Much of our news this week comes from the United States, where we bring you all the latest eDiscovery, practice management, matter management and CRM updates. In the UK there’s a new launch from Workshare and all the latest wins and deals, while in Singapore, there’s a new partnership for Opus 2 International.
United States
eDiscovery
There has been yet further consolidation in the eDiscovery sector after FRONTEO last week announced the acquisition of managed review provider Essential Discovery Inc.
EDI is a boutique discovery firm with specialisation in document review with Fortune 250 corporations and AM Law 100 clients across the United States.
“Continued growing demand for efficient, reliable and cost effective review services in primary and secondary locations enables FRONTEO and EDI to offer clients improved engagement, better project management and streamlined processes,” says Aaron Fluss, national managing director at EDI. “This will help us to mitigate case risk, drive increased value to law firms and corporations, and standardize review processes based on industry-best methodologies.”
Continuing the eDiscovery theme, Kroll Ontrack, which was acquired by LDiscovery in October, has launched the second edition of its annual New Frontiers in eDiscovery Report.
The report highlights the continued and rapid international expansion in the use of eDiscovery techniques and technologies by law firms and their clients as well as ongoing progress made in the capabilities of eDiscovery itself, as it is increasingly used to pre-empt rather than just react to problems.
Tim Phillips, managing director of Kroll Ontrack International Legal Technologies, said: “There is growing interest in technologies such as Predictive Coding and mobile ediscovery solutions used onsite as companies seek to reduce the cost of litigation and the risks associated with transferring data across borders. Countries in Europe that were traditionally hesitant about adopting ediscovery, notably Spain, Italy and those in Scandinavia, are now seeing the benefits of using sophisticated legal technologies such as predictive coding.”
To download a copy of the Kroll Ontrack New Frontiers in Ediscovery Report, visit: http://www.ediscovery.com/uk/new-frontiers-in-ediscovery/
And Guidance Software, provider of EnCase forensic software, which in October announced an integration with kCura’s Relativity, has released the latest version of EnCase Endpoint Investigator, featuring a new enhanced agent to enable investigators to collect data off-network, as users connect and reconnect to wireless corporate networks.
“As the mobile workforce continues to grow, security analysts have an increasingly difficult job to do,” said Michael Harris, chief marketing officer at Guidance. “The new enhanced agent in EnCase Endpoint Investigator gives our customers the power to dramatically reduce internal threats, even when endpoint devices are disconnected from the network.”
Practice management, matter management, CRM and security
Away from eDiscovery and New Jersey-based cloud-based law practice management software provider CosmoLex has announced a new integration with the Microsoft Office 365 suite of solutions.
CosmoLex v4.4 will provide synchronization between the Outlook and CosmoLex calendars of 365 users. This sync will ensure that events scheduled or adjusted in one system will be reflected in the other. CosmoLex v4.4 will also allow all OneDrive for Business documents to be accessed, edited, and saved through CosmoLex.
CEO Rick Kabra said: “Lawyers everywhere are beginning to turn to Office 365 to increase their ability to work on the run, and CosmoLex wants to help them get the most out of this system.”
Thomson Reuters has secured its 1000th global customer for Thomson Reuters Legal Tracker (formerly Serengeti Tracker).
Global manufacturer of electronic instruments and electromechanical devices, AMETEK, Inc., became the latest organization to select the matter management system, with Robert S. Feit, senior vice president & general counsel of AMETEK commenting: “We needed an e-billing and matter management system capable of dramatically streamlining our invoicing process, while simultaneously providing improved analysis and monitoring of overall legal spend. We’re extremely confident Legal Tracker will meet these requirements and help deliver clear, additional bottom line value.”
Handshake Software, which provides SharePoint-based products and services to the legal market, has announced an integration with Foundation Software Group’s Foundation Experience Management (FEM) solution.
FEM is an enterprise software platform that helps firms leverage the collective work experience of its lawyers. Existing customers will now be able to access all Foundation information from within their Handshake Portals, Handshake Universal Search and Handshake Expertise Locator.
“We are excited that two of our valued vendor partners have teamed up,” stated Tracy Hallenberger, chief knowledge officer at Baker Botts L.L.P. “The new Handshake/Foundation integration will further enhance our users’ experiences and capabilities and enable us to realize even more value from both products.”
Cleveland-based dark data startup Heureka Software has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from local angel investors and Cleveland venture development organization JumpStart Inc. The company further expects to raise that figure to $1.8 million in angel funding by year’s end.
Founded in 2014, Heureka is an enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering that provides organisations with vital surveillance over the increasing amount of dark data that is prevalent in the workplace.
