The Culture Of ILTACON

The big ILTA conference, taking place right now in Las Vegas, is both informative and fun.

As I’ve mentioned before, ILTACON is different from any other legal technology tradeshow. First of all, there are, relatively speaking, very few lawyers here. A lot of the attendees are CIOs, legal IT administrators, heads of IT departments at big firms. So, what they are teaching here is what big law firms will be implementing in 2016 and, in turn, what small law firms need to adopt to stay competitive. I’m in a session right now on how legal IT trainers can better train lawyers in their firms. ILTACON answers the questions: 1) how can we be more efficient, 2) what are things we need to worry about, and 3) what can we change to be better? There is a vendor exhibit floor and vendor demo booths, but it is mostly driven by the educational sessions. For each day, there are about 4 session slots, and about 5-7 sessions I want to attend, so I’m going by which ever session is not recorded and hoping to pick up on the recorded sessions I missed later.

The panelists are realists. I’ve written a lot about SharePoint. It is probably one of the best tools for any law firm that you can implement. I still stand by that statement. The problem is that deploying SharePoint is problematic. It’s difficult to use, it’s problematic to transition, and it requires new policies. Same with Yammer and a bunch of other programs I’ve mentioned. So, going to a panel about great new software is only a small part of the solution. That’s the disconnect that a lot of vendors and other panelists overlook – they focus on new policies or technologies instead of how we can actually use them. That’s the great thing about having peer-driven panels. The culture here and the sessions are directed at helping from perspective of someone in the trenches. Think about buying a new TV on Amazon. Do you read the manufacturer blurb, or do you scroll down to the user comments? This conference is about actual users telling us why they like or don’t like certain technologies and policies.

Dare I say that the other differentiating factor about ILTACON is that it is fun. Last night I was walking down the hallway going to the opening of the exhibit hall and I passed a bunch of people dressed like pirates and characters from Alice in Wonderland, and I knew that things would be getting interesting soon.

Let’s start with the pool party. On Sunday, we had the opening reception at the pool at Caesar’s Palace. On top of great food, because it’s Vegas, we had costumed characters, fire twirlers, and a Jedi mime.

Then there was the opening night reception at the Exhibit Hall. It was fairy-tale themed, and there was a contest for best booth. Here are some highlights:

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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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