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M. Thomas (Tom) Collins, the founder and former CEO of Juris, Inc., will receive the Law Technology Lifetime Achievement award during the Law Technology News Award Ceremony in New York on February 2, 2010. Each year the Law Technology News publication hosts the awards ceremony recognizing the best use and users of technology in the legal community. This is the first time in the seven-year history of the awards that an individual is being recognized for a lifetime achievement. Collins will receive the award along with two other legal technology notables: John Alber from the law firm Bryan Cave and Thomas Burke of World Software Corporation.
In addition to his role as president and then chairman of Juris, Inc., Collins shared his 30 years of experience working with midsized law firms on his award-winning blog, www.morepartnerincome.com. In 2006 the London-based publication Citytech called him an "outstanding individual and visionary" when he was named as one of the Top 100 Global Tech Leaders in the legal community. Though he retired from the business world in 2007, Collins continues to write and speak on the subject of law firm management.
Tom Collins began his career in the mid-1960s as a CPA with Price Waterhouse (now PriceWaterhouseCoopers) after completing his undergraduate work at Middle Tennessee State University and obtaining his Master’s Degree from the University of Alabama. He was one of the pioneer entrepreneurs of the information technology industry following IBM’s consent decree that opened opportunities to own mainframe computers for the purpose of providing services to others. After serving as one of the principals of Compass, Inc., and then Vice President of NLT Computer Services, he joined with four associates to found the public company Endata, Inc. Endata was later acquired by First Financial Management. Following that acquisition, Collins began Juris, Inc. in March 1986. When Juris, Inc. was purchased by LexisNexis® in 2007, Juris, Inc. had become the leading provider of financial and business information systems for midsized law firms with an estimated 27% market share.
Throughout his career, Tom has been a frequent speaker and author on management subjects as well as technology issues and the legal profession. Among his many industry roles, he is one of the founding members and officers of the consortium organized to implement standards for the electronic exchange of data within the legal community—LEDES, the copyrighted "Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standards." Tom was also the initial founding chairman of the National Association of Legal Vendors and served as an advisor to several legal-related associations and for the LegalTech® educational and expo conferences.
Tom Collins served as the President and CEO of Juris, Inc. from its inception until 2002 when his son, Stephen Collins, assumed operational leadership of Juris as the company’s President. Tom continued to serve as the Chief Executive Officer of Juris Inc. until he underwent surgery for colon cancer in June of 2004. He remained as Chairman of the Board until the company was acquired by LexisNexis in 2007.
As a retiree and a cancer survivor, Tom Collins turned his hand to writing fiction. The first of a series of mysteries involving the new career of a bored retired business entrepreneur, Mark Rollins’ New Career and the Women’s Health Club, was published in 2007. That was followed in 2008 by Mark Rollins and the Rainmaker and in 2009 by Mark Rollins and the Puppeteer. Tom Collins’ books are available on www.amazon.com, www.markrollinsadventures.com and store.markrollinsadventures.com as well as other online sites including Barnes and Nobel.
Mark Rollins Adventures is a Tennessee corporation handling the business activities of Tom Collins as an author.
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