The Internet Newsletter for Lawyers covers how the internet presents the law,
how it widens access to the law, how it is affecting society and the world we live in, how it is affecting legal practice,
getting the best from your website and legal aspects of e-commerce.
The Internet Newsletter for Lawyers has become a community of lawyers, and those working with lawyers, who are
interested in the legal internet from all its "angles" - how it presents the law, how it widens access to the
law, how it is affecting society and the world we live in, legal aspects of e-commerce and websites, how
lawyers themselves use it for communicating and for improving service to their clients, how it is changing
legal practice for both solicitors and barristers, how they use the internet to market themselves and to sell
legal services on the web and IT issues relating to all these topics.
It is typically taken by lawyers interested in how to develop their website and how to make the best use
of resources online (particularly free ones), lawyers looking to develop the services they can offer their
clients, marketing people within firms and chambers working on raising their
profile and getting new work, IT staff responsible for applications related to the internet,
and librarians and information-related staff, who circulate the newsletter to those with a special interest in one or
more topics.
9. Making the Most of the Legal Web 2011 is a new course for solicitors from Nick Holmes and Delia Venables, available now, earning 5 hours CPD from the SRA.
There are two more courses for solicitors AND barristers coming shortly.
The newsletter is primarily a printed publication (not everyone wants to spend their whole day glued to a computer) but it
is also provided in pdf form and online. 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 "print" subscribers
as well as ALL of them available online to all subscribers).
In the March/April 2011 issue we look at Microsoft’s current efforts to increase its penetration of the legal market (beyond the “standards” like Word and Outlook).
We look at who is using the main social networks, describe their key characteristics and suggest how can lawyers get the best out of them.
We continue our series on free web resources with a description of what is available for civil lawyers.
We look at Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and explain how even smaller firms can benefit, without heavy cost.
We catch up on domain name disputes and the typical issues involved.
And finally we complete our series on specialised web sites with a look at two key ways of keeping them up to date.
In the January/February issue, we provide a “catch-up” article on blogging for lawyers.
We look at the pros and cons of specialised websites (including the SEO benefits) and we hear from two firms who have done this.
We continue our series on free web resources for particular work areas with a description of what is available for criminal lawyers.
We review a key hosted system - the Quill Pinpoint outsourced legal cashiering service with information about how it works and interviews with several users.
We look further at Kindle for Lawyers with a review of some of the legal titles now available but we also ask how firms might make use of ebooks on an ongoing basis.
Finally, one practitioner describes how he has finally managed to “go paperless” (after several years of trying).
In the November/December 2010 issue, we look at the free online resources available for the Family Lawyer. This is the first of a series of such articles;
in future issues, we will be covering criminal law, civil law and property law. We continue our series on referral and marketing companies with a look at Lawyer Locator,
based on the long established (printed) Butterworths Law Directory. We have now covered six of the leading referral companies, providing a unique series of unbiased reports.
We look at a new brand called High Street Lawyers; will it be a rival for QualitySolicitors? We cover digital photography for web sites and look at the pros and cons of
different types of licensing - Royalty free v Rights managed v bespoke. We return to the theme of intranets with a look at the lessons one small firm has learned in installing
an intranet; which aspects have been successful and which areas less so. We have covered Software as a Service (SaaS) from several angles in past issues but we look
this time at types of software which make use of the “available from anywhere” characteristics of SaaS to develop types of software which are far better than their “in house”
cousins. We look at econveyancing and particularly at how this is being developed by the Land Registry. Finally, we review the Kindle from a lawyer’s perspective:
is it time to buy one?
In the September/October 2010 issue, we describe how the Government’s new Legislation site is bringing together the previous sources
of legislation. We look at how QualitySolicitors is setting up as a high street brand and aiming to compete with the big commercial brands when
the new LSA services come into being. We cover online discussion groups and consider which are the most useful. Where are we now with ABSs?
We look at referral fees in this context. We complete our series on social media in law firms with a look blogs. We offer two views of how the CPD
market is changing, with webcasts and webinars becoming increasingly popular and how to provide webcasts for your clients.
Hosted and cloud systems are covered with a look at how firms who have already made the move are coping.
And is “freemium” a new concept or just an old idea with new packaging?
In the July/August 2010 issue, Nick Holmes provides a definitive article on free case law: how much is available, where it is,
how well it works (and fits together) and new developments in the pipeline. We look at hosted systems and cloud computing to
see what is currently available in legal software. We cover how law firms are using Twitter and LinkedIn to make the best use of
social media - and which approaches are most important for law firms as distinct from individual lawyers. We look at a lawyer’s
view of Search Engine Optimization (getting to the top of Google) as distinct from a marketing expert’s view – which methods
actually work? We look at a Legal IPhone application called “the law in your pocket”. Is it worth owning? We cover the MOJ portal
on RTA PI claims, and problems with using this. Finally we cover FreeLegalWeb and look at what it is trying to do.
In the May/June 2010 issue, we consider whether law firms should develop a presence on the social networks and we start a series of short
articles on how lawyers can promote themselves effectively, starting with Facebook. We look at the concept of a “virtual chambers” and
what it means to be one. We continue our series on marketing and referral companies with a review of Legallybetter.com. As always
in this series, we include user reviews so you can see what users think of the service in question. We provide a step by step guide to
what you can do to improve the Google rating for your site. We examine DirectLaw, the online document drafting system which enables
firms of solicitors to sell their own documents online, and describe how it works, and what its users think of it. We return to the theme of
what firms can do with social media in an article by a solicitor experimenting with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. We also look at the
MoJ RTA PI claims scheme and try to assess how it is going and also look at Google AdWords as related to the use of (other peoples’)
trademarks as keywords.
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