Phoenix Managing Director, Roger Pickett received the award last night at the annual HP Autonomy Partner Summit in Chicago and comments, “We are delighted to have been recognised by HP Autonomy for our strategic role in information management in the professional services arena. To be awarded HP Autonomy Protect EMEA Partner of the Year for the second year running highlights our commitment to ensure that our clients receive an unparalleled level of service and support.”

The new functionality includes:-

• Ability to integrate templates with print cost recovery systems
• Connector to the Paper River/SafeCOM print cost recovery system
• Several enhancements to the Autonomy Interwoven IManage integration including author import from DMS, ability to automatically specify document sub-classes when profiling and support for duplicate matter numbers
• Several enhancements to the Smart Print mechanism including the ability to use coloured paper in print profiles, options to further customise the Smart Print dialog and recalling the previous user settings to speed up the printing process even further
• Several enhancements to the user interface to increase performance and usability Iphelion successfully completed a migration to Office 2010 for international law firm Stephenson Harwood in January 2013. Chris Petrie, IT Director at Stephenson Harwood said “… Iphelion impressed me with their vision, understanding of the complexity of the task ahead, and their ability to demonstrate their relationships with the key software vendors and knowledge of the products that Outline would have to work seamlessly with…” 

If you are planning an Office 2010 or 2013 rollout then contact us now using one of the methods below and we will be happy to arrange a visit from one of our consultants to show you how Outline can help you.

For more information and a product sheet, please visit the Outline product page at http://www.iphelion.com/Products/Outline If you wish to get in touch to arrange a demonstration, call us on +44 (0) 1622 862 862, email

info@iphelion.com or use our contact form online at http://www.iphelion.com/ContactUs.

“We are excited to offer ProLaw Mobile, and the enhanced front-office functionality our clients need to run their businesses with greater efficiency,” said Elisabet Hardy, vice president, Product Management, Thomson Reuters Elite. “This release keeps ProLaw XII clients ahead of the curve with a newer, smarter technology platform that enables users to access and edit ProLaw data, regardless of time or location.”

The secure, mobile accessibility enables users to quickly add notes to current matters, review matter information and respond to client requests, without waiting to return to the office. More time and billing information is captured, as users enter, review and edit hours straight from their iPad device. And, when appointments are saved and emails and attachments are Pro Filed, which provides the ability to “save” documents and information to ProLaw, the entire ProLaw database is updated with the most current information to maintain timeliness and accuracy.

In addition, ProLaw XII Release 3 improves productivity with enhanced dashboard access to create and share information collaboratively. Through the editable dashboard calendar, users can add docket information on the fly with a single keystroke. To streamline workflow and expand integration with WestlawNext, documents within ProLaw can now be easily and efficiently shared through Case Notebook, which organizes essential case information in a centralized, electronic database.

ProLaw is an integrated software suite designed to automate the practice and manage the business of law. ProLaw Mobile provides remote access to ProLaw data from an iPad. For more information on ProLaw XII, visit www.prolaw.com

To say there has been a lot of buzz around Software Defined Networking (SDN) recently is an understatement. Even before the high-profile deployment of SDN at Google and VMWare’s $1.25 billion acquisition of Nicira (not to mention the other noteworthy acquisitions in this space, including Altor Networks by Juniper and Tipping Point by HP), industry insiders were calling SDN the ‘next big disruptive technology’–and SDN has proved to be no flash in the pan.

Recent years have seen the rise of innovative, epoch-defining applications (for example, Facebook and Salesforce), yet the underlying network has remained essentially the same. However, with the emergence—and rapid adoption—of virtualisation, there exists a need for a new type of networking architecture as organisations’ data centres need to create and configure virtual machines remotely rather than manually.

Enter Software Defined Networking

As a result, SDN is becoming increasingly attractive as it enables network administrators to have programmable, centralised control of traffic—without the need to physically access the network’s hardware devices.

SDN utilises several key features to encourage innovation and expand choice throughout networks. Typically, SDN involves the separation of data and the control planes with a uniform vendor-agnostic protocol called OpenFlow, and the virtualisation of the underlying network.

However, for all the excitement surrounding SDN, many still have serious concerns about its impact upon network security:

What are the specific security concerns surrounding SDN?

SDN puts every single forwarding decision into one centralised software process. Therefore, the greatest risk that most people perceive with SDN is that if, somehow, this one centralised process is compromised, then the entire network—including all applications and data—will also be compromised.

