Month: May 2007
Welcome to the new-style Newsletter
I am delighted to have been invited on board by Delia as joint editor and publisher of the Newsletter. Delia and I have collaborated for many years, since we both launched our websites in early 1995. Together we wrote and edited the book Researching the Legal Web (Butterworths 1997 and 2nd edn 1999) and in […]
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Hosted email
You need electricity to run your business. You need a telephone. You need email. If I suggested you set up your own power station to generate the electricity needed to run your legal practice, or set up your own satellite to make and receive telephone calls, you would dismiss the suggestions as fanciful. This is […]
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Does IT matter?
“Does IT Matter?” is the title of a controversial 2003 article in the Harvard Business Review by technology writer Nicholas Carr and also of his follow-up book in 2004 which expands on the theme. The nub of his argument is that IT has become a commodity input and that for most companies there is little […]
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Google PageRank – what it is and why it matters
The BBC’s is 9 out of 10, Google’s is 9 out of 10, Parliament and OUT-Law.com are 8 out of 10, really big and important firms like Clifford Chance and Eversheds are (respectively) 7 and 6 out of 10, Delia Venables’ and Nick Holmes’ sites are both 6 out of 10, significant regional firms are […]
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Music crime – is the record industry buckling under the pressure?
Illegal downloading is a devastating problem for the record industry. £650 million was lost last year to music crime and £1.1 billion in the three preceding years. Illegal downloading takes place when a user obtains a digital music file over the internet. The source of this digital file is known as the uploader. More often […]
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Email notices and email footers
Disclaimers and confidentiality notices are automatic additions to the end of many organisations’ email, sometimes adding half a page of text or more to the sender’s message. There is no legal authority on the effectiveness of these notices in email messages; but that is not to say that they should not be used, provided care […]
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Virtual law firms – where we are now
Over the last few months, we have had several virtual law firms writing about their experiences; this article is an attempt to bring it all together and to assess the similarities – and the differences – between the firms. The firms covered and a note of the earlier articles are given at the end of […]
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Law Societies online legal recruitment service
The Law Societies of Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Bromley have joined together in a joint venture initiative to launch their own Legal Recruitment Service online, employers4lawyers.com. We hope that we can reduce the money pouring out of the profession to employment agents by offering these services to our members. The four Societies between them cover […]
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GLIN access via WorldLII
The Global Legal Information Network (GLIN) of the United States Law Library of Congress is now searchable via the World Legal Information Institute. GLIN Abstracts provides databases from 40 countries: Angola, Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Kuwait, Mali, Mauritania, […]
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The Statute Law Database – an update
It is now 4 months since the Statute Law Database was released to the public. In the first couple of weeks following the launch there was a flurry of comment and criticism; but since then, near silence. Is everyone ecstatically happy with it, reserving their judgment or quietly cursing its shortcomings? I set out to […]
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How to get the best out of a barristers’ clerk
Clerking is an old and very traditional profession. Barristers’ clerks have been looking after the professional and personal lives of barristers for hundreds of years. However, these days, barristers’ clerks are the professional “minder” or “manager” of not just one barrister, but several barristers that make up a chambers. They are the “door keepers” who […]
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