#LTNY EDITORS BREAKFAST

Our annual Editors' Breakfast will be held Tuesday (Feb. 3) at 8 a.m., in the Petit Trianon Room on the 3rd floor of the Hilton NY. It's free and open to all vendors and attendees of LTNY.

As usual, we will offer gourmet conversation and pedestrian danish, coffee & tea (in interests of full disclosure, the picture to the left is NOT representative of our fare).

However, we will have a first-class crop of Incisive Media's northeastern-based  editors who produce our magazines, webinars, blogs, etc. 

And immediately following the Editors session, at 9 a.m., in the same room, we invite bloggers to come for nourishment and good conversation and networking. 

Registration info for LTNY09 can be found at www.legaltechshow.com.

Cya! #LTNY

OBAMA SIGNS GENDER PAY BILL

A step in the right direction: President Obama has signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, re gender pay, the first piece of legislation he has signed as president. AP  story here, from MS/NBC. (It includes a video of Obama talking about equal pay during his campaign)

See Mon's rant in November LTN ("Just Equal") about this issue within the legal industry  here.

I continue my challenge to every law firm managing partner, every vendor CEO and every law dept. GC to check their own shops and fix the dismal inequities within our profession. It's a disgrace that we are in such sorry shape, when we should stand tall and be a leader in this obvious and important cause.

Photo courtesy of NBC/AP. (Obama is pictured with Lilly Ledbetter)

WHAT I HATE ABOUT TECHNOLOGY: UPDATE!

I'm thrilled to announce that CommVault,  which offers e-discovery services, has just signed on to sponsor our upcoming "Trifecta" -- that includes a live program at LTNY09, six podcasts, and a report on the panel in Law Technology News and Corporate Counsel!

Anthony Paonita, editor-in-chief of Corporate Counsel magazine, and I are organizing the panel, and it should be a flat-out blast. We've got a GREAT crew of speakers, and a great topic: "What I Hate About Technology - and what i expect my outside counsel, opposing counsel, vendors and staff to do about it!"

Like our inaugural "FutureTech" program at LegalTech West Coast, this program is modeled on the famous TED lectures, with each speaker presenting a standalone, 12-minute presentation. Each one will be recorded as a podcast for my Law Technology Now podcast series. And then we'll have at least one article in LTN and CC based on the panel!

So on Tuesday (Feb 3) at 3:30-5, come hear about GC departments' pet peeves and  wish lists. Whether you are outside counsel, a vendor, or also in GC offices, you're bound to hear pragmatic, real-world information that can help you help your organization -- and your own career.

 
Scheduled speakers include  Alexander Arato of CA, Ted Banks, formerly of Kraft Foods,  David Cambia, of Aon Corp., Deena Coffman, discovery director at Johnson & Johnson, Janine Dascenzo, associate general counsel of GE, and Kim Townsan, of United Technologies Corp.

And the wonderful Ted Banks wrote a nice little hyberbolic inflammatory article in our January issue of Law Technology News, which you can read here to get you in the mood.

I'm so looking forward to this program!

ANDY'S BACK

Whoppeee... the staring contest is over. Pettite's back --- $5.5M 1 yr, with incentives that could bring it to $12M. 

YEAHHHHHHH 411 here. 

P.S. - Cash, now couldja please put Joba where he belongs: as set-up and successor to Mo!

WHAT LIES BENEATH

With the news of layoffs at two EDD providers (i365/Metalincs and SPi), I thought you might want a sneak preview of Craig Ball's column "What Lies Beneath."

Ball warns us to be sure we have considered how to protect our firms and clients should a vendor evaporate.

View it here  or download it here: Download Ball_In_Your_Court

LAYOFFS AT SPi

The grapevine is humming about layoffs at SPi -- and possible reorganization (jettisoning EDD work) -- but no official statements yet. Will keep you posted as we hear more.

MORE ON INTERWOVEN ACQUISTION

Autonomy Corp. has reported plans to acquire Interwoven Inc. According to the company:

• Interwoven stockholders will receive $16.20 in cash for each outstanding Interwoven share, representing a premium of 36.8% to the closing share price of $11.84 on January 21, 2009, and a premium of 36.2% to the average closing share price over the 30 days through January 21, 2009.
 • Aggregate consideration of approximately $775 million (assuming exercise of all vested in-the-money Interwoven share options), funded by an underwritten placing of ordinary shares (the "Placing"), a new revolving credit facility from Barclays and a portion of Interwoven and Autonomy's cash reserves.
• Post-closing Autonomy expects to have a cash balance of at least $75 million, assuming close in Q2'09

• The acquisition is expected to complete in the second quarter of 2009

10 SECONDS TO HELP

I turn the mic over to my friend Marianne Cohen:

The Animal Rescue Site is having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily to meet its quota of getting free food donated every day to abused and neglected animals.  It takes about 10 seconds to go to their site and click on the purple box 'fund food for animals' for free.

