Latest search engine market share figures - of interest if you are looking to optimise your site in terms of where it appears in the search results of the major seach engines.

Open Text today announced LegalKEY® Risk Indicator, a first-of-its-kind solution that makes it easier for conflicts analysts at law firms to quickly identify high-risk conflicts of interest.

The new offering, which Open Text is demonstrating today at its LegalKEY User Group Community Meeting in San Francisco, meets a critical need among law firms, particularly large firms and those in merger situations, where firms want the quickest way to find and manage the highest risk conflicts among an enormous volume of potential conflicts that might be identified.

LegalKEY® Risk Indicator, which is being offered as part of Open Text’s LegalKEY Conflicts Management™ solution, enables law firms to set up a risk matrix and assign categorizations, such as “high risk potential,” depending on the matrix. This helps conflicts managers to quickly identify those conflict “hits” that are the most critical to the firm. Hits that meet the criteria for high risk can appear at the top of the conflicts report, so attorneys will see the most important information first before reviewing the rest of the hits that might not be as critical. With firm-defined fields and easy-to-navigate views, these dynamic reports streamline the conflicts resolution process significantly and improve the turn-around time for beginning billable work, while protecting the firm from taking on problematic business.

“With law firm mergers now commonplace in the legal industry, the volume of data that a broad conflicts search generates can be overwhelming to both the firm’s attorneys and the conflicts staff. LegalKEY® Risk Indicator is the only solution available today that helps users identify potential conflicts without delay, as defined by the firm’s risk threshold matrix,” said Mohit Thawani, Business Development Manager, Open Text Legal Solutions Group. “This continues our history of innovation in the legal market, part of our commitment to provide our law firm customers with leading-edge proactive compliance capabilities.”

LegalKEY Conflicts Management provides thorough conflict of interest searches against internal and external (e.g. OFAC/SDN) sources for optimal firm protection. Firms can execute fast and efficient searches against current, accurate and comprehensive data to identify any potential conflicts and provide attorneys with succinct and relevant reports based on information indexed in real-time.

Interesting article on the slow progress being made by busineses in adopting the Open Document Format ODF despite the increasing interest in government circles.

According to the latest statistics from MessageLabs, one of worlds leading email  management and security specialists:

There is an expectation that the % of spam will decrease going forward albeit very slowly. This is due to the increasing use and effectiveness of anti-spam software and solutions which over time will make spam less effective.

There is also an expectation that the % of emails containing viruses will decrease for similar reasons and due to the fact that most viruses are now written for commercial gain rather than for street kudos amongst the virus writing community. As such most viruses are now designed to be invisible and to not draw attention to themselves. They are also being released in smaller quantities to reduce the chance of being detected. However, those that do get through are likely to be more powerful and more damaging.

It is expected that phishing attaches will increase considerably and that these will become much more sophisticated. Rather than the random emails asking you to confirm your bank details you are now much more likely to get a personalised email using information gleaned from social networks and other publicly available sources to make it all the more convincing.

Without effective email security measures in place e-mail will become unusable as a tool for many business.

RainMaker has developed a library of Web Parts to provide easy end-user access to information residing in its core enterprise system, dramatically impacting the way financial information is distributed, accessed and managed within a law firm. RainMaker's initial SharePoint content includes financial data from its financial management suite, with Web Parts such as:

• Financial and Business Intelligence Reports: Firm management and other authorized users can use a new Message Center on the SharePoint portal to access financial reports from RainMaker, including standard (e.g.Realization), scheduled and bursted reports based on individual preference.. Further, specific Business Intelligence reports, with associated drill-down and charting capabilities, can be easily developed and distributed on-the-fly.


• Digital Scorecards: RainMaker 8.0 SharePoint content includes a set of Digital Scorecards that provide e-views of different dimensions of the law firm's business with user selection criteria, drill-down and trend graphs that satiate some of the more commonly asked performance requests within a firm, such as top 'X' rankings in your firm, daily or weekly cash reports, billing and collection statistics, and working attorney analysis and performance information. RainMaker is currently developing Practice Management, Business Intelligence and some futuristic Financial Managementrelated Web Parts that will include CRM and calendaring components. In future versions RainMaker expects to offer its Platinum users:


• Custom Built Reports via BI Report Writer: The ability to build their own Web Parts or modify an existing RainMaker Web Part by designing a report and publishing it as a Web Part using the Business Intelligence report designer (BI .NET), in conjunction with services provided by Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Excel 2007.


• Paperless Pre-Bill Distribution: The delivery and editing of RainMaker pre-bills via the SharePoint portal which will relieve staff from the time-consuming distribution and routing of paper pre-bills and offers increased efficiency with regards to time worked to time collected and faster editing in a familiar, secure Excel interface. Changes can be made online, via the portal, or downloaded and edited off line and then synchronized before submitting to accounting for final approval and posting.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is an integrated suite of server capabilities that can help improve how a law firm conducts business by providing comprehensive application integration, accelerating shared business processes, and facilitating collaboration across all levels of the business for improved insight. Instead of relying on separate, fragmented systems, Office SharePoint Server 2007 supports all intranet, extranet and web applications across an enterprise within one integrated platform. Additionally, this collaboration and content management server provides IT professionals, developers and the end-user with the platform and tools they need for server administration and interoperability. Microsoft SharePoint Portal Integration is an attractive solution to law firms because it offers a means of delivering all of the firm's meaningful content from disparate systems to one place - on demand.

