As the legal IT industry waves goodbye to one of its biggest market-shakers, Rupert White looks at what direction the IRIS Software Group may go in




After just over a year in the legal IT market, one of its best-known names has left the arena, in as dramatic a fashion as she entered it.



Users of IT systems by AIM, Laserform, Videss and Mountain (which means most barristers too) may be interested to know that the woman who headed the company that bought their IT providers, Vinodka Murria, has left the company, IRIS Software Group, which her firm Computer Software Group (CS Group) was rolled into.



More potentially interesting is the fact that she had signed up to be Chief M&A Officer for IRIS when the deal was announced on 11 June, but by the time the deal finally went through on 3 July, she had decided to leave the newly-formed company.



Even more interesting for those engaged in discussing the matter online is what her time in the legal IT sector might have meant.

Opinion in the vendor market is split, as Charles Christian's 'Orange Rag' blog succinctly put it, between companies who had been rather looking forward to being bought out and those delighted at her departure.



One alleged CS Group user said on the blog: 'We await with interest as to how IRIS wish to take the legal aspect of their business forward.'



Fundamentally, one of the issues raised with the Gazette, and in blogs, is what debt the legal IT vendors owned by CS Group, and now by IRIS, might be dealing with as a result of the buy-up.



Whether Ms Murria's mission to buy the main players in the middle-market area of legal IT (below the Thomson Elites of this world) was successful will probably not be known for up to two years, as development cycles and sales strategies come together (or not) in the firms CS Group bought. Ms Murria did, however, tell the Gazette that she felt she had taken CS Group down exactly the right path, and that she was taking a well-earned long holiday.



Some of the difference of opinion over whether her impact has been positive or negative perhaps might be explained by a difference in goals. People like Ms Murria work to maximise their company's market capitalisation. People in legal IT work to make IT systems for law firms, which makes them money.



So perhaps it is not surprising that someone like Ms Murria moves on once the massive growth phase of a project is over. It could also have been because IRIS's acquisition strategy is nothing like the one CS Group had, and that being head of acquisitions in a firm that would not be focused on precisely that (the essence of CS Group) did not seem attractive. Perhaps IRIS had its own idea of its post-deal shape all along. Any, all or none of these could be true.



The new head of legal at IRIS is Arlene Adams. Like Ms Murria, Ms Adams has a background in the computer industry: not long ago she worked for IBM, then Sun Microsystems, after which she moved to mobile/online payments systems firm Valista in May 2006. She made it to chief executive of Valista in February this year, but did not stay long in the post, handing over power on 22 June to Valista's new CEO. 'Personal reasons' were cited for her leaving Valista and the Gazette has been told that the role of an international CEO - essentially living on an airplane - was not one someone with family in the UK wanted. Valista is not a name one would be expected to know, but Sun is.



Being employed by one of the grandfathers of the software industry like Sun must surely have taught Ms Adams the ins and outs of the business. Working for Valista would probably have also given her ideas about how online payment systems work and where they can be deployed. One day, law firms will be submitting documents to court (e-filing and document management in the civil courts) and most likely transacting house payments online for clients, for example. Her background seems well-placed to teach law firms a thing or two about the modern world.



IRIS's press representative said the company did not want Ms Adams to be interviewed until she had had time to get her feet under the table, and said the strategy for the new legal and compliance division of IRIS, of which Ms Adams will be managing director, will be outlined in the same timescale and for the same reason.



Another indication of the way things might be moving, however, is that the new IRIS division links legal and compliance. Compliance automation is much better known to US firms than UK ones, mainly due to the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. But with the new Solicitors Code of Conduct and greater ability to automate law firm compliance with regulations, a potential IRIS legal division selling-point could well be evident.