Here at Biscom we take ILTA very seriously. After all, its members are the driving force in the evolution of legal technology. In the past year alone, we’ve exhibited at the last ILTA conference, participated in several product briefings and hosted almost a dozen roadshows on file transfer security. Now I’m excited to announce that we’ve taken the next step: ILTA has invited us to present at its 2011 conference.
The Biscom session, part of the conference’s State of the Art Technology Demos track, is scheduled for August 23 at 1:30 p.m. and will focus on the secure and audited delivery of documents and files.
The session will discuss how to:
Secure the document exchange process
Replace cumbersome and often unsecured FTP sites
Offload large email attachments
End dependence on physical media such as CDs and thumb drives
Meet regulatory compliance
Collaborate in a secure environment with clients and outside counsel
Implement advanced encryption and user authentication
Take advantage of Biscom’s integration with popular software such as SharePoint, Outlook, iManage and Litera
This is a timely decision by ILTA. News is breaking every day on the latest data breaches. These breaches mean costly fines and even more costly long-term repercussions for law firms such as hits to business development and client relations.
So if you are at ILTA 2011, join us to explore security protocols and solutions in the Canal E room of the Gaylord Opryland Hotel at 1:30 p.m. on August 23. And if you’re a Twitter enthusiast, reference hashtag #DEMO7 during the session.
On April 28, Biscom had the opportunity to support the 9th Annual CIO Forum. The forum, which was created by the Hildebrandt Institute and West, a Thomson Reuters business, hosted more than 30 IT leaders – a majority of which were from AmLaw 200 law firms. The event featured presentations from legal leadership at Viacom, Cisco and Microsoft – as well as Clifford Chance LLP and Bryan Cave LLP – and focused on topics such as cloud computing, outsourcing, data privacy, email management and security.
When you have this much IT leadership in one room, trends and common challenges are bound to come to the forefront. Based upon the presentations and conversations, here are some of the most prominent trends and ideas that dominated discussions:
In spite of the recent recession, there is growth: While many law firm practice areas have experienced contraction due to the economic downturn, litigation practices (including intellectual property litigation) have experienced growth.
Competition necessitates cost control and efficiency: With the forecast for legal industry growth trending towards flat, law firms are prompting growth by wooing clients from competitors. As a result, law firms are forced to turn a keen eye towards reducing cost and increasing efficiency to remain competitive and offer improved client-facing technologies.
IT downsizing: While 2011 IT budgets are experiencing a modest increase, most law firms’ IT headcounts will remain stable or experience a decrease. That means doing more with fewer resources.
In-house vs. outsourcing: CIOs are trending towards keeping core applications in-house while outsourcing content and commodity applications.
Fixed fees: Clients are demanding alternative fee arrangements and fixed fees with incentives for exceeding performance milestones. In order to leverage profit from these arrangements, law firms again are turning towards increasing staff efficiencies and decreasing costs related to delivering services.
Confidentiality is king: While clients these days are demanding that law firms “up the ante” when it comes to protecting their confidential data, there remains a significant lag in adopting new technology and policies to respond to this demand. Law firms, on a whole, continue to evaluate options – as opposed to executing them – to adopt policies and deploy technologies to comply with data privacy regulations. As other industries tighten their security, law firms are seen as vulnerable targets for malicious data breaches.
Do you see these trends applying to your law firm’s IT efforts? What are other trends and challenges do you think law firms are facing when it comes to IT?
Next week, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) is holding their annual conference and exhibit for Health Information Management in Orlando, Florida. It’s a pretty big show, and one reason to attend is to see Mark Haas from Mass General Hospital (MGH) discuss how they’ve solved their release of information (ROI) issue with BDS. With BDS, their medical records department can securely and quickly deliver confidential patient information to patients, insurance companies, attorneys, and medical billing service companies.
Mark’s session, DIY ROI – Do It Yourself Release of Information Is Finally Here, is on Wednesday, September 29th, at 9:15am. Mark has a great story to tell so, if you’re attending, make sure you catch his presentation.
