Today, marks the beginning of the 25th ABA Techshow in Chicago. Unfortunately, I could not make this trip. I would have loved to have been there, but I got to work to pay the bills.  Here is a good article from Christy Burke on their 25 year history.

Here is my newest post from Above The Law. LegalTech begins tomorrow. Keep following this blog and Above The Law, as I will be posting updates from the conference.

The pregame show for LegalTech New York 2011 has been in full swing the last few weeks. Vendors and their PR reps have been constantly reaching out via emails, text messages, phone calls, and smoke signals, to contact industry experts, “thought leaders,” law firm decision makers, members of the media, and, perhaps most importantly, knuckleheads like me. All are doing their best to generate “buzz” before they announce their new products, alliances, services — fill in the blank as you see fit — at the conference.

Then, at 9:00 AM on Monday, LegalTech New York will open with what I am certain will be a riveting keynote address from Gabriel Buigas, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Hewlett Packard, entitled Legal vs. IT: Turn the Battle into a Solution to Meet Compliance. At that point, everything will reach a crescendo.

Well, not exactly.

Don’t get me wrong; I am sure Gabriel Buigas will give an excellent speech. But the real action will begin at 10 AM, when the doors to the exhibit hall open. That is when all hell breaks loose, and hundreds of technology vendors will be eagerly waiting to share with you the great news about their respective companies.

With that as a backdrop, here is some of what I expect to see at this year’s LegalTech….

Continue reading at Above The Law, or speaking of pregame, if you click over to the flip side, you can see three pics from a very amateur photographer on what life looks like the day before LegalTech.

This is either where the keynotes will be given or a plenary session — or both.

This is a photo of the exhibit hall now, it is amazing how they get this thing to look in 24 hours.

Westlaw had control of a bunch of big screens last year. This year it looks like Lexis is filling that role.

Forgive me for not updating this blog since 2001. I am excited to announce that I will be at LegalTech at the end of the month (Jan. 31-Feb. 2). If you want to meet up, please contact me at either Gabe@GabesGuide.com or Gabe@AboveTheLaw.com. If you are in DC, contact me as soon as possible. I know how crazy LegalTech can be, and it may be best to meet beforehand. Looking forward to it.

Here’s a snippet my post on the Masters Conference from ATL:

This week, while taking a break from my favorite pastime — hanging out with strippers and snorting coke with federal judges — I attended the Masters Conference in Washington, DC. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this conference, it has carved out a significant niche for itself in the e-discovery universe. The Masters Conference is a gathering of legal technology thought leaders from all over the world, who come together every year at this time to talk about all things e-discovery. The yearly meeting was the brainchild of entrepreneur extraordinaire Robert Childress, president of Wave Software.

After attending last year’s Masters Conference, I thought I knew what to expect again this year: a small meeting (certainly not on the level of a LegalTech or the ILTA Annual Meeting), with the usual suspects, and similar — if not the same — topics of discussion.

Well, what a difference a year makes! The Masters Conference may only be in its fifth year of existence, but it seems to have just had its coming-out party…