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Wholesale Corporate Blackberry Repair Service
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A new course for Solicitors from Nick and Delia
Solicitors and the Internet 2012
Qualifies for 5 hours CPD from the SRA.
This course looks at ways in which firms can use the internet to increase and improve the services they offer to their clients and also how they can offer new types of service.
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For older (archived) "New" items, see
New from 2008 or
New from 2009 or
New from 2010 or
New from 2011.
Last updated May 14th 2012.
The Telegraph
today carries an article about a speech made by Lord Neuberger, the Master of the Rolls, to the Association of Costs Lawyers.
He said that an alternative to hourly billing for legal work is needed urgently. He said businesses that base their charges simply
on costs “do not deserve to succeed” or even “survive” and that some form of fixed costs for legal work would be a more viable alternative.
Advance information: Online Information 2012, 20-21 November
Online Information is a well established conference and exhibition -
not specifically related to legal topics but of considerable use to legal professionals who want to know what the trends are
in this fast moving business. This year’s event is moving to The Victoria Park Plaza, London from 20 – 21 November,
and will comprise a two day conference and exhibition.
Topic areas will cover: Impact of mobile platforms and mobile working, social business, social media and the cloud,
ebooks, big data, search and discovery solutions, multi-channel publishing, leadership skills and competencies.
The event is not going to be free any longer; there will be a charge to attend the event but even the basic delegate level entrance
ticket will allow access to the conference programme.
Last updated May 8th 2012.
Social Media for Lawyers is a new page on this site, provided by
legal technology expert
Alex Heshmaty.
Alex has also provided two other pages for this site -
Legal Apps for Lawyers and
Legal Apps for Individuals.
Last updated April 20th 2012.
Two new promotion ideas for a niche practice - a free course for landlords and a paid course as well!
The School for Landlords is a free course
for landlords provided by solicitor Tessa shepperson of
Landlord Law.
Someone who registers for the course receives an email each week covering lots of the topics which a
landlord (particularly a "smaller" landlord) needs to know but probably does not know.
Now there is also a paid course called
Easy Law for Landlords.
The paid course is delivered over 20 weeks with articles, a discussion area, taught online tutorials, videos, interviews with industry experts
(with transcripts) and quite a lot of one-to-one contact.
This will launch in May and Tessa tells me that initial registrations are coming in well.
Last updated March 31st 2012.
Kim Tasso's blog on "Observations on the management and marketing of
professional services firms in the UK" is a very informative and lively resource with frequent postings on current
management and marketing topics as well as interviews with key suppliers and commentators. Kim is a highly respected consultant
for law firms in marketing and business development.
Last updated March 18th 2012.
Do you use cookies on your site?
Conscious Solutions have just published a detailed analysis of what
they are recommending their clients as to how they should (and can) comply with the EU Cookie Directive
that was enacted into law last year.
The document can be downloaded from
here
(you do not have to register with Conscious to obtain this document - you can just download it).
This directive is serious stuff! It cannot be ignored.
Have you made a donation?
BAILII was founded in 2000 as a non-profit making charitable trust,
with the aim of making access to primary legal materials free to everyone. It has built and is operating a
subscription-free interactive database of full text primary legal materials available on the internet.
The continued availability and development of the service is of major importance to the practice and teaching of law
but its funding is not fixed or guaranteed in any way. BAILII has been carrying out a major appeal for funds
over the last year. You can read more about this
here. Quoting from this web page...
"The appeal has met with a good initial response from barristers, solicitors, publishers and others who
recognise how useful BAILII is. This has provided BAILII with sufficient offers of funding to see us through
into 2014. However, many of the donations are single donations, and BAILII's income on the basis of existing
offers of donations is not sufficient to meet BAILII's annual expenditure. It will therefore be essential
to continue our appeal by going back to people who donated in 2011 to ask them if they are willing to
repeat their donations, and we will continue to need to appeal to potential sponsors who have not previously
made donations to BAILII."
Last updated March 9th 2012.