Additionally, while SDN may offer more flexibility in restructuring a network tackling substantial flooding, it may also face a unique type of DDoS attack. Rather than flooding routers or attacking hosts or applications, SDN-specific DDoS attacks may attack the SDN stack itself, creating traffic streams designed to boost the interactions between the switches and the controller—a Control Flow saturation attack.[1]

How can enterprises wanting to deploy SDN make themselves more secure?

The fact is that we are, without a doubt, still in the very beginning stages of understanding exactly how security will be administered in advanced SDN networks. What is clear is a ‘layered’ approach to security is critical. The virtual security technology needed for an SDN environment should complement (not replace) existing physical safeguards.

Enterprises will still need a firewall; they will always require intrusion prevention. In addition, virtual machines that talk to each other on a physical server will consistently need hypervisor security layers to be implemented. In fact, it could even be argued that physical security will become even more important in an SDN environment. With data centres in only one or two locations, they need to be highly secure from a physical perspective.

Effectively-built security in an SDN environment should not replace any existing security measures. All that is required is simply another layer, one that can be controlled and made even more secure, as it is going to be based off a software controller. The key is to ensure that these effective security solutions do not impede the flow of data and the flexibility that SDN provides.

Can SDN actually benefit security?

In principle, SDN should free network security, increasing both flexibility and control. For many years, attempts to attack a network had to be blocked. In an SDN environment, there are numerous other options to counter such attacks, including quarantine systems and OpenFlow-enabled honeynets.

SDN also offers the ability for VLAN’s to reach beyond the restrictions of an organisation’s perimeter, increasing the likelihood of data staying secure. Furthermore, as some network perimeters can be unclear, it can be hard to decide exactly where to position security devices. However, with SDN, this problem may be a thing of the past, as a network administrator has the ability to route all traffic through a single, centralised firewall.

What is the role of independent technology providers in securing SDN?

The architecture of SDN enables network engineers to support switching fabric across multi-vendor hardware, thus providing customers with almost unprecedented levels of choice. Independent technology providers can play a key role at the front end by helping their customers navigate all the different options available to them. In addition, as all the ‘decisions’ from each end point are being put into one centralised process,  independent technology providers can assist with the thorough thought and planning processes that need to go into this.

In summary, the many advantages SDN can lend organisations are well documented. Nevertheless, one of the principle barriers to adoption of this exciting new technology is the concern that remains around SDN’s impact upon security. However, despite operating in a virtual arena, with virtual machines and applications, the need for physical security is by no means diminished. Whilst virtual security will undoubtedly have its place, this will need to be combined with existing physical safeguards.

Justin Hadler is Director of Engineering at Hardware.com, a global leader in networking hardware, architectures, procurement, and support. Hardware.com’s team of experienced and distinguished consultants partner with companies to identify, implement, and support advanced network infrastructures that align companies’ technological requirements with their business and economic goals. For more information, please visit http://www.hardware.com.

The EDRM Enron data set is an industry-standard collection of email data that the legal profession has used for many years for electronic discovery training and testing. It was sourced from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’sinvestigation into collapsed energy firm Enron. In early 2012, the EDRM Enron PST Data Set and the EDRM Enron Data Set v2 became an Amazon Web Services Public Data Set, making them a valuable public resource for researchersacross a variety of disciplines

“Recently, we have been working closely with Nuix to cleanse the data set of private information about the company’s former employees and make the cleansed data set readily available to the community,” said George Socha and TomGelbmann, co-founders of EDRM. “These efforts help to protect the privacy of hundreds of individuals and we encourage anyone who finds private data that we did not remove to notify us.”

Using a series of investigative workflows on the EDRM Enron PST Data Set, Nuix consultants Matthew

Westwood-Hill and Ady Cassidy identified more than 10,000 items including:

• 60 items containing credit card numbers, including departmental contact lists that each contained hundreds of individual credit cards
• 572 containing Social Security or other national identity numbers—thousands of individuals’

identity numbers in total

• 292 containing individuals’ dates of birth
• 532 containing information of a highly personal nature such as medical or legal matters.

Many items contained multiple instances and types of information. This included departmental contact list spreadsheets with dates of birth, credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, home addresses and other private details of dozens of staff members.

The investigative team also clearly demonstrated that these items did not stay within the Enron firewall. For example, some staff emailed “convenience copies” of documents containing private data to their personal addresses.

“Nuix and our partners have conducted sweeps for private and credit card data for dozens of corporate customers and we are yet to encounter a data set that did not include some inappropriately stored personal, financial or health information,”said Eddie Sheehy, CEO of Nuix. “The increasing burden of privacy and data breach regulations, combined with the strict requirements of credit card companies, make this an unacceptable business risk.”

