It's free, it's painless, and it's a chance to shine a well-deserved spotlight on some of the unsung heroes of the legal industry.  Nominate the best and the brightest in these categories:

1. IT Champion of the Year

2. CIO/IT Director of the Year

Most innovative use of tech in:

3. Large firm >100

4. Small firm <100

5. Law Dept or Govt'l agency

6. Pro Bono project

Info and form here: http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/ltn_awards.jsp

Email entries to mbay@alm.com by 11:59 Monday Dec. 3

Questions: mbay@alm.com or 212 457 9530

The upper east side of Manhattan fared better than lower parts of our island, but none the less, several cars will drive no more. In the grand scheme of things, that's so not a big deal considering the devastation and lives lost in the wake of Sandy's visit to the East Coast. 

Here are a few more photos, shot within a few blocks of the East River. See album here.

 Images: Monica Bay

Need to rack up some continuing legal education credits, especially those hard-to-find ethics hours? Concerned about the changes to the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct that now mandate that lawyers must be cognizant about legal technology? Want to learn more about how to effectively use trial technology?

Well, if you'll be in the San Francisco Bay Area today (Wednesday, September 19), have we got a program for you! Our sister publication, The Recorder, is sponsoring Legal Tech Day 2012 in San Francisco at the Commonwealth Club, located on the second floor of 595 Market Street. (BART/Muni: Montgomery Street station). Walk-ins are welcome!

The half-day workshop is free and offers four CLE credits. It starts at 8 a.m. (breakfast) and runs through 1 p.m. The event is sponsored by The Focal Point, Thomson Reuters, Kroll Ontrack, and LexisNexis.

At 8:30 a.m., Law Technology News' technology editor, Sean Doherty and I will present the keynote address, entitled "Ripped from the Headlines: Seven Technology Trends Lawyers Must Know." We will walk the audience through LTN's recent cover stories, a veritable crash course about the advantages — and ethics hazards — of using legal technology.

Topics will include insider trading scandals at three global firms; BYOD (bring your own [mobile] devices to work);  the potential pitfalls of cloud computing; surprising e-discovery models; the "sudden" emergence of Big Data; hidden traps in legacy files; legal project management; and alternative fee arrangements. You'll learn how technology can help your organization produce services for both external and internal clients better, faster, and more more cheaply — while you dodge danger. Doherty will provide overviews of current technology options and guidance on how best to stay on top of technology developments. (We're both members of the California bar.)

Then, join us for two more presentations:  Sponsored by The Focal Point, from 10:15 a.m. to 11:45 a.m., will be presented by attorney G. Christopher Ritter, will discuss courtroom technology options. Then, from noon to 1 p.m, Clay Dawson, a Thomson Reuters litigation product specialist, will present "Technology Tools for Litigators," sponsored by TR.

Join us!

Read the full article here.

Herb Roitblat's bobble-head doll!

Phil Rosenthal, Fastcase

ALM's Marnie Maroney,
Barrie Harmelin

and Henry Dicker (right)

Unidentified Survivor!

Photos: Monica Bay

Jennifer Whittier, Cole Valley Software

David Cowen, The Cowen Group

Below from left: Mary Pat Poteet (Project Leadership Associates),

John Alber (Bryan Cave), Yvonne Dornic (e-Sentio)

(right) John Tredennick (Catalyst

Repository Systems) 

Linda Sackett, Cinda Voutselas,

and colleagues.

Michael Kraft, Kraft Kennedy.

Photos: Monica Bay

Timothy Dix, Xpriori

Doug Horton Handshake Software

Mary Mack, Zylab, and consultant George Socha.

Beth (Apple) and Bil Kellermann (Wilson Sonsini)

Cathy Kenton,

Legal Vertical Strategies

Photos: Monica Bay

The International Legal Technology Association annual meeting, like ALM's LegalTech New York, can be absolutely overwhelming (especially to newbies), but with careful scheduling and planning can be an exhilarating (and definitely exhausting) experience. When it's time to head home, my head is always exploding with new ideas, concepts, and goals for Law Technology News. But more than anything else, I relish the chance to catch up with the folks who have become not just colleagues, but genuine friends over the 14 years I've been editing the magazine.

