Derek Giles: Timeframe Principal
Last week A colleague & I
attended Legaltech 2013 that was held in an old-looking , soon-to- be restored
Hilton in the heart of the big apple. It was quite different from the predicted
assumptions that we have elaborated throughout the years.
It is easy to get frustrated at
times by the gigantic number of vendors that dived into the ever-rewarding
e-discovery market, and this unjustified commercialization of the concept.
On the bright spot, several practice management systems were introduced to the
consultants and techies ….. just to keep things interesting. Some Exhibitors
showed great energy and marketed their products in a very attractive way, e.g.
Thomson Reuters stand presented a unified picture of the various applications, unlike
past years they seemed to be comfortable in their own skin. I firmly believe
that after several years of acquisitions, the company is now
linking together all the pieces to present the technology as an actual
solution. There were also a number of new players and people exploring the
legal market some of the most entertaining were international vendors bringing
their products to the corporate realm. To my surprise Several Asian technology
companies were present to showcase their solution to the lucrative
north-American market. A number of Indian based companies…needed a little boost
in terms of their marketing firepower!!
So… we mentioned the energetic
guys ….now let’s talk about the disappointing folks. From my perspective, I
thought several vendors lacked dynamism, or motivation, maybe because of the
ridiculous lack of space or the dominance of ediscovery solutions by the big
players in the market.
The keynotes were
unfortunately legally biased and ediscovery. There must be very big money in
this but by its nature it is us biased. Elsewhere in the world judicial
activism and community pressure reduces litigation costs. Keynotes should
usually relate to the subject of the conference ,however the mesmerizing
part was the fact that technology was rarely mentioned , while its
core mentioned where religion/north-east/bad jokes /ethics stand
within the practice of law …yeah not very surprising!!