This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate food to abandoned/neglected animals in exchange for advertising.   So please visit the website and tell your friends about it:  http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com.

AUTONOMY TO ACQUIRE INTERWOVEN

Breaking news: http://www.autonomy.com/content/News/Releases/2009/0122.en.html

VENABLE PARTNER ON US AIR 1549

Our colleagues at The Am Law Daily have just posted a fascinating interview with  Venable partner James Hanks Jr. who was aboard US Air 1549.

Best line:  “I can't let my life be run by a bunch of geese.”

  #USAircrash

TWEET TWEET @ LTNY

We've decided to add a Twitter panel to LTNY, and what a panel it is:

  "What is Twitter and How Can I Use It?"  Monday, Feb. 2, from 3 to 4 p.m., in the 3rd floor Hilton West Ballroom (same one being used for the general sessions).

Among the questions we'll address:
* At the end of the day is Twitter the “ultimate time waster” or a “great tool”?
* From 'huh?" to "a ha!" - one lawyer's journey into the Twitterverse.  -- alternative title "How I learned to stop worrying and love to Tweet!"  
* Time to Tweet?  How to use Twitter without losing time to Twitter.
* Lawyers, Twitter and Client Development *How lawyers are using Twitter for sharing and camaraderie among each other.

Panelists:
Matthew Homann, Founder, LexThink  Twitter: /matthomann
Kevin O’Keefe, Chief Executive Officer,Lex Blog,  LexTweet.com,
T: /kevinokeefe
Chris Winfield, President, 10e20, T: /chriswinfield

Special guest Robert J. Ambrogi, (T: /bobambrogi) author of LTN's Web Watch column, and co-author of Legal Blog Watch and Lawyer2Lawyer podcast, will handle the introductions, and will "live Tweet" from the event!

Moderator: Monica Bay:  T: /commonscold, /eddupdate, /lawtechnews

Not signed up yet for LTNY09? Register here.  T: /legaltechshow

In the meantime, if you wanna do some homework, check out:

• "Tweet 16:" by Ambrogi, from LTN:  

•  Lawyer2Lawyer's "The Pros and Cons of Twitter," here.  (Ambrogi/J.Craig Williams, with guests Kevin O'Keefe and Scott Greenfield.)

• Crowell's Jeffrey Brandt suggests this article from Computerworld.  ("CIOs who Twitter.)

• From Stephen Nipper: 

http://is.gd/4EDR
http://is.gd/4EDS
http://is.gd/4EDT
http://is.gd/4EDU
http://is.gd/4v94
http://is.gd/1d4Z
http://is.gd/4EEr

MAILBOX #090119

As the snow falls in NYC, catchin' up on the incoming: 

* Adobe's Rick Borstein checks in to let us know that he's been working with Evermap.com, "to get a special plug-in for Acrobat so that users can write directly on PDFs. This helps firms to save time and avoid printing.There’s an article on my blog and a video demo," here.  This is for users of Tablet PCs.

* Shawnna Childress of Women in EDiscovery have an option for those of you who can't attend the sold-out LTN Awards Dinner on Feb 2 (Monday) during LTNY: They are presenting a reception, along with the National Association of Women Lawyers, to support the Susan G Komen Foundation for Breast Cancer. It will be held at the New York Hilton, in Concourse A, from 6 pm to 8 p.m. Drinks, appetizers and entertainment will be provided, and they are asking for a minimum donation of  $25. Check out details here -- or e-mail here  with your RSVP.

* John Hochfelder wants you to know that he has launched a new blog, New York Injury Cases Blog, that offers news and analysis of pain-and-suffering verdicts and settlements. A good complement to Eric Turkewitz' New York Personal Injury Lawyer Blog.

* Nigel Murray of  Trilantic is participating a "Band of Brothers Bike Ride," to be held in May, which will ride the 340-mile route of the Allies' liberation of France in 1945. It will raise money for Help for Heroes, which supports young men and women who have lost limbs during combat. You can help him reach his goal of raising 2,000 pounds -- details here.

