Also it may be worth mentioning that this video was put together in about 10 minutes! Take a look at the site http://www.xtranormal.com/ it’s a great tool for quickly putting together an animated video to explain things.

Let’s start at the top. That green blob in Outlook under FileSite or the application called DeskSite on your desktop. The document management system (DMS) itself, think of this as your firm. In a paper world this is where everything is stored. DMS = Your firm

The Office = The DMS

Now inside your office or firm you can have many of Filing cabinets. This is the place where your documents are stored. In the DMS these are pretty much what are known as the libraries. Library = Filing cabinets

You can group these in logical ways just like filing cabinets, a row for Litigation, a row for Real Estate or maybe you just have a bank of cabinets for all the firms clients. It’s exactly the same for your libraries in the DMS. You might have one way of grouping them, you may have many. e.g. Litigation Library = Litigation filing cabinets

Filing Cabinets = Libraries in the DMS

Right what’s in the cabinets? Yes, files and typically lots of them! In the DMS this is known as a Workspace. Workspace = File

Workspace = Matter File

Your firm will probably have hundreds or thousands of these files. Some of which you’re working on, some of which are just stuck in the filing cabinets (let’s not touch on those in archive today!). How do you organise those you’re working on? This is where your desk comes in! Your desk, the place where you put your files. In the DMS this is like the list of files under “My Files” (you may have it labelled My Matters or My Woirkspaces). My Files/My Matters/My Workspaces = Your desk

My Desk = My Files/My Matters/My Workspaces

This list can be changed by removing files or adding new ones. Remember though you’re just using these files, they aren’t just yours. Update them and all the office can see the updates. To add these in the DMS you would use a search to find the workspace (file) and add it to your My Files, in the real world you would go and get it from the filing cabinet and put it on your desk. Same concept.

Back to the file. Within the paper file you can arrange the documents with tabs and/or folders. Within the workspace (file) in the DMS  you can do the same. Tabs = Tabs, Folders = Folders

Tabs and Folders

Within tabs you can store folders, within folder documents and emails.

Finally that thing called “Subscribe” what on earth is that? This is basically the ability to look at your colleagues desk and see their files!

For those that struggle with the concept of workspaces, hopefully that will make some sense. From here you can read on and learn about how you can apply security to these workspaces (files) (worksite security pt1 and worksite security pt2).

A couple of things over the last week got me thinking again about the design of applications from a user perspective and how important this is.

First off was the launch of Windows Phone 7 Series.

Clearly Microsoft finally “got it” with this release. They went back to the drawing board and designed something from a users perspective. Grouping things together in a logical human way (rather than technical grouping). Take a look at the video over at MSDN.

Second though was the interface with the most potential, Microsoft Live Labs Pivot.

Basically it is an interface into huge amounts of information. It allows you to slice up information in different ways, allowing you to go from huge amounts of data down to small amounts and back out in logical and connected ways.

It’s quite difficult to explain how this works using text, so take a look at the video over at the Microsoft Pivot site – http://getpivot.com/

In a law firm the possibilities for this are huge.

Law firms have huge amounts of data in documents and emails that this kind of interface would be perfect for. Imagine this being the main interface for Outlook or your document management system. You could slice up your emails quickly to find the information you were after. Or slice up your documents to collect together specific types of agreements, in specific jurisdictions etc.

On the developer page there are a number of challenges. One of which is a front end to SharePoint. I’m going to put my own challenge out there for any legal software developer to front end Autonomy iManage’s WorkSite, imagine this being the user interface of DeskSite!

So as we are now on a slow road to recovery when will the good times return? Well I’m going to put my neck out and say never!

At least not in a return to what seemed to be the halcyon days between 2006 and 2008. My thoughts are these will be seen as the pinnacle of law firm revenue and profits per partner and I honestly think they’re gone for good.

Agree/Disagree? Let’s take a look at the graphs for big law UK (the figures are an average pulled from the top 20, to give a better picture of BigLaw firms generally). *click the images to get a larger size*

BigLaw

The growth is starting to slow, but is probably dipping in real terms. Due to the top 20’s truly global nature, their growth will probably look as if it is continuing for a few years as they receive greater revenue due to their size increases and global markets.

