60 Sites in 60 Minutes
Before heading out to the St. Patrick's Day parade, wrap up your ABA TECHSHOW experience by attending this perennial favorite, which is always one of the best attended sessions. Our panelists will review the hottest new websites for lawyers and legal professionals - great web resources on legal technology, practice management, research, ethics, and they'll toss in some practical and fun stuff, too.
ABA TECHSHOW 2006 Photos
First Time Attendees
Former ABA TECHSHOW Chair, Sharon Nelson, and planning board member John Simek give first time attendees the lay of the land and some tips for attending ABA TECHSHOW!!
The ABA TECHSHOW ® Survival Guide
by Sharon D. Nelson and John W. Simek
ABA TECHSHOW® has long been recognized as the nation's preeminent legal technology show, but it can be a tad intimidating for first time attendees. Just like the government, “we’re here to help you.” We’ll try to impart some information to help you with your decision to attend and how to make the most of the experience. We’ve updated this article substantially from previous years especially because TECHSHOW 2008 will be at an exciting new venue.
ABA TECHSHOW is a wonderfully busy experience, but there are so many tracks and sessions to see that sometimes it's difficult to make up your mind about what to attend or how to begin. Some first-time attendees report feeling a bit lonely not knowing a soul at this overwhelming Chicago event. Read on and learn how we can make sure you leave Chicago with new friends. How can you make the most effective use of your time if you decided to take the plunge and register in time to take advantage of the Early Bird and Program Promoter discounts to substantially reduce the cost of attendance? Don't worry – we'll give you some advice on how to spend your time wisely, learn as much about legal technology as you possibly can, and make some wonderful friends while you're at it.
If this will be your first time at ABA TECHSHOW, there are just so many things to do. The ABA TECHSHOW Planning Board starts planning for each year's show the day after the last one ends. Each year, ABA TECHSHOW morphs a little, as a result of attendee feedback and newly developed technologies that are fed into the planning process. Tracks and sessions have been finalized by the Board and you will be able to see the grid on the ABA TECHSHOW website at www.techshow.com. Speaker selections are made in the fall, and that information will also be available on the website before the end of 2007.
The point of ABA TECHSHOW is, of course, to learn, and the educational content is as wide as it is deep. Although the planning for ABA TECHSHOW 2008 is ongoing as this is being written, we can say with confidence that the show will include the ever-popular E-Discovery, Solo/Small Firm and Advanced IT tracks. New to the grid this year are tracks covering Records Management, Large Firm & Corporate Counsel and Macintosh. Be sure to check out the website for the entire track listing and session descriptions.
We strive to feature content suited for all technology skill levels (beginner, intermediate and advanced) and for lawyers in both transactional and trial practices, so there will be plenty of sessions to interest you, regardless of your level of technical sophistication or the current level of automation in your practice.
How do you begin to plan your days when there are over 50 CLE sessions from which to choose? To make it even more challenging, there are dozens of social and networking events to fit in too.
Even though we are now ABA TECHSHOW speakers, we still attend sessions of our colleagues and we started out as first-time attendees, so we remember how we approached the massive task of dividing our time. Attacking the ABA TECHSHOW grid requires a multi-step approach.
First, we take a highlighter and identify every session and activity that interests us. This, invariably, leads to looking at each other and noting ruefully, "Houston, we have a problem." Of course there are always multiple highlighted sessions in the same timeslot.
The second step is to pick one of the highlighted sessions for a particular time period and circle it. Finally, we mark the sessions that we can't attend and make a special note to review the CLE materials CD that all ABA TECHSHOW attendees receive. Perhaps a similar session will be on the grid for next year; hence we might get another shot at attending. After all, we knew as soon as the first TECHSHOW was over that we were hooked and that we'd be back.
It doesn't take long to get a feel for ABA TECHSHOW, even if you're a first-time attendee. It is no accident that there is so much going on simultaneously. ABA TECHSHOW is designed to give a lot of choices to a broad range of attendees – government lawyers; IT support personnel; large, medium, small firm and solo lawyers and staff; judges; and consultants. The problem is not picking what to attend…it's picking what not to attend.
ABA TECHSHOW has established a reputation for the quality of its speakers that is second to none. Our speakers are recognized experts in their fields, and they freely and willingly share their knowledge with attendees. Selling from the podium is not tolerated, so you know you will get unbiased and independent information that will help you determine which legal technology products and services are best for you.
