13 June 2013 - Microsoft Tries Again With Windows 8.1
"Windows 8 has been something of a flop. It’s selling even worse than the much-loathed Windows Vista did, and the entire PC industry is feeling the pain.
"Microsoft is listening. It’s hard at work on Windows 8.1, which it says will be much better." Read more (NY Times)
11 June 2013 - The Safe Way to Share Documents in The Cloud
Australian company Lockbox has come up with a solution that encrypts all documents and data before they are sent to a secure client portal for sharing with clients and other authorised parties.Read more
6 June 2013 - LEAP Office Explained (new video)
5 June 2013 - HighStreetLawyer.com [UK] Selects Workshare to Build Collaborative Community
click image to read more
5 June 2013 - Maurice Blackburn's Approach to Legal Technology
Maurice Blackburn recently implemented matter management solution MatterSphere in a firm-wide project. The firm consists of approximately 740 people across 28 offices.
MatterSphere is embedded within the Microsoft Office environment. It integrates with the firm’s 3E financial management system and its HP iManage WorkSite document management system.
Read about Maurice Blackburn’s approach to using technology and how it is benefiting from its investment. Download PDF
3 June 2013 - Thomson Reuters Launches Infinitylaw Practice Management Software for Small Law Firms
Click above image to read more
30 May 2013 - SugarSync Introduces Remote Wipe of Computers and Devices - Plus Top Five Reasons For Cloud File Management
24 May 2013 - Workflow Automation in Law Firms - The Next Frontier
Andrea Foot of Caseflow says that workflow automation is the next frontier in law firms. Read more
18 May 2013 - "Beer companies make beer. Widget companies make widgets and law firms make documents"
If we consider the perspective that law firms make documents, then a document management system becomes a warehouse, and sometimes a retail shop, for the law firm's products. (flash video below)
13 May 2013 - Catch Up Time for US Law Firms with Adoption of Document Automation
Smokeball (USA) has automated 4,000 Illinios court forms.Read more
8 May 2013 - ActionStep Cloud System Offers Document Editing Breakthrough
The Queensland Government established the Independent Commission of Audit which has made a large number of recommendations, including:
The Government discontinue the role of CITEC as a centralised provider of ICT services within government, and initiate a process to divest the CITEC business within two years
The Government discontinue its role as an owner and manager of significant ICT assets and systems and implement a program to divest ICT assets and systems, with required ICT services to be purchased under contractual arrangements with private providers.
The Queensland Government has accepted these recommendations. The details of how this will affect CITEC Confirm, the information broker widely used by law firms in Queensland and other parts of Australia, is yet to be determined.
29 April 2013 [UK] - Clifford Chance Picks BlackBerry
click above image to go to article
29 April 2013 - Workshare Keeping the Revolution Alive
Just about everyone is writing about it, talking about it and worrying about it - the big tech challenge facing law firms and most other businesses at this moment - but who is actually doing something about it? Read more
18 April 2013 - E-Conveyancing Update (recorded webinar)
CLICK ABOVE IMAGE TO VIEW RECORDED WEBINAR
13 April 2013 - Shine Lawyers Planning $5+ million IT Project
Shine Lawyers is to raise funds from a public float. The float prospectus describes a proposed major IT project:
Shine’s existing case management system has been in place for a number of years. Shine licenses it from a local technology provider on a ‘per seat’ licence fee arrangement.
Shine is considering partnering with Avanade Australia Pty Ltd (Avanade) to develop a new case management system, part of the T2 Project, to replace Shine’s existing system. At the date of this prospectus, Shine is in the process of negotiating an agreement with Avanade. Although the final specification for the project has not been settled, Shine and Avanade have done significant planning work. Based on that work, Shine anticipates expenditure of about $5.2 million in connection with the design and development of the new case management system over the Forecast Period. Avanade would provide ongoing hosting and support.
4 April 2013 - Launch of Custom Precedents Service for LEAP Office Users
Miser Legal Solutions has launched a new economical precedent automation service for LEAP Users. Read more
3 April 2013 - Matrix Solutions Receives Worldox Excellence Award
At the recent LegalTech 2013 show in New York, legal industry IT specialists Matrix Solutions received a Worldox Excellence Award for International Sales Performance. The award is recognition of their focus on Worldox. This has resulted in a 15% increase in the Worldox user base in Australia over the past 12 months. Survey results show that privately-owned World Software is growing faster than any other Document Management Systems.
Matrix Solutions co-founder and CEO, Anthony Ridley-Smith, said that the award was confirmation that the focus on document management and business process improvement was paying off. “We have used Worldox internally for more than 15 years but we really only started focusing on selling, installing and supporting Worldox in the last few years. It now represents a substantial part of our business.” Anthony and Georgina Ridley-Smith were in New York for the LegalTech trade show and conference as well as attending Worldox Inner Circle meetings. Matrix Solutions co-founder Georgina said “Attending LegalTech provides the opportunity to meet vendors and see emerging trends before they surface in Australia.
World Software President Ray Zwiefelhofer commented “We love what the Matrix Solutions team are doing in the Asia Pacific region. We wanted to recognise that the work Matrix Solutions has been doing fits exactly with our international plans.
About Matrix Solutions: Matrix Solutions provides tailored hosted desktop and network management solutions to professional firms. In addition, the company specialises in installation and support of Worldox Document Management software. For more information about Matrix Solutions visit us at www.matrixsolutions.com.au.
About World Software Corporation: Founded in 1988 and based in Glen Rock, New Jersey, World Software Corporation is an innovative leader in the Document Management Systems (DMS) category. The company's flagship product Worldox has an install base of over 5000 companies in 50 countries. For more information about World Software Corporation and its products, please visit us at www.worldox.com.