Here are just a few shots of the wonderful people who create our fantastic community. How lucky we all are to share our careers with such amazing individuals!

Above left: JoAnna Forshee, Suzy Mills, & Jobst Elster. (Forshee and Elster are with Envision Agency.)

Above right: Chris Boyd, senior director of professional services, Wilson Sonsini.

Far right: Al Barsocchini, senior director, strategic consulting, NightOwl Document Management Services.

Below: Tracy Elmblat, director of applications, development, project management, and customer support at Bingham McCutchen.

William Hamilton, partner, Quarles & Brady, and dean at Bryan University's e-discovery department. 

(More photos coming!)

Photos: Monica Bay

Despite flight cancellations and delays caused by the opening statement of potential hurricane Isaac as it approached the U.S. mainland, the opening ceremonies of the International Legal Technology Association annual conference came off with only slight hitches Sunday night, and rolled right into an energetic keynote on Monday morning by Frans Johansson. Read about termites, Muslim bathing suits, Nascar, and tomato soup  here. Photo left: Johansson. 

Among the Keynote attendees and revelers at the Sunday reception:

E-Sentio's Yvonne Dornic and friend (right ), ILTA's executive director Randy Mayes (left), and Roberta Gelb (bottom left). More to come!

Images: Monica Bay 

Nancy Patterson -- president and CEO of LitigatorTechnology.com -- addresses the challenges facing small firm practitioners, on the American Bar Association's GP-Solo eReport website.

She interviewed several sources (including me) for the article, which discusses everything from how lawyers are using online courses, to how they choose real-time live programs (says Debora Faust: "Topic, location, and cost.") 

Patterson also is the editor of the Litig8r Tech blog that targets solo litigationrs and trial teams. 

Image: Clipart.com

Numbers. Nothing can make or break your day than those crazy digits. Your checking account balance, your age, your weight, your frequent flyer number (along with your elite status) changing due to airline mergers, your salary, your cholesterol. The constantly changing numbers. A number can evoke a story: 2008 for anyone who owns a home, 9/11/2001, 2004 for Red Sox fans (and those many pinstriped numbers).

So it's not surprising that we find surveys and polls irresistible. Even though we know full well that surveys can be Delphic oracles, prone to ambiguity and misinterpretation, polls give us at least a fleeting sense that we just might understand where we have been, where we are, and where we are headed.

Recently three surveys provide much fodder for thought: 1) The Cowen Group's "1Q Critical Trends," report; 2) Gartner's latest annual report on legal technology vendors, and 3) ALM Legal Intelligence's recent survey on alternative fee agreements.

Check out the details here.

Image: Clipart.com

Is it just me, or has Big Data suddenly gone viral? Within days of each other, I received two interesting press releases. The first was from Holland & Knight  announcing that it was launching a new data privacy and security unit, led by partners Christopher Cwalina and Steven Roosa, who left Reed Smith to take on the new task. The unit is part of the firm's public policy and regulation group.

The second was from Hunton & Williams' Centre for Information Policy Leadership, which has launched a new multi-industry "Ethical Analytics" program "to highlight the benefits and directly address the risks raised by analytics in the age of big data by developing voluntary guidelines for their responsible use by organizations."

I got so interested in the intersection of Big Data, privacy, and security that I'm working on a story about it for the next issue of Law Technology News magazine. If your firm or law department has set up a unit to address this, feel free to ping me at mbay@alm.com and tell me about it. Ditto for vendors who are creating technology to address these issues.

Meanwhile, you can read my articles about Hunton & Williams here and about Holland & Knight's new unit here.

And if you haven't read the "Target" chapter in Charles Duhigg's amazing new book, The Power of Habit, you definitely want to either buy the book or read the excerpt from The New York Times Magazine, here.

The Target story is what triggered my "eureka moment" where I knew I had to dive into this topic to begin exploring the legal and technology ramifications/implications. (Here's my book review.) I'm now officially obsessed mesmerized with BDPS. (Opps, is that new acronym?) 