OpenText Livelink ECM  was one of only 3 records management solutions to be named a leader  in a study of  12 solutions carried out by Forrester Research.

The other solutions recognised as leaders in the field were IBM Filenet and CA MDY.

The Hummingbird solution now owned by OpenText was recognised as a strong performer while Interwoven was only recognised as a contender, lacking a number of the features found in the leading products.

Forrester had the following to say about OpenText:

These findings are broadly in line with similar studies undertaken recently by Gartner where the OpenText ECM solution was given a "strong positive" rating when compared against 11 other products, this being the highest rating possible. The Gartner Magic Quadrants also regularly places OpenText as one of the leaders in terms of compleness of vision and ability to execute.

PISCES, the e-commerce Standards organisation,  has started work on
improving the many different ways our office and home addresses are used
and maintained.

Roger de Boehmler, Director General of PISCES, explains
‘Correct and consistent addressing is vital to all businesses. Different public
and private organisations use address information for different purposes –
and this has given rise to a complex variety of address formats and systems.

Updating and sharing address data has become very difficult and yet every
business relies on address information in some way. Indeed, the majority of
systems do not ‘talk to one another’. This is unwieldy, slow, expensive and
inconsistent. It is simply unacceptable in today’s connected world.’

The PISCES Workgroup will solve this problem by developing a single
electronic data Standard that can manage the multiple address formats.

The new Addressing Workgroup will define a means of interpreting addressing
formats and publish an agreed schema. This will lead to the rapid, accurate
and seamless exchange of addressing data. Like all PISCES Standards, the
Addressing Standard will be published for free download.
 
More here

3E Records Management v2.1 from Thomson Elite has been certified by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) under the 5015.2 certification program. 

The 5015.2 standard defines the mandatory operational, legislative and regulatory requirements that must be met by the records management application products acquired by the DoD. To receive the sought-after DoD certification, a product must comply with 147 rigorous mandatory requirements, provide the infrastructure for a corporate file plan that includes all forms of electronic and physical documents, and also provide a retention plan that incorporates both time- and event-driven disposition instructions.

Thomson Elite’s initiative to achieve the certification for its records management software demonstrates the company’s commitment to delivering technology to help organizations preserve official records in accordance with applicable federal law.

The adoption of the DoD standard throughout U.S. government agencies has led an increasing number of corporations and professional services organizations to view the government guidelines as a benchmark for electronic records management systems.

As further evidence of the market cementing its preparations for the launch of HIPs, Hipstar has
this week committed to deliver several thousand HIPs a month using the VisualHip platform from
LexisNexis Visualfiles. This announcement reflects both parties’ agreement of terms for the
delivery of major HIP volumes.

Hipstar and LexisNexis Visualfiles have been working together for the last eight months to tailor a
solution that integrates with Hipstar’s web-based ordering system in order to meet its considerable
business ambition.

The Hipstar web-based ordering is focussed on the diverse requirements of estate agency users
and provides a flexible solution which enables agents to control the whole HIP production process.

Very interesting article from Tom Collins at www.morepartnerincome.com on the distinguishing characteristics of clients retained by law firms and how to develop a scorecard to identify clients most at risk of being lost through not meeting these characteristics.

This is based on recent study by Redwood Analytics - more details here here.

Open Text have released a list of five key technology strategies for litigation and e-discovery readiness that can help companies be as prepared in the courtroom as in the boardroom:

• Define defensible policies: Map the governing regulations and internal requirements to the process of identifying what email or document constitutes a record. What is and isn’t a record? How long should a record be kept or how long must it be kept? Does it need to be stored on a specific media? Kept in a specific location? Do your policies take into account metadata associated with records?
  
  
• Enforce policies with records management: Move policies from theory to practice with a completely automated and secure process for identifying, retaining, and destroying records. Key considerations: When does a document become a record? How do you capture the right amount of content? How do you accommodate multiple regulations or court cases concurrently? Do users need to continue to work with records or can they be offloaded into an isolated system?
  
  
• Centrally control all enterprise content: Establish control over all enterprise content without changing the way users work with content—including emails and documents in Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint. Consider the following issues: How do you make records management a seamless part of the way users work? Can you describe all enterprise content in the same terms, no matter where it lives? How do you ensure that a legal hold or discovery procedure is spanning all relevant corporate content? Can you easily extend today's policies to tomorrow's potential information systems and repositories?
  
  
• Retain business records: Manage the cost-effective, physical storage of records in a compliant fashion while destroying non-records appropriately. Key considerations: How do you ensure that records are archived in a compliant manner? Does your accounting firm mandate specific storage methodologies for your records? Can you ensure admissibility by proving content has not been tampered with? Do you have a plan for storage systems that can store records for decades, outliving their host media?
  
