2009 INNOVACTION AWARDS ANNOUNCED

I had the honor of serving on the judges’ panel for this year’s College of Law Practice Management Innovaction Awards. The winner was announced today and I think you’ll agree that the honoree really is deserving. Here are the details from the COLPM web site:

Israeli legal organization, New Family is the 2009 recipient of the coveted InnovAction Awards from the College of Law Practice Management while New York-based legal services provider Practical Law Company, Inc. received the first-ever InnovAction Honorable Mention Award.

For the fifth year, the InnovAction Awards have recognized outstanding innovation in the delivery of legal services, demonstrating to the legal community what can happen when passionate professionals, with big ideas and strong convictions, resolve to create effective change.

Meet our 2009 InnovAction winner!

New Family Organization
Family, Justice and Law initiative

Irit Rosenblum broke fresh ground defending a universal right to family as intrinsic to the practice of law. Rosenblum pioneered a new sphere of legal rights surrounding the family based on the conviction that the rights to marry, divorce, have children, bequeath and inherit assets, and conduct family life are human rights and must be attainable to all regardless of faith, nationality, sexual orientation or status. She founded New Family to fill a critical gap in the practice of law in Israel: to attain the right of every individual to establish a family and to exercise equal rights within it. For the 2 million people in Israel who are subject to discrimination due to family status, New Family’s achievements have been invaluable.

In addition, for the first time, the InnovAction Awards offered Honorable Mentions to entries that have taken an existing innovation in the practice of law, transformed it in a unique and valuable way, and made it better than before.

Here is our very first InnovAction Honorable Mention:

Practical Law Company, Inc.
Creating Efficiency for business lawyers

Practical Law Company (PLC) is changing the way business lawyers work. It employ attorneys with significant experience practicing with the world’s leading law firms and legal departments (e.g. Davis Polk, Skadden, Pfizer, Sullivan & Cromwell) to provide practical, up-to-date resources that help business lawyers practice more efficiently and provide greater value to clients. PLC provides the practical, generic level of information needed by all business lawyers that allows them to get up to speed quickly, stop reinventing the wheel and focus on client and firm specific work. It launched its first US services in December 2008 to wide market acceptance. PLC began in the UK in 1990.

The five InnovAction judges were greatly impressed by the groundbreaking ideas in the submissions from law firms and companies in the United States, Canada, and the Middle East”, said Jordan Furlong, editor of the Canadian Bar Association’s National magazine and chair of the 2009 awards program.

The 2009 InnovAction Awards will be presented on Saturday, September 26, 2009 at a special session during the 2009 Futures Confernce held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the College of Law Practice Management in Denver, CO. Please visit www.innovactionaward.com for more information.