Who are you? What firm are you with? What is your role?
Debbie Foster, Partner with the Affinity Consulting Group.  We work with law firms around the country helping them implement technology solutions and bring a new level of efficiency and productivity to their firms.

What is your firms’ specialty/niche?  
We work with about 15 different software vendors to help our clients choose the best solution that fits their culture and meets their needs.  From a technology perspective, we implement practice management, time/billing/accounting and document management software and we help firms automate their practices with document assembly.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the legal technology industry now and in the upcoming year?
Overcoming the challenges the economy continues to bring is the first one, and I think the second challenge is finding good attorneys and staff to serve their clients.

How can the legal vendor community work with you best?
Educate us about their products, and ask us for our input.  It is easy for vendor to try to assess what law firms need from what I call the “ivory tower of software development”, but we really know.  We walk the hallways of firms every day all day and regularly hear the frustrations of the end users. I can’t understand why every software company serving lawyers do not have a group of the consultants that implement their product in a room all together once a year or so asking for this type of feedback.

What advice would you have for legal vendors trying to compete in this crowded marketplace?
Take care of your clients.  Make your support the very best it can be.  Bad support kills a product.  

What associations are you active in?
The ABA, the ALA, many State Bar Associations and Local Bar Associations, as well as Local ALA groups.

What online resource (website, blog, etc.) is most useful to you (i.e., you use it everyday)? 

Facebook!  Honestly, Facebook is a Godsend.  Personally, it lets me keep in touch with people I would not otherwise hear from. But professionally,I have a lot of clients that are friends, and I love learning more about them and what makes them tick. I also love being a fan of their firm pages so I get updates on what is going on in their practice. I wish more of them would post regularly. I am not the first one to say that Facebook is here to stay and people better find a way to use it to their advantage!

What are you speaking about at TECHSHOW?
I have the honor of being the Chair of TECHSHOW this year, so my only “speaking obligation” is 60 sites in 60 minutes, which is the “grand finale” of TECHSHOW (Saturday 11-12pm).  I am very excited about the program – it is always an attendee favorite!

Debbie Foster (dfoster@affinityconsulting.com) 
Affinity Consulting
Facebook 'Affinity Consulting' Page 
Twitter @debbiefoster

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