July/August 2009 issue
Here are the main stories this time:
1. Nick Holmes looks at the development of the Statute Law Database, how it works, the extent to which it can now be relied on and how it is now being integrated with OPSI legislation. What improvements will we see over the year (or years) to come?
2. One Crown Office Row has been providing the Human Rights update for 12 years now. Chambers Academic Rosalind English and Chambers Director Bob Wilson tell us how this developed and what it contains. There are 14,000 registered users so it is certainly being well used!
3. Another key legal resource is the Current Awareness blog from the Inner Temple Library. The Library team describe what it covers and how they have done it, using only freely available software and tools (as well as the considerable library human resource of course).
4. Shireen Smith describes why reputation monitoring is important – you can lose your reputation in moments and in the online world, anything negative can spread quickly and conventional legal tools are incapable of having it removed. She describes how firms (and companies) can first of all keep track of what is being said about them online and then work positively to counteract that bad news.
5. Virtual chambers and virtual firms are regularly covered in this newsletter and, this time, Michael Pope describes how he has set up a virtual firm. He tells us about the software, online tools and working arrangements which make this possible. Now he is looking to expand!
6. Have you ever felt a bit “behind the curve” when you read about Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, Twitter and so on? Nick Holmes gives a simple guide to current social networking tools and considers how they can be used by lawyers (or not).
7. Delia Venables looks at the online legal resources currently provided by firms of solicitors – resources which are not “just” marketing tools but which provide a resource useful also to other lawyers. She covers the twenty most important of these.
8.We describe the two new ebooks with CPD which will be available in August. The material is loosely based on the content of recent newsletters so if you read the newsletter, you will find that you are well on the way to obtaining the CPD!
The newsletter is primarily a printed publication (not everyone wants to spend their whole day glued to a computer) but it is also provided online, without extra charge. You can see what the newsletter looks like here. You cannot see the full stories unless you are a subscriber but you can see how it "looks and feels".
Quick Summaries of Recent Issues
(Printed copies of the most recent THREE issues will be provided free to new subscribers as well as ALL of them available online).In the May/June issue, we tell you about Legal OnRamp, a collaboration system for in-house counsel and invited outside lawyers and why it is important. We suggest that lawyers should not just read other peoples' blogs but should blog themselves. We give you practical advice for writing marketing material and how to make it accessible to the audience yu are seeking. We continue our short series on email marketing with details of the email software you can use, how to manage the list and how to plan a campaign. A solicitor tells us who his firm is using Twitter to tell potential house purchasers about new properties coming on the market and other innovations. We hear about the new Sweet & Maxwell site. We think that voice recognition is now easy to use and we describe how to choose a product, install it and what sort of training is needed.
In the March/April issue, We describe the basic methods of digital dictation, both standalone and in "workflow" systems. We look at how to get a useful (and legally acquired) database of clients, contacts and prospects for an email marketing campaign. We cover the latest developments in Software as a Service (SaaS) - what is available and who is using it. We look at "where we are now" with BAILII and cover how some regional firms are producing their own content and "intelligent documents" online. We have had articles from "virtual" barristers before, but now we hear how one actively practising barrister lives in Morocco. We look at new features for sight impaired visitors and a printout facility for visitors who want to be able to produce a neat record of what they have found. We look at how to persuade people to actually use RSS to gather information as distinct from just knowing about it. Finally, we provide more information on e-marketing including e-publishing, podcasts, partnerships, social networking, blogs, text messaging, web awards, banner advertising, pay-per-click and search engine optimisation.
In the January/February 2009 issue, we look at how law publishing is continuing to change in response to technological change and what will happen next. We hear from a major firm about how a (successful) intranet was developed; we look at one method of enhancing a web site - implementing a purchased data base of information; we cover "fax to email" services and how they work; we look at the new HIP Regulations regarding the ending of the transitional arrangements; we hear about OUP’s new international services online and also a new database of Scottish cases; we look at Richard Susskind’s new book “The end of Lawyers?” and hear about a strategy for e-marketing for chambers.
In the November/December 2008 issue, we look at new sites for price comparison for legal services. We continue our series on how solicitors are protecting their "patch" against legal services provided by non-solicitors with an article from one firm who is providing niche legal services online in the field of landlord & tenant, and another article about setting up a virtual firm to offer in-house legal services in telecommunications and IT. Conventional wisdom provides that multiple web sites (utilising the power of different url's) is a good way to get extra business, but one firm is going in the opposite direction and concentrating all marketing on one web site. We hear from a lawyer who is representing a whole series of individuals who have been sent bullying letters by the games industry, accusing them of copyright offences. We look at some of the very useful business tools provided free by Google. We hear about the new online library service now provided by the Law Society. We hear about an initiative called "FreeLegalWeb" which aims to provide better access to existing web resources for legislation, judgments and other government materials and we provide a checklist of points to remember in implementing an intranet.
Full details on recent issues:
Note that ALL these are available to subscribers on line.
* Richard Susskind...
* Alison Harvey, Gherson...
* Senior Assistant Librarian (Law Lords Library)...
* Fawzi Zuberi (Partner), Lighthouse Solicitors
* Michael Haddrell, IT Manager, McEwens...
* Rowan Alys, Sydney Mitchell.....
* Elizabeth Graham, Librarian, Brodies, Glasgow.....
* Jill Cave-Browne-Cave....
* Vivian Grainge, Library and Information Services Manager, Freeth Cartwright
* Richard Jennings, R.D.Y.Jennings & Co, North Yorkshire
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