This week it’s all about the product as Thomson Reuters releases Contract Express 6.0, OyezForms integrates with SharePoint and LexisNexis unveils the latest release of Visualfiles. Elsewhere, Zylpha has added NetDocuments integration to its bundling technology and we bring news of new products and partnerships from numerous other suppliers including kCura and Redbrick Solutions, with a new appointment for Wilson Legal Solutions.
Product launches and updates
Thomson Reuters has strengthened its document automation capabilities with the release of Contract Express 6.0. The three key new features are datasheets, matters (making it possible to group one or more document templates around a specific legal matter) and document versioning.
The datasheets feature enables users to create dynamic views of the transactional information contained in documents created by Contract Express, surfacing valuable information such as key dates, non-standard clauses and deal values.
Documents created by Contract Express 6.0 are now fully versioned, meaning users can upload and share manually edited documents with internal users and clients.
Contract Express 6.0 also introduces a new code completion capability in Contract Express Author. This feature will speed-up the creation of templates and improves the quality of resulting documents.
OyezForms has just completed integration between its forms software and SharePoint document repositories.
The new OyezForms / SharePoint integration means that forms can now be retrieved and edited from standard SharePoint web pages in the same manner as Word documents.
Users can now upload newly-created forms into SharePoint and tag them as appropriate to provide context. Oyez says it is willing to assist any required customisation of this aspect of the integration.
LexisNexis Enterprise Solutions has enhanced a raft of capabilities in its next generation legal workflow and case management system, Lexis Visualfiles.
The latest release promises augmented real-time reporting, tight integration with Lexis®Smart Forms to unlock drafting efficiencies and improved security and data encryption capabilities.
Business intelligence capabilities in the solution now include a real-time data feed with the introduction of the Visualfiles Pro2SQL data repository. Pro2SQL extracts the operational data from Visualfiles and transforms it into a Microsoft SQL database to support any data driven activities, including management information or integration with other data sources – all as an integral module within Visualfiles.
Zylpha has integrated its bundling technology with cloud-based document and email management provider NetDocuments. The Zylpha integration will enable NetDocuments users to produce secure high-quality court and other bundles in a fraction of the time taken previously.
To ensure optimum usability, the integration provides bundling users with the same familiar look and feel as NetDocuments itself. Users can also search multiple NetDocuments libraries simultaneously and review historic searches made.
CaseStudyNinja.com, a new cloud software product and support service, has been launched to enable global businesses to create, manage and publish powerful case study collateral that communicates their customer success stories effectively for new business wins and wider audience reach.
The new offering provides guided templates for businesses to create their own best-practice case studies and a dedicated service to access a pool of experienced writers and video content producers. The global online service offers an intuitive, secure portal to manage and publish case studies on a private or public-access basis and enables invited team members to access case studies across multiple platforms such as on tablets or smart phones via its user-friendly Android and IOS apps.
CaseStudyNinja.com, which has recently secured initial seed funding from a private angel investor to help promote its service across the globe, is offering a two week free starter plan for businesses that sign-up in July. You can check out its pricing plans here: https://www.casestudyninja.com/pricing
After a series of audits, SproutIT has achieved approved connection to the Criminal Justice Secure eMail (CJSM) service. As a CJSM broker, Sprout offers hosted clients the ability to send and receive CJSM data.
Within the Criminal Justice community the need to exchange sensitive information about forthcoming court cases means that the consequences can be serious if sensitive information falls into the wrong hands.
Matt Torrens, managing director at SproutIT, said: “CJSM is central to the practices of many of our clients. Blending this approved connection to CJSM with our existing ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials and RESILIA certifications, we are able to further extend our SproutCloud solution to the very great benefit of our clients.”
Practice and case management software provider Redbrick Solutions has entered into partnership with conveyancing business development specialists, Brighter Law Solutions.
The new partnership will offer conveyancers a fully integrated solution whereby quotes received via the law firm’s website will automatically populate the case management system with all of the client and fee information. Follow up will be carried out automatically to help increase conversion rates and searches will be ordered from, and returned into, the case management system.
The next phase of development, due out later this year will see the data from those searches being used to automatically populate the Report on Title/Contract.
kCura has released Relativity ECA and Investigation – a new solution for early case assessment (ECA) and digital investigations. Fully integrated in Relativity, ECA and Investigation allows users to take advantage of all of Relativity’s analytics and visualisation capabilities to better understand the context of a data collection.
