All posts by Jason

General Legal IT

Folder and File security for dumm…..humans

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I’ve realised over the last few weeks that we (software engineers in IT) seem to have made security for Documents and Folders (whether in a Document Management System – DMS or just on a file share) overly complicated. Add to this the fact that we’ve now added powerful search engines over the top and guess what? We’re finding things are not secured the way we expected!

So here’s my suggestion for a simple security model from a real world perspective. Let me have your thoughts in the comments. Who knows maybe a DMS vendor will take note and implement it?

What do we have in the real world?

  • A document or many documents.
  • Which can be stored in a folder, or maybe collated into a set of folders for a matter or project.
  • Then these are stored in a filing cabinet/pedestal. Right?

In the real world where is the security applied? By default it’s only accessed by those in the company (secured by building or floor access). Then if there are confidential items the filing cabinet/pedestal is locked and access to the key given to those that need it.

So how about we implement this for an implementation for the the DMS?

  • The DMS as a whole is your firm, accessed by your employees.
  • Now make a choice at implementation of the DMS – Do you apply the key to the filing cabinet (i.e. a DMS library) or do you wan to apply the key to a matter (i.e. a collection of files)?

Then during use the simple question is for the level you chose 

  • Who do you want to see this? Is it everyone on the firm, a group, or a few individuals?

That’s it, I’d have no granular security below this. Bottom line would be if you need security below, then set up a new collection of files.

But hang on, what about those cases where you need to share a document or file? Say you need some advice internally on a document but you don’t want to open up the whole matter.

  • So final addition would be to introduce a concept of lending, in the real world you’d borrow a file or document and then put it back in the file. Do the same, set up a time limited “guest pass” for any point at lower levels (i.e. a folder or a document). That way if you forget to revoke the system will correct itself.

That’s it. I challenge you to think of any scenarios it can’t handle?

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Legal

Sainsbury’s Law

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Come on you’d turn away if I said this was another “Tesco Law” will change things forever story. I read this post last Friday on the Guardian website and the part where it talked about brands got me thinking.

The Legal Services Board and its consumer panel are looking at the problems consumers have in identifying quality in legal services – research shows that people focus on service levels, which they can understand, rather than the ability of the lawyer to do the job, which is much harder to judge. They have a degree of respect "bordering on awe" for lawyers, the panel reported recently, and trust that the lawyer knows what he or she is talking about.

It is into this void that solicitors fear brand names will come and offer a consumer-friendly service that will win the loyalty of a public intimidated by the legal process. A recent survey by YouGov found that 60% of people would consider buying legal services from one of 16 named brands, from Barclays to Kwik-Fit, indicating interest in the concept but also a certain doubt at such a radical change in the traditional model.

It got me thinking about the big supermarket brands foray into the banking world. The Sainsbury and Tesco brand certainly shifted accounts of a number of their customers. I’m sure that customers of NatWest and HSBC when asked in 1996 whether they would consider banking with Sainsbury’s were equally sceptical, but Sainsbury’s Bank  now has around 1.5m customers.

But look behind the banks and you’ll see the banking powerhouses, Sainsbury’s is a 50:50 venture with Lloyds Banking Group and Tesco for ten years until 2008 was 50:50 with the Royal Bank of Scotland.

What about in 2022 looking back at a “Sainsbury’s Legal Services” venture and seeing how the successful 50:50 joint venture between Sainsbury’s and Eversheds became a respected brand across consumer legal services? Should the high street lawyers be turning from worrying about the high street brands and look to see if BigLaw is about to move in on their territory to expand?

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General IT, General Legal IT

The Helpdesk is king (oh and local IT support too!)

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I read an article in The Spectator magazine recently that touched on a customer satisfaction survey of hotels in the USA. The following point caught my eye:

What emerged from this study was that a guest’s enjoyment and appreciation of almost every aspect of a hotel is coloured by their initial experience of their visit — specifically how fast and easy they had found the business of checking-in.

From a Legal IT point of view I’m sure the same is valid, how that first contact with IT comes across (typically the helpdesk or a local IT support) will colour their view on IT.

The article goes on to say:

It supports other research suggesting our memories of events are much more determined by how they begin and end than by ‘the stuff in the middle’. (The NHS does itself a disservice here — the stuff in the middle is often good, but the admission and discharge procedures are dreadful.) What has very little effect on our memory of any experience is its duration.

