We don't usually think of a call to a help desk as a warm and fuzzy interaction. Tech teams seem to take the approach of "take the call, find the problem, fix the problem, take the next call." What about our tech teams' ability to build rapport and empathy with our user base? In this ILTA Radio session, some top IT leaders discuss teaching technical team members to acquire and use more soft skills in addition to their highly sought-after computer engineering skills.

Speakers:
Stuart Cook is the Director of Information Systems at Graves Dougherty Hearon & Moody in Austin, TX. He is directly or indirectly responsible for all computer operations, networking, voice and data infrastructure, software acquisition and updating, information security and training.

James McKenna is Fenwick & West LLP's Chief Information Officer. He is responsible for its information technology, security, development, audio visual and practice support. Previously, James was with Morrison & Foerster LLP for 17 years. He has directly managed all aspects of IT, practice support and information security, and is a Certified Information Security Systems Professional. James has written articles, won awards and sits on the ILTA Board of Directors.

Luke Schnoebelen is the Manager of Learning and Development at Shook, Hardy & Bacon, managing technical training and elearning development. He is solidifying a development process to improve the technology expertise for all firm employees, associates and partners. Luke also assists with all facets of in-house CLE, technology adoption and general promotion of process improvements.

Michelle Spencer's skills reside at the intersection of people, processes, technology and learning. She can translate technology for non-technical people and manage projects by getting groups connected and communicating, enabling them to work effectively towards their end goal. Michelle is adept at managing learning and IT projects from both the technical and human perspectives. She uses her knowledge, gained from three decades spent on both legal and IT project teams, to help your team.

Recorded on 5-14-18

In the constantly evolving world of information technology, the way managers think about staffing for key roles must also evolve. In this podcast, we discuss methods for identifying key candidates, thoughts around job descriptions and their impact on filling roles, and building relationships with in-house recruiters and staffing firms that will aid in finding the newest member of your team. Additionally, we discuss the evolution of positions in your organization that can make it difficult to replace key team members when it becomes necessary, as well as managing teams that include vendors and consultants.

Speakers:
Brandi Hester, PMP is the Applications Development Manager at Andrews Kurth Kenyon, and an ILTA Member Liaison for Houston. A new face in the legal space, she has been managing teams of developers and database administrators for many years and has developed a passion for building collaborative teams that include IT and the business and practice areas. Brandi works as a liaison between IT and other departments to translate technology concepts and business needs.

Broadus Pettiford, PMP is the Director of Information Technology at the Virginia Office of the Attorney General. He also serves as an ILTA Member Liaison for the Richmond, VA area. Broadus has over 16 years of information technology experience and a newfound focus on developing technical leaders, organizing their efforts to advance the businesses they support.

Luke Schnoebelen is the Manager of Learning and Development at Shook, Hardy & Bacon. An ILTA volunteer for the past six years, he is a Member Liaison for Kansas City and received ILTA's Young Professional of the Year award in 2017. Luke is always open to talking about all things technology, training and soccer.

Recorded on 12-21-17

As Microsoft continues to evolve their server platforms, there is an increased push toward integration with Office 365 and Azure. In this follow up to ILTACON 2018's "What's New in Microsoft Server Platforms," we move the discussion deeper into Microsoft's hybrid cloud with a focus on:

• SharePoint integration
• Security and compliance features
• Authentication and federation
• Hybrid search

Speakers:
Nilesh Mehta, the founder and CEO of NGenious Solutions Inc., has nearly 20 years of experience working with enterprise organizations. An enterprise architect across various Microsoft technologies, he drives the company as a key motivator and mentor leading talented professionals. Well known in the industry for his experience in developing enterprise solutions using Microsoft technologies, Nilesh has been awarded the Microsoft P-TSP status for the past five years, is a V-TSP and is also the founder and Chairman of the New York SharePoint User Group. His focus on Microsoft technologies inspired him to co-author the book "SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide."

