Today, my associate, Molly Barker Gilligan, Esquire, and I made our annual pilgrimage to Legal Tech, the mammoth legal technology trade show in New York. What a difference year makes.
Crowds – last year they were relatively sparse, today the aisles were filled with people.
Liveliness – last year the attendees seemed quiet and reluctant to engage the vendors, today, was the opposite.
It’s clearly a sign that, at least for some in the legal industry, the times are changing. What also remains a shock is how many e-discovery vendors there are, and how they can all possibly stay in business, and thrive.
For us, at Integrated Technology Services, LLC, it was an opportunity to meet with our many partners (including Legal Files, Payne (Metadata Assistant), Time Matters, Sanction, Concordance, and Summation, to name a few), and to discuss the progress of my upcoming book, The Lawyer’s Guide to CaseMap, which is expected to be published this summer by the American Bar Association. Of course, it was great seeing the many support and sales people from LexisNexis CaseSoft.
But mostly, the show is about taking the temperature of legal technology, which clearly is hot and alive. Attendees we spoke with were upbeat about the future and seemed to think the worst is past. We’ll have to see. But certainly, Legal Tech 2010 was a success for Molly and me, and we look forward to the 2011 edition.