In a Legal IT context, the “begin” would be the initial contact with the IT department. The point where IT needs to answer quickly, be polite and be knowledgeable (not necessarily able to fix every problem, but enough to know when they can’t, explain they can’t and move the call on quickly to those that can).

The “end” is where the lawyers IT problem is solved and importantly the customer informed that it’s solved (based on a recent survey I’ve seen, something that is often forgotten).

So let’s divert all resource and budget to the helpdesk? Of course not, it’s not all about ensuring your helpdesk is spot on, the bit in the middle is after all pretty critical too! Without it you’ll rarely reach the problem solved and if that’s the case then you may as well not bother answering the phone in the beginning! It’s a balance, but clearly from the hotels survey getting that first point of contact spot on could just make everything IT do seem so much better.

One last quote from the Spectator article, “What has very little effect on our memory of any experience is its duration”, now there’s a start for an article on project deliverables at some point!

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General IT

I’m getting old and tired, a bit like Legal IT software

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This week I caught the news that the ZX81 hit 30 and that got me thinking about the computers I have owned.

Then the fun went out of computers. I mean take a look at the next lot. (don’t believe me, pull out the internet cable and see what you can do with that thing on your desk!)

  • PC (386 laptop with a massive 8 inch b&w screen)
  • PC (486 compaq from work)
  • PC (self built Athlon)
  • PC (water cooled over clocked P4)
  • PC (i5)

That first Commodore started me on the path to an IT career in applications development. Developing software in BASIC was the only way I could get that PET to do anything useful. The early days of the Spectrum as well led to plenty of coding, mainly due to the magazines at the time having code listings for games and projects. Also the plethora of magazines like INPUT (TV advert), that taught programming for the Spectrum and Commodore 64 amongst others.

These were the early days of home computing when there were many different machines, each with their own operating system. These machines had languages either built in or shipped with them on disks that allowed kids to experiment in programming.

Then came the PC (and to a lesser extent in the early days the Mac) and years of same old same old, with some improvements and iterations in the OS and just a little be faster hardware in each release.

So apart from a little nostalgia what’s the point in this post?

Well it’s tablets. The multiple different devices, the lack of standard operating system, the explosion in software development for them. It reminds me a little of the early days of home computing. The explosion of Apps is encouraging people to develop again. This could lead to a whole new generation of developers who enjoy coding, rather than build a web site in the hope of being the next Mark Zuckerberg.

From the developers of my generation came most of the stalwarts of the current Legal IT portfolio. The developers that come from tablet generation will maybe bring the next wave. I hope so, Legal IT software to me seems old and tired at the moment. It’s iterations of what we have already, better but not revolutionary.  Maybe the tablet will bring the change?

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General IT, General Legal IT, Outlook 2010 series

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office

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Here’s one to strike fear into every risk manager in law firms and perhaps give a warm glow to every lawyer (well the tech savvy ones at least), Google Cloud Connect!

In Google’s words.

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office brings collaborative multi-person editing to the familiar Microsoft® Office experience. You can share, backup, and simultaneously edit Microsoft Word, PowerPoint®, and Excel® documents with coworkers.

or how about “with coworkers clients”!!!

It’s only been released today, so I’ve not had chance to play about with it too much but from what I have used so far it was fairly easy to set up and very easy to sync to the cloud. Maybe a simple way to finally rid ourselves of the back and forth drafting process via email attachments!

There is more information on how it works in the video below.

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office (2003/2007/2010)
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General Legal IT

Outsourced!

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Another week another outsourcing of legal support staff story, or so it seems in 2011. At the time of writing the latest is Allen & Overy and their move to outsource to Belfast. This follows other firms, like CMS Cameron McKenna giving it’s support staff the choice of Bristol or India.

It’s like the mid 90’s all over again. Well for me it is. At that time I was starting off in IT in the utilities industry. In the UK the government had privatised the regional electricity companies and they were suddenly in a competitive market. Very similar to the position law firms find themselves in now, a time when a fairly comfortable profitable market was suddenly plunged into an arena that was getting very competitive very fast.

The mantra was to cut costs and quickly. As a reader of Janders Dean’s blog points out “They’re doing this to cut costs aren’t they and if that means cutting some of the flab out of the headcount so be it. This is a business after all”. And as in the utilities then, it’s the same in law firms now, target headcount and target support functions.