Lance N. Rea is the Chief Information Officer of Epstein Becker Green, based in the firm's New York office. He has approximately 20 years of experience working in the information technology field. Prior to joining Epstein Becker Green, Lance spent 10 years as the CIO of a full-service New York-based law firm.

Patrick Sklodowski, a Principal with Square10 Solutions, is a proven technology professional with over two decades of expertise. He works with clients to provide strategic and business direction while ensuring successful delivery of projects to a unique blend of large enterprises, mid- and small-sized firms. Patrick's areas of specialty include system architecture, delivery of cloud solutions, messaging, technical project management, disaster recovery, virtual desktop and complex migrations. He is regularly invited to present on such topics as technology trends, messaging and retention, storage, cloud computing, mobile and disaster recovery.

In this ILTA Radio leadership podcast, representatives from kCura/Relativity speak about the use of design thinking to improve business processes, why design thinking is especially relevant for today's times, specific examples of how they've used the process at Relativity and why feedback is integral to the successful implementation of design thinking.

Speakers:
Dorie Blesoff is the Chief People Officer at Relativity, and ediscovery company helping corporations, law firms and government agencies manage and analyze electronic data during litigation and investigations. Based in Chicago with an increasingly global presence, the company has seen rapid growth during Dorie's tenure, and continues to exhibit a dynamic and sustainable culture while demonstrating excellent business results. Driven by the principle "grow your people to grow your business," Relativity has been laser focused on cultivating the culture of continuous learning reflected in highly effective initiatives such as monthly performance coaching, robust training programs and career mapping.

Constantine Pappas, the Relativity Solutions Manager, is a licensed attorney barred in Wisconsin, Virginia and Washington, D.C. He has over 15 years of legal experience and has served as in-house counsel in both the medical equipment and airline industries. In addition, he has managed both paper and electronic discovery efforts for several large-scale civil lawsuits and government investigations. Constantine is a member of Relativity's advice team, where he provides workflow consultation to clients wishing to enhance their experience with Relativity. His special emphasis lies in text analytics, particularly on Relativity Assisted Review.

Recorded on 8-29-17

In this ILTA Radio episode, we discuss the importance of education in the context of communication and leadership. We provide pragmatic approaches to how and when it plays out in the legal industry by talking through real-world scenarios from both the law firm and service provider perspectives.

Speakers:
Ricky Brooman is a Litigation Support Project Manager at Saul Ewing LLP. He consults to internal and external clients on best practices for ediscovery and information governance, and manages all phases of the EDRM for litigation matters. Ricky is also a member of ILTA's Business Management Content Coordinating Team and mentoring program.

Kris Wasserman is a Senior Consultant and Vice President with D4, overseeing a team of discovery engineers specializing in advisory and workflow solutions for corporate legal, risk and compliance departments on litigation readiness and discovery workflow planning. Kris has over a decade of hands-on experience in the ediscovery space and has been involved in the launch of several technology startup service providers. He consults corporate clients on proactive measures they can take by leveraging cloud solutions to reduce spend when managing data that may be used as evidence in internal investigations.

IDC forecasts the SD-WAN space will reach $6 billion in technology and service sales by 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 90 percent over the next five years. In this ILTA Radio episode, representatives from vCom cover how SD-WAN is taking the networking world by storm -- and why it must be a part of every IT organization's strategy. The cost savings and improvement in application performance offer law firms a game-changing approach to managing entire networks.

Uniquely positioned to address this rising trend, vCom can help IT organizations leverage SD-WAN as a key component to a successful IT life cycle strategy. To learn more, visit www.vcomsolutions.com/sd-wan.

Speakers:
Bob Barnes leads vCom's collaboration spend business unit. He oversees the collaboration sales and operations teams, managing the entire collaboration life cycle and ensuring a successful customer engagement. Bob also oversees the company's sales operations organization, managing the first step of the customer onboarding process and ensuring that telecom engineering and professional services are seamlessly implemented for customers.