And I'm also thrilled that Duhigg, an investigative reporter with The New York Times, will be the January 31 keynote speaker at LegalTech New York 2013 -- I can't wait! Check out www.legaltechshow.com for upcoming information about three-day show.

Image: Charles Duhigg

Judith Flournoy, a long-time member of Law Technology News' Editorial Advisory Board and a past president of the International Legal Technology Association, will be leaving Loeb & Loeb with what must be just about the easiest transition ever made by a CIO -- or for that matter, any legal professional. She's moving one floor up at her office at 10100 Santa Monica Blvd., in Los Angeles, to rejoin Kelley Drye & Warren.

"Same commute, same dry cleaners," she joked. She spent eight years at Loeb, and heads upstairs with nothing but praise for her two employers. Read more here.

See post directly below (or click here) about our upcoming ILTA career panel, which includes Judi!

Image: Judith Flournoy.

In case you haven't noticed, Chicago's law firms seem to be in an intense "musical chairs" mode when it comes to CIOs. A quick charting shows that:

• Andy Jurczyk left SNR Denton to go to Seyfarth (with several of his staff). (Previously, David Hambourger left SNR D to become CIO of Dykema Gossett.)
• Sally Gonzalez, then of HBR Consulting, stepped into the SNR Denton slot as interim, and now has joined the firm as its Global CIO. (Also joining the firm is Michele Gossmeyer, as internim director of information management.)
• David Cunningham left HRB C to become CIO of Winston Strawn (after participating in five CIO searches in one year while at HRB C).
• Doug Caddell left Foley & Lardner this spring, and now is a Chicago-based managing director at HRB C.

Over on the left coast, Judith Flournoy had one of the most interesting announcements. She's going back to the future, rejoining Kelley Drye & Warren -- after eight years at Loeb & Loeb. She won't have to hire any moving vans -- KDW is one floor up from her current L&L digs. How convenient is that? And on the east coast, Andy Adkins thought he was retiring from consulting until he got a phone call from a friend... and now is in West Virginia with Steptoe & Johnson PLLC.

Each has a fascinating story -- and all will be speaking at a special panel at the International Legal Technology Association's annual conference, on Weds. August 29, at 11 a.m., the Gaylord National (near Washington, D.C.) I'll be moderating, and I hope you will join us! 

Here's Andy's story about our program, "Reassessing Your Calling to Redesign Your Career."

Image: ILTA

Sean Doherty (Law Technology News' technology editor) reports on the American Bar Association's House of Delegates vote about revisions to the ABA's Model Rules of Professional Conduct and commentary, addressing lawyers' use of technology, and the obligation to be knowledgeable about both the opportunities and risks.

His report also includes links to two LTN magazine articles analyzing the amendments, one by Michael Arkfeld and Stephanie Loquvam ("Too Little, Too Late"), and Robert Ambrogi's "Mischief & Malaise" (which focuses on social media). A third article, by John Barkett, ("ABA to Tackle Technology in Model Rules at August Meeting," appeared on the LTN website on June 25.

You can also listen to Arkfeld, Barkett, and Ambrogi discuss the issues, on my Law Technology Now podcast.

Image: ABA

Many thanks to Christy Burke, (left) president of New York City-based PR and marketing firm Burke & Company, for inviting me to participate in her series of essays about/from industry leaders that has been running in Burke's "Legal Technology Observer" blog. Burke's blog is part of the Legal IT Professionals website run by Rob Ameerun, who is based in the Netherlands. It takes an international focus on legal IT news, information, and commentary, and targets the usual suspects in IT, as well paralegals, knowledge management folks, and, says Burke, "lawyers interested in the technology that facilitates their work."

Burke's series of guest observers — some write, some are interviewed — includes Randi Mayes, executive director of the International Legal Technology Association; attorney/consultant Robert Ambrogi (LTN's "Web Watch" columnist and Lawyer2Lawyer podcaster on the Legal Talk Network); attorney/consultant/special master Craig Ball (LTN's e-discovery columnist); LTN board member Jeffrey Brandt, editor of the PinHawk Law Technology Daily Digest; and many other luminaries, including Mary Abraham, Ron Friedmann, Kevin O'Keefe, Sharon Nelson and John Simek. Next week, Burke, will post a "time capsule PDF containing all the posts" that will be available for free download.

