Web firsts for Murray Stable

The Murray Stable is one of only two of the 11 stables of advocates (forming Faculty Services Limited, the service company of the Scottish bar) to have its own website. Formed in 1991, with 11 QCs and 40 junior counsel, it is the largest and the most innovative of the stables and Iain Murray is […]

Read More

What can law blogging achieve?

Rupert White writes a thoughtful piece on law blogging in the Law Gazette article Logging on to blogging. Having interviewed several leading UK law bloggers, he finds a “deeply personal approach” to what blogging can achieve as a business and marketing tool. Seeing blogs as [a route to market] is … to misread their value […]

Read More

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 […]

Read More

Search in 2005 … and 2006?

John Battelle, former editor of Wired magazine, is the leading commentator on search. In November he published his good read The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture. In the concluding chapter on the future of search he says: As every engineer in the search field loves […]

Read More

Google’s steps towards world domination (2)

Here’s the list. Web search: Google Google Image Search Google News Google University Search Google Blog Search beta Goods and services: Froogle beta Google Base beta Maps and directions; local businesses: Google Local / Google Maps beta (map data from Tele Atlas; business listings from Yell.com) Book content: Google Book Search beta (previously Google print) […]

Read More

Legal process outsourcing

A valuable post on Offshoring from Joy London’s Excited Utterances blog, pointing to the trend in legal process outsourcing (LPO), particularly to India, and providing links to the main players: With the increasing acceptance of India as a preferred offshoring destination, a large number of non-CRM and non-transaction related services are being offshored. Among these, […]

Read More

Links and law

Tim Berners-Lee, father of the web, has published his first blog post as a member of the Decentralized Information Group (DIG) blog. DIG explores technical, institutional, and public policy questions necessary to advance the development of global, decentralized information environments. He points to his Design Issues writings as the home of his previous “blog”. It […]

Read More

Lawfinder open for free browse access

From today there is free browse access to all Lawfinder, the Lawfinder RSS feeds and the related Lawlinker utility. As the web matures, both user expectations of value and our ability economically to deliver that value increase. There are thousands of occasional users of Lawfinder – both lawyers and lay persons – who will benefit […]

Read More

Free forms – revisited (again)

Russell Shepherd of Capform has asked me to correct an error in the previous post, repeated from the Media Guardian article, saying that: We have no intention of introducing charges for our current free forms service on Capform. Capform will introduce new chargeable services next year – but this will not affect the provision of […]

Read More

Google Base – the next step towards world domination?

Google has taken the next step in its quest to “organise the world’s information” with the release of Google Base in beta. “Google Base is a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content that we’ll host and make searchable online. You can describe any item you post with attributes, […]

Read More

Free forms – the reprise

Serial entrepreneur Russell Shepherd has launched Capform, which provides a free library of over 1,000 government forms in HotDocs format for download from the web. The business is essentially the same as Everyform, which he originally set up in 1999 and sold to what is now LexisNexis Butterworths in 2001 for an undisclosed 7-figure sum. […]

Read More

Home Information Pack Draft Regulations

The ODPM has published Draft Home Information Pack Regulations concerned with the meaning of HIP, the contents of HIPs, forms for providing HIP information, assembly and authenticity of HIPs, exceptions to the duty to have a HIP and enforcement of HIP duties. The general content and cost of the pack remain the same as discussed […]

Read More

Exploring the link between law, technology and people

Justin Patten entitles his new blog Human Law with the tagline “Law, Technology and People”, saying in his opening post: “It is my view that a crucial feature of being a successful lawyer is a knowledge of technology just as much as an understanding of the law.” The blog covers IP, IT and Employment law […]

Read More

UK not sold on e-Government?

Kablenet reports that the UK has fallen behind the rest of Europe in usage of e-government services. According to the latest official EU figures: only 31% of individual internet users have accessed information from public authorities – fifth from bottom only 11% of individual internet users have downloaded forms from public authorities – bottom only […]

Read More

Legal Reform White Paper

The DCA has published a white paper The Future of Legal Services: Putting the Consumer First, setting out proposals for the regulatory reform of legal services in England and Wales: The Legal Services Board will provide consistent and independent oversight of “front-line” professional bodies such as the Law Society and Bar Council and promote public […]

Read More