Year: 2013
The web is (only) 20 years’ old
On 30 April 1993 CERN published a statement that made World Wide Web (“W3”, or simply “the Web”) technology available on a royalty-free basis. By making the software required to run a web server freely available, along with a basic browser and a library of code, the web was allowed to flourish. British physicist Tim […]
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Skype for lawyers
Launched in 2003, Skype was one of the first mass market freely available forms of internet video conferencing. It took advantage of early developments in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology to allow users to communicate with each other using their microphones and webcams. Previously video conferencing had been prohibitively expensive for the general public […]
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Responsive web design
(with Chloe Dennis) How many types of device might you view a website on during the course of your week? We are becoming used to accessing the internet anytime and anywhere on whatever device we have to hand. Our choice of device at any time depends on personal preferences, availability and the ability to use […]
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What’s up GOV?
If you’ve recently used any government service online you will probably have been directed to GOV.UK. On 17 October 2012 it replaced Directgov and BusinessLink as the place to go for government services. And on 15 November the first government departmental and agency websites started their migration to the Inside Government section of GOV.UK. As […]
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Don’t let the hype cloud your judgment
I can remember the days when computer storage meant a stack of punched cards and disk drives were measured in kilobytes rather than petabytes; when offsite storage meant the boot of the office manager’s car. I am not very old. Now, even the smallest law firm uses computers and it is possible to run a […]
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LawSauce – a new legal app
Description (By Delia Venables) LawSauce is written by Ruth Bird (University of Oxford, Bodleian Law Librarian) and Natalie Wieland (Legal Research Skills Adviser, Melbourne Law School). It is an e-resource locator developed to quickly locate the right legal web resource for legal tasks, which can otherwise be a very complex task. LawSauce includes nearly 8,000 […]
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Panopticon – a favoured information law blog
In the CPD course Developments in the Legal Web 2012 prepared by Nick Holmes and me, we asked participants which of the sites covered in our Chapter 4 – Keeping up with tech, media and IP law – they would find most useful. A clear winner in the participants’ preferences was Panopticon, from the 11KBW […]
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Direct Access barristers – getting clients online
Direct access is currently having a powerful impact for Chambers and their Direct Access barristers and teams; it is creating opportunities for chambers to forge new initiatives and collaborate with other professional groups, businesses and individuals at a time of rapid change in the legal services environment. Indeed, for many chambers it is the largest […]
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Legal IT Inside(r)
We’re pleased to welcome on board as a regular contributor Charles Christian of Legal IT Insider. Charles has been writing about legal IT since about the time it was invented and we’re sure his experience and insights will be welcomed and eagerly consumed. He will be contributing with each online issue – view his archive.
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Disruptive technologies – you ain’t seen nothing yet!
Over the last couple of years there has been a lot of debate in the legal IT world about the “consumerisation” of technology and, in particular BYOD (Bring/Buy Your Own Device). Or, to put it another way, how to cope with equity partners who demand they be able to access all their files on an […]
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Legal service providers – who are you afraid of?
We have certainly seen the development of some big bad wolves in 2012. Perhaps “afraid” isn’t the right word, but who are the threats? Of the new breed of legal services providers, who should law firms be paying attention to? In this article I offer some views on several wolves who are definitely worth watching. […]
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Tomorrow’s Lawyers
Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future is a new book by Richard Susskind, published by Oxford University Press, January 2013. It is smaller and more compact than Richard’s previous books and inexpensive (in paperback at £9.99) but contains the condensed and assimilated wisdom of one of the most important thinkers that we have about […]
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