Nuance Has a Plan CPA Globals Buys First to File
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Nuance has a plan CPA Globals buys There were a few raised eyebrows following the First to File recent acquisition of Copitrak in North America by Nuance, particularly because Nuance had already The IP management to LPO services company CPA bought Copitrak’s long-time rival Equitrac. What Global has acquired First to File, a Silicon Valley- users wanted to know was what did the deal mean based developer of SaaS document management in the longer term and was there any significance and collaboration solutions for corporate IP in the different language used in the letters sent to departments and law firm IP practices, including existing Copitrak and Equitrac users? the market leading Electronic File Room system. We spoke to Mike Rich, the former CEO Commenting on the deal, CPA Global of Equitrac, now general manager of Nuance’s CEO Peter Sewell said “There is a clear trend Document Imaging Business, and Chris within the IP community to move from paper to Wyszkowski, another former senior Equitrac electronic document storage, driven by executive and now director on imaging operations. technological advances and changing business Rich admitted there was a slight difference in the practices, as well as cost and sustainability nuance of the letters’ language but “it was considerations. Clients have been increasingly definitely not a signal of preference of one product seeking support of paperless IP management, and over the other.” He went on to add there would be I’m delighted CPA can now provide this as part of a “harmonizing” of the products over time but the our portfolio of value-added IP management innovation “would be beneficial to all users.” services, with the acquisition of First To File.” Rich also conceded that as a result of all CPA and First To File already have a the acquisitions Nuance has made in the imaging number of clients using both companies’ products sector in recent years “there were some acquisition and the acquisition will accelerate product disconnects” but now the integration was integration. First To File will continue to support complete and the company was able to offer a third-party IP management and docketing systems. complete suite of products covering everything from OCR scanning, PDF technology, print management and cost recovery. In this issue... “The market is now all about embedded systems running on MFPs (multifunction printers) • Who’s in & who’s out? The latest UK + EMEA + rather than dedicated terminals,” said Wyszkowski. US wins, deals & swapouts ...2, 3, 6, 7 & 8 “We are sensitive to customer needs and • Picture it settled with artificial intelligence ...5 perceptions and one thing we have seen is they • New version of Insider 200 chart out ...5 want a complete solution. Just as the trend is away • Fresh on the Radar new product ...10 from multiple devices (printers, scanners, copiers, • LawTech Futures Reader Special Offer ...12 faxes) and consoles, so they also want one • Ediscovery & litigation support news ...12 integrated software solution rather than four • APAC news ...13 separate point solutions. At Nuance we can now • US new hires ...15 offer this – and a global support infrastructure.” • and Dilbert + Greybeards ! …16 Legal IT Insider (261) February 2013 2 – UK WINS & DEALS Peppermint Technology also reported two wins UK who’s in & who’s this month, with new entrant law firm BC Legal, which has selected the Peppermint Platform to out: February’s wins underpin its personal injury claims (insurers and defendant companies) practice; and Brilliant Law, deals & rollouts the UK’s first law firm to be founded by non- lawyers. Brilliant plan to run multiple branded Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (RPC) has services on the Peppermint Platform, delivering completed a firm-wide deployment of the Aderant fixed-price packages for start-ups and SMEs. Expert 8.0 Time Management time recording Branding specialist Jellyfish Creative was system to all its lawyers in one month. The chosen by HowardKennedyFsi to build its new implementation, which coincided with a Microsoft corporate brand following this month’s merger of Windows 7 and Office 2010 rollout, also saw a Howard Kennedy and Finers Stephens Innocent. swapout of the firm’s legacy Tikit Carpe Diem time • Jellyfish has added a social media module to its recording system. RPC is a long-time Aderant user. content management system so blogged articles Davenport Lyons has become the 500th can be posted to multiple social media sites. law firm in England & Wales to subscribe to the Harold G Walker Solicitors has upgraded Riliance COLP & COFA regulatory compliance its IT infrastrucure with a move to an IRIS Legal management system. Hosted solution, an upgrade to its IRIS Evolution Lawrence Graham LLP has agreed a three PMS and a switch from Oyez to IRIS Laserform year IT managed service contract with IT service electronic legal forms. Continued on page 3... provider Plan-Net plc. Plan-Net will provide 24 hour IT support to 440 staff across the firm’s London, Dubai, Monaco, Moscow and Singapore offices. 