What’s Ahead for the M&A Market in 2012 and Beyond? - Webinar Recap

Jan 17, 2012 - by Joel Lessem

Today we enjoyed an in-depth outlook of the M&A Market in 2012  with Dennis Roberts, author, Chairman and CEO at The McLean Group. His insights into how cross-border deals, technology, healthcare and an aging baby boomer population are affecting the M&A landscape, were invaluable.

Dennis spoke to the impact of new technologies on business, citing that 40% of S&P 500 companies were not there 10 years ago. He also discussed how an aging baby boomer population has accelerated growth in healthcare, pharma and biotech. He also referenced specific data related to the last year, revealing that in 2011,  one in three M&A transactions in the U.S. were cross border deals.

Top 3 reasons why SaaS is critical in a successful IT strategy

Jul 19, 2011 - by Joel Lessem

The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model of internet-based software has already transformed the way we manage our personal lives and analysts continue to predict that SaaS will further revolutionize the workplace for several key reasons:

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Five ways your firm can avoid malware threats

Apr 8, 2011 - by Randy Rosenberg

The Globe and Mail reported on April 6 2011 that four top law firms had fallen victim to cyber attacks originating from China:  Major law firms fall victim to cyber attacks

The attacks were aimed at stealing sensitive data related to high value mergers and acquisition transactions.  Hackers used email to pose as a partner working on the deal, and were able to embed attachments that contained malware, successfully infecting dozens of computers and comprising several sensitive documents.   To defend against this growing threat, many firms have chosen to take measures such as storing documents in secure third party facilities, and are realizing the benefits of secure online file sharing, known as cloud computing.

Sophisticated cloud computing solutions limit the opportunity for hackers or infected users to penetrate security layers and access confidential data.   Authorized end-users can view, upload, and change documents, but they are not able to run programs on the server - making malware based attacks impossible.

Economic Forecasts for the Industrial World (or Not so Industrial Anymore)

Oct 26, 2010 - by Joel Lessem

Last week I attended a breakfast with Craig Alexander the Chief Economist – TD Bank.  It was a refreshing experience given all the noise and uncertainty coming out the media regarding the economy. Here are the broad strokes:

• Europe and North American are becoming a smaller part of the global economy
• As a percentage of Global GDP the “Industrialized World” has gone from c. 70% in 1990 to 50% today and that trend will continue as emerging markets will represent 70% of the world GDP by 2025 or so
• The “Industrial World” businesses will constantly have to improve productivity to compete

Alexander predicts that North America will face slow growth (approx. 2-3%) over the next 5-7 years.  Europe is in a significant bind.  Governments are supposed to save money in the good times and spend money in the bad economic times to stimulate the economy.  Unfortunately many of the EU nations spent money in the good times, and now that the economy has soured and their tax revenues have fallen off – they have nothing but huge debts, deficits and shrinking revenues – and rather than spend to save their economies they are faced with “austerity” measures.  Worse, there is little appetite for spending cuts from their electorate – in other words they are rioting and going on strike.  Unlike Toronto that just elected a Mayor on a platform of spending cuts – some European populations appear to believe money grows on trees and it’s not their collective problem.  As a result, Alexander believes a number of countries (Spain, Greece et al) could exit the EU and restructure (i.e. print lots of money to pay off their debts).

Corporations Choose SaaS Solutions for Secure Online File Sharing

Sep 16, 2010 - by Aaron Booth

In the past six months, we’ve noticed that corporations of various sizes across multiple industries have been turning to SaaS solutions to share large volumes of critical information beyond their office firewall.  More specifically energy, biotech, manufacturing, health care and pension fund sectors have been actively seeking a more secure way to share and collaborate internally and with external parties.  It appears that no matter what business you are in or what your businesses processes are, there is always a need to securely share large volumes of information easily and cost effectively.  Email, FAX and courier are not secure enough and continue to be cumbersome and prone to error.

Historically, sharing documents online in virtual data rooms have primarily been used for due diligence in M&A , fund raising, refinancing, and real estate transactions.  Corporations are now recognizing the value of sharing information online to complement or improve document intensive processes, streamlining real world business challenges such as RFPs, Engineering, Procurement and Construction compliance, financial reporting, audits, board communications or simply having an accessible repository of key legal documents.   Documents are often more secure online than stored on in-house computers, flash drives or distributed as attachments using email.  Using Firmex, clients organize and access literally millions of documents in a SAS 70 compliant environment with encryption transmissions, and fully segmented and secure databases with mission critical redundancy, which is often not the same environment that office computer storage provides.