  
• Extend with litigation support: Accelerate the collection, preservation, review and coding, and production of corporate records as evidence. Are your enterprise content repositories and records management practices fully integrated with your process for retrieving, coding, reviewing, and processing responsive content? Can you export content into the litigation support application without creating duplicate copies of records? When a case concludes, can you assuredly disable any holds placed on responsive content and automatically resume retention and disposition lifecycles?

Further details here

RainMaker Software, Inc. today announced one of the most significant product releases in the history of the company, RainMaker Platinum version 8.0, a wholly .NET enterprise application. This next generation of Platinum offers law firms consolidated Financial and Practice Management functions, along with Business Intelligence analytics, into a single legal software application that is built on the most up-to-date technologies available. These new advances will enable law firms to fully maximize their enterprise legal software investment to increase efficiency, measure, develop and leverage profitability and ultimately meet both short and long-term business goals.

RainMaker Platinum is a financial management legal software system developed specifically with the mid-large sized law firm in mind. In addition to its core time and billing functionality, Platinum includes integrated practice management and business intelligence modules enabling users to operate the law firm, increase efficiency, monitor performance against key business goals and make more informed decisions; facilitating firm growth. In total, there are more than 400 new items touching 20 modules in Platinum 8.0 which include:

Time and Billing, Accounts Payable & General Ledger, e-Billing Module, Validator/Devices for 3rd Party Interfaces, Core Relationship Management Module, Case Manager Docket & Calendar Module, Conflict Avoidance/Search Module, Microsoft Outlook/Exchange 2003 - 2 way integration, BI.NET - Business Intelligence with Data Warehouse, New Case Electronic Entry & Work Flow Module, Graphic Bill Designer, Trust Accounting, Active Reports Developer and Viewer, Management Reporting, Package with Bursting, Attorney Desktop Time and Expense Entry, Marketing/Mail List Management Module, A/R Collections with Wizards Module, Web and Standalone Time Entry, Digital Scorecards and Zoom .NET Inquiry Module
Platinum Financial Management modules include Time and Billing, Graphic Bill Designer, Trust Accounting, Accounts Payable and General Ledger.

Some of the new benefits of 8.0 throughout Financial Management are:

Simplified Navigation. With split-party and threshold billing and discount enhancements, 8.0 enables firms to simplify otherwise cumbersome billing practices and provide attorneys with the flexibility to negotiate more favorable billing arrangements with their clients. In addition, Platinum 8.0 simplifies user access with Microsoft's new single sign-on technology; users can now bypass login screens, while maintaining full security.

More Practical Applications. New bill editing options and capabilities enable firms to comfortably distribute the billing process, yet maintain centralized control. New features include enhanced graphic bill designs, entire bill spell checking and global word search and replace features. Additionally, Platinum 8.0 provides advanced options to simplify everyday tasks such as global address changes and attorney assignments.

RainMaker's Practice Management module includes Attorney Desktop Time and Expense Entry, Case Manager Docket and Calendar, Core Relationship Management and Marketing/Mailing List Management, Accounts Receivable Collections with Wizards, Conflict Avoidance/Search Module Management, and many other features that integrate functions performed throughout the day into a cohesive flow of easily managed information. Platinum 8.0 offers enhancements to these modules that allow users throughout the law firm to better utilize and leverage information firm-wide.

Packaged into the RainMaker legal software Platinum suite, Business Intelligence (BI) is a powerful tool that allows law firms to easily access, extract and analyze information in practical formats for supporting critical business decisions. It is designed specifically to provide fast analysis of information through data cubes. In addition to a Data Warehouse, Business Intelligence .NET includes a series of information, organization screens and an output manager that allows users to design and save reports, and schedule them for automatic distribution via email or directly to a SharePoint Portal in real time. Digital Scorecards give users access to current payment, investment and performance data directly to the attorney desktop. The Zoom .NET inquiry module provides a window into Key Performance Indicators (KPI) at all levels within the firm including departments, clients, matters or offices. In addition to the stellar features already in RainMaker's BI, 8.0 will offer users:

More Comprehensive Reporting. With hundreds of new reporting options and full integration with the new Microsoft® Office SharePoint Server (MOSS), Platinum 8.0 attorneys can access actionable, relevant information from the desktop, in real time.

Advanced Budgeting.
The all new budgeting module in 8.0 gives firms an easy and effective way to manage timekeeper budgets, including new SmartAlert notifications for Key Performance Indicators.

Microsoft-Based Technology and Reduced Cost of Ownership.
As the first Microsoft Gold Certified Partner within the legal technology industry, RainMaker's legal software is fully Microsoft-centric which means Platinum 8.0 is built completely on Microsoft .NET technology. The 8.0 system utilizes .NET framework 2.0 and is optimized to perform on Microsoft's new SQL Server 2005 database. Microsoft .NET technology reduces the cost of ownership. For example, RainMaker's new Update Wizard allows a firm to substantially reduce IT costs by retrieving new program files from a secured RainMaker portal and, with a single-click, update their system.