Shifting of the sands at the Legal IT Show

Where were you on 5 and 6 March? The chances are that you missed the annual Legal IT Business Show. This is where potential buyers get to see a broad spectrum of suppliers and their offerings, share ideas, and look at developments in the industry

This year the event showcased around 40 suppliers and their offerings either in hardware, software, services or something in between.

Looking through the list of suppliers, and putting them into broad categories provides some insight into what is happening in the legal IT market. For example, none of the large practice management systems vendors attended the event and only seven of the smaller variety took part. Why might this be? All firms over a handful in size have a system already, so very few people attend to beauty parade potential suppliers. Larger practice management firms more than likely feel that they are not going to generate leads at this kind of event and so presumably concentrate their efforts elsewhere. And if you consider that larger systems have vast arrays of features, it is not that likely that you could compare and contrast them in such a short space of time

Strategic role

Of the remaining exhibitors, the most populous categories were network and infrastructure providers, outsourced services such as dictation and support, and publications and information providers. ?A little less numerically represented ?were managed print service providers and ?cloud providers.

The collective inference that I drew from this is that there is a gradual shift within the legal IT market to outsourced or managed services. There are many factors behind this, too much to discuss here, but it seems to be the case that law firm IT departments have evolved or are trying to evolve, into adding value where it matters, and hiving off routine or commoditisable elements where these might otherwise take valuable internal resource. Or put another way, moving IT (and other support departments) from an operation role to a more strategic one.

The other inference I drew was that the market for information, be it from publications or from research providers, is on the increase.

As with all trade shows, some vendors try to catch your attention with gimmicks. The favourite this year was the pick and mix sweet counter, and the quirkiest being the table top touch screen document handler, reminiscent of the film Minority Report. Kudos for that, but minus points for employing young ladies dressed as schoolgirls to round people up to see it.

In an attempt to bring something new to the show this year, the organiser's show ran a series of half hour thought leader sessions where expertise was dispensed in a variety of technical areas around the theme of what to look for when you are buying into certain products or services.

I volunteered to run one of these thought leader sessions with journalist Rupert Collins-White. We delivered 30 minutes on what to consider when building mobility solutions for law firms. I also dropped in on a decent session run by the ever reliable Matthew Tasker. The sessions were reasonably well attended, and some decent interaction from the audience made them thought provoking.

The inclusion of these kind of sessions broadens the appeal of trade shows enormously for me, and hopefully for other visitors as well.

Technology value

As I wandered round the show I occasionally grabbed passers-by to get their thoughts on the show. Most were reasonably happy with what they saw, but commented on the lack of suppliers compared to previous years. In particular, one group from a south-east firm were looking at practice management systems, and while they saw a handful of these, felt that they would have liked to have seen more.

This of course is one of the modern trade show dilemmas. Suppliers have to pay to exhibit, and if they don't feel that they will generate enough interest they are not going to invest. This leads to lower supplier attendances, and this in turn puts off the visitors because there is less to see. It's a bit of a vicious circle, not helped by a stagnant economy and firms reduced capacity or will to invest. If this pattern continues, it may see the death of the event.

I asked various attendees what they thought could improve about the show. ?The three top answers were:

? Condense it into one day. Running it for two days seems overkill, and stretches out the footfall. Condensing into one day could give it more of a buzz.

? CPD points. There are plenty of sessions of various types for people to attend at the show. Enticing non-lawyers is difficult as there is less compunction or reward for doing so, but for the legal community there is the possibility of offering CPD points, which are always useful. The show is predominantly a technology event, but the sessions cover a wider base, including compliance, general management and strategy.

? Add a lecture theatre. There is plenty of space at the venue, and adding a lecture theatre and keynote sessions, alongside the shorter expert led variety could provide for a more beneficial day for delegates.

?For me, it's would be a great shame if the show was discontinued. It always provides a useful networking opportunity, and there is always something to learn.