* United Airlines is expected to announce the availability of broadband wi-fi on its transcontinental "P.S." flights from  NY to California. Check out Chicago Trib story here.  Hat tip to mom for seeing it first. Whoopeee (altho this will cut into my movie-watching time.)

GUEST POST: GO GREEN

A guest post from Shawnna Childress, of Navigant Consulting (and Women in eDiscovery):

The name of the game in 2009 is “Saving Money”.  Going Green is a natural answer to saving your firm or corporation thousands.  Particularly in the United States, saving money on energy costs is the primary motivating factor causing corporations to ramp up their Green IT initiatives.

Overseas, we are seeing corporations going green to improve their brand’s image. It is the “cool” thing to do in Europe.

Here are a few simple things you can do to become Green and affect your bottom line:

1)       Switch off your computer when leaving the office (The average computer electricity costs $150 on the low-end to $450 on the high-end to run each year.  You can easily save $300 per year per computer if you turn your computer off at night.  Here is the actual math if you want to get down to the true mathematics of the equation.).

Watts x  Hours Used	x  Cost per kilowatt-hour = Total Cost
1000

2)       Even better, use a power strip to plug in all your equipment and pull the plug each night (this confirms that not even the smallest amount of electricity is being used in your office while you are away).

3)       Better yet, you could buy a “Smart Strip” for around $30. This special power strip monitors electricity use in each plug and shuts off the ones that have been idle for a period of time.

4)       Print double-sided (imagine how much $$ you’ll save in paper costs).

5)       Set your computers on energy-savings settings

6)       If you're going to be away from your desk for more than 15 minutes, turn off your computer monitor. Monitors easily use over half of the total energy used to run a computer. (Please note that screen savers do not save any energy so it is better to put your computer in “sleep” or “stand-by” mode with a blank screen while away. Unfortunately, it takes just as much energy to make your screen saver shoot stars at you as it does to run a word processing program.)

7)       Choose a laptop over a desktop when possible.  Laptop computers use up to 90% less energy than desktop computers.

8)       Consolidate your Servers.

9)       Set up Virtual Servers so multiple offices can use the same server.

10)   Fix your in-house data center leaks…unfortunately almost everyone has them (i.e. clean coils, clean ducts, make sure the thermostats are installed in an effective area, make sure your valves are not failing, check your cooling systems to confirm that the right amount of coolant is coming out, etc…)

11)   Practice proper disposal and recycling of technology (One idea…give your old company cell phones to a Domestic Violence Shelter.  To call 911, cell phones don’t need a subscription to a service; therefore, they give the inactive cell phones to their female clients so they can call 911 as needed.) 

If you have more Green ideas your firm or corporation has put into practice, please let us know by commenting on this article.

DARWIN SUMMARY

Joe Howie and Michael Potters came up with this very nifty chart of key acquisitions over the last couple years for the ALSP Newsletter. Check it out.

VERDICT SYSTEMS (SANCTION) SOLD

Verdict Systems has been sold to Atlanta-based Alexander Gallo Holdings, reports Verdict Systems spokesperson Colleen O'Donnell Pierce.

AGH offers court reporting and litigation support services. Verdict Systems offers Sanction trial presentation software, and the more comprehensive Verdical package. The transaction includes all subsidiaries of Verdict Systems, including the service arm, Sanction Solutions.

“This acquisition fulfills one of our primary goals, which is to offer our clients a complete suite of services to handle all of their litigation needs from discovery through trial," said president/CEO Alexander Gallo.

Subsidiaries of AGH include Associated Reporters, Brown & Gallo, DepoNet, Esquire Deposition Services, Esquire Litigation Solutions, Esquire Solutions, The Hobart West Group, Hobart West Solutions, Jack Daniel Reporting & Video Services, LRI, Paulson Reporting & Litigation Services, SetDepo and Tankoos Reporting.

CISCO DIVES INTO SOCIAL NETWORKING

Alltop's Guy Kawasaki  spotted this C/Net article about Cisco diving into social networking.

& THE WINNERS ARE:

I am thrilled to announce the winners of the Law Firm/Law Dept. 2008 LTN Awards, which will be presented on Monday, Feb. 2 at our LTN Awards dinner:

The judges were Andrew Adkins III, of the University of Florida Law School; Fredric Lederer, of the College of William & Mary School of Law; and David Whelan, of the Law Society of Upper Canada.

