Whether it's Gartner, IDC, GigaOm Research, or The Legal IT Professionals Survey, you can be certain that the question is no longer "is the cloud here to stay?" but has become, "where and for what applications should we implement the cloud first?"

Witnessing the 60,000+ attendees at Salesforce.com's Dreamforce event (where everything is cloud-based) highlighted the contrasting sentiment about cloud adoption that has historically existed between industries. The legal and financial services markets have typically been slower to adopt new technology, due to regulation and highly confidential data, amongst a number of other factors. However, according to recent reports, the winds are shifting and firms in these air-tight industries are learning about the extreme benefits the cloud brings in terms of security, flexibility, business continuity, and mobility – it's these benefits in efficiency and cost savings that are causing a tipping point for legal cloud adoption.

(PR WEB) Lehi, UT October 11, 2012

NetDocuments, a leading cloud enterprise content management provider, announced the prominent Chicago law firm, Ungaretti & Harris, has switched from Autonomy's iManage Filesite to NetDocuments for their document, email, and content management service for their 225+ users.

Since its founding over 30 years ago, Ungaretti & Harris has maintained a focus on servicing clients with a commitment to their success and the community through pro bono programs, sustainability and a Community Outreach Committee. "The switch to NetDocuments improves our technology which will help us increase productivity and collaboration within the firm, as well as allow us to continue to support the firm's goal of providing a top tier service to our clients and offering the latest technology to our people," Charlie Altenbach, Director of Information, stated.

Joshua Stein, the sole principal of Joshua Stein PLLC, www.joshuastein.com, is one of the world's leading real estate lawyers. He has written five books and over 200 articles on commercial real estate law and practice, including the use of computers by lawyers. He began using computers for all his legal work in 1983, about ten years before the rest of the legal profession, implementing NetDocuments in 2001. Since then, Joshua has been helping firms of all sizes increase their productivity by improving their technology.

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INTRO

"We've been using NetDocuments for over six years and have increased our productivity and collaboration across offices and clients." - Brian Marsh, Information Systems Manager

20 years ago Jim Payne and Dan Fears began their practice as an employment defense firm in California. Today, Payne & Fears has expanded into business litigation, insurance and construction law, with five offices across three states and employing nearly 100 people. Brian Marsh, the Information Systems Manager, led the switch from iManage to NetDocuments over six years ago, here's their story.

 

Alvin Tedjamulia, CTO, NetDocuments, will demonstrate the NetDocuments powerful searching technology and efficient methods to increase awareness and better analyze content from across the organization. He will also train on using NDSearch Analysis, which automatically

exposes unknown content as it extracts and displays relevant topics and content choices that match the user's interest. This webinar is extremely beneficial for existing customers but also for anyone who wants to stay current on the latest in NetDocuments functionality and enhanced design and learn why the most prestigious of firms are migrating to NetDocuments.

NetDocuments released a brand-new interface to the public on September 30th, and we think it's pretty awesome. Feedback from firms that have adopted the new interface is that it is "very intuitive, easy to learn, and much more user friendly in daily operations."

We took it for a spin ourselves, and agree it presents significant usability improvements. We'll share our observations:

The basic unit of navigation is your "Home Page". This is now a customizable, easy navigation page that has default sections of Favorite Workspaces, Favorite Items and Active Matters. One of the most exciting features in this new interface is the ability to click on a yellow star icon next to any of your Files, Workspaces and Projects; they are then automatically added to your home page.

In the September/October 2011issue of The Pennsylvania Lawyer, published by the Pennsylvania Bar Association, practicing attorney and technology consultant, Shannon Brown, provides a very thoughtful and informative primer on the "why's and wherefores" of cloud computing. His article offers some important background for attorneys attempting to understand the "alphabet soup" of current cloud computing terminology.

If you're heading out to Orlando next week for the ALA Conference, make sure to come swing by and say hi to the NetDocuments folks at booth #311 . Aside from the normal booth stuff, we'll be giving away an iPad.

A number of our partners and customers will be speaking at the conference including Rajiv Mukerji, of Smart Solutions, who is speaking on cloud computing for law firms on Tuesday, May 24th at 12:15 PM. For those of you not attending the conference, you can follow the #ALAConf hashtag and the @NetDocuments Twitter stream for real time updates. Other notable Twitteratti to be sure to follow include @RL_Wood, @MonnicaWofford and @Vic_Maurer.

With the announcement of prestigious law firm, Foley & Lardner, switching from iManage to NetDocuments, our new user interface, and the growing Partner Program, the road was paved for a great Legal Tech conference in both New York and New Delhi.

Happening at virtually the same time, Smart Solutions, one of NetDocuments' Global Channel Partners, represented us at LegalTech India while we managed in New York; the result? Two amazing shows, with lots of exposure, highlighting our recent developments, high-profile clients, and international reach. Here are the thoughts from those who were there…

LegalTech New York claims to be the "most important legal technology event of the year." That claim will be put on trial very shortly as the show will take place from January 31st - February 2nd at the Hilton New York Hotel.

Last year's show was highlighted by Malcolm Gladwell's keynote speech, and this year's sessions promise to be just as good. The show will offer up to 20 CLE credits and will be a cornucopia of legal tech knowledge from cloud computing to social media and beyond.