Internet Newsletter for Lawyers 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. Home Page... Lawyers... Welcome... Individuals... Companies... Students... Search... Newsletter... About Sponsored Links

Contributor to British & Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) (I have contributed £7,000 over the last few years) 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. Main stories in the current issue.... Comments from Subscribers.... Purchase Details September/October 2011 issue Here are the main stories this time: 1. Barrister Amanda Millmore describes how social media was used in the riots, both by the rioters and by the police. She also looks at how social media is being used in evidence and its role in legal procedure. 2. Is the iPad just for geeks or is it useful to the serious (and innovative) lawyer? Solicitor Jon Bloor describes how he has used his iPad daily in his practice as a corporate lawyer. He explains why he finds it so useful and also a few of the downsides. 3. In the May issue, Nick Holmes suggested that particular types of legal publication are under threat : “Legal publishing – the end of print?”. This time we have responses from key publishers as to how they see the future of legal publishing: Chris Hendry of Sweet & Maxwell, Thomson Reuters, Cara Annett of LexisNexis and Masoud Gerami of Justis Publishing. 4. Do you spend a lot of time reading IT journals? Possibly not. Here, Susan Hallam gives us brief catch-up articles on two ebiz topics – do’s and dont’s for email signatures, and all about Google+ (and why Google Circles is better than Facebook). We are planning further catch-up articles over the next few issues. 5. All firms have a website now, but they gradually get out of date. Mindy Gofton and Graham Allchurch of I-COM tell us how to keep a site fresh, interesting and accessible, so as to get new business. It’s all about new business, really. 6. We hear a lot about the value of brands, not only for products but also for legal services. Here we have a dissenting view: Joe Reevy, or Words4Business, tells us why it is so hard to build a brand for a professional service – and why it may be more productive to invest in relationship building instead, using social media. (In the next issue, we will be covering the ongoing development of the Quality Solicitors group - and brand. We welcome varied views!) 7. Earlier this year we covered the (finally successful) conversion of Peter Garsden’s firm, Abney Garsden McDonald, to “paperless”. Here he gives an update of how it has all gone since then. Pretty well, it seems, although there have been some bumps along the way. New CPD courses from Nick and Delia! Legal Web Resources 2011 - all the best (free) legal resources described and analysed Legal Web Issues 2011 - what are the issues most affecting the legal web and how lawyers use it? Making the most of the legal web 2011 - topics, issues and opportunities for solicitors' firms Interesting, useful, low cost and available now! See CPD courses for more. 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 July/August issue we look at the new Justice site and how you can find your way around. We cover Connect2Law, a referral site set up by Pannone with “hubs” and member firms in each region. We look at JustCite, the multijurisdictional citator from Justis which has been enhanced to incorporate details of barristers, cross-linked to their cases. We describe the key sites for keeping up to date with case law – without having to pay a subscription. We look at the new legislation site, now about a year old; whilst there is much to be pleased about, there are still major issues with the quality of the data and how up to date it is. We provide the basics of a social media policy for firms and companies, minimising the risks of social media use without (hopefully) stifling innovative use. Finally, we look at the new Family Procedure Rules and how successful they are being. In the May/June 2011 issue we look at law publishing and ask whether the internet will finally kill the law book. We consider whether hosted systems, outsourced systems and the cloud all mean the same thing and then look at DPS, one of the best established hosted systems with a basic explanation of how it works, as well as comments from users. Despite our generally enthusiastic approach to hosted systems, we look at the problems which can arise with hosting. We describe some of the risks to employers in allowing employees to use Twitter, Facebook or blogging. We look at the free web resources available for property lawyers. We consider Customer (or Client) Relationship and show how even small firms can benefit from managing contacts and prospects better. We cover the data protection issues regarding importing contacts into online networking sites. We mark BAILII’s 10th birthday with highlights of the last decade and an indication of what is to come. 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. 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? Full details on recent issues: July/August 2011 May/June 2011 March/April 2011 January/February 2011 November/December 2010 Note that ALL these are available to subscribers on line. Comments from Subscribers * Richard Susskind... Keep the Newsletters coming. I'm a big fan! * Alison Harvey, Gherson... We are enthusiastic readers of the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers which we find very informative. * Senior Assistant Librarian (Law Lords Library)... I have found it to be an invaluable resource. * Fawzi Zuberi (Partner), Lighthouse Solicitors The newsletters are excellent and have already helped us in terms of giving us ideas on how to develop our I.T systems. * Michael Haddrell, IT Manager, McEwens... The newsletter is a brilliant way to stay updated and connected to all the latest issues and developments. Please, definitely continue our subscription and I am sure you will keep up the good work. * Rowan Alys, Sydney Mitchell..... It's always interesting and informative - and written in the sort of plain English that I can pass on to the non-geeky lawyers in our practice. * Elizabeth Graham, Librarian, Brodies, Glasgow..... I find the newsletter very interesting and informative. Thank you for all your efforts. * Jill Cave-Browne-Cave.... I do enjoy your newsletter very much - it is certainly the best of its kind that I have ever read. May you continue with this, and your other great publications, for very many years to come. * Vivian Grainge, Library and Information Services Manager, Freeth Cartwright I think the newsletter is great. * Richard Jennings, R.D.Y.Jennings & Co, North Yorkshire Please renew subscription - and thanks for another good year. (Other Subscribers) * Thanks for your journal which (somewhat to my surprise since I am not particularly IT focussed) I get more out of than other. * Your newsletter is one publication which I always make sure I read. * I agree with the judges' comments, easy to assimilate, relevant, up to date information. * As a subscriber I read your newsletter with great enjoyment and it is a great resource in so many ways. * The Internet Newsletter is about the best value newsletter my firm subscribes to and I have found it extremely useful both in trying to work out a web strategy and as a "portal" to legal websites which we might otherwise have missed. * I continue to think it is an excellent review of internet activities and just the right size for me to manage! * I am not surprised that you won the award. The Newsletter is an excellent publication and I (and my students) find it of enormous value. * Many thanks for the straightforward instructions on how to arrange access to the Intranet/Multiple Use version. It is refreshing to be able to provide on-line access to a publication via an Intranet without having to go through a long process of negotiating user numbers or having to distribute individual passwords! Purchase Details The Newsletter is produced bi-monthly. There are three types of annual subscription: Personal print subscription £50 per annum (no VAT). This includes online access and pdf access and, for new subscriptions, three printed back copies. Personal online+PDF subscription £30+VAT per annum i.e. no printed copy but access to the online and PDF versions. The PDF version is emailed to you each time. This subscription includes online and pdf access to all past issues online. Multi-use subscription £80+VAT per annum. This includes a printed copy. A multi-use subscription allows you to copy and distribute the Newsletter in print or PDF to others in your organisation and for anyone in the organisation to access the online version via a site login. This type of subscription allows access from multiple locations and is also suitable for Universities and Libraries. You can see what the online version looks like at Nick Holmes' infolaw site (although you will not be able to read the full articles unless you have subscribed). To subscribe, follow the link at the top to "Subscribe". You can pay with your credit card or pay on receipt of invoice. First4Lawyers solicitors specialise in no win no fee injury claims. Whatever your injury, whether you want to make a whiplash claim, back injury claim, head injury claim or have suffered from medical negligence, First4Lawyers can help. We'll give you free help and advice to put you in touch with the right solicitor to handle your compensation claim. Search for Legal Jobs online today. 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