Year: 2007
Voice recognition – especially for emails
Voice recognition has progressed enormously from the early days when you had to spell everything using the phonetic alphabet, alpha, bravo, etc. It is now a very useful tool if used in the correct way. My views are shaped by what I do as a sole practitioner in a small rural town offering the traditional […]
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Virtual chambers – the model for the future?
In the traditional model of a chambers, individual barristers cluster together to share premises, staff and administrative services. With the maturity of the internet, however, and particularly with the advent of cheap and easy broadband, barristers do not have to be physically close to each other in order to share staff and admin. In many […]
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Business simulations for legal training
Before looking at legal training programmes, consider for a moment how you would train a commercial pilot. Would you: explain the theory of aviation give them a manual followed by a test followed by a demonstration and then let them practise until they get it right? Probably not. Where the stakes are high and failure […]
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A brochure by another name
Long before the internet was invented, all important legal practices had a brochure. No one knew how much business it generated but if you did not have one you were not important and had no chance of ever acquiring a decent new client in the commercial sector. Often it seemed as if the brochure was […]
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Changing practice management systems
To understand the changes currently being made in practice management systems it is worth first having a quick run through the history of this type of software. The first PMSs differed from their predecessor, the humble accounting system, by being based around relational database management systems. This enabled law firms to produce more meaningful management […]
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The IP law wiki
Earlier this summer a group of enthusiasts met in Room 6 of Olswang’s London office to discuss the potential uses of wikis within the field of intellectual property (IP). Some were committed to the wiki concept, others sceptical, the rest open-minded. The outcome was the Room 6 Initiative ”” a proposal to seek funding to […]
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A virtual chambers – BarristerWeb
BarristerWeb was the first virtual chambers, having started around 7 years ago. They describe themselves as a “traditional chambers at internet speed”; they do just about everything which a traditional chambers does, but without a large physical presence. They have a small office for the Chambers Director, Neil Goodman-Smith, the Senior Clerk Andrew Hutchins and […]
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Web 2.0 – and some of the legal issues
For the legal world attempting to come to terms with the implications of the internet, the thought that the world has already moved on may come as something of a shock; however, such is the case. Web 2.0 is upon is – even if Web 1.0 doesn’t seem to have been fully assimilated. Web 2.0 […]
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Domain names – where we are now
Originally invented in 1983, the domain name system (DNS) has come a long way in the last quarter of a century. From humble beginnings as a loosely controlled system regulated by universities and dedicated individuals who maintained simple text files of the data relating to a domain space, the DNS has developed into a massive […]
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Divorce-Online advertises on YouTube
Divorce-Online, the online divorce service, has recently expanded its marketing from a purely web based exercise into television and online video marketing. We find that the problem with pure web search advertising is that you only present yourself to people who already want the service. We decided at the end of 2006 that in order […]
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Eight years of elexica
Clients tell us they want current, relevant and commercially astute know how delivered in ways that make it easy for them to use it, whenever and however they want. Since 1999, elexica has been the means by which Simmons & Simmons markets its legal services and expertise to contacts and clients, potential recruits and the […]
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Legal outsourcing trends and possibilities
I became involved in offshoring in the mid 1990s whilst practising as a solicitor. The aim at that stage was solely to outsource client firms’ typing and transcription requirements to Indian legal secretaries with a view to achieving guaranteed turnaround targets and at the same time reducing costs. The business worked well because it delivered […]
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