Richard Susskind has specialized in legal technology for 25 years. He is an independent adviser to major professional firms and to national governments. He lectures internationally and has been invited to speak in over 40 countries. He has written and edited numerous books, including Expert Systems in Law (OUP, 1987), The Future of Law (OUP, 1996) , Transforming the Law (OUP, 2000) and The Susskind Interviews: Legal Experts in Changing Times (Sweet & Maxwell, 2005) and is a law columnist for The Times. He has advised on numerous government inquiries and, since 1998, has been IT Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England. In 2003, he was appointed by the Cabinet Office as Chair of the Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information. He holds law professorships at Gresham College in London and the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.

During Mr. Susskind's keynote address at ABA TECHSHOW, he will discuss his book The End of Lawyers? Specifically, he will identify significant emerging pressures on the legal marketplace and great change in the world of lawyers. He will claim that the legal profession is set to be driven by two main forces – by a market pull towards the commoditisation of legal services, and by the pervasive development and uptake of new and disruptive legal technologies.

Richard has a first class honors degree in law from the University of Glasgow and a doctorate in law and computers from Balliol College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the British Computer Society, and was awarded an OBE in the Millennium New Year's Honours List for services to IT in the Law and to the Administration of Justice.

Richard lives in Radlett, England, with his wife and three children. His hobbies include running, golf, skiing, reading and cinema.

Thursday’s Highlights

A Day in the (Techno) Life – New for 2009
This special 4 session track will follow Linda Lawyer through the day as she uses technology from the breakfast table to bedtime to improve her work/life balance, enhance the delivery of legal services and boost her bottom line. This real-life technology, from the best ways to remain productive and stay in touch while away from the office to effective ways to capture the most time and gill it out, will improve your profitability and the quality of your life, too.

Paperless Practice
One of the best ways that lawyers can save money is by going paperless. Not only do you save paper costs, but you streamline your work processes to better meet the requirements of e-filing, you cut down on storage costs, and you save all that time (and the money it represents) you used to spend looking for lost filed and misplaced documents. In this 4 session track you’ll learn what equipment you need (you may already have it), how to realign your work flows, document management systems that will keep everything at your fingertips, and low cost PDF tools that will help you manage the entire process. This is a must-attend track if you’re ready to finally go paperless or improve the system you already have!

E-Discovery Boot Camp
You’ve got a lot invested in your associates. Our E-Discovery Boot Camp will make them even more valuable assets of your firm. This 4 session track will take any lawyer who needs to know more about the e-discovery process through the steps, from planning and implementing the litigation hold, to searching and analysis, through tools and techniques to keep the costs of the review stage as low as possible, and finally to production format traps and how to avoid them. This track will produce great ROI, for both your CLE dollars invested and your firm’s investment in your lawyers.

Friday’s Highlights

Large Firm/Corporate Counsel
Our Large Firm and Corporate Counsel track on Friday will help firms that deal regularly with inside counsel to gain the benefits of matter-centricity;, build bridges by using collaboration tools that clients love; learn how the use of search engines, enterprise content management, litigation support software, collection tools and processes, litigation hold software and case management systems can be fine-tuned for better decision making on behalf of the corporate client; make your firm so tech-savvy you'll be the one the corporate clients can’t do without; and create records management policies that will protect yourself and your clients.

Internet Track
The Internet Track also has lots to offer small firm lawyers this year with sessions on Software as a Service (SaaS) and how it can free you from the computer upgrade treadmill; how to use the Web to serve clients (and fight off the challenge of non-lawyer provided legal services such as Legal Zoom); ways to collaborate with others on the Internet, saving time and money and allowing small firm lawyers to compete with larger firms with greater resources; and Guerilla Research: Mining the Social Networks and More to help you find that crucial case information that can make (or break) your client’s case.

Solo & Small Firm
Topics for those who are “suddenly solo” or may be about to be.

Solo/Small Firm I. This track offers sessions on what you need to know about affordable E-Discovery for the small case; using free on inexpensive web-based resources to meet your human resources needs (think virtual assistants with no fringe benefits costs); research on a dime, from legal research to skip tracing; and how to stay out of the ethical briar patch that the use of technology in the law office can sometimes lead you into.

Solo/Small Firm II. Our second track designed specially for small firm lawyers covers essential technology for the new or existing law practice; affordable IT support for small offices, including remote support options and how to get the most from the Geek Squad; managing the flood of email that’s crippling small firms; and the greatest hidden Windows and Microsoft Office tips and tricks for greater productivity (and profit) in everything you do every day.

60 Tips in 60 Minutes
This rapid-fire session will give you nuggets on marketing, management, finance and technology that you can take back to your office and put in to practice immediately. This session, alone, is worth the price of a day’s admission.

Saturday’s Highlights

Tech for Financial Management
This two track session will help you learn to make time keeping and billing a snap, analyze timekeeper profitability, and monitoring cash flow and the bottom line.

Tech for Client Development
This two track session covers how you can create and protect a personal brand and then use technology (including contact management software you already have) to keep your name before clients and potential clients, generating new business opportunities.

60 Sites in 60 Minutes
Always the most highly rated session at ABA TECHSHOW, this session will bring you the newest and best of what’s available on the Web, for the practice of law, a better life, or just a good laugh.