A new promotion idea - a free course for landlords!
The School for Landlords is a free course
for landlords provided by solicitor Tessa shepperson of
Landlord Law.
Someone who registers for the course receives an email each week covering: landlords responsibilities,
understanding the legal background, letting agents, choosing and checking tenants, tenancy agreements,
tenancy deposits, rent, landlords repairing obligations, health and safety issues, shared houses and HMOs,
eviction of tenants and (finally) a summary of the topics which have been covered together with a checklist of what to look out for.
There is no charge but under a section called "What's the catch?" Tessa says:
"There isn’t one! Other than that from time to time, we will email you about some of the services offered
by us and our partners. But it is entirely up to you whether you decide to use them. The series will
continue to be sent to you free of charge until it ends or you unsubscribe.
You are under absolutely no obligation to buy anything."
Last updated March 3rd 2012.
LexisWeb.co.uk is a relaunched version of the LexisNexis search engine that provides
a great deal of free legal information and links into paid-for legal content from LexisNexis.
It includes Acts and SI's (as enacted) and cases, which can be searched by practice area or by year. For digests or full transcripts,
or consolidated legislation, you need a LexisNexis subscription.
It is well designed and attractive, as well as easy to use, so it is a useful addition to the free legal resources available online
although other resources, like
BAILII and
legislation.gov.uk provide similar material albeit in a different form.
Last updated February 20th 2012.
A very interesting new development
Riverview Law is the result of a firm of solicitors and a barristers' chambers
coming together to share a brand. The two constituent parts are
Riverview Chambers (Chief Executive barrister Chris Baylis and about
50 barristers who provide direct access on a fixed fee basis) and
Riverview Solicitors (Senior Partner Andrew Reeves).
Riverview Law is based in Bromborough, Wirral, and offers primarily business servicers but with some additional high end personal services such as divorce.
They provide a variety of fixed price annual packages as well as outsourcing services for major corporations.
An extra feature of Riverview Law is free access (as far as I can see, to any client or potential client - you have to register to gain access)
to an online Legal Library with
"over 650 plain English advice pages and over 450 documents, letters and templates". In answer to the question "why are you doing this" they say
"We want to make sure that Riverview Law is at the forefront of your mind when your business next needs legal advice".
Riverview Law is the trading name of LawVest Limited, apparently part owned by DLA Piper.
Last updated February 14th 2012.
Practical law Company (PLC) are now publishing many of their book titles in English law,
Scots law and tax titles online. The books have been licensed from legal publisher Bloomsbury and this
is the first time that the books have been available online.
The book content is integrated within PLC's own content so users can search for content within the books from the
general PLC search and the books are listed under related PLC topics.
You can browse the catalogue
here and there is a free chapter available to view for each book.
The books are made available on a subscription basis and all new editions are made available without additional charge
during the period of the subscription.
You can see more about this
here.
Note - quite a few Scottish titles amongst these online books now.
Last updated February 11th 2012.
Matrix Chambers has made a significant donation to support
the setting up of "Community Law Shops" in Hackney. Through its "Causes Fund", Matrix has pledged to pay towards
the expenses of volunteer solicitors staffing the proposed Hackney Community Law Centre's "Community Law Shops"
for their first two years of operation. The provision of extra solicitors and caseworkers in the Community Law
Shops - supported and supervised by current Hackney Community Law Centre (HCLC) staff - will be a key component of
HCLC’s efforts to engage with the needs of the local Hackney community. The charity is already in talks with the
London Borough of Hackney about identifying potentially suitable venues and premises.
Last updated February 4th 2012.
The Law Society have lunched a new
Advocacy Section. This aims to create and facilitate a community of solicitor advocates.
It will provide mentoring, training and networking opportunities on a circuit and national level and create the framework
to provide the level of support delivered to barristers by their Inns of Court.
The site will focus on the needs of criminal advocates in the first half of 2012
in preparation for the introduction of the new assessment regime, the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA).
