Well we reach the final day of ILTA 2010 (Thursday 26th August) and for me it was just a morning of sessions before I had to  get ready to leave Las Vegas.

The first morning session was a look at Law Firm economics, “Next Generation Law Firm Economics” (#ORG15). A really interesting look at the economics of a law firm over the last few years and what this means for the future. A couple of snippets that stood out were:

• The analysis that the shrinking of law firms revenue was accelerated by and not caused by the economic downturn, showing that there is an unsustainability of the traditional economic model of a law firm.
• Analysis showing that the profitability of law firms of the last few years has been driven only by the rising of costs charged (6-8% per year in the good times, way above inflation) and the pressure on these means we’re in a period of very slow growth. Other variables (such as cost cutting, process improvements have had a marginal affect).

After this I took a quick trip to the vendors hall again (photo above) before attending a second session titled “Training Strategies for Higher Attorney-to-Secretary Ratios” (#USER2). This was an excellent session looking at how to address the problems we have now of training lawyers in the IT systems.

Looking at ways to move from Push training (traditional class room based, quick reference guide booklets etc) to Pull training (giving them responsibility for their own training). Encouraging training teams to get out on the floor amongst the lawyers. Also ensuring that the service desk and local support teams understand their role in training, not fixing the problems for the users but showing them how to do it (the old “teach them to fish”!). Overall creating a culture of learning, understanding it’s not a one off exercise at intake, but an ongoing process.

One thing  that was set up in every session at ILTA was a whiteboard (to the left of the podium in the picture above of the #USER2 session). On it was written the hashtag for the session. This ensured that the twitter stream for the conference could be viewed per session, an excellent idea. In fact the buzz at the end of the conference was whether one of the screens next year could be used to provide a live twitter stream for that session!

And with the end of that session the conference was wrapped up for me, the next hour was spent packing for the trip home.

Before we left we did catch the end of the final days lunch (picture above) before we jumped in a taxi and headed off for the journey home. An hour extra in Las Vegas was provided as our flight was delayed but after about 14 hours of travelling I got to meet my wife and kids at the train station and a short journey home!

An excellent conference! I can’t pick out any one thing from the conference, as many of the sessions were excellent and there were lots of little things I’ve picked up. It was also great to catch up with vendors new products, some really interesting developments out there.

I got to meet up with some of the folks I follow on twitter and finally put a real face to the twitter feed. So it was great to meet @jeffrey_brandt @KMHobbie @newroccindy @backofthenapkin @seanabrady @antneyb @loripagehall @sapreston and @ChristyBurkePR

Also some folks I unfortunately didn’t manage to say hi to, but saw either presenting or from afar! @lawyerkm @sherryk

There were almost certainly others too that I met and didn’t realise or have just forgotten to mention, so if I haven’t name checked you I apologise! One company though I should name check is Workshare, a big thank you to them for providing this trip for me as the winner of their scholarship competition!

Finally to finish my ILTA 2010 blog posts, here are a few more pictures from the conference.