The winners are:

IT Director of the Year:  Constance Hoffman, Bryan Cave

Champion of IT:  Joy Heath Rush, Sidley Austin

The Most Innovative of Technology:
— in a Law Firm:  Outlaw, Fish & Richardson
— In-House:  Vulcan Legal Exchange, Vulcan
— In a Trial:  Hynix Trial, Bartko Zankel
— in a Pro Bono Project:   Weil Gotshal

And the judges created a new category, which will continue forward:

Consultant of the Year:  Donna Payne

And I am also thrilled to announce that we will launch a new category, Lifetime Achievement Award, to honor a legal technology leader (55+) who has contributed mightily to our community. I will judge this category — so start thinking of nominations for next year!

2009 TECH RESOLUTIONS

Here are a few personal tech resolutions, from the Dec. issue of  Law Technology News: (More on the website).

During these challenging economic times, I hereby resolve to adopt the following as my vendor relations credo, as first enunciated by professors Jagger and Richards in 1968: "You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, well you might find — you get what you need." I will focus on getting my vendors to provide what I need, both in cost and product, rather than what I want.  — Alvin Podboy, Baker & Hostetler, Cleveland

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To learn the difference between — and the benefits and shortcomings of — blogs, twitter, IM, and all other new forms of instant communication. — Trisa Thompson, Dell Inc., Round Rock, Texas

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To try to be disciplined enough to establish regular "read and respond" hours for e-mail, versus managing my day via e-mail and social media updates. Less distraction — more focus. — Rob Robinson, Orange Legal Technologies, Austin

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I've become increasingly frustrated with bugs and other issues with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista. While I plan to continue using Vista, I resolve to buy an Apple Inc. MacBook Pro for home and become expert in OS X— Jack Newton, Themis Solutions/Clio, Vancouver, B.C.

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To try and use less technology and reintroduce myself to my family.— Thomas Baldwin, Reed Smith, Los Angeles

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To differentiate what I want from what I really need, and then to stay away from impulse gadgets and purchases. — Donna Payne, Payne Consulting Group, Seattle

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• To listen to at least one of the legal technology webinars that I registered for.
• To stop believing that I will start writing a blog when I get some time.
• To better advocate the merits of novel processes and technologies by concealing my enthusiasm with skepticism.
• To revert to saying "discovery" now that we all know that relevant electronically stored information is always included.
• To refuse to deliver a CLE program on the 2006 Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. — Paul Brabant, Epiq Systems Inc., Washington, D.C.

What's yours?

Hit comment and tell us! 

MAILBAG #010209

New Year, More Mail:

* Kevin O'Keefe checks in to advise us that he has just launched beta of lextweet.com. Sez he is "changing text Friday to make clear it is open to all legal community, not just lawyers." Kinda a mini-Twitter, interesting!

* Ross Kodner offers 33 New Year's resolutions here.  His # 1 prediction: at least 10% of AmLaw 100 firms will collapse by year's end. "The era of the megafirm is over. Heller Ehrman and Thelen are history. Who’s next? (Take a look at these websites - it’s positively chilling - when Goliath falls, he falls hard."

* Related topic:  "Will BigLaw firms gain -- or lose-- business in tough economic times? Integreon's Ron Friedman has an interesting dialogue going on his blog, PrismLegal, here.  (Hat tip to WP.)

* Turbulent skies: A holiday message from  United's pilots:

December 16, 2008

To our passengers,
As the Holiday Season approaches, the professional pilots of United Airlines want to assure our passengers that whether you are headed home to share the holidays with loved ones or enjoying vacation travel, we'll continue to go the extra mile to make sure that you get to your destinations in comfort with minimum stress and inconvenience.
We are very much aware that the friendly skies have become less friendly in recent times because of increased costs, reduced flights and cutbacks in in-flight service and amenities. We have been at the forefront when it comes to resisting these cost-cutting initiatives because we do not believe that our passengers should be penalized for the mistakes of United's management. We still feel that way and are still fighting the fight on behalf of our passengers.
As we get into the winter months, we want you to know that United is an all-weather airline. United pilots pioneered many of the safety innovations such as onboard weather radar, anti-skid brakes, enhanced weather forecasting, and improved navigation instruments that allow safe operation in inclement weather. And we will not allow our airline to fabricate excuses for not serving the needs of our passengers.
On behalf of United's professional pilots, we want to extend our best wishes to all for a joyous Holiday Season. We will continue to do all that we can to make the skies friendlier for our valued passengers who continue to be our number one priority.

--The Pilots of United Airlines
United Chapter, Air Line Pilots Association