The group will also cater for the needs of advocates at the magistrates' and county court levels and for civil, family and children
advocates in due course.
Last updated January 19th 2012.
This is the first product I have come across designed to record time from mobile devices
Airtime Manager are authors of the AP4 solution which
enables users to capture time from their mobile devices such as BlackBerry, iPhone and the Android range of smart phones.
An event capture module accounts for client-related time and expenses associated with wireless calls, email and document
review. A stopwatch function can track meetings, travel time and other billable events. A simple form allows the creation of
time entries on the train, at the airport, or anywhere else, on the run. Billable time and costs are automatically transferred to the
accounting system, or to an administrator for review. There is also a hosted version available for individuals and smaller firms.
Last updated January 16th 2012.
This is an amazing site with some stunning photographs of cities worldwide - do have a look
Kinney Recruiting is a legal recruitment agency with a worldwide presence.
They specialise in the permanent placement of experienced, qualified lawyers in law firms and in-house companies both
in the UK and the rest of the world. The site contains job listings and up-to-the-minute legal headlines.
The Law Society have issued a set of Practice Notes on
Social Media.
The paper describes the main types of social media and distinguishes between them (some are more appropriate to professional use than others);
describes the benefits of social networking in terms of being open to contacts with clients and potential clients but also the risks;
how to keep professional and private uses separate;
how to apply professional standards to these new media;
and how to set up a social media policy for the firm.
Last updated January 13th 2012.
Special New Year offer....
Solicitors Case Management Systems (SC@MS), created by solicitors,
provides case and practice management software for solicitors and
2012 is their 10th year in business. To celebrate, they are making a 10% donation to
charity for the first 10 new orders for software licences that they receive during the year.
(The charities will be selected by the clients.) See
here for more info.
An interesting group of Scottish sites
My Scottish Law blog comes from Bruce de Wert, a Scottish solicitor at
Georgesons Solicitors of Wick and Thurso in Caithness. The blog is updated frequently with
postings on Scottish Divorce, Scottish Powers of Attorney, Scottish Wills and topics relating to Property Law and Estate Agency.
Bruce also offers a number of spcialised sites for the purchase of
wills,
powers of attorney and
divorce services in Scotland,
all at very reasonable rates with a particular emphasis on family law.
Last updated January 11th 2012.
A new development in legal publishing
ICLR Online is the new series of online law reports from
the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting. Now, for the first time, ICLR is publishing its own reports digitally:
previously the reports had been available on CD and online only through third party publishers: Justis, LexisNexis and Westlaw.
ICLR Online includes all the reports published by ICLR for England and Wales since 1865 in each of the various reports series –
The Law Reports, Weekly Law Reports, Industrial Cases Reports, Business Law Reports and Public and Third Sector Law Reports:
over 77,000 case reports to date.
It also incorporates CitatorPlus – a database of information about the subject matter, history, judicial consideration and
current status of over 83,000 cases.
These are not free - they are available on subscription only.
However, The WLR Daily case summaries and case search continue to be offered free
here.
(Thanks to Nick Holmes for this information).
Last updated December 17th 2011.
A new development in legal publishing
Sweet and Maxwell have launched
a legal app for reading their new range of eBooks for which the first is
Archbold: Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice.
The new app, called Thomson Reuters ProView, is the first platform for eBooks that has been built from
the ground up specifically for professionals and over the coming months, a series of other widely used references
on both civil and criminal law will become available. The ProView iPad app can be downloaded free at the Apple App Store.
You can read further details about this new development, including the features which will be particularly
useful for lawyers
here.
Last updated December 12th 2011.