I’ve recently returned from the ILTA Conference in Las Vegas and if you haven’t heard, there’s been a lot of exciting buzz about the event. Biscom had the opportunity to exhibit at ILTA this year, we had a great turn out and when looking back, I’m pleased to say I left with many new connections, friends and valuable information (can’t say I left Vegas any richer though, the casinos won this time).
While the e-discovery, litigation support, and case management were among the usual hot topics at ILTA, discussions I’ve had with legal professionals suggest security and data protection are the new black. We experienced record crowds at the booth from law firms looking to solve the growing challenges of preventing unintended employee data breaches and meeting compliance with data privacy regulations. Furthermore, we were featured as one of the top 20 booths to visit at ILTA, according to Law Technology News we were the only secure file transfer provider at the conference, reinforcing our leadership in the legal market and our commitment to meeting the specific needs of law firms and corporate legal departments.
It was an exciting and successful event and one where we gained valuable insights regarding the needs and challenges of law firms, such as:
• Legal IT is growing increasingly frustrated with the cost and inefficiency of transferring large files through the traditional methods of e-mail , FTP and overnight courier. This was validated by the 2010 ILTA Member Purchasing Survey released at the conference. For the second year in a row, e-mail management was identified as the biggest challenge facing legal IT overall.
• File transfer security is an increasing concern. Security moved from the 7th position last year to the 4th position in the ILTA purchasing survey’s “biggest challenge facing IT”.
Somewhere in the middle of manning the Biscom fort in the exhibit hall, I had the chance to attend two very informative sessions; “Taming the E-mail Filing Monster with iManage WorkSite 8.5.” This session included an open panel discussion of three law firms and how they deployed iManage to move e-mails out of exchange to iManage for tracking e-mail content by matter and reducing exchange storage – a growing need for law firms. The other, “The Changing Regulatory Landscape and its Effect on Law Firms,” featured Beth Chiaiese, Director of Loss Prevention, and Jodi Malek, CIO, of Foley & Lardner. Key topics discussed involved HIPAA, HiTECH and the Massachusetts Data Breach regulations and the specific compliance requirements for each, including the important role technology plays in meeting compliance, such as the encryption and secure transfer of sensitive data.
We also had an opportunity to meet with several members of the press. Sean Doherty, Sr. Technical Editor, Law.com was excited to hear about the new BDS 4.0 features, integration with iManage and plans to integrate with SharePoint (Last December Sean published an in-depth BDS product review in Law.com). We certainly appreciate his time.
Overall, the ILTA Conference was a rousing success and we look forward to next year’s conference.
As an added benefit, you may also enjoy the these post-ILTA reviews:
The BDS team is heading to Las Vegas next week and exhibiting at the International Legal Technology Association’s 2010 conference. ILTA puts out a quarterly magazine (Peer to Peer, in which BDS was featured a few months back), and is the show to attend if you deal at all with the legal IT space. Come by and meet us and learn about the new BDS 4.0 release, as well as our new iManage integration module.
Come see us at Booth 437 at the upcoming ILTA conference (International Legal Technology Assocation) in Las Vegas August 22-26, 2010. The theme will be Strategic Unity, a concept for integrating technology with the practice of law.
This is a great way to network with other legal technology professionals to attend educational sessions, see what’s coming down the pike regarding compliance, and the latest secure file transfer and collaboration tools.
Biscom and Pro2col Ltd, a privately held company specializing in the supply and integration of network security and secure file transfer solutions, will demonstrate BDS at InfoSecurity Europe, April 27-29, 2010, Earls Court, London, UK. Pro2col and Biscom will be exhibiting together in Booth R88.
I’ve recently returned from the ILTA Conference in Las Vegas and if you haven’t heard, there’s been a lot of exciting buzz about the event. Biscom had the opportunity to exhibit at ILTA this year, we had a great turn out and when looking back, I’m pleased to say I left with many new connections, friends and valuable information (can’t say I left Vegas any richer though, the casinos won this time).
