This is a special series of "In Their Own Words" Spotlights featuring speakers at the upcoming ARMA & ILTA LIT-Con conference.  InsideLegal.com is the premier media sponsor of LIT-Con.

Who are you?  What firm are you with?  What is your role?
Dave Rigali.  Thompson Coburn LLP.  I am in charge of our Client Technology Services group (primarily litigation support) and our Q/A group.
 
What is your firms’ specialty/niche? 
We are a general practice law firm.  We are a regional, midwestern law firm of about 370 attorneys with a significant presence in Washington D.C.
 
What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the legal technology industry now and in the upcoming year?
Information management and governance, with issues ranging from storage, e-mail management and ECM to compliance, litigation preparedness and e-discovery.
 
How can the legal vendor community work with you best?
By partnering with us to deliver the most cost effective services we can to our clients.  Our clients are going to be pushing us to improve efficiencies and help them manage legal costs.  We need vendors to view us as their customers in the same light.
 
What advice would you have for legal vendors trying to compete in this crowded marketplace?
Follow the above advice.  Also, use your best people to educate and inform us up front on the business issues your technologies seek to address rather than leading with a sales force that is simply trying to sell products or services.  There are some amazing channels available for you to do this, including LIT-Con and ILTA.
 
What associations are you active in?
ILTA
 
What online resource (website, blog, etc.) is most useful to you (i.e., you use it everyday)?
news.yahoo.com;  abovethelaw.com;  K&L Gate’s ediscovery web site is also a pretty amazing resource
 
What are you speaking about at LIT-Con?
Managing the risks of unified communications