Here are some more legal IT-related events taking place in the UK...

DocAuto Breakfast Briefing
22.03.10, London
In conjunction with Tikit, David Kiefer, President of DocAuto will be in London on Monday, 22 March giving a presentation on how DocAuto solutions can add great value to your WorkSite environment. This presentation will allow you to get an update on some of the cutting-edge techniques and concepts available to implement, maintain and optimise your matter-centric architecture in WorkSite. See specific tools and examples for matter publishing and hybridisation, e-mail management in a matter-centric environment, importing legacy or unmanaged content directly into Workspaces, and reacting to events as they occur in WorkSite. We will also be showing how the native WorkSite architecture can be used to combine and display data from multiple data sources, for client/matter movements, staff transfers and terminations, legal holds, customised views, security and much more.  For more information or to register for this event, please contact Tikit at
Marketing@Tikit.com (+44 207 400 3737).

Generals of the Revolution
27.05.10, London
Half-day briefing for general counsel (9:00am to 12:30pm followed by lunch) at the Landmark Hotel featuring Richard Susskind. The event is hosted by DataCert - click on attachment for full programme.
www.datacert.com/ResourcesEvents/SeminarSeries.asp

Battens, which as offices across Somerset and Dorset, is to swap out its legacy LexisNexis Axxia Arista practice management and SolCase case management software in favour of Pilgrim LawSoft, which will provide a single, integrated solution across accounts and time capture, workflow, document management and customer relationship management.

Keith Fullman, Battens’ Director of Finance, said “Battens has a strong pedigree when it comes to the use of technology supporting the business, and LawSoft meets all our needs. We particularly liked the user-friendly operation and the highly configurable case management system. Additionally, as a UK based independent supplier with a clear commitment to future development, Pilgrim is a strong fit with our business and offers the likelihood of a partnership which will enable Battens to grow and develop strongly over many years to come.”

Peter Livingstone, Director of Battens’ Commercial Team, added “As a practice, we looked at a number of solutions and had the benefit of both internal and external expertise in assessing the various possibilities open to us. We found – in a decision which was confirmed by all the research we carried out – that Pilgrim represented by far the best fit with our firm and its requirements. We liked their approach, their people, their commitment to continuous development and of course their software”

Comment: Readers may recall that during the last decade, a previous management team at Battens tried to develop its own accounts and practice management system based upon Microsoft Dynamics/Great Plains accounts. This was subsequently – but only briefly – offered commercially by the systems house Intervolve under the Exemplar brand name. Following a management change, Battens halted the implementation of the Dynamics product and went back to running Axxia.

Work has now started on the March issue of Legal Technology Insider newsletter (UK + EMEA edition). The editorial deadline is 12 noon this coming Friday (19th March) – all advertising space is already fully booked.

MDA SearchFlow has just conducted a survey looking at the current state-of-play of the conveyancing and Home Information Pack (HIP) market. The survey is conducted every year across conveyancing practices, large and small, to provide a behind-the-scenes look at how the current economic situation is affecting the conveyancing market, as well as market sentiment regarding HIPs, searches and thoughts about the future.
 
The majority of respondents – more than 70% – said their business had been affected by the recession, with 35% reporting that their business has been "significantly" affected. Clients are now placing professional fees under greater scrutiny, with 62% of respondents reporting that they have come under more price pressure in the past year. At the same time, firms are also facing a sustained increase in costs (ahead of inflation), with more than a third of respondents reporting that professional indemnity premiums had increased by between one and 10%.
 
The MDA SearchFlow survey also highlighted that some 60% of High Street conveyancers are still not comfortable taking a risk and diversifying into other areas like litigation and probate. This is largely because they remain uncertain about the outcome of the general election, the future of HIPs, and significant structural changes like the Legal Services Act in 2011.
 
HIPs were once again generally regarded negatively, with 81% of respondents reporting that their overall impression of HIPs has been poor. A large majority of those questioned said that HIPs have had a negative effect on the conveyancing process in general, as well as on relationships with agents/panels, on overall profits, and on the volume of instructions that they have received. For all of these reasons, 50% of respondents claimed that their business would benefit if HIPs were scrapped, with only 6% believing their business would be negatively affected as a result. Interestingly, if HIPs were indeed abolished, nearly half of those questioned reported that they would return to their pre-HIP practices.
 
The ongoing duplication of searches was also highlighted by the survey, indicating that scepticism of HIP searches remains an issue. With more than half of respondents replacing personal searches in a HIP with official Local Authority searches, caveat emptor continues to prevail over HIPs in both principle and practice more than two years after their introduction.   In a similar vein, most of those surveyed also seemed lukewarm about pre-sale packs which could be offered from the seller's side, with only 44% of respondents stating that it is a "good idea".
 
In addition to these reservations regarding HIPs in their current form, the survey also revealed that virtually none of those questioned were optimistic about the future of the "Exchange-Ready HIP". When asked if exchange-ready HIPs would be suitable for exchange without further diligence for the buyer, 95% responded negatively and said they would continue to scrutinise it and follow standard processes.
 
For a typical caseload, 50% of those surveyed reported that they currently receive property search information electronically, 39% receive a combination of electronic and postal results, and 11% receive it by post only.  64% of respondents would choose electronic as their preferred format for receiving property search information.

And here's the sequel to last week's cartoon about embargoes – and yes this does happen – usually the culprits are law firm PRs called Rupert or Fiona trying to get a lame story into The Times or FT...