Year: 2007
GLIN access via WorldLII
The Global Legal Information Network (GLIN) of the United States Law Library of Congress is now searchable via the World Legal Information Institute. GLIN Abstracts provides databases from 40 countries: Angola, Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Kuwait, Mali, Mauritania, […]
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The Statute Law Database – an update
It is now 4 months since the Statute Law Database was released to the public. In the first couple of weeks following the launch there was a flurry of comment and criticism; but since then, near silence. Is everyone ecstatically happy with it, reserving their judgment or quietly cursing its shortcomings? I set out to […]
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How to get the best out of a barristers’ clerk
Clerking is an old and very traditional profession. Barristers’ clerks have been looking after the professional and personal lives of barristers for hundreds of years. However, these days, barristers’ clerks are the professional “minder” or “manager” of not just one barrister, but several barristers that make up a chambers. They are the “door keepers” who […]
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Who needs an IT department?
Whether you realise it or not, you are probably already outsourcing at least some of your IT via the Internet and it is likely that you will be outsourcing more and more in the future. In this short article I will show why it makes sense to give serious consideration to this form of outsourcing, […]
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Outsourcing IT for solicitors
Steven Bradley notes in particular a number of Hosted Chambers Management Systems, Hosted Email Services, Telephony Service Providers, and Online Backup Service Providers. This short note covers some other services used specifically by solicitors. Outsourcing accounts and practice management Solicitors can outsource their accounts and practice management systems thus avoiding the need to buy or […]
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Networking LIIs: how free access to law fits together
The networking of free-access Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) has resulted in a network of 15 LIIs providing free access to over 700 databases from 95 countries. Through the largest portal to the network, the World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII), all 700+ databases can be searched simultaneously. The number of databases in the network is growing […]
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Fee-earner profiles on your website
What is the best way to get good fee-earners’ profiles onto your firm’s website? Most clients like learn something about their solicitor. Search engines will also lead a prospective client looking for a particular solicitor, to your website via the profile. People usually enjoy talking about their work, so it is strange that if you […]
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Wiki at work
In the last issue of this newsletter, Steve Butler explained his disillusionment with Wikis – Why Wikis Won’t Work (for The Law). I agree that a website that can be edited by members of the public may not be the best way of compiling “… a multi media encyclopaedia of English law”. However, a Wiki […]
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The influence of the internet on law firm graduate recruitment
A candidate aiming to win a training contract in the modern era will have a great deal of information. Alerted by the careers service to the need to begin research early, he or she will investigate timetables, events and employer options on specialist firm graduate sites, dedicated careers resources such as LawCareers.Net and online versions […]
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Web 2.0 and privacy: risks and solutions
It is sometimes difficult to comprehend how, in the not too distant past, anyone could book a hotel without looking at TripAdvisor or could invite someone out for lunch without checking a user review published in Toptable or london- eating. Today, we rely on the collective wisdom of total strangers (although not necessarily to the […]
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The best web sites from individual barristers offering free (and useful) information
In the e-book with CPD “Changing Practice for Barristers” by Nick Holmes and me, I asked which two of the sites provided by individual barristers the people taking the course (themselves largely barristers) found most useful. Nearly 100 people have now taken this course. Here are the sites I asked them to look at, together […]
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The law wiki dream
In the last issue of the Newsletter, solicitor Steve Butler, who produces the UKLawyers weekly legal newswire, changed his former opinion that a grand centralised law wiki could be an enormously valuable resource (see Why Wikis Won’t Work (for The Law)). Having previously been impressed by Richard Susskind’s comments along these lines Steve now believes […]
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