As the year 2015 has come to an end, we would like to take the opportunity to share some of the highlights from our sixth year with VQ and to thank everyone that made it all possible.
For us, some of this year’s highlights have been the recognition by the Canadian Law Blog Awards, the continuous expansion and exciting projects with our document automation solution VQ Legal, and all positive response and interesting discussions before, during and after VQ Forum.
Canadian Law Blog Awards
The Clawbies Canadian Law Blog Awards have been awarding the Canadian legal blogosphere for nine years, as an engaging way to encourage established legal blogs to continue to produce high quality work.
In the European category, the EuroCan Connection Award, our Legal Innovation Blog was the proud winner this year with the following motivation:
Legal Innovation, the blog of Swedish consultancy firm Virtual Intelligence VQ, has become a must-read resource for European lawyers seeking to stay ahead of legal market trends and master new tools and system to improve their businesses. VQ principals Ann Björk and Helena Hallgarn keep their readers tuned into legal developments worldwide.
We are so honored and grateful for this recognition all the way from Canada and wish to thank all our readers and the voting committee.
VQ Knowledge and Strategy Forum 2015 – The Future of Legal Service
In October we arranged our sixth VQ Forum, with more than 180 law firm managers, general counsels and other legal market professionals attending for discussions on the changing legal market and the future of legal service. This year, the forum was arranged in cooperation with the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce and had a main focus on business development.
During the day international speakers provided insights on new business opportunities and new ways of providing legal service or manage an in-house legal department, but also discussions about the challenges and risks with the development.
In addition to providing insights on the changing legal market, the forum also aimed to create a platform for inspiring meetings and exchange of ideas between law firms and clients on how to adapt to the new legal market in a constructive way and how to further develop successful client-law firm relationships.
In addition to providing insights on the changing legal market, the forum also aimed to create a platform for inspiring meetings and exchange of ideas between law firms and clients on how to adapt to the new legal market in a constructive way and how to further develop successful client-law firm relationships.
For a detailed summary of all sessions, please see VQ Newsletter November 2015 »
In connection with the event there was also a large exhibition area, providing the delegates the opportunity to see a wide range of IT tools for working more efficient and improve legal practice management, as well as information services to support legal professionals with substantial information and knowledge resources. Via this exhibition the delegates were given the possibility to hands on examine and explore a range of new systems and upgraded technology to help them meet the forthcoming challenges.
As a pleasant closure of the day, a 1980’s inspired cocktail reception with live music was held to relate to the day’s Back to the Future theme.
Photos from the day are available here »
Reports from inspiring seminars
To keep up to date with all new legal market trends internationally, we also attended several inspiring conferences and seminars both in Sweden and internationally during the year. For example Sime, a two-day conference about digital opportunities and how to convert these into new business, but also how digitalization can be used to create a better world, to support human rights and to do good.
VQ Legal – the online legal service and knowledge platform
During 2015 we continued the expansion of VQ Legal our legal service for standard document packages that is widely used by major law firms, in-house legal counsel departments, accounting firms and other companies. It is a new legally intelligent and efficient solution for creating all relevant documents for a specific matter with a content that is updated and quality assured by our expert partners for corporate, employment, commercial and IT law.
The platform can also be used for creating customized solutions. One such solution is the advanced tool for employment law, which we have built for the 7,000 members of The Swedish Association for Human Resources Management on the VQ Legal platform, in cooperation with Elmzell Advokatbyrå, Sweden’s largest firm specialized in employment and HR law.
Articles about VQ
During 2015 several articles were published about VQ, VQ Forum and VQ Legal.Here are some of these articles:
- “Digitalisering nästa” – Dagens Industri (in Swedish)
- “Ettor och nollor” – Behind the Scenes (in Swedish)
- “Revisorerna blir jurister” – Affärsvärlden (in Swedish)
- “Utmaningar och möjligheter med digitaliseringen” – Realtid (in Swedish)
- “Välbesökt VQ-konferens” – InfoTorg Juridik (in Swedish)
- “Advokatbranschen samlas på Grand” – Realtid’s live report (in Swedish)
- “Marknad i förändring – exklusiva bilder” – Realtid’s photos
- “Retrospective: Innovative best practises at the VQ Forum” – SCC News
2016
For the year 2016, we look forward to further expansion of the online legal service VQ Legal and projects involving the use of the VQ Legal platform, other exciting consultancy assignments and speaking appearances.
In October 2016, we will host our seventh VQ Forum, with inter alia speaker Associate Professor Christian Sandström, who will share his thoughts on digital disruption – why it happens, what leadership mistakes made companies like Facit, Kodak and others go under and how to identify the distinct disruptive patterns before the game changing developments hits the legal sector as well. Save the date 18 October 2016 and stay tuned for more information.
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