Why I’m Going To ILTACON And Why You Should Too

Columnist Jeff Bennion explains why he's looking forward to a major legal technology conference.

Next week, I will be heading to Las Vegas to ILTACON and barraging you with a series of articles about the happenings and the latest trends in the legal technology field. ILTA (the International Legal Technology Association) puts on an annual legal technology convention that focuses on practical education. Here’s why I’m excited:

The Panels

I know it’s hard to get excited about educational panels, but one has to be impressed with the planning that ILTA put into the educational portion. In total, there will be about 200 sessions over 4 days. The sessions are chosen by a committee of about 40 volunteer legal professionals from all areas of practice and roles. They start with about 600 sessions and cull it down to about 200 covering about 30 main topics and several sub topics. They have as many as 16 sessions going on at a time covering every aspect of legal technology – from information governance, to e-discovery, to practice management and billing tools, to law firm gadgets, storage solutions, encryption. There’s something for everyone every day. As far as target audience goes, the presentations at ILTACON have beginner sessions, but the emphasis is going to be on advanced and specific topics.

ILTACON is also a great place to learn about the new trends in the field. Did anyone have a cloud security policy in 2011? Did anyone develop one after they got in trouble and before they knew what cloud security was? Many firms find out about new ethical pitfalls the hard way by running into those problems firsthand. I try to be a little more proactive in learning about practice management hints before they become a problem. It’s not just about ethical pitfalls though. New trends can show you cost-saving and time-saving measures.

Although there will be vendors there, about 70% of the panels are going to be put on by actually practicing legal professionals. As much as I love vendors, I always sense a slight bias in what they are pitching. When practicing attorneys speak, I feel I get more practical advice about the application that’s the topic of the presentation. Some vendors will be showcasing new technologies or new hardware. Last year at ILTACON, Microsoft announced their new legal document management plugin for Office 365, Matter Center.

The process is continually evolving and relies heavily on feedback from attendees, which is incorporated into making the next year better.

The Networking

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Legal conventions are a great place to meet new people and put faces to names. Earlier this year, at LegalTech New York, I was able to finally meet several vendors that I had been working with for about a year. I was able to meet several other vendors that I will probably use in the future. I was able to connect with colleagues in my field whom I plan on working with in the future. It’s important to meet these people. When you are preparing for a deposition of a 30(b)(6) witness for Monday and opposing counsel dumps 35,000 pages of newly produced material on you on Thursday and it takes 1-2 business days to upload the data and process it, it helps to know the vendor more than just through the occasional e-mail or phone call.

The Swag

Let’s not forget about all of the pens and branded post-it notes and letter openers. Legal technology companies sure do know their swag.


Jeff Bennion is Of Counsel at Estey & Bomberger LLP, a plaintiffs’ law firm specializing in mass torts and catastrophic injuries. Although he serves on the Executive Committee for the State Bar of California’s Law Practice Management and Technology section, the thoughts and opinions in this column are his own and are not made on behalf of the State Bar of California. Follow him on Twitter here or on Facebook here, or contact him by email at jeff@trial.technology.

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