May is almost over, so we’re due for our usual roundup of Stem client news and achievements. Here’s a look a what everyone’s been up to since our last update:

• West Palm Beach Criminal Lawyer Blog author Ron Chapman explains the process of administrative expunction at length at his Florida Criminal Records FAQ website.
• Bernard Pinsky, Chair of Clark Wilson LLP’s Corporate Finance / Securities Group, has authored a chapter in a new book, Securities Regulatory Compliance in Canada. The book addresses the similarities and differences between Canadian and U.S. securities regulation, and discusses strategies for cross-border compliance.
• Houston-based contigency fee litigation firm McClanahan Myers Espey LLP is celebrating partner Randy McClanahan, who was recently elected President of the Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists.
• The Meadows Addiction Treatment Center was pleased to announce the opening of The Meadows Texas, a new 8-person treatment facility in the Sam Houston National Forest, Montgomery Township.
• Hissey Kientz LLP rolled out its completely revamped products injury firm website, hkllp.com. The site has a fresh new look and includes more multimedia and practice pages, including one for Raptiva.
• At their new blog, New Jersey DWI Lawyer Blog, The Law Offices of John Marshall recently discussed tougher drunk driving penalties proposed by the State Senate of New Jersey.
• As noted on JD Scoop and many other places, JD Supra launched Law Centers: categories of shared legal documents organized by subjects. These new information centers maximize exposure for contributors and make it easier for visitors to JD Supra to find timely, relevant commentary and precedents on a wide variety of topics.
• Chicago nursing home lawyer Jonathan Rosenfeld has spun off a new FAQ website based on the bed sores category on his blog. The site features information, photos, and resources on this unfortunate condition, which is also known as pressure ulcers or decubitus ulcers.
• On their China Law Insight blog, King & Wood’s PRC lawyers discuss a new Interpretation from the Supreme People’s Court, which explains what constitutes a “famous” trademark in China.
• New York injury attorney John Hochfelder has republished his series of Hochfelder Reports: these reports give in-depth explanations of damages for various injuries in New York state, including back injuries, arm fractures, and traumatic brain injuries.
• And finally, our practice management software client Clio happily shared the results of an ABA Legal Technology survey that shows 22% of sole practitioners use an SaaS solution, along with more of the survey’s findings on lawyers’ use of technology.

We’ll be back again next month with more interesting projects and accomplishments.

In a press release that came out in early March, LexisNexis released their CRM product Interaction into the legal SaaS marketplace. Perhaps a sign that web-based software has finally “arrived”, the release itself was quite telling on a number of fronts.

First, the quote from Bill Wilshire, Lexis VP of CRM/Analytics:

“We estimate that the streamlined efficiencies of InterAction onDemand hosted software will enable a firm with 100 attorneys to realize average cost savings of about 22 percent over three years as a result of less hardware, staffing and licenses.”

This is a great statistic for web-software companies out there, including our own legal web software client, who can now point to a direct comparison (desktop application to SaaS) and show cost savings. Take that number, and identify the higher technology overhead (per lawyer) with smaller firms, and the sales proposition improves.

Second, the release shows that the legal web software market isn’t just for solos & small firms. Interaction is an enterprise CRM solution, and if Lexis can offer it to a firm of 100-lawyers, then the tipping point to a firm of thousands isn’t far off.  I don’t think that’s a prediction, that’s the future.

And lastly, I’m wondering if the web may be a merger point between all those software co. acquisitions and the Wexus duopoly of legal publishing products. Content is valuable when it hits eyeballs. In the current firm model, that means application software. Tomorrow?  Let’s just say it wouldn’t be surprising to see legal publishers hedging their bets; and perhaps using the web to deliver a unifying online product.

An item just posted on the Stem news page: JD Supra announced its new law centers this morning; a feature that should add both context & browsablity to their community-driven collections.

The law centers are broken down into four core divisions: personal law, business law, government law, and law practice management; with each major area then divided into related sub-centers.

What I like generally about this addition, is that JD Supra seems much easier for the casual visitor. If you’re trying to track down an employment lawyer or personal injury lawyer, there’s now a single location I can point people to (or bookmark) that shows the latest postings, and who are leading contributors.

I also like the top-5 contributor list on each page’s sidebar, which is based on the publishing track record within the category. The top-10 contributor list on the homepage is great for larger groups or big contributors, but these top-5 lists are a great way to stand out with 20 to 50 documents.

And if I put my SEO hat on for a moment, the practice centers also offer a host of new landing page opportunities for topical searches from the search engines. Making legal content more accessibile is JD Supra’s goal, and the additional search exposure adds to that offering.  I expect the link value from the practice centers will distribute evenly across the site, and more importantly, into each of the content items. Both the contributor profile pages and the content pages should see an ongoing benefit.

But probably the biggest difference for me, is the balance JD Supra now has between search and browse. As many of my fellow law librarians can tell you, information seekers often vary in terms of their search-vs-browse orientation.  Not everyone is the same in that regard.  What JD Supra had been lacking, was the functionality to support the browsing style.  The practice centers, in my view, fill that gap and create a more complete service.

Congratulations to everyone at JD Supra!

Project work has been plentiful here at Stem recently (which I’m blaming for my lack of blog posts). And like so many of you whose inboxes are constantly running out of control, I found myself needing to take additional action this week.

On Wednesday, notifications for twitter follows and friendfeed alone peaked at 45 emails, so I decided to route them around my inbox. We use Google apps for business, but the same thing can be done with Outlook or exchange. I simply created a filter for all incoming email from the two services, sending these messages into their own folder, and archiving them out of my inbox.

So here’s my new routine: I’ll scan these ever day or so, and will delete or follow back on Fridays.

Is this novel or innovative? Not at all. Lots of friends have recommended this to me for some time. If the volume had been a little lower, I’d probably have put up with it…  But setting the bar a little lower isn’t always a bad thing, and inbox management helps everyone.  So I’m passing it along.