I totally agree with the point in the quote above, that business needs to cut flab to remain competitive. And although not nice for those involved, good companies do tend to handle this well and look after the employees affected.

But it always reminds me of the story of East Midlands Electricity and what can happen if the sole focus of an outsourcing deal is money saving. You can read more details of what happened here and here, but the summary is that EME didn’t see the business changes that the deregulation of the UK’s domestic electricity and gas supply market would bring. And when those changes came they realised that there was no substitute for experience of an internal IT department and that there was a need for them to take direct control of all business-related IT projects. This led to a cancelation of a 12 year deal some 5 years early and a recreation of an IT department.

I think maybe A&O’s response is a better play, I’ve often wondered why a number of the London based UK firms persist in maintaining support functions in the capital, where the cost of offices and staff is much more expensive. So rather than outsource why not shift the functions to cheaper parts of the UK, say for example Yorkshire!!

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General Legal IT

Is iManage WorkSite about to be outflanked?

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It’s been a few years since iManage WorkSite effectively won the war of the document management systems (DMS) against Hummingbird’s DM5. Since then both companies have been through a number of mergers and are currently the Legal DMS products are owned by Autonomy and Opentext respectively.

The peace though looks soon to be shattered by a counter strike on two fronts. On the one side we have the SharePoint juggernaut from Microsoft and on the other a coalition of vendors we’ll call “the cloud” (currently led from the front by netdocuments).

So who’s going to win this latest battle? First off it’s worth pointing out that the game has changed considerably since the WorkSite 8.0 v DM5 days, it’s no longer just traditional DMS functionality that is required in the armoury, but email management capabilities and great search functionality.

Let’s start with SharePoint. In its 2010 guise it looks like SharePoint is starting to be taken seriously. From Lewis Silkin’s SharePoint implementation to the announcement that Clifford Chance are going SharePoint there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the product is ready to be used by law firms. The big benefit of course is the cost, if you’re licenced for Microsoft, then you’re likely licensed for SharePoint. Plus there is the native integration with Office 2010. The addition of the FAST search engine gives it some capability against WorkSite’s IDOL engine. And there’s also a growing IT skillset out there to maintain the product (wider than just the Legal IT market).

But wait, there are limitations for Legal. Matter centricity and email management to name two. These can be addressed by “add ons” like Workshare Point or DMS4Legal (the former I have seen and have to say looks really neat) but then the cost and resource benefits are reduced or eliminated.

So if it’s not a one horse SharePoint race, what about the other side, the cloud coalition?

I’ll be honest I like the concept of netdocuments. The desktop application has all the features of a good DMS like WorkSite, but the heavy lifting of a DMS (the application servers, the indexers, the database etc) is managed in the cloud. Allowing the focus for the Legal IT department to be on the fee earners desktop, which is where it should be.

The downside of the cloud at the moment is the perceived security and risk concerns, I’m sure this will be resolved in time. But right now it’s still a stumbling block for many firms, but the shift may be coming (Foley & Lardner in the US, a 1000 lawyer firm, have possibly shown the way).

So is the original winner of the DMS battle doomed?

Short answer, certainly not.

I think there is plenty of life left in iManage WorkSite. As well as the fact that unlike the others it is a proven product in Legal, it also has a couple of aces up it’s sleeve.

First off it’s proven itself to be scalable to meet the demands of even the largest law firms. Something that SharePoint I don’t think has yet proven. The number of documents a law firm has may have levelled, but the email volumes on matters is still growing. That’s a counter strike on one flank.

On the other side it’s announced a big offensive by moving WorkSite to a hosted solution, too early to tell whether this is a route to victory (or what exactly the hosted solution will look like), but on the face of it moving WorkSite into the cloud itself is a good move.

So who’ll be the winner?

I honestly don’t know. Thinking about it, I hope there won’t be one outright winner. A little competition in the Legal DMS arena is a good thing. Product competition usual brings with it innovation and advancement, it forces vendors to up their game. All of which can only be a good thing for the lawyers!!  *

*that’s lawyers as users of the technology, not in some big litigation of course!!

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General Legal IT, Legal

Everything clients want from a law firm….

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Have you ever thought that everything clients want from a law firm are things that our fee earner want from the Legal IT dept.?

