This past week members discussed data analytics and more. Do you want to learn more about the LegalSEC Summit and the Legal Innovation & Tech Fest? Hear from Richard Martinez, LegalSEC Summit Committee Member and Rick Krzyminski and Julian Tsisin, both presenters at the Tech Fest. Explore curated sources on these topics including some from ILTA’s treasure chest.
Using Data Analytics for Cost-Control
Both law firms and corporate legal departments have budgets and limits to what they can charge and/or spend. We hear the cost control mantra everywhere but what do we do about it? Keith Lipman of Prosperoware wrote, “Law Firms Must Focus on Profits, Not Revenues” for Bloomberg BNA Big Law Business. Can big data and innovative technologies help improve processes and identify inefficiencies? ILTA members from DWT De Novo and Littler LLP presented at LegalTech New York this year on “Pioneering Law Firms: Breakthroughs and Efficiencies in Service Delivery.” David Ricketts of C24 shared “10 Ways for Law Firms to Use Big Data” on LinkedIn Pulse last fall. Earlier this year Kira Systems shared ideas on creating efficiencies with “Reduce Contract Review Pain Points with Machine Learning” in an ILTA webinar. Costs can creep up in any practice or support area in legal but the creep can become a leap in e-discovery. Shengshi Zhao offers advice in “An Australian Perspective on Avoiding Hidden E-Discovery Costs” in the most recent ILTA white paper. See the ILTA webinar series from 2015 for extra tips and tricks on leveraging big data for better cost-control. Sessions include “How Big Data Can Solve Problems – Big Data 101,” “How Big Data Can Solve Problems – Beginning Statistical Analysis,” “How Big Data Can Solve Problems – Trends in Corporate Legal Department Ownership of Knowledge Assets” and “How Big Data Can Solve Problems – Advanced Statistical Analysis.”
LegalSEC Summit – a Talk with Richard Martinez, a Proponent of Security Beyond Lip-Service
Richard Martinez, Information Technology Manager at Reed Smith, joined the LegalSEC Summit Committee in 2015 and returned to volunteer this year. He helped develop the sessions “Security Metrics That Matter,” “A Trip to Malware Land” and “Security Awareness: A Blueprint from Start to Finish-ish.” He recently talked with me about the security awareness session and the takeaways for attendees. The title alone, with the word “finish-ish,” reminds attendees that a good security awareness program never truly ends. Security awareness programs demand an iterative process with regular analysis of the content. The presenters for this session will take the audience through the process of crafting security awareness programs and discuss the reasoning behind choices made. At the end of the session, attendees will take away a complete security awareness program blueprint. They will also hear many ideas used in other organizations to keep security awareness fresh for all personnel. Richard said, “I really love this session. Although we’ve been talking about security awareness for years, it’s still so important.” In closing my conversation with Richard, rather than ask him what keeps him awake at night, I asked what helps him sleep better. He said, “I’m seeing a big push on "actual" data security. Before it was often lip service.” He explained that ISO and NIST certification look good on paper but without practicing security every day and getting buy-in from management, “your systems aren’t really hardened.” Richard sees a shift in companies who now bolster security teams and continuously assess the processes around securing data. “I’m seeing it finally fall into place,” Richard says, “because we have to do this.”
Legal Innovation & Tech Fest – Conversations with Presenters, Rick Krzyminski of Baker Donelson and Julian Tsisin of Google
I spoke with Rick Krzyminski, ILTACON Co-Chair, and Julian Tsisin, 2015 ILTA Peer Award Winner for the Innovative Law Department of the Year, about their involvement in the Legal Innovation & Tech Fest next week in Melbourne, Australia. They shared some highlights of their presentations. Rick and his fellow panelists hope to inspire attendees to listen to clients/outside counsel and to experiment with ideas and business solutions that go beyond legal work. Julian will explain the capabilities of machine learning and offer use cases for machine learning in the legal domain and beyond. See “But Wait… There’s More – Legal Innovation & Tech Fest, Part III” to read more about my conversations with Rick and Julian. To learn about the Tech Fest and ILTA’s collaboration on the project, see “But Wait… There’s More – Legal Innovation & Tech Fest, Part I.”
SOMETHING EXTRA – Clonezilla, Trial Support and Enterprise Search
Need a cheap fix to disk Imaging? Dale Qualls invites you to join him in the world of open-source software in “Clonezilla – A No Cost Solution to Disk Imaging.”
The Trial Support A-Z series has another installment, “Litigation Legal Project Management,” that includes the blog, a podcast and extra resources to help you with your next litigation project.
Joshua Fireman worries your enterprise search tool can do more than you ask of it. Learn how to do more in the latest ILTA KM blog post, “Stop Limiting Your Ferrari to Grocery Trips: Using Enterprise Search for Deeper Integration.”
As ILTA’s content curator, I’m always monitoring the discussion forums to discover what topics are top-of-mind among the members. Each week, I focus on a few areas that spark your interest, and I provide some curated resources to assist your own information-gathering on the topics. If there are specific topics you would like assistance exploring, please contact me at joanne@iltanet.org