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By Bárbara Gondim Da Rocha
Have you ever attended an educational session or shared insights with someone at ILTACON and thought how amazing it would be if other people at your firm could listen to it too? Maybe one of those lawyers that are particularly resistant to change or to adopt new technology… Well, with less than a month until ILTA>ON takes place, some people are still not aware of the possibilities of making this “dream” come true. The ILTACON experience. It was only a year ago that I traveled all the way from Fortaleza (Brazil) to Orlando (USA) to attend my first ILTACON and to be completely overwhelmed with the magnificence and magnitude of this amazing conference. ...
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Global Legal Innovators: Season 1!

By ILTA Publication
Over the last several months, dedicated ILTA volunteer Nicola Shaver has, as part of her CCT role, been working on an ILTA series of podcasts, "Global Legal Innovators".   This podcast series features speakers located across the globe... who are doing things differently. These guests offer unique perspectives on what the state of legal innovation looks like in different countries, towns, and cities. This all-new series, which has just wrapped Season 1, which contains 5 full-length episodes, can be listened to, below.  Look for Season 2 to begin in the coming weeks!  Season 1: Global Legal Innovators: Episode #1  Listen here .  Interviewer: ...
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The Challenges of the Home Network

By Lauren Piper
Recent events have witnessed the remarkable ability of UK businesses to adapt to a crisis. Within days of lockdown, millions of staff were able to connect and work from home over their existing home broadband connections. This substantial rise in traffic has exposed the limitations of using domestic broadband for business communication. With 5.1 million people working from home plus 9.1 million on furlough , and numerous others home from school/university, the home network was simply not designed to support this many people using it all at once. Sharing the network often results in slow and glitchy performance as households compete for Wi-Fi bandwidth within ...
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Data Loss Prevention: Survey Results and Peer Discussion BRIEF SUMMARY

By Marcos Marcal
Below are highlights from the July 16 th virtual round-table discussion entitled: “Data Loss Prevention: Survey Results and Peer Discussion”. Speakers: @Marcos Marcal (Information Security & Risk Manager at Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP) &  @Abraham Miller-Barbarow (Information Governance Risk Manager at Ropes & Gray LLP). The full survey can also be found attached. DLPSurvey.pdf SURVEY/PARTICIPANT SUMMARY: 74+ firms participated in the survey with around 60 attendants who were able to provide additional questions during the round-table. FUTURE PREDICTIONS: We predict that the COVID-19 crisis will bring result in firms increasing ...
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Mergers and Acquisitions: Integrating Processes While Minimizing Disruptions

By Kathy Brown
Mergers and Acquisitions: Integrating Processes While Minimizing Disruptions by Kathy Owen Brown [1] One company acquires another company.  Overnight there is new signage, coffee mugs and pens.  As the employees are getting used to the new logos and larger company, employees begin to think about what is going to change.  How will I do my job?  Will I even have my job?  Can we combine two different ways of doing things into one cohesive integrated set of processes? It is likely that the two companies have many disparate processes, including those relating to legal holds and eDiscovery.  Identifying what those processes are and developing integrated ...
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MICROSOFT 365 ADVANCED EDISCOVERY

By Don Swanson
Timing is everything.  Bill Gross, the Pasadena, California based serial entrepreneur who has invested in dozens of start-ups, including X1 Discovery, the popular enterprise search software, says that the number one predictor of a technology company's success is neither financial capital, the founders' talent, the business model nor cutting-edge intellectual property.  The biggest success factor for a new product or service is timing. Microsoft 365's eDiscovery capabilities may have hit the timing just right with COVID-19.  How could the pandemic have anything to do with the success of Microsoft 365 eDiscovery?  Microsoft already was very successful and ...
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How Much of What is Being Defined Now Becomes the New Normal as a Result of the Worldwide Pandemic Changes?

By Jack Thompson
"How Much of What is Being Defined Now Becomes the New Normal as a Result of the Worldwide Pandemic Changes? In the best interest of answering the question above, three leading experts from Corporate Law Departments focusing on technology, operations, and support were queried for their opinions to share: “I think it is just going to accelerate the changes that were already underway. That seems to be the way of the world – things happen slowly and then all at once. There was already a slow shift to a blending of work and personal life and geography mattering less. The pandemic just forced us to confront it head on in a way that wasn’t necessary before and ...
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Precedent Collections

By Adam Dedynski
This blog, part of our “Foundations of Knowledge Management” series, outlines best practices for creating and maintaining precedent collections. What are precedents? A collection of template contracts and other documents that can be adapted for use or referred to by lawyers on specific matters (predominantly transactional work). Sometimes they are called model forms, standard forms, or templates – ‘precedents’ is the catch all term used in this blog. Why have a precedent collection? It mainly comes down to efficiency and quality. Having a collection improves consistency, reduces risk, avoids reinventing the wheel, and lowers drafting ...
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Experience More than Pitches and Awards – Part Two

By Rachel Shields Williams
Experience More than Pitches and Awards – Part Two We all know we can use our experience for traditional marketing and business development activities like pitches, submissions, awards, and bios. But how can we take this data further to drive data-based decisions that support the whole client’s life cycle? What other insights can our experience data tell us? Your experience data can help to answer critical questions in a variety of areas that extend well beyond pitches and proposals. The only real limit is our imaginations. To get you started, here are a few ideas related to Client Service and Professional Development. Client Service Client Targeting ...
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Experience More than Pitches and Awards – Part One

