Outsourcing your firm’s first impression

Outsourcing your firm’s first impression

Established in 2000, Moneypenny is the world’s market leader for telephone answering, live chat, outsourced switchboard and customer contact solutions. Moneypenny handles more than 2 million legal calls and chats each year for hundreds of legal firms in the UK, including 80 of the Top 200, thanks to its dedicated team of legal receptionists.

Communication is key for law firms and in a busy marketplace, first impressions are crucial. The way inbound enquiries are answered gives clues as to a firm’s values, priorities and approach to service. Whether it’s dealing with existing clients, handling new business enquiries or speaking with other professional service providers, the human, friendly touch is vital. Continue reading “Outsourcing your firm’s first impression”

Tech outlook in Cyprus in 2024

Tech outlook in Cyprus in 2024

In recent years, Cyprus has cultivated a thriving tech eco-system, positioning itself as a strong innovator, with a commitment to driving competitiveness and strategic service delivery. The country’s ICT sector is said to have contributed €3bn+ to the Cypriot economy in 2022, constituting 13% of the country’s GDP—a substantial leap from 7% in 2019 and 8.5% in 2020. Notably, €1bn is reportedly attributed to the influx of international firms and specialised human talent to Cyprus, a trend accelerated by the conflict in Ukraine.

In 2023, we observed Cyprus make remarkable progress in the technology sector. Fuelling this growth was the emergence of tech start-ups and digital enterprises, supported by government initiatives and organisations like TechIsland, Cyprus’ largest tech association, designed to attract high-calibre tech corporations worldwide. With over 270 member companies, TechIsland aims to enhance the tech industry’s operating environment, unite diverse stakeholders, and promote sustainable growth, contributing significantly to the country’s economic prosperity through tech.
Continue reading “Tech outlook in Cyprus in 2024”

Sponsored briefing: Legal tech: Opportunities abound from AI 1.0

Sponsored briefing: Legal tech: Opportunities abound from AI 1.0

Kriti Sharma, head of product, LegalTech at Thomson Reuters explores how the legal sector must respond to the AI revolution

Kriti Sharma is an overachiever, having held senior tech and advisory roles at HSBC, Sage, the UN and Barclays, and been named among Forbes’ 30 under 30 list. She still heads up an NGO she founded called AI for Good. Now, she is also chief product officer, legal tech at Thomson Reuters. Continue reading “Sponsored briefing: Legal tech: Opportunities abound from AI 1.0”

Sponsored briefing: Q&A with Darren Kantor, director, global head of legal tech implementation and recruitment at Jameson Legal Tech

Sponsored briefing: Q&A with Darren Kantor, director, global head of legal tech implementation and recruitment at Jameson Legal Tech

What have been the main trends in legal tech recruitment over the last year?

We have seen legal tech employers place greater emphasis on technical skills, such as coding, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. This reflects the need for legal tech professionals who can effectively develop, implement, and manage technology solutions.

What we are really proud of in the legal tech space is the growing recognition and importance of diversity and inclusion.

Many legal tech employers are implementing strategies to foster a more inclusive workplace.

Have you seen demand increase for legal tech professionals?

I think with the ongoing digital transformation in the legal industry, there has been a growing demand for legal tech professionals. This trend was really fuelled by the pandemic, where there had almost been a pause on new projects, and once we came out the other side, the market just exploded – so many tech companies creating innovative products and solutions, and law firms and corporate legal teams wanting to be at the forefront of this tech. However, with all this tech available, the one thing that is always imperative is that you must have the right people in place to implement and help with the adoption of technology in the legal sector. This market has been quick to realise that tech and the professionals running this tech come hand in hand, which is why there is such a demand for legal tech professionals right now.

What have been the biggest drivers of activity?

Some of the biggest drivers for recruiting legal technology professionals is a combination of technological innovation, changing client expectations, and the need for greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the legal industry.

How do you see the recruitment market evolving over the next few months to a year?

While there is still a continued demand for legal tech professionals, there is also an increased competition for talent. Therefore, we are going to see more employers looking at ways to make their organisations stand out, with benefits like employee perks, remote working, skill development, and career advancement being offered.

We are also going to see a lot more use of AI in our day-to-day tasks, from training, researching, knowledge and many more uses as the technology advances.

For more information, please contact:


Darren Kantor, director, head of legal tech implementation and recruitment

Jameson Legal Tech
24 Greville St
London EC1N 8SS

T: +44 (0)20 3950 0534
M: +44 (0)7961 153 478
E: darren.kantor@jamesonlegal.com

www.jamesonlegal.com

Sponsored briefing: Q&A with Jon Bartman, head of Jameson Legal Tech

Sponsored briefing: Q&A with Jon Bartman, head of Jameson Legal Tech

What have been the most important developments in the legal tech space over the last year?