I hadn’t thought of it this way until a colleague raised a number of points that were raised by some senior people from large global organisations at a recent conference.

"We want consistent service from a global service provider, even if it isn’t in the home market, we still want the same good service in a distant geography"

"We want a legal services team that really knows our business"

"Don’t do what we tell you, do what we need"

“We don’t want academic legal answers, we want relevant business explanations and solutions”

Change the wording slightly.

"We want consistent service from the central IT dept., even if it isn’t in our office, we still want the same good service in a distant geography"

"We want a legal IT team that really knows our business"

"Don’t do what we tell you, do what we need"

“We don’t want technical answers, we want relevant business explanations and solutions”

Makes sense doesn’t it!

Now I’ve been pondering how to sum this post up. Is there an answer to all the problems of delivering a great service in those points raised? I couldn’t come up with a nice black and white answer, but then maybe this is a case of a problem shared is a problem solved?

p.s. thanks must go to my colleague in Asia for this post, the points are plagiarised from him. cheers Andy!

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General Legal IT

“One quote [from a lawyer] was ‘super super impressed’.”

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Just a quick post on a law firms Legal IT dept being the lead in a BBC news story on corporate technology!

The article is about the shift to using your own PC at work rather than the PC given to you. As the article says:

You are at work. Your computer is five years old, runs Windows XP. Your company phone has a tiny screen and doesn’t know what the internet is. Idling at home are a snazzy super-fast laptop, and your own smartphone is barred from accessing work e-mail.

So it’s quite an shift for SNR Denton if they really are using home PC’s as the main computer for their staff (although the article mentions a pool of laptops, I wonder if there is a standard desktop and then the home PC/laptop is for those that also need a mobile computer?). But either way it shows that Legal IT is no longer the recipient of the comment “it’s finally doing what the rest of IT has been doing for years” and is up to date with the latest trends in corporate IT.

Anyway, take a look at the article as it nicely captures what can be done and many of the concerns people have with the approach. But one paragraph nicely backs up my last post “RIP Legal IT?”: 

“The old environment was very support heavy, so we can use our support staff to do other critical work without getting sidetracked.”

IT forever evolving!

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General Legal IT

RIP Legal IT?

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I read a couple of articles last year, one on the demise of corporate IT and another on how corporate IT has the same reputation as Carol Beer (the bank manager in the BBC’s Little Britain hit sketch show, “computer says no”). I agree with some of the sentiments in both of these articles, but not in the conclusion, that this is going to lead to the end of corporate IT in the former article or that this is generally the case that “IT says no” in the later. Here’s my response as to why.

Does the Corporate Legal IT dept need to be dragged into the future?

I spoke to one board level client who was stunned when he moved to his new company that he was unable to use his own laptop and iPad. The IT department instead set him up with a desktop that made him feel like he had been transported five years back in time.

But then I could as easily quote from an article like this one:

A company that runs two law centres has become one of the first two organisations ever to be fined for data protection breaches, after personal details of 24,000 clients were lost when an unencrypted laptop was stolen.

There are reasons that your work PC can be a pain compared to your modern quad core home laptop. But often there are very good reasons for this based on decisions that have been taken by the firm as a whole. It’s a balance and although I would wholly agree with the sentiment that corporate IT has to “say yes”, I’d also argue that it’s the business as a whole that needs to be dragged into the future as well and see IT once again as an enabler for the firm rather than just a utility service. See it as a former and you start to make joint decisions on what you want from IT for the firm, as the later it just becomes something you use.

So what about the End of the Corporate Legal IT dept?

Certainly Legal IT will change due to the three factors outlined in the article: 

  • The corporate acceptance of SaaS
  • The explosion of consumer technology
  • The economy

But it will change rather than die. Much as I’m sure that from the outside it can look like corporate IT is a dinosaur waiting for extinction, this is a generalisation. Most Legal IT depts are very used to change (they’ve been through enough of them in the last 10 years! Mergers, Growth, Recession, Globalisation etc) and so these factors will lead them to change yet again.

  • SaaS, yes it’s great but it still needs managing, it still needs analysis of the business needs/requirements, it still needs project management for implementing the service.
  • Consumer technology, Apple stuff still breaks you know and needs tech support.
  • The economy, if there’s one department that knows how to cut costs it’s IT!

So that’s my thoughts on these articles, what’s yours?

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