April 2004

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Legal Reference: Law Society Library catalogue online

30 April 2004 in General resources, Law sites

In March the Law Society launched Catalyst, a new online service enabling searches of its complete catalogue of legal publications dating from the 16th century. The catalogue also contains several specialist indexes compiled by the library enquiry team, covering English and European Union cases, EU documents, Commencements of Statutes, Precedents and Frequently Asked Questions. Catalyst offers much more than bibliographic details; it also provides citations for cases, commencement details of statutes and information on the progress of EU proposals.

It claims to be for solicitors, but in fact is unfriendly to all but the information professional. A few improvements would change that:

  • Define the scope of the collections so we know what we’re searching.
  • Provide a ‘simple search’ option for the average Joe Solicitor.
  • Provide more detail in the hitlists – at least the document date.
  • Link directly from each record to a pre-filled online Document Delivery Service order form.

Catalyst

Transport: Forwarderlaw

23 April 2004 in Law sites

Forwarderlaw.com is a comprehensive resource for legal information on freight forwarding, maintained by Peter Jones of the Toronto law firm Paterson MacDougall which specialises in transportation and insurance law. It includes an online commentary to keep you in touch with developments in the law, recent cases on the law of international transport, a section on resolving disputes without litigation and Riskmanager – legal information that forwarders need to manage their business.

Forwarderlaw.com

Data Protection/Marketing: EU guidance on digital marketing

21 April 2004 in Information rights, Privacy

The EU advisory working party on data protection and privacy issues in Europe, made up of the national Data Protection Commissioners of the member states, has published an opinion on the proper interpretation and application of that part of the recent EU Directive on privacy and electronic communications which deals with direct marketing by e-mail or SMS. You can find a brief article on the new guidance on Osborne Clarke’s Marketinglaw website (free but registration required).

EU Data Protection Working Party Documents

Osborne Clarke article

Discrimination: DRC web accessibility report

20 April 2004 in Internet law

The Disability Rights Commission (DRC) last year launched a formal investigation into the accessibility of websites in the UK and has now published its findings: ‘The Web: Access and Inclusion for Disabled People’. Accessibility is a legal requirement under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, but the report concludes that many public websites are impossible for disabled people to use. The DRC investigated a representative sample of 1,000 public websites and of these just 19% met the Web Accessibility Initiative minimum standard. In the second stage of the investigation the DRC conducted a detailed user evaluation of 100 websites, selected from the original 1,000. Of the 913 tasks undertaken by the user panel, around one quarter could not be completed successfully, with blind participants in particular failing to complete around a half. The report contains 15 key recommendations, including the need for best practice guidance and a formal accreditation process to be developed. Egg.com and Oxfam.org.uk were among just five sites praised for their excellent accessibility.

DRC report

Out-Law.com story

Freedom of Information: pressure on for implementation of FoI Act

19 April 2004 in Information rights

As we move closer to the moment when the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is brought fully into force on 1 January 2005, the Department for Constitutional Affairs has released an implementation roadmap for public bodies in England and Wales with guidance on exemptions, networks for FoI practitioners, recommendations on how IT systems should be adapted, and a campaign to increase awareness of the issues. The Act provides for a general right of access to information held by public authorities or by those providing services of a public nature and will apply to some 100,000 public authorities, including Central and Local Government, Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, the armed forces, the police, hospitals, GPs and dentists, schools, publicly-funded museums, libraries and many others. There is concern that many public bodies are not fully prepared, and to pile on the pressure, an independent lobby group, The Campaign for Freedom of Information, has announced it is to launch a campaign later this year to test all local authorities on compliance with the Act by writing to every newspaper editor asking them to test out their local councils as soon as it comes into force.

DCA Freedom of Information Act Project Plan

Campaign for Freedom of Information

Practice Management: Revised solicitors professional conduct rules

19 April 2004 in Legal practice

The Solicitors Incorporated Practice Rules 2004 (SIPR) came into force on 13 February 2004, replacing the 2001 Rules. The new Rules have been incorporated into the The Guide to the Professional Conduct of Solicitors, the Law Society’s definitive authority on the rules and principles of professional conduct for practising solicitors which is available online. The Law Society has also published new rules affecting practice outside England and Wales.

