Articles
Is blogging good for business?
First published May 2006 in in the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers. The so-called blogosphere (the world of blogs) now occupies the position that the web itself did 10 years ago. Hands up those who, in 1996, did not appreciate the significance of the web? So now with blogs – you can’t afford to ignore them. […]
Search engine optimisation
First published January 2006 in the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers. What is search engine optimisation? Search is big business – the driver of e-commerce. In the early days of the web most users used portal sites and directories to navigate their way to what interested them. Today the web is so vast and users’ needs […]
The return of browser wars
First published January 2005 in the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers. The application that enables web pages to be viewed and used to process and send information is the web browser. Not only does the browser colour our perception of the web, but as more and more applications are written for use with browsers, it has […]
Five Years of Free Law – the BAILII celebration
First published December 2004 in Computers and Law Lord Justice Brooke chaired the legendary “Free the Law” meeting at Chatham House in London which gave birth to the body we now know as BAILII. 1 November 2004 saw him again in the chair, this time to host a celebration of its first five years. He […]
Forms on the Web
Published in the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers, March 2003 Since the early 1990s electronic forms have been a staple purchase for many firms. The introduction of laser printers and WYSIWYG word processors (What You See Is What You Get) and forms design applications enabled suppliers readily to create and distribute their own proprietary electronic versions […]
No more Pages on the Web
From December 1995 to February 2002 I had a long spell as the web columnist for the Solicitors Journal, my “Pages on the Web” appearing monthly. My final fling – an A to Z of the legal web, was cut short when they ditched the column.
E is for …
A Page on the Web, published in the Solicitors Journal, February 2002 E is for ‘electronic’, or rather ‘using the internet to undertake’ – as in ‘e-commerce’. (Now that doing business on the internet is commonplace, the term ‘e-commerce’ has lost its cachet and I suspect will soon fall into disuse.) This month we look […]
D is for …
A Page on the Web, published in the Solicitors Journal, January 2002 Databases Databases are ubiquitous on the web. There were of course countless databases maintained for publishing, information and sales purposes before the web entered the public consciousness. Many of these same databases are now searchable from the organisations’ websites and many others have […]
B is for … | C is for …
A Page on the Web, published in the Solicitors Journal, November 2001 BAILII BAILII (www.bailii.org) should now be a familiar name to all. If not to you, then go to Laurie West-Knights pages at www.lawonline.cc/ukileli.htm for a run-down (he, the driving force behind it). A full transcript of the recent ‘Freeing the Law’ meeting is […]
A is for …
A Page on the Web, published in the Solicitors Journal, October 2001 Advertising Circa the year 2000 (or Y2K as we then knew it) the web was all about advertising. Here’s the way it turned out for some. Scenario 1: Have an idea; do persuasive business plan; raise £millions from easy-to-persuade venture capitalists and public; […]
In too deep
A Page on the Web, published in the Solicitors Journal, September 2001 I have busied myself recently with the redesign and relaunch of the infolaw website. The main purpose of the site, since its inception in February 1995, has always been to provide ready access to free UK legal resources on the web – a […]
Towards more accessible law
First published in the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers, September 2001. The public provision of law on the web leaves much to be desired: it is not comprehensive it is not “joined up” it is not easily accessible. This article takes stock of the current position and looks at ongoing initiatives to improve it. It refers […]
Accessible law?
A Page on the Web, published in the Solicitors Journal, July 2001 I first read about the web in an article in the Guardian in December 1993. This was just the ticket. Built on the internet – a network of networks that could connect everybody together – the enticing thing about the web (which in […]
e-Government beckons
A Page on the Web, published in the Solicitors Journal, June 2001 The Office of the e-Envoy (www.e-envoy.gov.uk) is leading the drive to get the UK online, to ensure that the country, its citizens and its businesses derive maximum benefit from the knowledge economy. The Government’s programme to ensure that the UK is a world […]
Free legal web services
A Page on the Web, published in the Solicitors Journal, May 2001 Last month we looked at the extent to which you might meet prospective clients’ expectations for free online legal advice and information. Let’s turn the tables and see what legal information you can reasonably expect to be provided free on the web. A […]