Audrey Bold is the Vice President of Marketing for vCom Solutions. She is responsible for driving the strategic growth of the company's brand of software and services. With over 18 years of marketing and product experience, Audrey is focused on increasing awareness of vCom's value proposition, expanding share within strategic target markets and enhancing its customer base.

Sameer Hilal is a co-founder and the Chief Operating Officer of vCom, a managed service provider focused on procure-to-pay life cycle management for IT spend in the areas of telecom, network, mobile, collaboration and cloud services. The company's enterprise customers, including leading law firms, leverage its award-winning cloud-based software and professional services to gain unprecedented visibility and efficiency, and transform how their IT environments are managed -- from design and onboarding to billing and support. With over 15 years in business, more than 220 nationwide customers, 10 consecutive years of 98 percent customer satisfaction and 10 consecutive years as a best-place-to-work in the SF Bay area, vCom is revolutionizing how IT spend is managed.

Did you know that how you deal with your emotions and the emotions of others might be the secret sauce to success in leadership? In this ILTA Radio installment, we answer common questions about emotional intelligence (EI).

Speaker:
Brian Donato is the CIO at Vorys, where he has handled a variety of leadership challenges over his 20-year career. Follow Brian on Twitter @bjdonato.

Recorded on 8-7-17

Ever wonder what goes on at Enterprise World, OpenText's annual user conference? OpenText is now one of the top 10 largest software companies in the world and the market leader in EIM and ECM. In this ILTA Radio installment, two attendees summarize the event and give us a glimpse into the product announcements made and the company itself.

Speakers:
Sharon Malloch is the eDOCS Product Marketing Manager at OpenText. With the company since 2013, she previously spearheaded the marketing function for three successive tech start-ups, growing them from concept stage through to funding and customer acquisition. Sharon's early career was spent learning marketing best practices NCR and Hewlett Packard.

Paul Obernuefemann is the CIO at Lewis Rice and ILTA's Strategic Relationship Liaison for OpenText.

Lately, legal tech news has been flooded with a number of ediscovery mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Just to name a few:

• Epiq purchased by DTI investors
• Clearwell acquired by Symantec
• Equivio acquired by Microsoft
• Content Analyst acquired by kCura
• Recommind by OpenText
• RAVN by iManage
• Lighthouse and Discovia

In this ILTA Radio episode, we interview a panel of ILTA members from law firms and legal departments who share their insights, lessons learned and best practices for dealing with ediscovery M&A. We cover cases where one service provider is acquired by another provider and product acquisitions where a core application is acquired by another enterprise software provider, a product is acquired and remains available and when the product is abandoned.

Interviewer:
Catherine McPherson - Litigation Management Consultant, Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP

Panelists:
Dera Nevin - Director of eDiscovery, Proskauer Rose LLP
Duane Lites - Director, Litigation Support, Jackson Walker L.L.P.
Bonnie Boudreaux - Practice Support Coordinator, Jones Walker LLP
Deanna Blomquist - Senior Manager - IT/eDiscovery, Dish Network

In this ILTA Radio recording, Nate Jedinak and Guy Wiggins discuss SharePoint 2016 and how they customized their online extranets.

Speakers:
Nate Jedinak is the Senior Manager of Service Delivery at Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP, where he has worked in various capacities since 1998. Nate has been involved with web technologies since the late 90s, and most recently helped architect the firm's new intranet and extranet platforms using SharePoint Online.

Guy Wiggins Esq. is the Director of Practice Management at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP. He is a lawyer, technologist and business-oriented strategic thinker, applying technology to meet law firm business goals for over 20 years. Guy's responsibilities include improving the firm's KM, software development, training and IG functions; providing general direction, setting budgets, managing goals, and implementing new technology and processes to streamline work, reduce cost and achieve competitive advantage.