ABA TECHSHOW speakers are a friendly bunch – they all wear "Speaker" ribbons so you can spot them easily and they are delighted to stop and have a chat. Don't hesitate to talk to them because speaker accessibility is one of the most cherished hallmarks of ABA TECHSHOW.
Another major highlight of ABA TECHSHOW is the Exhibit Hall, which features an annual assembly of more than 100 legal technology vendors. The show schedule is intentionally structured to give attendees free time to roam the exhibit hall, visiting the various vendors and collecting the tech goodies many of them give away. The vendors are uniformly happy to talk to you at length and answer all your questions about their products and services, and they may even give you a demonstration. With the knowledge you have gained from the CLE sessions, this is a wonderful opportunity to explore in a more informal way all the legal support products and services that are available, hands-on and in person.
ABA TECHSHOW will be at the Hilton Chicago this year. In contrast to prior years, in 2008 the Exhibit Hall and educational sessions are on the same floor! No more riding the escalators to cover multiple floors. It is anticipated that WiFi will be available again, so make sure you bring your laptop. The welcome reception will be on Thursday evening in the Grand Ballroom. The Versailles-inspired Grand Ballroom has hosted kings and queens, not to mention every United States President since Truman. It’s a wonderfully elegant setting and the perfect place to kickoff ABA TECHSHOW.
In addition to the reception in the Grand Ballroom, there will be a sit-down lunch held on Friday. This is a more formal event compared to previous years. At lunch TECHSHOW will be proud to present the inaugural recipient of the Jim Keane Award, in memory of the legal technology pioneer.
You will also find the ABA's Law Practice Management Section booth in the Exhibit Hall. There you can spend some of the "Book Bucks" you'll receive as a part of your registration package upon conference check-in. What a great way to get some excellent books at super prices! Be sure you go through all the papers in your registration bag carefully – you will find invitations to dinners and receptions, free educational sessions put on by participating vendors and all manner of other wonderful, useful things as well.
So what do you do if you don't know anyone? First, this is a very friendly crowd. There are plenty of social settings in which it is easy to strike up a conversation with your fellow attendees, including the Thursday night reception. If you are at loose ends for dinner Friday night, you can always sign up for one of the “Taste of TECHSHOW” dinners. These topical dinners are “dutch treat” and are intended to cover specific subjects. These small groups (8-10) will be hosted by various ABA TECHSHOW speakers and other legal technology experts. The “Taste of TECHSHOW” dinners were a wonderful success last year and are back by popular demand of the attendees.
Conference Concierge Booth
Also back by popular request is the successful Conference Concierge booth. The booth will be located by the main registration area and exhibit hall. It is staffed by speakers, ABA TECHSHOW Board members, past ABA TECHSHOW chairs and those familiar with the sessions and technology topics of ABA TECHSHOW. Looking for recommendations on sessions to attend? The concierge booth is the place to go. Need help with your technology or have a question about something from a session you just attended? The concierge booth is the place to go. Just like the concierge at the hotel, the concierge booth is the “one stop” for your ABA TECHSHOW questions. Experts will also be available to assist with any technology questions. Think of it as a “help desk” for ABA TECHSHOW. The concierge booth is also the place where you sign up for the “Taste of TECHSHOW” dinners.
Be forewarned that ABA TECHSHOW will wear you out with so much to do over three days that the time will fly by. You will be utterly exhausted from attending the educational sessions, vendor floor and social events. Though you'll be tired, you will go home a lot wiser about legal technology and how it can help increase productivity and profitability in your practice. Hopefully, you will also meet new friends and be able to spend some time with old ones too.
The final task as a first-time attendee of ABA TECHSHOW 2008 will be to mark your calendars with the dates for ABA TECHSHOW 2009, which will be here before you know it. We can safely say, if you come to ABA TECHSHOW once, you will almost certainly come back again! This is the case for the majority of our attendees, and we're confident you'll feel the same way, too. See you in Chicago, and be sure to say hi!
Sharon D. Nelson and John W. Simek are the President and Vice President, respectively, of Sensei Enterprises, Inc., a computer and legal technology firm based in Fairfax, VA. Sharon was the chair for ABA TECHSHOW 2006 and John currently serves on the Planning Board for ABA TECHSHOW 2008.