A better picture of the plateau being passed is to look at the picture for the mid sized firms. 2008 being the peak, the revenues are starting to fall.

Mid Size

But this is just a small dip isn’t it? Once we’re out of the recession things will move upwards again. Hmmm, if you look at the Profits per partner, the picture is much worse. And after all isn’t profit the real indication of the “good times”.

BigLaw

Mid Size

But again isn’t this just a dip until the markets pick up again?

I don’t think so. There are a number of factors why I think this drop off post 2008 isn’t just a dip which law firms will bounce back from.

• The move from the old style bill by the hour and for those that continue to bill by the hour, the pressure to keep costs low. As one IT Director put it “Yes we’re looking at alternatives to billable hours… but only because we have to”. I can’t see us not having to, clients will continue to make us!
• The UK (and US) markets are pretty saturated. There isn’t much room for growth. The introduction of the Legal Services Act 2007 as well as further commoditisation of legal work will put more pressure on fees.
• The costs were slashed across the board in most firms through 2008-2009. And still profits were down! All those expenses that have been deferred (and I bet there is a fair bit) will start eating into future years revenues.

And there are many challenges of the recession and economic downturn yet to come.

• Although many firms this recession have been sensible and avoided over enthusiastic job cutting, there have been plenty of pay freezes. This could be a drain on costs in the coming years as staff want that raise! The problem will happen first in the support depts., the staff there have a market for their skills outside legal. So the market could dictate a rise in salaries even if legal would ideally like to keep wages low.

As the graphs above show it’s having less of an affect on BigLaw at the moment, but as competition grows fierce in the mid sized firms, the BigLaw could see their home markets coming under more and more pressure. It’s only so long before BigLaw can rely on the non-UK revenues to keep the growth going, eventually you run out of places to grow!

So what’s my point? That Legal is a basket case and lawyers will have to get used to smaller pay packets?

No, I’m not saying is that Legal is a basket case, just that the peak has been reached. From here on in the competition will start to hot up, but as with any mature business this is good news for the client and good news for innovation. There will be winners and losers, but we’re not going to see all the top firms continue to grow. Overall the average will plateau, but within there will be firms that really increase revenue and profits and there will be those that really drop!

We’re in for a really interesting time in legal, seeing how firms change, how they innovate and from a personal point of view whether they really embrace IT and start using it as an enabler of change rather than a utility.

After a lot of talk of this happening and a few false starts, I think we’re now in for interesting times!

<Fail> No multitasking on the iPad!

There have been plenty of posts why the iPad falls short some I agree with some I don’t. But as a device for lawyers or other business usage I think it’s a case of “not there yet”.

As well as lack of multitasking, I think for a tablet to be a great tool for a lawyer it would need to replace the touch keyboard with a stylus/pen and good handwriting recognition. Marking up a document on a tablet with a pen surely is the “revolutionary” vision Mr Jobs?

It’s not far off and to be fair to Apple I never thought it would be a business tool, it’s a consumer device. But as a consumer I’m personally not convinced there is a gap between the smartphone and the netbook. I prefer the former on the move and if I wanted something a little more the later would be more convenient (and less tied into the Apple eco system!)

So after all the hype, the multitude of blog responses (including this one) I’m left with the feeling that with the iPad Apple have maybe left us with another :-

The Apple Newton

“magical truly revolutionary product” – Steve Jobs on the iPad

Perhaps it’s just too early for the technology that will make the tablet a real killer device. I think there is a gap (especially in business) for tablet PC’s, but the revolution will only come when it’s as convenient as a pad of paper or a paper magazine!

The business headlines though have been full of the cost to the UK economy, quotes range from a general £1.2bn cost to the economy to a daily cost of £0.5bn due to absenteeism. The feeling from a lot of these articles is that it’s the employees fault for not trying or the local governments fault for not gritting the road, but it never seems to be the employers fault…no they’re the ones suffering.

Wakefield under snow

Isn’t it about time we had a revolution in work days in the UK? A move from the practices and procedures in place to support an office in a city centre with set working hours? An abolition of the 9 to 5 … and for those who are about to say “if only” can I say we should also do away with the long hours culture too. Sure, work the long hours when you need to (finishing projects, completing deals) but not to impress your boss or worse, just to be seen in the office.