Features include the ability to bring analytics visualisations together with document metadata within a dashboard, so users can clearly and easily see how concepts and themes intersect with important pieces of information. The new solution also provides more granular security controls in Legal Hold and improved overall speeds of processing, production, and the document viewer.
“Corporations today struggle with large amounts of custodial data. Relativity ECA and Investigation provides a straightforward way to whittle down that data so our attorneys aren’t wasting time on irrelevant information,” said Tina Garbarino, e-discovery manager at NBC Universal.
Electronic cloud-based trial platform Opus 2 Magnum is now catering for international arbitration management.
The platform, used for managing key documents, exhibits, transcripts, facts and attorney work product, now can be used by legal parties and arbitral panels for online global access to arbitration-related content.
A complete master set of arbitration content is provided to each party—claimants and respondents, as well as members of the arbitral panel. At the same time, each party retains secure, private access to its internal work product associated with that content, including notes, tags, private documents and more. Parties can quickly search, annotate, categorize and organize documents into custom binders, and markup and commentary can easily be shared among designated users.
“The use of Opus 2 Magnum provides an incredible leap forward, allowing our clients to analyse evidence on a granular level and build legal arguments much more efficiently and cost-effectively,” said Graham Smith-Bernal, founder and CEO of Opus 2.
Genpact, a global leader in digitally-powered business process management and services, has launched its Neural Intelligence Platform to bring middle and back office processing to the same level of digital automation as the front office.
Using a cognitive system powered by natural language processing, machine and deep learning techniques, the platform provides a versatile artificial intelligence-based capability that digitises many business process solutions, including omni-channel management, contact center, account payable query management, and financial and accounting automation. The platform automates and improves processes, continually learns, and even can help anticipate customers’ needs.
“The end game for CEOs is standardised, platform-based process delivery and machine intelligence built into business processing” said Sanjay Srivastava, senior vice president and chief digital officer of Genpact. “At Genpact, we work with one of the world’s largest learning data sets for business operations processing, and this translates into meaningfully advanced artificial technologies that we can predictably deliver.”
Alt Legal, a New York-based intellectual property (IP) management software company, has integrated with Microsoft Office 365.
Using the Alt Legal and Office 365 integration, IP professionals will be able to automatically synchronize all of their docketing deadlines and reminders with their Microsoft Outlook calendars. This enables IP professionals to have all their key dates in a single calendar.
“Alt Legal’s mission is to simplify the preparation, docketing, and analysis of intellectual property filings for IP professionals,” said Nehal Madhani, the company’s founder and CEO. “Microsoft Office 365 is one of the leading document and collaboration platforms for legal professionals. We’re thrilled to integrate with Office 365 so that IP professionals can seamlessly manage their key deadlines and documents. This is the first of many integrations that Alt Legal has planned for Office 365.”
Exterro has launched The E-Discovery Case Law Project (EDCLP), an educational initiative with the goal of providing simplified case facts and analysis on the latest court rulings in e-discovery.
The EDCLP’s first major undertaking is the release of Exterro’s new educational resource center, The Simplified E-Discovery Case Law Library, which will provide an evergreen collection of simple, easy-to-understand recaps and analyses on recent e-discovery case law rulings.
Wins and deals
Rotterdam firm Kneppelhout & Korthals has selected Legalsense as its online new practice management system (PMS), in a drive towards more digital and mobile working practices.
Olaf van Haperen, managing partner at Kneppelhout & Korthals said: “We were starting to outgrow our old system and were keen to introduce new functionality and integration capability into the business. So we started looking for a replacement PMS solution, one with the requisite flexibility, agility and mobility, that is scalable and can integrate seamlessly with other applications such as CRM and DMS. We wanted to go ‘best of breed’, to choose an application that would fit perfectly with our vision of ICT and innovation. Thanks to several enthusiastic recommendations from IT partners, consultants and customer references we were able to quickly identify Legalsense as our optimum route forward.”
People and places
Wilson Legal Solutions has appointed Kimberly Lawrence as director of finance.
Lawrence draws upon more than 15 years of financial management experience in the professional services sector, specifically in the insurance and life sciences industries, most recently acting as financial controller for Tunnell Consulting.
“Wilson Legal Solutions has experienced rapid growth since our founding in 2009. Continuing this trajectory calls for sound financial practices, which Kimberly is helping us to establish and implement,” says Bruce Wilson, managing director and CEO of Wilson Legal Solutions.