LTNY booth conversations
As usual, LegalTech New York was a hive of activity ranging from networking to meetings to presentations to the all-important show floor. The Thomson Reuters booth was no different with visitors checking out the latest products and enhancements. One area that drew a lot of attention was the WestlawNext area, which highlighted the advantages offered through the legal research tool in the mobile arena.
Dinyar Mehta, director, WestlawNext iPad® and mobile development, shared the top five trends he heard throughout the conference.
1. To be (or not to be) at Total Parity: Customers shared how they would like a significant measure of parity with desktop functionality, but want to leverage the power and native functionality of the iPad. They understand that pursuing a strategy of desktop replication exclusively on mobile devices is not a good move for them. Users want a smart and strategic desktop replication that functions properly on their mobile device. This, by the way, is a cornerstone for the WestlawNext iPad appproduct development team.
2. Collaboration and Workflow: Availing themselves of greater collaboration and workflow capability from the legal research apps people use was a major point of discussion. I was happy to show some of the new features of the WestlawNext app which now empowers customers to not only view folders shared with them, but by facilitating full folder sharing within and outside their organizations directly from the WestlawNext iPad app.
3. Access to Lawyer Created Content: A significant topic of discussion was being able to securely access their own documents with regard to matter numbers within their legal research apps. Thomson Reuters answer to this is West km. Lawyers, particularly at large law firms, would like to be able to access their own documents on their servers through apps like the WestlawNext iPad app. The WestlawNext iPad team is attuned to this and developing accordingly.
4. Offline Access: Lawyers are increasingly traveling, whether it is a commute to work or a flight to fight a case in another jurisdiction. Lawyers want to be able to research and annotate on planes, trains and automobiles. We’ve also seen this in our research and developed offline capabilities that allow users to store documents found on WestlawNext in an offline folder. This allows them to research and annotate even without an Internet connection and as soon as they come back online, they have the confidence to know that all of their offline content and annotations synchronize and are up to date, including information in folders that may be shared with colleagues inside or outside the organization.
5. Search: One of the highest expectations of customers is the need to have a very high quality search engine that gets them more inclusive, better ranked results allowing them to be more productive and efficient. WestSearch is the leading search engine in world and it powers search on the WestlawNext iPad app. The algorithm that powers WestSearch leverages the finest and exclusive intellectual property assets available: West Key Number System®, KeyCite® citation networks and more.
These were the key discussion topics, amongst many, that were discussed throughout the conference in our booth. We would like to thank everyone for visiting with us at LegalTech New York and encourage you to share your thoughts and ideas about WestlawNext and the WestlawNext iPad app.