I mean this week how many like me have spent hours wasted standing on freezing platforms? Or struggling to get through the roads on buses and in cars? If you managed to get in at all, how many have been “late in”?

So will this cold snap finally kick start a new wave of forward thinking employers that shift to a flexible working model, not just in terms of working hours but also in working location? Law firms are ideally placed to take advantage as they don’t have the necessity of a set working hour like say retail.

The technology is there to enable lawyers to work anywhere:

• Remote access – how many firms don’t have some form of remote access to either connect your work laptop from your home broadband or even to use your home PC to connect through to your work environment?
• IM (Instant Messaging) – on my top 5 for 2010, IM has the ability to replace those adhoc chats in the office. Also bringing video to the desktop makes communicating more successful than with just the telephone. Also when you consider Skype’s recent announcement for their HD video it’ll be much better than the grainy pictures of old.
• Workflow – in dictation and other systems, workflow is built in. Meaning you can do your dictation or task, submit it and it can go on to a pool of people to complete (either in their home, another office or another country).

The benefits during this last week are so obvious!

Your employees firstly can get to work (no snow between bedroom and study and even if for whatever reason there is, then just use the laptop in your bedroom!). Your employees who got to work this week were probably late, cold and rather un-motivated due to expending all their energy on their commute!

The cost benefits are there too. By providing flexible working a percentage of the firm will always be working out of the office, this should enable firms to redesign their office space requirements to utilise less desks and less space. Less space = less cost, a big saving for a lot of law firms whose offices tend to be in prime real estate locations.

Yes there are the common complaints:

• People aren’t working, but having a “jolly” at home. This perhaps will require the most effort to resolve as it will require a shift in the way we manage people. But surely we should be managing for results/deliverables anyway, rather than by how long someone is at their desk or in the office? After all lawyers work with clients very effectively and they’re offsite, so surely it’s as easy if not easier to do that with colleagues?
• Missing the day to day chats. This can be alleviated with IM as previously mentioned, but I’m not advocating sole home working. So the adhoc chats will still happen when people are in the office. If there is a need for a team to keep in regular contact then the team probably needs to be together in the office but it won’t be all the time.
• Some people can’t due to the nature of their work. That’s right, but my answer is so what? Why should there be one policy for all employees? In Law firms more can. Take Legal IT departments as an example:
  • Help Desk – there is technology to allow switch board numbers to be routed to any phone any where. The AA do this for their call centre operators, as do many other forward thinking companies.
  • Server Support – a lot of firms utilise remote data centres anyway, so what is the difference if their “home base” is elsewhere?

So stop the complaining about the cost of the snow and do something about it. It’s time for a flexible working revolution. Let’s get rid of 9 to 5 and get rid of the concept of needing a permanent desk in an office to do your work!

I mentioned Paul O’Connor from Interwoven/iManage UK and the GS Link Warden product he’s been working on for Grant Select back in August.

There are two more that I thought worth pointing out.

The first is Simon Ellison-Bunce who some of you may know from Tikit. He has started a company called FellSoft Limited. They are focused on CRM and in particular InterAction and have recently released a product called Feed Watch.

Feed Watch is an add-on product for InterAction that basically can bring in content from the web (via RSS) into InterAction.

The second is Keith Lipman who some may know from Interwoven/iManage. He has started a company called Prosperoware. They are focused on information management and have a product available called Milan.

Milan is an add-on for Autonomy iManage WorkSite and adds a number of useful tools for managing the environment.

I think 2010 will be an interesting year for Legal IT as there does seem to be a wave of new software companies providing innovative add-ons and expansions to the “core” Legal IT products.

Hope you had a good 2009 and I wish you all a great 2010. For me what better way for me to start the blog this year than conforming with a blogger tradition and compiling a list.

I thought I’d try a prediction of the technology areas that I will be big for Legal It in 2010, so here it is my top 5 list of legal IT technologies for 2010.