By Tara Patterson
Experience More than Pitches and Awards – Part One Who knows whom at this company? What work have we done in this industry? What are the total number of deals with done in this region? Who has experience going before that court? Can we list out our top matters for year? You’ve heard, or even made, these requests before when preparing a proposal or pulling together a directory submission. Why else does the firm put any time and effort in CRMS or Experience Management Systems? Here’s a not-so-secret secret your colleagues managing these systems and process want you to know - the information collected and stored in these tools goes beyond basic marketing ...
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How to Present Data to Lawyers

By Nathan Cemenska
When Presenting Data to Lawyers, Keep Things at a 10th Grade Level They say the New York Times, the most respected news source of all time, is written at an 10 th grade level.  That’s the way legal analytics should be, because you don’t have to be fancy to be highly influential. In fact, being fancy hurts you:  On average, a “no-frills” approach will be more influential.  The more you try to be fancy and show how “advanced” you are with your cool-looking visuals, the less effective they will be. How Simple? Very Simple I didn’t totally understand simplicity when I started out in legal analytics.  Sure, I knew to keep things simple, but I didn’t get ...
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What Data Analysts Do and Why Does My Firm Need One?

By Bárbara Gondim Da Rocha
The job of the future. According to recent forecasts of the World Economic Forum , data analysts are expected to be one of the most in-demand jobs by 2022 in companies worldwide. Long before data science became a buzzword, William Edwards Deming said that “ without data, you’re just another person with an opinion .” As the volume of data generated grows exponentially with each technological advance, more and more companies realize the importance of developing a data-driven culture, where data analysis is at the center of corporate strategies. Because of the rise in the demand for data analytics roles, Harvard University labeled the profession “the ...
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Leading in a VUCA Environment

By Vishal Agnihotri
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste, especially as it is usually an invaluable occasion for leaders to hit the reset button in their organizations. When chaos is reigning, most employees are looking for direction and comfort, and during a global pandemic, they are looking for information as well. For every business on the planet, the COVID pandemic unleashed a sudden VUCA environment.  VUCA , for the uninitiated, is an acronym initially coined by the United States military that stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. Volatility refers to the nature, dynamics, and speed of change and catalysts when the challenge is unexpected or unstable. ...
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Press Release |ILTA Announces Industry Participant Program

By ILTA News
For Immediate Release: (Chicago, IL):  July 1, 2020: The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) announces its Industry Participant program. Effective July 1, 2020, ILTA is pleased   to offer legal technologists a new way to interact with ILTA: Industry Participant Status. Industry Participants will have access to ILTA webinar and podcast recordings, live virtual events, Peer to Peer quarterly magazine, newsletters, White Papers, ILTA Surveys, member discounts, career center resources, and select online communities. “ We are delighted to be implementing the Industry Participant role provided for in ILTA’s Bylaws! The ILTA universe includes ...
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How Firms are Tracking Client Requirements and Managing Changes Over Time

By Daniel Wood
“The bane of our existence.” That is how one law firm general counsel described outside counsel guidelines (OCGs) at last year’s Law Firm General Counsel Forum at the Aon Law Firm Symposium. Bane or boon, if you work in a law firm environment, OCGs are a daily fact of life. Clients use OCGs to communicate expectations regarding the handling of their matters. Ensuring that OCGs make it to the right people is critical. Accuracy in timekeeping along with a proper understanding of correct phase/task/activity codes, narrative requirements, and timing restrictions cannot be overstated. Knowing and doing are two different things, however, which points to an even larger ...
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A Helpful Guide to Finding Mindfulness

By Martha Breil
There is no shortage of information on mindfulness available today. A simple Google search on mindfulness renders "About 206,000,000" results. The sheer magnitude of resources can be overwhelming. Where do I start? I already feel overwhelmed! This blog post attempts to solve the challenge of getting started with a mindfulness practice by providing a much shorter list of resources than our friend Google supplies. Its goal is to help you get started and/or advance your mindfulness practice. The resources included here have been provided by people and/or institutions who have developed expertise in mindfulness practices. They have been vetted by experienced practitioners ...
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Operations 101

By Andrés Jara Baader
Please enjoy this co-authored blog written by Jake Hills, Vice President, Legal Operations, Elevate Services and Andrés Jara Baader, CEO, Alster. 1. What is Legal Operations all about?  As the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium defines it, legal operations is a fast-moving, evolving, and varied discipline "Legal Operations" describes a set of business processes, activities, and the professionals that enable legal departments to serve their clients more effectively by applying business and technical practices to the delivery of legal services. Legal Operations provides strategic planning, financial management, project management, and technology ...
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Citrix, Mimecast & Cookies

By Michael Tkach
Hi, Wondering if anyone has figured out a way to redirect cookies in Citrix for Mimecast. Currently, we are not redirecting cookies because of profile bloat, and users need to register their device every single time. Thank you, Mike
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Different sides of the same coin? How IT and Innovation departments can work together

By Alisher Yuldashev
Lately, I found myself working at the busy intersection of established legal IT department and recently created KM Innovation group in the law firm I am in. Both departments have their similarities and differences: IT is the powerhouse of technical expertise while Innovation looks better positioned to be closer to business for their legal acumen. At the same time, I witnessed both groups worked “Together, As One” on a number of technology initiatives while sharing scarce project resources and budgets.  It got me thinking whether these departments were different sides of the same coin and how IT and Innovation departments could work together as one. With ...
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Matter Naming Standards

By Sara Cutcher
​We are curious to know how you handle the dilemma of conforming to internal compliance relating to matter name standards yet meeting clients’ needs and wants? We find at times that we have a hard time reconciling the two and find ourselves having to make exceptions to our policies, which is not advisable. For example, a client insists (according to the submitting attorney) that their new matter must be named “Contract Review.” This goes against our no-general-matter policy and we would request that separate matters be opened for each contract. We are trying to use the system to create a workaround and are wondering if any of you have solved this predicament. ...
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