♫I’ll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day and through..♫

Words and Music by Sammy Fain / Irving Kahal, sung by Billie Holiday.

Wednesday Oct. 10, 2007 will see the 2007 edition of the Pacific Legal Technology Conference held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This conference will be the 5th PLTC and this year The BCLMA (the British Columbia Legal Management Association), the LMA (The Legal Marketing Association – BC Chapter) and the GPSSF National Conference of the Canadian Bar Association (The CBA’s General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Conference) all have joined the Conference as additional sponsors. This is in addition to the four founding sponsors: The TLABC (The Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia), the CBA – BC Branch (The Canadian Bar Association – BC Branch), the LSBC (The Law Society of British Columbia) and the ABA-LPM Section (The Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association).

This year’s conference starts with a bang at 8 am with: 60 Technology, Management, Marketing and Finance Tips in 60 Mins and concludes with 25 Things You Really Need to Know and Take Home. The noon plenary features Frank Fowlie, the Ombudsman for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Frank has a unique view of the growing trend towards on-line dispute resolution and will talk on the different technology platforms in use, the state of ODR and the opportunities – and challenges – that ODR poses to the legal profession. The full program can be found here.

In-between these plenary sessions are a further 18 sessions divided into six tracks: The Solo and Small Firm Track (sponsored by the GPSSF section), the Tips and Marketing Track ( sponsored by the LMA), the Applications Track (sponsored by the ABA-LPM Section), the Implementing Technology Track (sponsored by the LSBC), the Administrators & Managing Partners Track (sponsored by the BCLMA) and the E-Discovery and Litigation Track (sponsored by the TLABC).

The sessions range from How to Know What You Don’t Know – a Primer on the Newest Legal Technogies to Electronic Evidence Best Practices; from Working with Adobe Acrobat to No Limits! What a Young High Tech Firm Could REALLY Look Like!; from Security Overview: Backups, Removing Metadata, Digital Signatures, Secure Email, Handling Spam, Fraud and Other Tips to Tips on Becoming Creative with Technology in the Practice of Law.

The conference features outstanding speakers: Sharon Nelson and Dan Pinnington (both past ABA TECHSHOW Chairs) as well as a number of other outstanding speakers from ABA TECSHOW and from BC (Doug Jasinski, Allison Wolf, Steve Matthews just to mention a few…(24 great speakers in total). The Conference draws attendees from as far away as Halifax and down into the USA (MCLE Credit is available for Washington, Oregon and California and pending from Idaho) and the Conference offers 9 hours of Professional Management Instruction for reporting by BC lawyers.

The theme of this year’s conference is Leadership, Technology and You. This conference is unique in that it is designed from the bottom up in a collaborative manner with all past attendees. Each year, the Advisory Board pulls together a list of possible sessions that are posted to a SurveyMonkey web site – and every past attendee is invited to participate and indicate which sessions would be most relevant to them.

From the survey results the session program is pulled together from the top rated sessions. As a result, in every year the Conference has been held, it has received a 100% “YES” answer to the question “Would you recommend this Conference to your colleagues?” in the conference evaluation. As the Chair of the Conference, I am proud of that distinction and believe it indicates the world-class speakers, exhibitors and information that is integral to the success of the Conference.

I hope to be seeing you at the Vancouver Westin Bayshore Hotel and Resort on Wednesday October 10 for the Pacific Legal Technology Conference this year!

Dave