1st line support will now be provided from Plan-Net’s legal sector-dedicated 24/7/365 shared service centre and desk-side support delivered by a Plan-Net on-site team. Eclipse Legal Systems has notched up two more wins for its Proclaim case and practice management system. The largest deal, worth around £200k, was with 130-user Northampton- based top 200 firm Tollers, who are swapping out Norwel in favour of Proclaim. Along with matter and practice management, Tollers is also taking ready-to-go casetypes, Proclaim’s new credit control solution, SecureDocs, the FileView portal and the lead management CRM system. The second deal was with Covent Garden-based property and litigation practice Seth Lovis & Co. Two more wins as well for Solicitors Own Software, with recently merged WSP Solicitors in Gloucestershire and London firm QualitySolicitors Amphlett Lissimore both opting for SOS Connect integrated practice and case management systems. WSP was a competitive swapout while Lissimore’s was an upgrade from an older SOS system. Legal IT Insider (261) February 2013 BIGHAND 4.4 + MORE DEALS – 3 Your telecoms partner for the legal profession www.total-ps.net call 0845 070 5450 Bighand slips killer More UK wins & deals apps into new v4.4 Trethowans Solicitors in the South of England has purchased compareDocs from DocsCorp, while Although we thought the highlight of BigHand’s patent & trademark attorneys Keltie LLP are now recent user conferences would be the first public implementing DocsCorp contentCrawler. Both showing (after LegalTech New York) of its new deals were secured by Phoenix Business Solutions. digital dictation app for the BlackBerry 10 Nabarro LLP has achieved ISO 27001 platform, the company pulled some unexpected IT certification and implemented an information development rabbits out of its corporate hat when security management system (ISMS) with the it previewed version 4.4 of its software. assistance of Edward Hodgson’s Seven Nine The first was a new app for the iPad called consultancy. www.sevennine.co.uk FreeMe, which allows users to open a document Legal workflow specialist OchreSoft has and dictate from within that document rather than won a contract from QualitySolicitors Thomson & jump between different applications and then try Bancks to deliver its cloud-based Intelliworks to attach them to each other. The iPad app also has STEP-compliant probate solution to the firm’s 14 a neat dictation profiling interface but we suspect strong specialist private client team. most firms will be more interested in the enhanced integration with the iManage DMS and the ability to automatically add non-client facing work (such as file and attendance notes dictated and stored as voice files) to the matter files. As expected, BigHand did show its new DTE Axiom AutoCapture Blackberry 10 app but there was actually a bigger Revolutionising Time Recording & Capture reaction from the audience to the news there would also be a Windows 8 Phone app joining the existing iPhone, Android and Blackberry smartphone app offerings. Comment: And then there was speech recognition, which even one BigHand executive described as a “Marmite technology” that some people love and others loathe. We talked to Martyn Best, the CEO of Document Direct (which uses BigHand in the services it provides to law firms) about this. He said he felt BigHand gave a “compelling rationale” for speech recognition technology, adding “Reason Activity tracking greatly enhances and business cases do not always overcome productivity by utilising the most advanced time capture technology, sentiment and understanding an individual fee enabling time-keepers to simply earner’s motivations is key. track and bill time more accurately. “BigHand highlighted their wonderful philosophy of the Aggregation of Marginal Gains Contact Phoenix to trial and their Every Second Counts mantra (the user DTE Axiom AutoCapture conference slogan) captures the essence of it. The 020 7680 4450 or pace of change and adoption of new processes [email protected] and technologies will be hastened by a deeper recognition of what makes fee earners tick.” www.phoenixbs.com Legal IT Insider (261) February 2013 4 YOU VS. INFORMATION THAT DOESN’T TRAVEL. Thomson Reuters Elite offers a complete enterprise business management solution for more effi ciency, transparency, and profi tability. Today you face a new rule of law: access information everywhere you go. Elite delivers. With a unifi ed platform that connects your core business processes in one place, every partner,