I was traveling this week, so I will provide a summary of some legal information and technology highlights.

Fastcase and Florida Bar Launch Case Alerts

Fastcase which seems to have a weekly product launch or feature enhancement – did not disappoint this week. On Tuesday they announced that in collaboration with the Florida Bar they had launched Case Alerts, a daily report of court decisions in key practice areas. The subscription-only service introduced Florida Family Law Alerts, a daily e-mail summary of family law decisions from Florida courts. Fastcase and The Florida Bar will roll out new Florida practice areas throughout the summer, including business law, real property, probate, trusts, and tax law alerts. Read more at this link.

Thomson Reuters Added Jurisdictional Surveys to Westlaw Edge

On Monday Thomson Reuters announced the release of Jurisdictional Surveys, The press release describes the features as allowing users to “quickly retrieve a customized and relevant compilation of laws across all U.S. jurisdictions on virtually any topic.”  My first reaction to Thomson Reuters press release on jurisdictional surveys was to wonder how this feature if different from their 50 state survey offering. I plan to have a demo and will report back on what I learn.

Bloomberg Ending UK Court Coverage

A Bloomberg  Law executive  explained  to me that use of the UK materials had declined and that there were legal
Continue Reading Weekly Round Up – Fastcase Adds Case Alerts; TR Adds Jurisdictional Surveys; Bloomberg Law Ends UK Coverage; New Exhibitors at AAALL — Innovation Survey!

The recent AALL Annual Conference in Austin was “hands down,”  the most exciting AALL Program I have ever attended. The programs were great – it was often hard to decide which panel to attend. I found my own panels  (Moneyball Analytics and Hits and Misses in New Products) up against programs that I hated to miss (the Innovation Tournament and an “all star”  CEO panel ( Fastcase – Walters, Casetext – Heller, Ross – Aruda,  Ravel – Lewis ) on AI and analytics prodded and provoked  by moderator Prof, Susan Nevelow Mart.

Legal Bloggers O’Keefe and Ambrogi Join Me in The AALL Exhibit Hall

Legal Tech thought leaders Bob Ambrogi and Kevin O’Keefe were a familiar sight at the panets, events, exhibits (and the nightly Fastcase after party). Earlier this week Ambrogi lauded AALL as one of the best conferences for those interested in legal tech. Is the market finally getting what information professionals have known all along? The legal profession requires content experts to navigate the burgeoning market of AI and analytics offerings. AALL: The Other Legal Tech Conference

The Second Oldest Legal Profession I spent time in the exhibit hall with Lexblog’s Kevin O’Keefe who commented on  the quality and variety of  panels and programs at the conference.

O’Keefe was surprised to learn that AALL had been around since 1906. In fact, in the legal community,  only the American Bar Association has an earlier founding …1878. AALL predates every other law related association by decades. It was 65 years before the Association of Legal Administrators was founded in 1971, 74 years before ILTA was founded in 1980, 79 years before the Legal Marketing Association was founded in 1985.

O’Keefe also commented on the importance of information professionals by comparison to other law firm administrative functions. “Lawyers could still practice law without technology, or marketing or administrative help, but legal information always was and remains core to the practice of law.”

O’Keefe has a point which goes beyond the core practice of law. Law firms have become complex, regional, national and multi-national organizations. Business intelligence and legal knowledge has never been more critical to the current high stakes competitive market, no one else in the firm is better qualified to assess the potential value of research products offering AI and analytics… and yet…information professionals occupy relatively few seats in the legal C-Suite compared to the technologists and marketing professionals. The person who understand the quality of information should be at the table and not down the organization chart out of ear shot.

But this may be about to change…
Continue Reading The Second Oldest Legal Profession: Law Librarians: The Analytics and Algorithms of Change in the Legal C-Suite

Yesterday’s post highlighted seven vendors which will be first time exhibitors at AALL in Austin next month.

Those vendors offer tools which are primarily targeted at litigation, corporate and Intellectual Property practices. Today’s five vendors are more diverse. Several offer a wide range of services which fall broadly within “workflow improvement.” Voxgov is the only vendor in today’s group which focuses purely on providing a unique set of content on a research platform. I asked Voxgov founder Robert Dessau why he had decided to exhibit at AALL this year. ” With expertise in the collection and management of a broad range of original source material from Federal and State governments we view AALL as the ideal environment in which to introduce our newest addition, VoxGov Energy, designed specifically for the legal market.We look forward to assisting, collaborating with and incentivizing those who need visibility into who in government is saying what on any Energy related issue at any time. Visitors to our booth will have the chance to win a free one year subscription to Voxgov Energy. Look forward to meeting you Austin.”Continue Reading Guess Who’s Coming to AALL? Part 2: Government Information and Workflow Tools.

I had the honor of being awarded a “Presidential Certificate of Appreciation” by outgoing AALL President, Keith Ann Stiverson,  at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries Meeting in Chicago on July 18th.
The award recognized “dedication to serving the profession since 2011 through her blog, Dewey B Strategic and for

 Law360 just announced that they will be breaking out the
champagne to celebrate their “Golden Tour” at the AALL Annual Meeting and
Conference in Chicago July 15-19, 2016. The festivities will mark the release
of Law 360’s 50th specialty newsletter as well as the release of
their In Depth news publication.
Law 360’s Newsletters 2004-2016

Last call for ideas for the 2016 American Association of Law Libraries Conference. AALL Members have until Monday August  17th to participate.

A Simpler Crowdsourced Process
If you have ever submitted an idea in the past — it was a fairly complicated process requiring you the identify all aspects of the program including speakers in advance.

Yesterday AALL announced the hot topic programming selected for the 2015 annual meeting in Philadelphia July 18-21st. I am moderating the IBM Watson program on Monday the 20th.Other topics include an exploration of how technology continues to impact the transformation of legal practice and an examination of the  issues surrounding “Net Neutrality” and how regulations

Now in its sixth year, the PLL Summit
continues to be a vehicle for examining the impact and opportunities presented
by change in the legal industry. The PLL Summit 2015: The Innovation
Imperative
will explore how librarians can help provide innovative
solutions to the business challenges which law firms and legal information professionals
are facing