The third and final day of LegalTech started off with a bang and a truly impressive headliner in Malcolm Gladwell and his participation in Wednesday's keynote – "I3: The New Convergence of Intelligence, Intuition and Information". Gladwell, along with Dr. Lisa Sanders, medical columnist for the New York Times and technical consultant for the TV show House, and David Craig, Thomson Reuters Chief Strategy Officer (and the keynote session's sponsor), drew a mega-crowd of several hundred legal-ites to discuss how technology can be used to help supplement decision-making capabilities of subject matter experts. While the host shared that 2009 saw 2 billion searches performed on Westlaw, a near 50% increase from the previous year, and that Thomson financial and news systems now process more than a half-million updates per second, Gladwell and Dr. Sanders cited examples from their respective books and columns questioning to what extent more information leads to better decision making. Gladwell impressed with his short stories and witty examples reminding the audience that intuition is the key to better decision making, and that information overload is a big "distraction" in this regard – "intuition is fragile and easily upset", he stated. The panelists discussed a few questions and then followed up with a lively Q&A session, all the while we (along with many of our compatriots following on twitter) thought "shut up already and let Malcom tell more stories". Surely his book sales got a boost as well! In a nutshell, our keynote takeaway was "not more info, better info".

While topping this day 3 kick-off wasn't in the cards, we hoped to catch-up with more vendors and capture their show impressions and re-cap any major product announcements and legal technology news: Marc Adler of PerfectLaw feels 2010 is REALLY the year of the paperless office. "Firms no longer want to pay to store hard copies so PerfectLaw's document imaging is very popular this year." Adler also notes the importance of a reliable and secure back-up system when transitioning to paperless.

PensEra's President, Peter Zver lamented the fact that floor 3 had no vendors at all.  Zver stated that it was always a highlight of his to tour the 3rd floor and speak with new entrants in the industry who in years past have set up there.

Dean Evans & Associates, Inc., makers of the EMS line of facility scheduling, resource utilization and web calendar product EMS Software, have exhibited at LegalTech for past several years, but noted an estimated attendance downturn of 20-30%, and less booth traffic, despite a pre-show direct mail and email campaign.

According to Logan Sutterfield, Product Manager of Symantec, about 30% of the LegalTech NY crowd consisted of "trick or treaters" and another group of eDiscovery experts.  On a tech note, Symantec and CaseCentral arrived in New York with a new connector that integrates Symantec Enterprise Vault Discovery Accelerator with the cloud-based CaseCentral eDiscovery Platform. Apparently, the integration eliminates the need for IT and legal departments to upload and export data for legal review and processing therefore also eliminating processing fees. The "processing busters"-style buttons made the rounds at the Hilton and entered all button wearers in a $100 cash on the spot give-away, with one winner donating his $100 to the Haiti relief effort.

Chicago-based Microsystems recently announced its partnership with 3BView offering server-based metadata solutions. Per the partnership, Microsystems will sell 3BClean as a stand-alone product, and through resellers in North America and the UK. Also, new functionality is being added to extend the value of 3BClean and offer an integrated product through Microsystems' DocXtools software.

Advanced Productivity Software's CEO Jim Tharpe was encouraged by what he's heard at the show and shared that several firms he spoke with had "good Q4s" and looking to spend again. He also added that APS seems to have risen above the downturn with a healthy 25%+ growth in 2009. As reported in the 2009 InsideLegal/ILTA MemberTechnology Purchasing Survey, APS was one of the first vendors to proactively approach their law firm clients with a support service discount motivated by the economy. "Our clients truly appreciate the goodwill when times are tough and routinely let us know about it," added Tharpe.

Over lunch, we heard about Traveling Coaches' LegalTech recap (good traffic and encouraging signs for 2010) and their ongoing and increased efforts to work strategically with the legal community. CEO Gina Buser and her team are positioning themselves to partner with their clients on excelling not only in matters of legal technology, but also as it relates to the practice and business of law, and "law firm 2020" initiatives. Based on the recent hiring of Brie Stampe as Director of Market Strategies, the 'Coaches' seem set to execute in this regard. 

Dan Bressler, VP of Marketing for IntApp, Inc., recounted many conversations surrounding firms' need to integrate data and systems from hosts of vendor applications. Good for them, since IntApp provides integration software (along with risk management and time capture applications) to a majority of the Am Law 100. When asked about general LegalTech buzz, Bressler mentioned Autonomy's iManage ConflictsManager release as big show news. ConflictsManager, one of three show-specific Autonomy splashes, promises to automate the time-consuming steps in the conflict of interest process, thus minimizing the associated risk. As an additional aside, legal industry veteran Dan Tacone recently joined IntApp as President.

In other new product news, ADERANT rolled out its SaaS practice management application ADERANT Practice Manager developed specifically for small and mid-sized firms. It will be interesting to see how the predominately large firm-focused company fairs downstream versus SaaS rising stars such as Rocket Matter and Clio. Speaking of fairing downstream, we also caught-up with SAP and Susie Krupa, Industry Principal, Professional Services, and responsible for the German software giant's penetration within the Am Law 200 financial practice management market. Krupa told us recent SAP wins at Baker & McKenzie and Shoosmiths is the beginning of what they see as increasing firm demand for a true end-to-end solution spanning time & billing, financial management, HR, payroll, marketing, etc. Of course, there has been "SAP enters legal market" chatter for over a decade, but with a few big wins under their belt and Susie (and her many years of legal practice management and enterprise experience) driving the bus, it will surely be interesting to see what happens.

This concludes our recap of the third and final day of LegalTech NY.  Tomorrow, we will post the overall LegalTech 2010 in Review complete with event statistics, opinions, notables and key players.  If you haven't already, go to InsideLegal.com to sign up for our news via RSS or email.  'Til then… – JoAnna & Jobst