Automation is everywhere and automation is the key word this year. This doesn’t just mean large language models, although they are important, but automation can come in many different guises. Let’s deal with the elephant in the room. GPT4 is most definitely a game changer, but the next 12 months will prove how much of a change it will bring. Finding solutions that work with the way that lawyers and the infrastructure work is crucial. Data integrity is also paramount, and of course understanding how data is stored and used is also going to play an important role. Continue reading “Sponsored briefing: Q&A with Jon Bartman, head of Jameson Legal Tech”

Sponsored briefing: Law firms see a hybrid future enabled by the cloud

Sponsored briefing: Law firms see a hybrid future enabled by the cloud

New research has revealed that law firms are increasingly shifting to hybrid working and cloud technology is underpinning this move

This article will look at some of the key findings to emerge from a new benchmarking study, undertaken by Legal IT Insider in association with Philips, that interviewed a range of leading law firms on their hybrid working plans and cloud strategies. It will also outline how the Philips SpeechLive cloud-based dictation and transcription workflow solution can help to address specific issues associated with the hybrid work approach, not least the concerns associated with cyber security.

Moving to the cloud

Following on from the global pandemic we have seen the rapid growth of the hybrid work model where employees have the flexibility to work a portion of their week from home, with the remainder of the time spent in their office.

Law firms have certainly embraced this model, recognising its growing popularity and the expectation of staff to have greater flexibility in where they work. In fact, the study indicates that 88% of respondents now have some form of policy in place to support it, while only 2% are making it mandatory for their staff to be back in the office full-time.

The result is that law firms are increasingly looking for new opportunities to support lawyers more effectively, by enhancing collaboration, streamlining processes and allowing for device and location-independent mobile working. All of which are major strengths of cloud technologies.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that the study results show 68% of respondents confirming that more than half of their core systems are now cloud-based. In contrast only 9% are still using predominantly on-premises solutions.

Another significant finding is that 79% of the respondents already have a cloud-first strategy. This is an approach to cloud computing that involves the adoption of cloud technologies for all new applications, platforms and infrastructure. In effect it prioritises cloud computing services over more traditional on-premises IT systems.

The growing shift to the cloud is also emphasised in terms of the overall strategy adopted, with 12% of respondents reporting that they are already entirely cloud-based. What’s more, a further 23% plan to be entirely cloud-based within 18 months, while 19% intend to follow suit in three years.

And cloud-based solutions have played an important part in helping legal firms to support hybrid and remote workers more effectively. For example, one of the most significant changes that law firms have seen in adapting to hybrid working has been the increasing reliance on Microsoft 365, with 56% of respondents having recently moved to this software as a service (SaaS) product.

Another commonly reported change has been the surge in adoption of eSignature usage (cited by 72% of respondents). This use of IT to authenticate the signatory and certify the integrity of the document is mobile-friendly and secure, and thus ideally suited for a hybrid work environment where colleagues and business partners will often be working remotely.

SpeechLive and the cloud

Streamlining document production processes and enhancing collaboration are major challenges for all law firms. Philips SpeechLive is a cloud-based solution that is suitable for businesses of all sizes and is ideally placed to meet these challenges. It allows legal professionals to use its advanced speech recognition and workflow capabilities to create and route documents through the production processes. Document creation can be carried out:

 

  • in the office via a microphone and browser-based solution; or
  • on the go using a portable voice recorder, or a mobile app which supports both Android and iOS devices.

Front-end speech recognition can also be used to directly insert text into existing software applications, such as Microsoft Word, Outlook or CRM systems, along with case management systems.

SpeechLive’s AI-based engine offers up to 99% accuracy, while voice commands can be used to insert paragraphs, punctuation marks and special characters, all contributing to speedy and effective speech-to-text conversion.

Uptime reliability can be a concern with some cloud-based solutions due to issues such as power failures or network outages. With this in mind, Philips has partnered with Microsoft Azure as its hosting provider. Azure promises a 99.9% uptime guarantee, 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year.

Security findings

Inevitably much of the information generated by legal firms will contain personal information that is sensitive in nature. Ensuring such information is safe from the prying eyes of online hackers is paramount. Security, therefore, is a crucial issue for both existing and potential users of cloud-based solutions.

In the past a range of concerns were often expressed by both law firms and their clients regarding the security of documents stored in the cloud, particularly public clouds.

However, results from the study demonstrate a growing confidence in the levels of security now provided by cloud service providers. It found that 73% of respondents believe none of their clients are unhappy or uncomfortable with their data being stored in the cloud, while a further 21% expressed only minor reservations.

