OK this is an update on Tuesday, the conference is so busy that I’m losing track of what sessions came when and when I spoke to various people. But lots on good information gained both from the sessions, the vendors and the people at the conference.

The first session on Tuesday was on email management (#INFO5). The satisfying part was that all the presenters’ firms were having the same difficulties with email as we’re having. A few key points stuck out:

First the firms had success when they had engaged with the business and got commitment to filing emails, in fact mandating the filing of email to the electronic file (one firm had put in place a 30day file it or lose it rule on the inbox!).

Second, and this was one of those moments where the value of a conference can be pinpointed to one discovery, was about email management being a “long haul” process. The need to see this as a long change that will happen long after the technology has been put in place. One firm had a good idea of “Email Fitness Program” akin to fitness in health whereby it is a long battle to get rid of the fat and then stay lean and healthy!

The next session was on universal search (not specifically Autonomy Universal Search but the general concept) (#INFO6). Interesting that a lot of the firms (and in particular Cassels Brock) kept the interface very simple to ensure the lawyers concentrate on learning search. They also had a neat customisation to highlight “good documents” or precedents that they had encouraged their lawyers to identify (by asking lawyers to pick out a Top 5 of their documents).

After lunch was a session on one of the hot topics of the conference, whether SharePoint can be used as a legal DMS? “SharePoint as a DMS: From Heresy to Orthodoxy” (#MIC5). The real interesting part of this was a talk for me was from Clifford Chance on their move to SharePoint to be their DMS.

I managed to fit in some demos and a trip to the vendor hall. Got a demo from Prosperoware on their Milan product. Particularly looking at the help desk functions for iManage WorkSite, one cool new feature is remote check in. So if a user has gone home you can check in the document from their PC!

Also of interest was DocAuto’s new tool for WorkSite. Their “Distributed System Connector” where you can create shortcuts to files in another iManage DMS without having that DMS permanently attached to FileSite. Perfect for firms with multiple global databases!

Then in the evening I caught up with a couple of suppliers over a few beers at their evening events, BigHand and Tikit. End of another day at ILTA suitably exhausted!