In his first instalment, the Masked IT Director reports from the frontlines of legal IT… a suppliers’ conference

The Alternative Legal IT Conference: catchy title, eh? Organised by the same people who organised the ‘old’ Legal IT conference (check the difference in the title) before they left that show’s organisers, Informa. So you’d think you were about to walk into Groundhog Day, but actually…

The conference itself was aimed at medium-size law firms, and the instant attraction with this was that the same old faces from the larger firms were not going to be there. So no bragging about how wonderful their systems were, or how wonderful the ones they hadn’t built yet might be. It was worth going for that alone.

The event itself was ‘compact and bijou’. Not exactly a salesperson’s dream, with around 40 or so law firms attending. No one complained, though. There were lots of seminars and discussion points. You could learn about the Legal Services Act, anti-money laundering and rule 5 amongst other things. The IT challenges medium-size firms face were laid bare for all to see.

Not much in the way of supplier-led discussion, but the headline topic, without actually being the headline, was outsourcing. This has taken over from virtualisation as the current flavour of the month for IT directors. Depending on your point of view, you can either worry about it or embrace it. I’d go with the latter. Most firms are already doing some IT outsourcing already, and the current thinking is just a mild paradigm shift rather than a complete change. Choose suppliers carefully, though. They all make promises, but it’s the delivery that really counts.

There seems to be a very small undercurrent trend of lawyers deciding they don’t need IT direction in the middle of this outsourcing malarky. That to me is a little dangerous. A discipline as wide, varied and technical as IT needs a good steer from within. IT drives a modern law firm, so best not to push all of it out the door.

So the daytime conference stuff was pretty good. The evening wasn’t too shabby either. The four-foot high bronze horse by the main bar was mounted late into the night, with the inevitable tumble and stewards’ inquiry following. The hen party that turned up added a bit of spice. And a table of drinks in the main reception took flight after one unfortunate supplier leant too heavily on it, causing the hotel manager to have a mini-fit. Time to slope off to bed at that point.

It’s difficult to tell if conferences like this have a future. Shame if this one didn’t, it being more palatable than the larger, more faceless variety.

The Gazette's Masked IT Director is IT director for a major London law firm