Program — 2011
The 2011 Conference brings together experts and distinguished speakers from Canada and the United States such as Catherine Sanders Reach, Joe Kashi and Dan Pinnington.
Catherine Sanders Reach is the Director at the American Bar Association's Legal Technology Resource Center. Joe Kashi combines his Masters Degree from MIT with his law degree in heavily applying technology and photography in his litigation practice. Dan Pinnington is a lawyer and Director, PracticePro at the Lawyers Professional Indemnity Company (LAWPRO) in Toronto. Together these leading legal technologists along with many others will discuss and showcase the latest technologies available to enhance leadership in legal practice.
Keynote: Chas Rampenthal, Vice President of Product Development and General Counsel, LegalZoom.com, Inc. will present our lunch keynote: The Future of Legal Practice?
Since its start in 2001, no other entity has changed the way that legal services are delivered online like LegalZoom. It has achieved incredible market penetration in a short while as well as coming up against many unauthorized practice of law complaints. Attorney Chas Rampenthal will share his (potentially unsetting) views on the future of the delivery of legal services.
This year's education tracks are all tightly focused on the needs of practising lawyers, law office administrators and staff:
• Solo and Small Firm Track: This Track is supported by The General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Conference of the Canadian Bar Association, the BC Branch of the CBA as well as the Notaries Society of British Columbia. In this track, we have a particular emphasis on the challenges faced by those practicing in smaller firm settings and how technology can help. In particular we have two sessions: “Tech Essentials for a Small Practice” as well as exploring mobile and cloud computing options in: “Tablets, iPads, Apps, Dropbox: Where do they fit into your Practice?” that are squarely aimed at helping those in smaller practices.
• e-Trials, e-Discovery, e-Litigation and e-Mediation is one of the new tracks this year. Litigators are facing particular issues with the advent of e-discovery and the use of Social Media in court proceedings. Accordingly, The Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia is sponsoring this new track focusing on e-trial preparation and presentation technologies as well as the dragon’s lair of social media. These sessions focus on the latest developments and how lawyers are tackling these issues in their litigation practices.
• Social Media, Mobile and Marketing Track: Practising using mobile devices: Smartphones, Blackberries, Android and iPhones – has just taken off and we created a session to help with all the issues sponsored by the Vancouver Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association. How do you choose between the different phones? What about all the apps out there? How do you manage these devices? What about security, privacy and ethical issues in using these devices? The second session in this track looks at building a virtual practice from the perspective of costs, benefits, reliability, ‘up time’, backups, security, ethics and more.
• Tools for Collaboration/Cloud Track: The American Bar Association – Law Practice Management Section sponsors this two-session, in-depth look of moving to the cloud. The first session looks at the promised as well as the real benefits and issues, ups and downs and cultural issues in moving to the cloud. The second session goes into the Risks, Security and Ethics in moving to the cloud and in particular, the best practices that should be adopted.
• Management and Effectiveness Track: The British Columbia Legal Management Association sponsors this track that looks at the problem of managing the email / communication juggernaut. How can we effectively and efficiently deal with the increasing volumes of email and avoid legal, malpractice and client service issues that this monster is raising? We also look at ways to implement email security as well as alternatives today to using email.
• Innovative and Strategic Technologies Track: This track, co-sponsored by The Law Society of British Columbia and the Canadian Bar Association, BC Branch looks at the technologies that are just below the horizon for legal practice, such as mindmapping and smartboards. What promise - as well as implications - do they hold? What about the increasing need for collaboration with clients and others? How will new technologies (potentially) change how and what we do now? This session gazes at the technological crystal ball and looks at what can be expected…or not expected…as the case may be….
• Paperless Track: This track, co-sponsored by The Notaries Society of British Columbia and the British Columbia Legal Management Association, is another two-session, in-depth look at taking a practice paperless. The first session in ‘going paperless’ deals with the ‘front office’ technology used by lawyers and staff such as: scanners and Adobe Acrobat, document management, document assembly, OCR software as well as the change management issues involved in taking a law practice truly paperless. The second session deals with all the back office hardware and applications, including disaster prevention, networking, remote access, server, storage, cost-tracking and recovery software, storage and retention policies and other security and privacy issues in taking a law firm truly paperless.
• 60 Tips in 60 Minutes: This final, fast and furious session is always a hit! We explore the latest and greatest in management, marketing, technology and finance tips having a technological focus that can be applied to run your practice better, faster and cheaper in a fun and humorous closing presentation. We guarantee you will come away with ideas, tips, software and websites that you can use immediately to improve your practice.
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Our learning environment includes BC’s largest legal technology exhibit floor where you can browse displays, meet the developers of legal technologies and ask questions about how their products and services can help you in your practice.