Year: 2007

Podcasting the law

Podcasting is the latest buzzword sweeping through Internet Land. A podcast is a radio style audio broadcast that can be saved and listened to on any computer or MP3 player. It seems as if almost everybody is doing it; from Ricky Gervais to budding musicians. Everybody except lawyers who, thus far, have not realised the […]

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E-conveyancing update

The focus of property professionals over the last 12 months, in the residential sphere at least, has been on the fated Home Information Packs (HIPs). Trumpeted by ministers as the much needed solution to “the conveyancing problem” in terms of speed and cost, government has steadfastly ignored the views of the professionals involved who have […]

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Garden Court Chambers new online legal resource

The new Legal Resources section on our website are an attempt to really capitalise on the expertise available in a large chambers such as ours and present it in a way that directly reflects and promotes the work we do. Organised exclusively by topic, the Resource directly replicates the structure of the teams within Chambers. […]

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A virtual chambers – Clerksroom

This article describes the way that Clerksroom operates. I will be writing a second article for the next issue covering BarristerWeb and, in a third article, I will be looking at other chambers who are incorporating some “virtual chambers” ideas into their more conventional operation – a sort of virtual chambers by stealth. Clerksroom do […]

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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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