It is two weeks today to the New Zealand Law and Technology Conference, taking place at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland on the 18th of March 2015.
This year the event has been expanded to provide delegates with three streams with an exciting line-up of speakers. Following on from my previous post on the Legal and eDiscovery Stream, today I am providing an insight into our second track – the Legal Technology Stream.
Following strong demand from participants at last year’s event, the New Zealand Law and Technology Conference this year will also cover the issues and challenges faced by law firm practice management and support staff including CIO’s, IT managers, knowledge managers and the like. The expanded focus of the event provides the opportunity to explore wider topics with legal technology that can assist in improving the efficiency and productivity of law firms.
Legal Technology Stream
With the exponential growth in data (aka Big Data) and its increasing value to organisations, hacking and cyber-attacks are on the increase. Such is the concern with this new phenomenon that data privacy and security has become a board level concern. Addressing Data Privacy and security issues CIO Craig Columbus of Russell McVeagh will walk us through how law firms manage an ever evolving IT environment that on the one hand is being asked to help unshackle lawyers from their desks, but equally protect itself and its client data from hackers and rogue employees.
In this era of Big Data law firms are now asking themselves – how do we leverage value from all of the information we generate and store? The effectiveness of knowledge management within law firms has long been debated. In Taking Knowledge Management into the 21st Century and beyond speaker Cristina Libro of consultancy Doing Law Differently will challenge your concept of knowledge management and how professional services firms can leverage an innovative approach to knowledge management to differentiate and add value to legal services. In this interactive thought provoking session Cristina will discuss simple and easy ways in which your firm can harness knowledge to enhance legal service delivery. Be ready to be challenged by this sometimes controversial but always entertaining speaker.
Building on the data privacy and security session Caroline Jones, Manager of Experience Design from Aderant, will present Managing mobility and connectivity. Caroline’s primary goal in her role is to help organisations create better products and services for their clients. This session will cover the drive toward empowering lawyers and support staff to become mobile “road warriors” with smart phones, iPads, tablets, laptops and other devices all connected back to the office via portals. How can we embrace this new era of consumerisation without losing control of critical data? What will truly help you differentiate in the marketplace?
Joining us from Sydney Australia, Warrick Mclean, general manager of law firm Coleman Greig and former president of ALPMA, will present Practice management — you want to do what?. Warrick works extensively with the other Principals and staff of Coleman Greig to identify, facilitate and implement the firm’s strategic direction. During his session, Warrick will discuss how you tackle technology-driven projects to keep your law firm up to date in the 21st century?
To round out this stream you’ll come face-to-face with evidence of how technology is changing the traditional business model for law firms. Jarrod Coburn, CEO of Ebborn Law in in his session Challenging the way law is delivered will walk you through his journey in creating Ebborn Law from scratch 2 years ago following the announcement of changes to the fixed-fee Family Legal Aid. The firm is one of the largest providers by volume of family legal aid in the South Island… and still growing! Jarrod will demonstrate how technology is not only changing the traditional law firm business model but also changing the way law is delivered.
