Reinventing Professionals

I spoke with Aviva Cuyler, the founder of JD Supra, a legal content publishing and distribution platform. I profiled JD Supra in "A Revolution in Online Content" a year ago and in this interview, we discussed the evolution of the JD Supra platform, the company's new Law Centers, its integration with social media and her recommendations for lawyers interested in expanding their presence online.

I spoke with Rob Robinson, the VP of Marketing for Orange Legal Technologies, about effective ways to communicate with customers and the industry news update he distributes weekly called Unfiltered Orange.

I spoke with Joe Utsler, Vice President of Product Strategy for IPRO Tech, which is focused on document acquisition, management, and production, about new initiatives, trends, and predictions.

I recently spoke with Jonathan Martin, the Vice President and General Manager of Information Management at Hewlett Packard. We discussed e-discovery trends, foreign jurisdictions with current e-discovery concerns, and the results of a study HP commissioned in which an outside researcher interviewed 142 business and technology executives. Some of the findings included: Approximately 40% of companies are hindered by a lack of in-house expertise and an unclear information strategy. Workflow transformation, records management and e-discovery/compliance are areas in which companies are expected to invest in the next two years. Nearly half of the survey respondents were unfamiliar with the EDRM.

I spoke with Rich Turner, the Vice President of Marketing for Content Analyst, a concept search engine developer, about the search market, related trends and the impact of the economy on e-discovery.

I spoke this morning with Andy Adkins, Director of the Legal Technology Institute at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and author of The Lawyer's Guide to Practice Management Systems Software, Second Edition (ABA, 2009). We discussed the release of his new book, practice management trends and future developments in legal technology.

I spoke yesterday with Nate Pruitt, VP of Sales and Marketing for Netsimplicity, the maker of Meeting Room Manager room scheduling software. We discussed the legal industry's increased emphasis on productivity, cost control and time management.

I spoke this morning with Larry Port, Founding Partner and Chief Software Architect for Rocket Matter, a maker of web-based software for law firm productivity. We discussed the ABA Tech Show, the growth of his company, and the convergence of law and technology in this unstable economy. There is a detailed article about the company, which appeared in the Connecticut Law Tribune late last month.

I spoke recently with Wayne Ford and Rob Jensen, the Senior Vice President of Marketing Channels and Business Development, and the Senior Director of Marketing, respectively, for Anacomp, the maker of CaseLogistix. We discussed trends in e-discovery, including more efficient searching and improved culling of information, streamlined litigation review, and hidden metadata. With respect to hosted review, Ford and Jensen highlighted the following advantages: (1) leveraging the infrastructure of another organization; (2) seamless scalability; and, (3) controlled access.

I had an interesting discussion with Carolyn Crandall, Rich Faris and Chuck Williams of i365 at LegalTech about the success of the Metalincs acquisition, the launch of version 5.0 and some predictions for the coming year.