which enables users to compare two versions of a document for differences. The 4.2 release significantly enhances the workflow for reviewing document changes as well as simplifying the process of comparing Excel to Excel and PowerPoint to PowerPoint.
Commenting on the release, Dean Sappey, DocsCorp President and Co-founder said: “This release introduces new features and enhancements designed to facilitate the process of reviewing document changes in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint files so they can be quickly and easily understood. This is currently not the case with many comparison tools where a significant amount of time is spent trying to decipher what has changed and where. This is particularly true in the case of MS Excel and PowerPoint comparisons.”