Reinforcing the above point, 74% of respondents believe that cloud solutions are now more secure than their on-premises counterparts.

This appears to have resulted in a change of emphasis in terms of the security-related concerns expressed by the clients of law firms – they are less concerned about where the data is hosted, and more about how it is actually protected. One respondent commented ‘It is impossible for on-premises to be as secure as the cloud. Security technology requires a level of scale and investment that cannot be achieved on premises.’

SpeechLive and security

There is a growing confidence that cloud service providers can offer extremely high levels of security, not least because their businesses and reputations depend on it.

This is certainly the case with SpeechLive. For example, the use of multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds an extra level of security since it requires two or more distinct factors to validate a user’s identity, rather than relying on just a simple username and password combination.

In addition, encryption techniques are employed to create a layered defence that makes it more difficult for an unauthorised person to gain access to audio recordings and file attachments. All types of audio files are always created, sent and stored with industry standard AES 256-bit encryption.

Importantly, the Azure hosting service also adheres to international standards for security and compliance. For example, the service is ‘GDPR ready’, meaning it fully complies with the European Union (EU)’s General Data Protection Regulation which seeks to ensure that EU residents’ personal data is secure, accessible, used appropriately and documented with consent.

In addition, Azure is certified for the ISO/IEC 27000 family of information security standards, in particular the mainstay of the series (ISO 27001) which sets out the specifications for an information security management system.

Azure also continuously performs penetration testing and work on threat detection and prevention in areas such as unauthorised intrusion and denial of service.

Five key takeaways

  • The appetite among staff within the legal sector for flexible and hybrid working has grown significantly, with the majority now expecting this work model to be made available to them.
  • Hybrid working is here to stay and the requirement to support it has accelerated transformation initiatives.
  • Law firms are increasingly choosing a cloud-first strategy where cloud technologies are adopted for all new applications, platforms and infrastructure.
  • Cloud technologies provide new opportunities for supporting lawyers more effectively.
  • Speech-to-text, workflow and collaboration solutions have key roles to play in streamlining processes and enabling lawyers to achieve greater efficiencies.

Reference

Hybrid Working & Law Firms’ Long-Term Cloud Journey
Cloud Report 2023 by Belinda Hermans – Flipsnack

For more information, please contact:

Ryan Braddock, VP and sales director UK and Ireland

Speech Processing Solutions UK Ltd
7 The Courtyards
Wyncolls Road
Severalls Park
Colchester CO4 9PE

T: 07825 751859
E: ryan.braddock@speech.com

www.speechlive.com

Sponsored briefing: Litigation analytics brings hard data to high-stakes decisions

Sponsored briefing: Litigation analytics brings hard data to high-stakes decisions

Grant McCaig, head of litigation at Phoenix Group, the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement business, discusses the value analytics brings to high-stakes litigation decisions

The past few years has seen pioneering litigation analytics company Solomonic utilise machine learning technology and human expertise to create powerful structured data from unstructured litigation documents and judgments. This has, for the first time in English High Court cases, brought data and insight to the decision-making process. Continue reading “Sponsored briefing: Litigation analytics brings hard data to high-stakes decisions”

Sponsored briefing: Putting AI in its place: the rise of the litigation workspace

Sponsored briefing: Putting AI in its place: the rise of the litigation workspace

With AI and ChatGPT on the rise, Stephen Dowling explores how, and why, these new tools are a necessity for the future of dispute resolution

Litigation is undergoing a quiet revolution. Underpinning these changes are powerful AI and ChatGPT tools, which are ultimately changing how we work, and impacting on outcomes. The days of manual processes are numbered. Digital tools are now commonplace in litigation. But the next phase of development will see a harnessing of these tools to bring efficiencies never thought possible – with implications for those who do not adapt. Continue reading “Sponsored briefing: Putting AI in its place: the rise of the litigation workspace”

Guest post: How legal services providers should be changing their models for the digital age

Guest post: How legal services providers should be changing their models for the digital age

Covid-19 continues to disrupt our personal and professional norms. In business – particularly, the legal industry – seismic shifts are occurring in how work is conceptualized and delivered. Corporate law departments and law firms that have not made digital a priority are considering all options in a new, decidedly digital world.

Remote working and social distancing have ignited a new appetite for technology that accelerates the profession’s agility. The move towards digital has rapidly evolved in all other business functions, and for the legal function it certainly enables much more than remote work. It affords an opportunity to maximize client and professional resource experience and creates new commercial value while redefining legal’s contribution to the business. Continue reading “Guest post: How legal services providers should be changing their models for the digital age”