ABA: LAWYERS R EMBRACING SOC NETWKG

Lawyers are beginning to embrace social networking, says the new ABA Legal Technology Survey. "Social networking for personal use is gaining popularity among lawyers," it says, with 43% of respondents saying they "maintain a personal social networking presence" -- up 15% from last year.

And slowly, firms are joining the bandwagon, it says, with 12% participating in communities such as Facebook, Linkedin, LawLink or Legal OnRamp.

Lawyers are increasingly addicted to their BlackBerrys -- that's not news. This year, 82% are using smartphones, PDAs, or BBs -- a significant jump from last year's 64%. And while iPhones are increasingly popular among lawyers, that hasn't translated to a switch to Apple: Only 4% of respondents use Mac OS on their primary computers.

The annual survey is available here  www.lawtechnology.org/survstat.html, and is produced by the ABA's Legal Technology Resource Center. Director Catherine Sanders Reach will share more news from the survey in the December issue of Law Technology News. www.lawtechnews.com.

#ILTA09 TECH PURCHASING SURVEY

2009 ILTA Survey:  InsideLegal and ILTA have released the 2009 Technology Purchasing Survey, which targets law firms with more than 50 attorneys. Produced in cooperation with InsideLegal.com, the 40 question web-based survey was distributed to 730 firms, and yielded 115 responses, says JoAnna Forshee.

Among key results, the most popular tech implementations for 2008 were network and server upgrades. Budget cuts for 2009 were severe --  only 15% of survey participants spent more than 4% of total firm revenue on technology -- compared to 28% in 2008.

Virtualization -- virtual desktops and data center/backup virtualization -- is by far the hottest trend, the survey found.

And we were happy to see that both Law Technology News and The Common Scold blog continue to draw strong support from the ITLA crowd, with LTN coming in fourth in popularity behind ILTA's own publications (Peer to Peer quarterly magazine and ILTA white papers) and CIO magazine!
For more information visit www.insidelegal.com.

MAILBAG #090730

Rummaging through the in-box:

Monty Lunn has answered the siren call of New Orleans, and moved back. He most recently was a director at Huron Consulting Group. We'll letcha know when he gets settled in with new contact info.

* Connie Moser, formerly of Elite, has joined another Elite-ite, Mark Goldin at American LegalNet. Goldin's the new CTO, Moser's the new marketing director She'll be at ILTA so you can reconnect with her there, or reach her here.

*Angelique Schaffer checks in from Thomson Reuters to advise us that Legal Current has replaced Westblog. Check it out!

* Herbert Roitblat of Oratec forwards  this encouraging article chastizing local governments for their version of "solution-speak." Note the list of 200 no-no words, including "beaconicity," "holistic governance," and "incentivising."

* Better late than never: This slipped thru my inbox cracks, so it's a bit old now, but still interesting: Katherine Petusek, of the National Association of Women Lawyers and its foundation, are conducting a fourth annual survey on retention and promotion of women in the largest 200 U.S. firms. Contact Cheryl Oblander here for an update. Copies of past surveys can be viewed here.

*Finally, a treat courtesy of SheFanJane (Jane Heller). A fun YouTube that you can embedding where appropriate. (BTW, she just featured an excerpt of my book review of her terrific new book, Confessions of a She-Fan)  on her book's website (scroll down below "advanced praise.")  Full review here. And I've also started posting my book reviews on Amazon (username Monica Bay. We'll use it to close out this edition of TCS: 

75% OF LAW DEPTS FACE BUDGET CUTS IN 09

Altman Weil has released a new Survey on Law Dept Cost Control that shows that 76% of responding GCS say their law depts face budget cuts averaging 11.5% for '09. And 15.6% say budgets will increase -- but by a smaller percentage than in prior years.

More than 80% of respondants cited outside counsel costs, and the unpredictable nature of legal spending. Third place, cited by 40% -- finanical exposure from litigation or potential litigation.

The survey was conducted in November and polled 1,292 GCs.

IT SECTOR M&A EXPECTED TO GROW IN '09

52% of corporate executives said they expect merger & acquisition growth in the IT sector to outpace overall global M&A growth in '09, according to a survey conducted by mergermarket, MoFo & Updata Advisers.

Press release Download Press-Release-IT-Sector-December-08(2)

Full report Download IT_Sector_M&A_Spotlight