Month: May 2010

Facebook for law firms

Should law firms develop a presence on the social networks? A small minority of individual lawyers actively network on blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter and perhaps also on Facebook, though the majority are infrequent users of these services. Now law firms themselves are taking tentative steps to establish an official presence. In the first of a series […]

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Clerksroom – a virtual chambers?

The meaning of the word “chambers” depends on who you ask, or where you look for the answer. The Bar Standards Board defines the word through the code of conduct and its use has many meanings in the code. The Bar Standards Board and the Bar Council records office allow you to elect to be […]

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Legallybetter.com – based on client ratings and reviews

Legallybetter opened for business in January 2009 to provide a quick and reliable way to compare solicitors and then find a solicitor, for private individuals and for businesses. Its unique feature is that it brings independent consumer reviews and ratings of solicitors from around the UK together in one place. These have come from unsolicited […]

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Guide to SEO for law firms

This article is intended as a step-by-step guide to optimising your website from a Search Engine Optimisation point of view (SEO) – in other words, how to be “found” by the major search engines and given a good position in the results page. Let’s suppose that your law firm has offices in Swindon, Wiltshire and […]

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DirectLaw – online document drafting

Directlaw is an online document drafting system which can be set up by firms of solicitors to sell their documents online. A bit of history Document drafting systems have been around for at least 15 years and are used by many firms internally to create documents quickly and efficiently. The process is generally under the […]

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Social media in Scotland – a lawyer’s view

Web 2.0 has come and ”¦ well that is generally about it. Within a fairly staid and traditional Scottish legal fraternity, to date fragmented and inconsistent use has been made of the tools of Web 2.0. A number of smaller firms have started to make use of the internet as a means of communicating with […]

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The RTA PI claims process – a new dawn?

The MoJ RTA PI claims scheme, introduced on 30 April, provides fixed stages and costs for claims valued between £1,000 and £10,000 – the vast majority. The process is effected via the new MOJ electronic portal in three stages, with tight timescales: (1) The claimant solicitor completes the claim notification form and sends it to […]

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Google wins AdWords battle – but not the war

The long-awaited European Court of Justice (ECJ) decision as to whether Google’s AdWords service constitutes trade mark infringement has been reached. In 2005 LVMH owner of luxury brand Louis Vuitton successfully sued Google in France for trade mark infringement and was awarded £278,000 in damages. The Paris Tribunal of First Instance agreed with LVMH’s arguments […]

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