IT CONFERENCE: four practices organised own seminar

Four City law firms have taken IT conference organisation into their own hands by co-operating recently to design a special not-for-profit seminar on legal IT issues.

The event, 'By legal, for legal', comprised of 40 individually chosen attendees and was arranged by IT heads at Lewis Silkin, Harbottle & Lewis, Travers Smith Braithwaite and Reynolds Porter Chamberlain.

The IT heads made significant savings by not using professional conference organisers.

Jan Durant, head of IT at Lewis Silkin, estimated that each firm representative saved 1,000 in attendance fees, while the IT suppliers present saved around 20,000 each.

She said: 'These are difficult times for law firms, and it is hard to justify spending money to go to a seminar.

We were able to organise a not-for-profit event that was very focused on the issues we wanted to talk about.'

The 12 suppliers invited paid 3,000 each to attend, while the conference was free to firms.

Hot topics at the seminar, run as a roundtable facilitated by legal IT consultant Neil Cameron, were e-mail archiving and electronic spam, flexible working for members of the IT team, document management, and security problems with e-mail and wireless networks.

Ms Durant said: 'Holding the seminar as a roundtable discussion was much more useful than just having someone standing up at the front giving their point of view.

We were able to share our problems and exchange experiences on, for example, what our different firms were doing about arranging flexible working for those in the department with young children.'

The event looks certain to run again next year.

Rachel Rothwell