To date, Heureka has raised a total of $1.95 million, including a JobsOhio IOLF Loan of $750k, a $100k award from the Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise (GLIDE) and their most recent $250k infusion of capital from the JumpStart Evergreen Fund.
“This funding is helping us make significant investments in the product development team, so that we have the architectural rigor and engineering craft necessary to develop and release new features very rapidly,” said Heureka’s VP of Product Development Mark Minehart.
United Kingdom
Having spent the last two years analysing the deal checklists and closing binders process, bringing on board two lawyers who previously worked for Clifford Chance and Fieldfisher, Workshare has launched Workshare Deal Checklists, an online service that it says will save legal teams hours in wasted admin time and improve the client experience.
Denver based law firm Campbell Killin Brittan & Ray has been working with a beta version of the solution for more than a year and associate Skylar Marshall said: “Not only does Workshare enable the whole transaction to be more efficient, but on the day of closing, being able to collate all the relevant closing files in such a simple way, and then wrapping up the closing binder on the same day, is very satisfying.”
Existing clients and prospective customers can now trial the Workshare Deal Checklists functionality as part of a trial. A team of customer success executives is available to assist with on boarding and learning more about the system. https://goo.gl/DZdgaF
IT Finance Services has partnered with Corporate Insight to launch into the legal sector QPR ProcessAnalyzer, a software tool that automatically generates a process flow view of a firm’s matters activities, across all practice sectors and business functions, including IT.
In litigation, ProcessAnalyzer reviews all phases and task activities, slicing by matter type and practice group and comparing each partner’s approach to any given matter, producing high level KPi’s.
In matter planning, for example, ProcessAnalyzer exposes the cost of previous matter phases, to aid in the quotation on new work and plan that work more efficiently.
For many details you can watch this video.
McAllister Olivarius, a Maidenhead litigation law firm, has awarded the contract for the support and maintenance of its iManage Work email and document management solution to Ascertus, a provider of tailored information and document lifecycle management solutions to law firms and corporate legal departments. Ascertus will also begin the process to upgrade McAllister Olivarius to the latest version of iManage Work in 2017.
Lewis Sheridan, IT manager at McAllister Olivarius, said: “Ascertus’ proactive approach to support clinched the deal for us. The company undertakes an annual health check to anticipate and pre-empt system-related issues before they occur. Also, Ascertus’ attitude demonstrates the value that the company places on each and every customer. From speaking to the company, we knew we would not be competing for good service with Ascertus’ larger or perhaps more prestigious customers. We have confidence that Ascertus will deliver us a smooth iManage Work upgrade.”
Riverview Law has been awarded the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 Information Security Management accreditation by the UK standards body BSI.
Riverview Law’s Operations Director, Katy Robson, said: “By being awarded this standard, our global customers have an internationally recognised stamp of approval that the security of their confidential data and information is of the highest priority to Riverview Law.”
Riverview continues to recruit heavily in the North West. For further information on joining the company, visit www.riverviewlaw.com/join-us.
And Tikit has been awarded ISO 9001:2008 accreditation for it global support offices across the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Tikit’s support procedures were rigorously audited by an external body to ensure that the principles of the ISO standard are being upheld by all of Tikit’s Own IP Support staff around the world.
Simon Hill, chief operating officer at Tikit, said: “With this accreditation, along with our support team consistently achieving 96% and over in our monthly customer satisfaction survey, it is proof of our ongoing commitment to cultivating a philosophy of continuous improvement.”
Last but not least for the UK, Tiger Eye, an iManage support and consulting services provider founded in 2005, has announced that 2016 has been its most successful year to date and it is rapidly expanding as an iManage partner.
Led by founder and managing director Dave Wilson, who before Tiger Eye spent ten years at Interwoven as the EMEA technical support manager for WorkSite (now iManage Work), in 2016 Tiger Eye took on a growing number of customers and staff and hired Cerys Burcher to manage it recently-launched knowledge management software Blueprint.
Singapore
Opus 2 International, a worldwide litigation services and software development company, has entered a partnership with Maxwell Chambers, an integrated alternative dispute resolution complex located in Singapore. Through this partnership, Maxwell Chambers’ clients receive preferred rates on the full portfolio of Opus 2 services, including the company’s realtime and daily transcription service. Maxwell’s nearly two dozen best-in-class hearing facilities can also be integrated with Opus 2’s e-bundle and professional evidence presentation services.
Katherine Yap, chief executive of Maxwell Chambers said: “The infusion of premier Opus 2’s services into our modern facilities is part of our continuous effort to provide best-in-class dispute resolution facilities and an arbitration experience which is second to none.”