Legal Technology

Trial tech: watch what they do, not what they say

Trial technology is an area where you need to go beyond PowerPoint to catch a juror’s eye to show a jury the difficulty of removing heating hoses from a home or to depict the network trail of a hacker or to smoke out big tobacco. But no matter if you use Verdical or other trial presentation software you use, don't overdo it.

In 2009, Companies Must Employ Technology to Do More With Less

Further to my post about this story -- Burst of Lawsuits Boosts E-Discovery Firms -- I had a chance to speak with Craig Carpenter, VP & General Counsel at Recommind, one of the companies cited in the article.  He mentioned the trend toward building more effective and intelligent infrastructure.  Listen to our interview here.

Ari L. Kaplan, Esq.
www.arikaplanadvisors.com
(646) 641-0600

Author of "The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development" (Thomson-West, 2008).

For reviews, press and tour schedule, visit the official site of The Opportunity Maker.

Exchange HA with Teneros

E-mail has been a critical application for law firms for almost as long as I can remember. Today, it is even more critical as lawyers gain mobility and access their messaging applications anywhere, anytime, and as message stores take on the burden of housing voice mail from new IP-PBX systems and from unified communications applications. So what happens when e-mail is unavailable?

I am sure we can always find something to do when a mail server is down, but it may not be as productive and communicative as messaging. With that in mind, and with the fact that more law firms use Microsoft Exchange than not, I reviewed a high availability (HA) solution for Exchange: Teneros Application Continuity Appliance.

It is All About Understanding Risk

I had a chance to speak with Matt Blake, a partner and Chief Compliance Officer with HSNO about the state of e-discovery and his predictions for 2009.  He commented that litigants will need to assess the risks of an action earlier and more thoroughly than ever this year.  Listen to our interview here.

Ari L. Kaplan, Esq.
www.arikaplanadvisors.com
(646) 641-0600

Author of "The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development" (Thomson-West, 2008).

For reviews, press and tour schedule, visit the official site of The Opportunity Maker.

Alexander Gallo Holdings gets Verdict

Alexander Gallo Holdings, a privately-held court reporting and litigation support services, acquired Verdict Systems, developers of Sanction and Verdical as well as the service Sanction Solutions.

Alexander J. Gallo, CEO, hopes that the acquisition fulfills one of its primary goals to offer “cllients a complete suite of services to handle all of their litigation needs from discovery through trial.”

That seems to be the holy grail in the e-discovery business. An admirable, albeit elusive, quest given the vagaries of litigation.

Look for More Quick Peeks and Snap Shots in 2009

I spoke with James L. Michalowicz, a director with ACT Litigation Services, who previously managed litigation programs at Tyco and DuPont (actually during the time that I wrote about the success of the DuPont Legal Model for Legal Assistant Today magazine). He suggested that IP litigation could drop in 2009 and that there will be more preliminary 'quick peek' and 'snap shot' efforts.  Listen to our interview here.

Ari L. Kaplan, Esq.
www.arikaplanadvisors.com
(646) 641-0600

Author of "The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development" (Thomson-West, 2008).

For reviews, press and tour schedule, visit the official site of The Opportunity Maker.

International e-discovery at LegalTech

TRILANTIC, an EU-based e-discovery provider, has a comprehensive set of resources available on their Web site in regard to the EU Data Privacy Directive and its implementation in the various member states. And, they will be bringing their experience in e-discovery from the EU, Russia, the Middleast, and Asia to LegalTech next month in three educational sessions moderated by Browning Marean of DLA Piper, George Socha of Socha Consulting, and George Rudoy of Shearman & Sterling.

Use Technology More Effectively and Efficiently or Else...

I had a chance to speak with Chris May, the CEO of IE Discovery and he suggested that in 2009, companies will need to use technology more effectively and efficiently to succeed.  He also predicted a significant increase in wage and hour claims.  Listen to our interview here.

Ari L. Kaplan, Esq.
www.arikaplanadvisors.com
(646) 641-0600

Author of "The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development" (Thomson-West, 2008).

For reviews,press and tour schedule, visit the official site of The Opportunity Maker.

Not the sky-is-falling post

I reviewed the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s vulnerability report for the week of December 29, 2008. It’s a good document to receive regularly, if you don’t already receive it. See NIST’s mailing lists and RSS feeds to keep abreast of the latest security vulnerabilities.

Returning to the vulnerability report last week, over two-thirds of the “high” vulnerability scores focused on SQL injection vulnerabilities in various applications. Law firm IT departments most likely have layered defenses working at the network layer, but they should not ignore the application layer where these SQL injection attacks occur.

SQL injection attacks exploit security vulnerabilities in a database at the application layer. They persist when user input is incorrectly filtered or when user input is not “strongly typed” in SQL statements embedded in script language, e.g., PHP or Perl.

This is not the-sky-is-falling post at the end of the universe. Although I do like a cup of tea now and again. But if you run extranets and intranets with back-end databases, it’s high time to put an SQL injection vulnerability assessment on your list of things to do in 2009. And remember, in a competitive marketplace, who you know and what they and you know make rain.

2009 is going to be filled with a lot of bad e-discovery

As part of what I hope will be a daily series leading up to Legal Tech New York on the state of legal technology, I had an opportunity to speak today with Tom Tigh, the President of New York-based Superior Glacier, which provides traditional and electronic discovery support.  He has testified in Federal Court as an expert in ESI and has been appointed to oversee the court-directed production of ESI.  He made a number of interesting comments, including that "2009 is going to be filled with a lot of bad e-discovery."  Listen to our 6-minute interview here.

Stay tuned, I have a number of interviews scheduled for next week.

Ari L. Kaplan, Esq.
www.arikaplanadvisors.com
(646) 641-0600

Author of "The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development" (Thomson-West, 2008).

For reviews,press and tour schedule, visit the official site of The Opportunity Maker.