Offsite data back up: Another cloud computing benefit

Aug 25, 2010 - by Nicole Black

One of the benefits of using a cloud computing platform in your law practice is offsite data back up and business continuity.  It’s a convenient and simple solution for data back up, it happens automatically and gives you one less thing to worry about.

Not only that--it can sometimes be a lifesaver. If your files are stored in the cloud, they are safe from inadvertent data loss caused by, for example, a local computer or server failure or a natural disaster.

For example, this article from The Telegram, describes how, in June 2010, a Canadian law firm’s office building caught on fire and the offices of the law firm, Roebothan McKay Marshall were completely destroyed.

The Economics of Cloud-based Software Services

Aug 5, 2010 - by Nicole Black

One of the most common benefits touted by cloud computing proponents is the economic benefit of switching to the Cloud. With SaaS, there’s no need to purchase servers and software; no need to pay expensive annual licensing fees or software upgrade fees; no need to hire IT staff to maintain the servers and stay on top of software updates.

The software upgrade and installation song and dance with which most law firms are familiar becomes a thing of the past with SaaS-based services. Before cloud computing, law firms purchased and installed desktop or server-based legal software. In many cases, with traditional legal software, software updates are provided free of charge for a specified period of time after the initial installation of the software, but an additional annual licensing fee must be paid for access to updates after that time period expires.

With cloud-based services, you simply pay a monthly fee and the SaaS provider hosts the software for you, at no additional cost. You don’t have to worry about keeping track of and installing software updates. The provider automatically updates the software for you on their end. After the update is complete, the next time you log into your account, the changes to the software system will be in place, ready for you to use.

Note-Taking Apps to Reduce Information Overload

Jul 28, 2010 - by Nicole Black

Sometimes, in this new Web 2.0 world, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with information. Organizing the flow of information, for both work and personal uses, is one way to manage the constant stream of information and reduce information overload.

In recent years, the Internet has spawned all sorts of innovative web applications that can make your life and your law practice simpler and more manageable. Note-taking and information capturing applications are a great way to accomplish this and can help you have seamless control over your busy practice and your life.

There are an assortment of note-taking web applications for everyone, no matter what your preference. Here are two of my favorites, both of which are:

1. free
2. accessible on the Web, and
3. offer iPhone and Android apps.

Private Placements: Why not use a Virtual Data Room?

Jul 15, 2010 - by Aaron Booth

Recently, I have been talking to professionals that specialize in issuing private placements. A private placement is a funding round of securities that are issued to a select group of targeted, private investors. In my discussions, it has become apparent that there is an opportunity for professionals in this space to leverage the capabilities of a virtual data room, particularly if they manage more than one of these transactions annually.

The existing trend in managing the distribution of documents to investors is email, which is unsecure and unable to provide intelligence. There are multiple opportunities throughout the private placement process where a virtual data room can be used in place of email to provide a faster, more secure method of delivering documents while also unlocking valuable data points that can accelerate the transaction and improve the efficiency of locating qualified and accredited investors that want to participate. The following points demonstrate the opportunities at each stage of the Private Placement process:

Strategic Assessment: Financial professionals first must analyze a business in order to make recommendations on financing alternatives that may include PP. The documents that must be shared can be large in quantity and confidential. A virtual data room is an attractive alternative to email for collecting and sharing this information in an organized fashion while keeping the data safe.

Web 2.0 Applications Make Scheduling Meetings Easy

Jul 13, 2010 - by Nicole Black

One of the more annoying tasks that many of us encounter on a nearly daily basis is attempting to coordinate a meeting or phone conference amongst a group of people. Generally, an agreed upon date and time is arrived upon only after a flurry of emails have gone back and forth between participants.

Scheduling a meeting can sometimes feel more complicated than the actual meeting itself. Many times I’ve found myself thinking, “There must be another way to do this.”

The good news: there is; actually, there are many. With the growing popularity of cloud computing, a number of creative Web 2.0 scheduling applications have been released that help to streamline and simplify the process of determining a mutually agreeable date and time for a meeting.

MeetWith.Me is a web based scheduling application that allows you to share your calendar and make public only the free blocks of time. No sign up is required -- you simply email a link to your pre-assigned MeetWith.Me page to meeting participants and allow them to choose a time to meet.