2 April 2013 - Office 365 for The Do-it-Yourself IT Manager
25 March 2013 - ActionStep Cloud Practice Management - New Features
Ted Jordan, founder and CEO of ActionStep, was in Sydney recently speaking to a group of current and potential users of ActionStep software. Read more
22 March 2013 - Workshare Extends SharePoint and iManage
Workshare, a leading provider of secure enterprise collaboration applications, has announced its integration with Microsoft SharePoint and Autonomy iManage, allowing users to securely share documents in fewer clicks. This is the first in a series of planned integrations to bridge the gap between traditional document management systems (DMS) and enterprise content management (ECM) systems to connect Workshare’s collaboration platform with SharePoint and iManage.
The out-of-the-box integration saves time and increases security for users collaborating inside and outside the organisation by making sure users do not need to download documents and send them as an email attachment. With the SharePoint and iManage integration, users can easily synchronise documents stored in the DMS or ECM to Workshare’s secure platform. Collaboration on the platform is reinforced by the organisation’s data security policy and reporting.
Once the document has been synchronised with the platform, all collaborators work from the same version. An indicator appears in the DMS or ECM to notify users that there is a collaboration happening via Workshare’s platform. From the platform, collaborators can use the accurate document comparison and tagged commenting unique to Workshare’s online and mobile applications and be confident that all document changes are managed throughout the document lifecycle. In addition when collaborators are ready to work in the DMS or ECM, the latest version of the document is synced from Workshare’s platform to SharePoint or iManage.
“Microsoft and Autonomy are among the leading DMS and ECM vendors. Their applications are designed to enforce structure and administrative control for document management. With Workshare, organisations have that same level of control beyond the firewall and collaborators have a simple way to access and collaborate on content,” said Anthony Foy, CEO of Workshare. “We’re focused on optimising legacy investments in SharePoint and iManage to mobilise content securely within and outside of the organisation.”
20 March 2013 - How Wainwright Ryan Eid Lawyers Improved Document Turnaround Times by 50% and Eliminated the Document Back-Log with BigHand Speech Recognition
(click above image to read article)
14 March 2013 - Thomson Reuters Elite in the Asia Pacific Region
click image to read article
11 March 2013 - Gavel & Gown Announces The Release of ‘Amicus Anywhere’
18 February 2013 - Open Practice Expands Precedents Package
Announcement from Open Practice:
Open Practice has released a number of new precedents this year, as we continue to enhance our precedents offering.
On 16 January 2013, OP released 46 Queensland Debt Recovery forms to clients, before releasing a further 52 Queensland Debt Recovery forms on 25 January. During our 1 February release, Open Practice rolled out another five Queensland Debt Recovery forms, thereby completing the set.
The February release also saw the first seven forms in the Victorian Debt Recovery set, as well as 18 Queensland Coroners Act forms and 22 Queensland Litigation forms, which were specifically requested by customers.
For a full list of all forms and precedents within these releases, click here.
14 February 2013 - Are the Office 365 Options Causing Your Head to Spin?
In the good old days (circa 2012) your basic software setup was clear cut if you were a small or one person firm. Typically, Microsoft Outlook and Word were installed on your office desktop. Outside of the office, emails could be dealt with on your phone. You could access your desktop remotely or back-up documents to the cloud using Dropbox or something similar.
If you were in the mood for some late night drafting, Google Docs was ideal. The document was in the cloud and automatically accessible from your office computer in the morning without the need for convoluted self-emailing procedures.
Microsoft ruled the desktop and Google ruled the cloud. It was a perfectly adequate status quo that we could all understand. But white fluffy clouds started to turn black. For the past year or so, Microsoft has been cajoling small businesses into using its cloud systems in place of Google Apps. The cloud suite is called Office 365. [We signed up to Office 365 three months ago – review coming soon].
Then the darkening clouds burst into a thunder storm. Along with the launch of Office 2013, a range of new Office 365 cloud and cloud/desktop options was released. There is now a confusing array of Microsoft options that can easily do the head in of any do-it-yourself IT manager of a small legal practice. And it doesn't end there. There's also something called Outlook.com which is free.
For those of us who have been enjoying the benefits of Google Docs these past few years, is now the time to say goodbye to it? We’ll be addressing that question soon. But first, here is a handy summary of the Office 365 "starter" options compiled at boxfreeit.com.au (click image below).
12 February 2013 - How Arnold Bloch Leibler with Canon Tames the Admin Beast
31 January 2013 - How Lawyers from Different Generations Utilise Legal Secretaries
An article appearing in AM Law Daily is a fascinating case study on how a growing US commercial law firm of about 500 lawyers utilises legal secretaries.
"We have new associates whose use of secretarial support is much different than senior partners who are in their 60s," Hoffman [Firm Chairman] said.
Depending on how well they use technology, senior partners might work with secretaries on a 1-1 or 2-1 ratio, Hoffman said. On the other hand, associates up through year six are not using secretaries to type briefs and are rather doing it themselves, he said. So associates are using secretaries at a rate of six or seven attorneys to every one secretary.
Blending those two needs together, Hoffman said the goal for Blank Rome is to have a 4-1 attorney-to-secretary ratio in 2013.
9 January 2013 - ActionStep Cloud Practice Management Solution For Australian Law Firms
New Zealand software company ActionStep is in the midst of an international expansion offering its cloud software to law firms in the US and Australia. Read more
7 January 2013 - [UK & US] Thomson Reuters to Acquire Practical Law Company
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