For my essay, Burke send me a list of questions and then opened the starting gate. Here's the end result, with themes you will probably recognize from some of my prior rants commentaries.

Meanwhile, speaking of the Legal Talk Network, Lu Ann Reeb and the gang have created a "Featured Lawyers" section its website, with mini-podcasts and profiles of the attorneys who host podcasts. Already produced: Tom Mighell, Dennis Kennedy, Jared Correia, Marsha Kazarosian, and moi; others will be added in the near future.

Image: Christy Burke 

DTI (née Document Technologies Inc.) -- which offers discovery services, facilities management, and knowledge process outsourcing -- has named Kristin Currey as its new director of business development, West region -- part of DTI's national sales team.

Reached in Los Angeles, where she is based, Currey said her "primary duties are to bring marketing to in-house, corporate counsel to help them manage and control costs around e-discovery and litigation management.

Asked what is the biggest problem facing e-discovery, Currey answered quickly. "It's not regulated -- you can have people running businesses out of their garage. There are no standards," she said. As for potential answers to that problem, she suggests that vendors and providers should have to go through standards testing.

Read the full story here.

Image: DTI

Good news from The Cowen Group: The headhunter/research consultancy has just released its "2012 2Q Critical Trends" report, showing a huge surge in electronic data discovery workload at both law firms and corporate counsel offices -- to the tune of 70% and 77% respectively.

That's not all the good news -- according to the 88 respondents, both types of shops are pullin' out checkbooks and buying or upgrading tech, and hiring.

Check out the story here.

Image: Monica Bay

Sittin' in the courtroom hot seat? Check out two stories from this week's Law Technology News website that can help you effectively run courtroom technology, from "the Johns" (our affectionate name for two of our regular reviewers):  

> "Quick Take: Capitalizing on Wi-Fi in Courtrooms," by John Edwards,  with helpful information about how you can use projectors, presentation controllers, and televisions with wi-fi. 

> "HD Videoconferencing Adds Wrinkle to Courts," by John K. Waters, addresses the maturation of video in trials. (From our current issue of LTN magazine.) 

Illustration: Daniel Hertzberg

The ever-resourceful Jeffrey Brandt, on the PinHawk Law Technology Digest, suggests a very interesting post about knowledge management, by Nick Milton on Knoco stories, about the "culture of pull" (rather than just pushing content). His advice can be applied to any panel or program -- about how to keep attendees engaged rather than snoring. Check it out here. 

(I particulary like the photo on his page, mine is a pale comparison.) 

Image: Clipart.com

The latest CIO to catch the very contagious "time to move" bug is Sean Scott (left), who Monday will join Litera (based in McLeansville, N.C.) from Womble, Carlyle, (Greensboro, N.C.) Same commute time, different direction! Litera also added three other execs, and announced plans to launch three new products.

Read the story here.

The Federal Judicial Center -- the research and education agency of the federal judicial system -- has published the second edition of its influential booklet, Managing Discovery of Electronic Information: A Pocket Guide for Judges, by Barbara Rothstein, Ronald Hedges, and Elizabeth Wiggins. The 48-page publication updates the previous 2007 edition, and can be downloaded free from the center's website. It covers a range of topics, from explaining the difference between conventional paper discovery and electronically stored information, to providing tips on a judge's role. The booklet also includes a five-page glossary, mostly derived (with permission) from The Sedona Conference Glossary: E-Discovery & Digital Information Management (3d ed. 2010).

While reaction has been largely positive, there are some rumblings of discontent about the new publication. Read the full story here.

Image: Federal Judicial Center.

As rumors had predicted, Sally Gonzalez will join SNR Denton as its global CIO on August 1. In her capacity as a senior director at HBR Consulting (née Hildebrant Baker Robbins, and Baker Robbins & Co.), she has been serving as the firm's interim CIO, after the May 1 departure of Andrew Jurczyk. Both are members of Law Technology News' Editorial Advisory Board.