New rules affecting practice outside England and Wales came into force on 17 March 2004. Subject to conditions, solicitors may now practise overseas with non-lawyers, and if they are minority partners in overseas firms of foreign lawyers, will no longer be subject to the accounts provisions in the overseas rules, or required to submit accountants’ reports.

Law Society Guide to the Professional Conduct of Solicitors

Amendments to rules prohibiting overseas practice

Corporate Finance: Takeover Code resources

16 April 2004 in Law sites

Simmons & Simmons’ Takeover Code Resources, launched in February, comprise a collection of tools and resources for corporate finance professionals engaged in UK public takeovers. Simmons & Simmons is a firm with a wealth of expertise in UK public mergers and acquisitions and with lawyers who, through their experiences on secondment with the Panel on Takeovers and Mergers, have an in-depth knowledge of the Code and the workings of the Panel. The subsite offers the facility to search the Code Index, along with direct linkage to the text of the Code itself. The Panel Statements search provides a full set of summaries of all Panel Statements since 1968, again with access to the full text of the Panel Statements themselves. Also published are details of Panel consultation papers and responses. Finally, there is an introduction to the Panel and the Code with draft presentations which can be downloaded in a variety of formats.

Thanks to “hairymary” whose Sparkly Trainers weblog brought this to our attention.

Simmons & Simmons’ Takeover Code Resources

Sparkly Trainers weblog

Legal Practice: New email guidelines for solicitors

16 April 2004 in Legal practice

The Law Society has published email guidelines for solicitors, intended to assist principals or others in solicitors’ firms responsible for drawing up or approving a firm’s email policy. The guidelines deal with such issues as confidentiality, record keeping, the statutory environment, e-commerce, spam and email security.

Law Society Email guidelines[updated]

Intellectual Property: Enforcement Directive

16 April 2004 in Copyright

The European Parliament has voted to approve the controversial Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive by a vote of 330 to 151. While the law was originally drawn up to target professional pirates, criminals and counterfeiters who make copies of goods such as football shirts or CDs, the directive was later expanded to cover any infringement of IP. The directive allows companies to raid homes, seize property and ask courts to freeze bank accounts to protect trademarks or IP they believe are being abused or stolen. below are links to the EU pages and views of European Digital Rights (EDRi), the body representing national privacy and civil rights organisations in Europe, on the Directive and US-based civil liberties organisation IP Justice.

Europa pages on enforcement of IP rights

EDRi views

IP Justice views

Legal Publishers: Lawzone relaunched

16 April 2004 in Law publishing

As presaged in our February item, TheLawyer.com relaunched LawZone last month. All traces of its former identity have disappeared and LawZone is now a subsite of TheLawyer site, presentationally similar to the other main sections, Lawyer News, Lawyer Jobs, Lawyer Diary, Lawyer Directories and Business Watch.

LawZone presents News and Features and Articles provided by law firms and chambers. Apart from length, the difference between features and articles is not clear. These can also be viewed by subject using the Specialist Zones links. Some 30 specialist areas are provided for, though only 11 are currently in use: Banking & Financial Services, Company & Commercial, Consumer, Employment, Environment, Family, Human Rights, Intellectual Property, PI & Clinical Negligence, Public and TMT & E-commerce. In the specialist zones are also presented Lawlinks which in fact are case headnotes with links through to the full text on the Court Service or BAILII. So it’s surprising that Cases does not appear as a main menu item.

All in all this is a slick, straightforward and well-presented site. Though apparently it uses the Sift technology used by the former LawZone, it is quite a different animal with no clutter and a clear focus. The weekly LawZone Newswire (register for it on the site) is similarly well-presented.

LawZone

Centaur sold and Lawzone to relaunch (February)

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