This is an updated entry for One Crown Office Row, who provide a major resource on Human Rights
One Crown Office Row, the Chambers of Philip Havers QC,
is a long established leading civil set with particular strengths in clinical negligence,
other professional negligence, public, administrative and Human Rights
Act law, judicial review, environmental law, personal injury, professional disciplinary, sports law, immigration
and VAT/Tax. They provide a
Human Rights Update on
their site which is a database of over 1000 reports and commentaries on human rights dating back to 1998 with a
weekly update co-ordinated by Chambers Academic Rosalind English. The cases are taken from domestic courts
and the Strasbourg court involving human rights points that demonstrate the impact of the European Convention on
domestic law and also explores the practical impact of these cases for practitioners. This resource is made available free
for all to use (you have to register on site but it is not too intrusive). There is a good search engine and it is possible to
sign up for a weekly update by email. For less experienced users, it includes a practical guide to the Convention and
the Act; what are "Incorporated Rights", "Procedures and Remedies" and so on. The Resources section of the
main site also provides free access to articles authored by Members, details of their cases and materials relating
to their seminar programme including audio files of many of their talks which can also be downloaded as podcasts.
There is also a blog,
UK Human Rights Blog written by members of 1 Crown Office Row,
for more immediate comment and news. This has grown very rapidly and contains over 1000 posts, has 8000 followers
through email and social media and is expected to hit 1 million total “hits” by March 2012. The editorial team consists
of Angus McCullough QC, Rosalind English and Adam Wagner and there are frequent sharp-edged postings which
are often picked up on by the national press.
Last updated December 1st 2011.
There are now two new sections on this web site:
Legal Apps for Lawyers and
Legal Apps for Individuals
These pages have been written by Alex Heshmaty, a freelance writer, web designer and legal technology specialist.
(See www.alexheshmaty.me.uk and
www.legaltechie.co.uk for more about Alex).
Last updated November 15th 2011.
Videoconferencing is growing in importance
Eyenetwork provides videoconferencing services for lawyers
to interview witnesses and take expert testimony or depositions from all around the world.
This service is used both pre-trial to interview witnesses or for additional meetings between Counsel, and during the trial
itself where a live connection is made into the Court room (a "Virtual Court").
A big advantage that videoconferencing has over face to face meetings is that testimonies and interviews can be recorded
for subsequent review.
Videoconferencing, or a videoconference, is also commonly referred to as a video link within courts and the legal profession.
Eyenetwork offers a videoconference network of over 3500 locations around the world. The service allows the legal profession
to use videoconferencing facilities on-demand by hiring the equipment by the hour as and when it is needed.
Latest APP on the scene
CrimeLine, run by Andrew Keogh, has developed an APP
to make searching Bailii easier on mobile devices (Apple at the moment, others on the way).
See more about it
here. It also
allows bookmarking of cases/documents and emailing. The full description says "CrimeLine Law puts the free Bailii databases
in your pocket and gives you access to thousands of cases and statutes. Wherever you have a mobile phone signal, you now
have Bailii in your pocket for speedy access. The APP allows you to bookmark cases or legislation for future quick reference
and you can email cases to others. A donation from sale proceeds of this APP will be made to Bailii
(in 2011 CrimeLine gave £2,500 to Bailii)." You can go straight to the APP
here.
Last updated November 11th 2011.
Legal Futures is an online journal describing itself as
"The essential guide to conduct, compliance and competence, and the Legal Services Act". The editorial team
consists of Neil Rose, Dan Bindman and Antony Collins - all big names in the field of legal journalism and
coverage of significant issues. The current issue contains the story that The Law Society and Solicitors Regulation
Authority (SRA) have hammered out “a permanent resolution” of their long-running internal governance issues.
The aim is for the society to exercise oversight of the SRA without transgressing the Legal Services Board’s (LSB)
internal governance rules that are designed to ensure regulation is independent of representation in split
bodies such as the Law Society, Bar Council and Institute of Legal Executives. The deal has still to be approved by the LSB.
Michael Monahan of Dublin and Sligo,
provides a lively blog on topics relating to personal injury and the Injuries Board. The blog is closely linked to his
website which also contains lots of information and is
very up to date. He includes lots of video clips to keep up the viewer's interest.
This is a very pleasing and imaginative site.
Do you want to go back a little further? Please see
New from 2011,
New from 2010,
New from 2009 and
New from 2008.
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