“Using the methodology we are publishing alongside the cleansed EDRM Enron data, organisations can identify private and financial data, find out if it has been emailed outside the firewall and take immediate steps to remediate the risksinvolved.”

Nuix is currently applying the same methodology to the EDRM Enron Data Set v2, which it will also republish at  nuix.com/enron.

Nuix will host a Twitter chat to discuss the release of the cleansed EDRM Enron PST Data Set on Thursday, May 23rd 7:00pm BST. Nuix experts will describe the process of identifying unsecured financial, health and personally identifiable information in corporate data. Follow the hashtag #NuixChat and send in your questions beforehand to @nuix.

Almost a quarter of jurors (23 per cent) currently misunderstand the contempt rule in relation to internet use during a trial according to preliminary research published in Criminal Law Review, a Thomson Reuters journal.

Among jurors who misunderstand the rule on internet use, 16 percent believe they cannot use the internet at all, even to check their own emails, while serving on a jury; 5 percent believe there is no restriction at all on their use of the internet during a trial; and 2 percent believe they can look for information about their case during the trial as long as it does not influence their judgment

The findings follow a number of cases in recent years involving jurors’ inappropriate use of the internet, which have led to a number of juries being discharged, or trials abandoned, and in two cases have resulted in prosecutions and convictions of jurors for contempt. The team that led the research is urging the Law Commission to base any recommendations for reform of contempt of court in England and Wales on reliable, empirical evidence.

“These findings show that the vast majority of jurors understand and follow the rules on how jurors can use new media during trial but the message is not getting through and is confusing to a significant minority of jurors,” said Cheryl Thomas, Professor of Judicial Studies at University College London’s Faculty of Laws, and author of the research.

“Ensuring that trial by jury can effectively operate in the new media age requires empirical evidence about what jurors do, what they think and what are the best tools to provide them with to do their job to the best of their ability. Contrary to popular belief this kind of research can legally be conducted with real juries in this country, and that is precisely what the UCL Jury Project is doing,” said Professor Thomas.

The research findings reported in the Criminal Law Review are from the first stage of a four-stage research project working with real juries at Crown Courts in England and Wales.  The Stage 1 findings provide the first empirical evidence in this country on: juror understanding of the rules on contempt, awareness of recent prosecutions of jurors, willingness to report improper conduct, and desire for guidance on conducting deliberations and written directions on the law from the judge.

Other key findings from Stage 1 include:

• Only very small proportions of jurors said they used the internet in ways that could be legally problematic: 6 percent looked up information about legal terms used in the case; 1 percent visited the crime scene on Google Earth, Streetview or other internet sites; 1 percent looked up information about parties to the case.
• In terms of social media, 3 percent of jurors shared their experience of jury service on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and 1 percent blogged or chatted online about doing jury service.
• Almost all jurors (82 percent) said they would have liked more information on conducting deliberations.
• Two aspects of deliberations where jurors feel they need more guidance are crucial elements in ensuring proper deliberations and preventing juror contempt: what to do if jurors are confused about a legal issue (49 percent) and what to do if something goes wrong during deliberations (35 percent).
• Among jurors that received written directions, every single juror (100 percent) said they found them helpful.  Among jurors that did not receive written directions, 85 percent said they would have found them helpful
• Jurors are less likely to report instances of fellow jurors misusing new media than other behavior such as potential jury tampering and bullying in the deliberating room because they feel uncomfortable reporting this.

“In order to minimise juror contempt in the new media age, jurors must understand the rules on improper conduct, know how and when to report improper conduct when they see it, and they should be able to do so with ease. If we ignore these critical factors, then we run the risk of creating the ideal conditions for a perfect storm of juror contempt,” said Professor Thomas.

The research was conducted with juries at Crown Courts between 2012–13 and builds on previous work conducted by the UCL Jury project, as part of the 2010 study Are Juries Fair?.  The research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and has been conducted with cooperation from the Judiciary of England and Wales, Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service and Ministry of Justice.

Over 80% of the world’s largest law firms have relied on DocXtools to help them deliver superior client service, and now firms without the need or the resources to configure a firm-specific DocXtools installation can quickly deploy DocXtools Express and improve the firm’s ability to deliver high quality legal documents.

DocXtools Express includes a pre-configured subset of DocXtools features, which extend the functionality of native Word, empowering lawyers and legal support teams to best meet the complex demands of legal document production. Law firms in need of an immediate solution for improving document production efficiency, enhancing document quality and mitigating document-related risks in-house should look to DocXtools Express.

