Canadian Lawyer

LAW OFFICE MANAGEMENT Most Canadian litigation firms rely on a legacy version of Summation but Litigation support software conundrum I changes — perhaps both good and bad — are coming. BY KEVIN MARRON rather like inheriting your grandfather's 1990 Oldsmobile — it still runs and gets you where you are going, providing you don't want to go too far or too fast, so you are reluctant to get rid of it, but it costs a fortune to maintain and occupies space in your garage that might otherwise house a brand new SUV with back-up cameras, parking assistance, and myriad other tech- nological enhancements. That is the situation that many n most circumstances, a legacy is a very nice thing to have. But not in the world of informa- tion technology, where owning legacy software or hardware is covery purposes, may still be unaware of major changes that could soon be forced upon them. "This ed and unbudgeted," says Dera Nevin, litigation support could be totally unexpect- e-discovery counsel and senior direc- tor of McCarthy Tétrault LLP. She and other liti- gation support specialists are concerned they will no longer be able to rely on their legacy versions of Summation iBlaze, the most widely-used litigation support soft- ware in Canada. "It' services at Canadian law firms now find themselves in as they consider what to do about the old —and perhaps soon to be obsolete — software that has been the key technologi- cal support for a large number of litigation departments for more than a decade. And staff at some smaller law firms that rely on the aging software to manage their work- flow and documents, as well as for e-dis- as brand new products. Nevin and sev- eral colleagues in other firms have been told that AccessData will stop support- ing the legacy software in three years and the company will only offer her a maintance contract for the new version of Summation. However, Nevin and others are con- need to know about and plan for — and assess whether they need to upgrade their technology or what kind of solution is appropriate for them," she says. The company that developed the s something people Summation software underwent two cor- porate mergers over the past decade and is now a part of Utah-based AccessData Group LLP. AccessData is currently mar- keting two new web-based versions of Summation that are sufficiently different enough from the original to be perceived 22 OCTO BER 2012 www.CANADIAN Lawyermag.com cerned the new version has bugs and has not been fully tested. They say they haven't been able to evaluate it properly because the company has declined to refer them to other users who have tested and deployed the new software. Not true, says AccessData chief execu- tive officer Tim Leehealey. "We're sup- porting the old product. We will do that indefinitely, product has indeed been tested, though he admits that there are still some bugs — just as there are in newly released versions of Microsoft Windows. "We are doing our best to find them and stamp them out." Kearren Bailey, director of litigation support at Toronto's Lenczner Slaght " he says. He maintains that the Jeremy Bruneel

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