#5 Mobile Applications

The Smartphone is well and truly main stream now (thanks mainly to the iPhone, but also Windows Phone, BlackBerry’s and Android phones). And 2010 will be the year it moves from just being an email device in the hands of fee earners. It’ll be the year of an explosion of business applications on mobile devices.

#4 – Search

I think this will be a big year for search technology, in particular IDOL. This will initially be driven by the numbers of firms on Autonomy’s iManage WorkSite product moving to the latest 8.5 version with IDOL. But once it’s in I think search will start to grow as a key technology in 2010.

#3 – Office 2010/Windows 7

After 18 months of “make do” most firms will start to look at these two products together. After all I suspect almost all law firms are on Windows XP still and Office 2003, right? I also think there will be a fair few mid-sized firms who go down an alternative route and go to OpenOffice in 2010 (like Ford & Warren Solicitors in the UK. A Law Firm in Leeds with 200 desktops are using Openoffice 3.0 now).

#2 Instant Messaging

MSN Messenger comes to Legal IT! After years of being the #1 consumer product for Generations Y & Z this will be the year Instant Messaging breaks into the corporate world in a big way (including Legal IT). There will be lots of arguments against, but 2010 will be the year for IM starts becoming a standard business tool.

And Finally……

#1 Speech Recognition

I remember this being touted as the killer technology back when I started in Legal IT in the mid to late 90’s. But the technology has advanced sufficiently to warrant a return in a big way in 2010 (Nuance have been working on the technology and have acquired all those names of old, IBM ViaVoice, Dragon Dictation etc – just this week they bought SpinVox).

I think also the general shift in secretarial/fee earner ratios will mean fee earners will do more of their own document production (also I think younger lawyers are more comfortable doing this anyway). Speech recognition is perfect for addressing this, giving you a quick start on your document. 

So that’s my list, one for a review at the end of the year. What do you think? A accurate list or a sure fire way to get myself on a list of infamous quotes on 31st December 2010?

It’ll take a lot to beat this quote, my favourite from a list circulated this week on twitter:

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” 1977 — Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) 

Although when you think about it now, he’s probably right. Do we really want a computer or just an internet device in our home?

Following a question today I found a neat way of adding a shortcut to another folder from within your matter file. This is pretty straight forward when you think about it within WorkSite, but it’s worth noting as it’s always handy to be able to link to a folder of documents from within your electronic file (e.g. to link to common client documents within a client folder from within each matter file relating to that client).

This is what you end up with (where Client Documents is located in another file, i.e. the shortcut):

Shortcut to a folder within a matter workspace

To do this all you need to do is the following:

• Right Click on the Tab (Matter Management in the above example)
• Select Add Shortcuts

How to add a shortcut to a folder from within a matter workspace

• In the resulting pop up, browse to your required folder.
• Then single click on the folder (i.e. highlight it, not go into the contents of it)
• Click Select
• That should be it, the shortcut should be added 

Given the relevant access rights (see explanation of WorkSite security here and here) you can also add shortcuts to folders at a Workspace as well as Tab level.

Before you stop reading let me say this isn’t going to be a blog post campaigning to get us all go web 2.0 and set up internal facebook systems. No, this is simply to raise awareness. As I’ve mentioned before Legal IT’ers need to be educating their lawyers (and perhaps some of their colleagues) about social media. It isn’t just generation Z posting pictures of themselves and their friends in uncompromising positions on open facebook accounts or posting about what you had for breakfast on twitter. No, this is about helping your firm and your clients to understand how social media could see their services or products destroyed in a tsunami of negative online comment!

It only took just two people and a facebook group to wreck Simon Cowell’s hold on the Christmas #1, a zero cost campaign against weeks of million viewer pulling X Factor “adverts”.

But still it’s amazing at how few businesses really “get” social media and prefer to just ignore it, rather than engage with it. Even in the IT industry! There are few Legal IT vendors that really ”get it”. But they all need to, it’s no longer about good press releases and a good website, it’s about comment, engaging with your customers through interactive online content.

So I’m going to sign off with a challenge to the Legal IT vendors. If you read blogs for comment on your firm, how about letting us know that you’re a step ahead of most IT companies and post a simple comment on this post? Go on, given the time of year ow about just a simple “Happy Christmas from xyz plc”!