Fix problematic documents in a few simple steps:

• Remove common problems and stabilize a document
• Diagnose and repair advanced document issues
• Clean up, rebuild or re-style poorly formatted, scanned and PDF documents

Efficiently apply styles and formatting to a document:

• Import firm-approved styles from an alternative source
• Interactively apply styles to individual or groups of similar paragraphs

Prevent document issues in one click:

• Safely upgrade to .docx to prevent unwanted numbering, formatting and pagination changes
• Run a document health check to ensure document stability prior to editing or sending to a client

Fill gaps in native Word Compare:

• Generate summary, detail and changed pages reports with multiple save options, including save with Track Changes and save as PDF
• Create and save rendering sets
• Fix a document that doesn’t compare when using a third-party compare tool

Matt Flint, winner of So you think you can dance? has choreographed a special Dance Day UK routine. Trustee of FirstLight Trust and best selling Author Bernard Cornwall has also pledged his support, for the launch of the first Dance Day UK initiative, he commented “This day is for the men, women and families of the Armed Forces and Emergency Service veterans who need our help, it’s a great idea and I hope people will really get behind the day and join in the fun”

Gillian Taylor, Co founder of the FirstLight Trust said “The idea is to get everyone young and old to modify the dance to suit them and boogie on down! We need to get that determined, gritty, fun British spirit alive in every school, workplace, leisure facility and home to get the whole country rocking to raise funs for this very needy cause. We want people to organise dance events the length and breadth of the country. This is the perfect opportunity to pay homage to those who have risked their lives so we can enjoy a safer, free and democratic society”.

Gillian continued “Please click onto the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/dancedayuk, download the instructions and get a group together, film it, and then upload for everyone to enjoy. Sponsorship forms are available to download at www.firstlighttrust.co.uk .   The official Dance Day launch day is June 1^st but you can complete your dance anytime during the year. The sponsorship form will stay active, and the most important thing is to spread the word, have fun and support our veterans where and when they need it most”.

Over 250,000 professionals globally rely on Microsystems solutions to help them improve document quality, increase productivity and mitigate document-related risk. Expansion of the Microsystems team positions the company to better serve its growing client base, while continuing to deliver innovative and competitive products.

“New opportunities have opened up at Microsystems as more organizations look to technology like DocXtools, EagleEye and 3BClean to help them do their jobs better and with reduced risk,” says Tom O’Sullivan, CEO of Microsystems. “These talented individuals are critical to extending competitive advantages to our customers and we look to them to lead new efforts that will bring added value to customers.”

Individuals joining the Microsystems team to drive innovation and help address the evolving technology and business needs of the legal and life sciences industries include:

• Adam Bourjaily, Solutions Center

• Angela Crossland, Consultant – United Kingdom

• Steven Driben, Regional Director, Sales – East

• Michael Giannola, Solutions Center

• John Hantak, Business Analyst

• Mark Kristie, Developer

• Jason Maeder, Senior Product Manager

• Stephanie Pavlakis, Client Relations Manager

• Om Suthar, User Experience Designer

• Paul Talaga, Account Executive

Informance and Differentia Consulting have today announced a strategic alliance to provide best in class QlikView delivery, training and on-going support and managed services, as well as tools and extension-objects, for their combined QlikView clients, (circa 250), primarily UK based as well as clients of other resellers and system integrators. The pooling of capability will ensure that clients obtain world class end-to-end care as they engage and deploy the QlikView Business Discovery platform with either organisation.

As QlikView Business Discovery adoption becomes more widespread, the depth and breadth of skills required to deliver the platform has to increase, and requires ever increasing commitment by partners to service their clients to derive real value. Given these demands on resource, it makes sense to form such an alliance to ensure the adoption of both a common methodology and also the ability to offer the specialist services. This joint capability will allow the adoption of a common deployment and support methodology, ensuring consistency of approach. Further, QlikView third party products, tools and extensions, will be able to be supported centrally providing clients with even greater levels of knowledge than currently exists.

Barry Talbot, managing director for Informance says: “We are delighted to create this alliance to increase delivery capability to our clients and scope of offerings. Our two organisations are already working together on projects and this announcement makes this public. Combined, we can deliver more value across more platform components, and sooner, for our clients than would otherwise be possible.”

As part of the alliance, clients will be assigned a service delivery manager to manage their requirements as they increase their adoption of the QlikView Business Discovery platform with third party tools and extensions. Forming a services-based alliance fits with both companies growth strategy and ensures clients are also better looked after with more certified resource being available.