The following items have been selected from Delia Venables’ “New” page. They appeared in Legal Web Watch October 2015. Legal Web Watch is a free monthly email service which complements the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers. To receive Legal Web Watch regularly sign up here.
New site created to link available lawyers with needs for representation
AvailableLawyers provides a way for lawyers to show their availability for court and tribunal representation in particular locations and for those needing representation to find them. Every court in England & Wales, and every field of law, is covered and major tribunals are also included. The site is for the use of all lawyers and legal staff. The site does not take any type of advertising, so impartiality is maintained.
ICLR have provided an Anniversary Edition of the Law Reports (after 150 years)
ICLR has been providing case reports for 150 years. To celebrate this, they have put together a special Anniversary Edition of the Law Reports which includes the 15 top cases voted for by readers together with additional commentary and introduction essays. They have divided their history into five periods, and allowed a month for voting to take place from each period. The results and commentary from all the periods is available here. Happy Birthday ICLR!
Help for law students from lawbore
lawbore from Emily Allbon of City University Law School, have put together a new A-Z video guide to starting a law course (only 13 minutes) and there is lots of other good stuff on their site too including Topic-themed guides to the legal web and Multimedia law tutorials & features.
New employment resource for Commercial and Employment Law
Duggan Press has been established by Michael Duggan QC to publish high quality practitioners’ Textbooks in the field of Law and Human Resources. There is also a case updater which refers to the cases, both reported and unreported, on an A-Z basis, making it easy to see what cases have been decided in a particular field and where the cases have been reported. This is free for 2015 but will require a subscription from 2016. There is a also a series of very detailed briefings from Michael Duggan on recent cases of significance provided without charge.
New Law Society Guidance on how to comply with the EU Directive on Consumer ADR
The Law Society has changed its advice for firms on compliance with UK regulations which transpose the EU Directive on consumer alternative dispute resolution (ADR Directive). This is in response to the unexpected withdrawal of the Legal Ombudsman’s (LeO) application to the Legal Services Board (LSB) to become certified as an ADR approved body for the purposes of the ADR Directive. Although the Legal Ombudsman has withdrawn its application, solicitors must still comply with the government regulations. New requirements will apply from 1 October 2015 in relation to the information solicitors are required to provide to clients at the end of a solicitor’s internal complaints process.
Bar Council announces the first ever “Pupillage Fair” for 21st November
The Bar Council’s “Pupillage Fair” will take place on November 21st, the first ever event of its type. The day will provide a key opportunity for any student looking for a career at the Bar to meet and engage with chambers, other pupillage providers and course providers. There will also be an opportunity to learn about learn about the Bar Council’s online application system for pupillage and to speak to representatives from different Specialist Bar Associations. Pupillage providers have to pay a fee, but I could not see any reference to the potential barristers having to pay anything.
Legal Software Suppliers Association (LSSA) is set to launch a free conveyancing portal
The Legal Software Suppliers Association is a very important body in the legal software world, with all the main legal suppliers as members and a very coherent and co-operative approach. It sets the standards and the framework for legal software in the UK. Now, it has developed a free conveyancing portal (called Free2Convey). It has been developed by the group specifically to integrate with the members’ conveyancing software. This is a very important develoment since it will provide an alternative to Veyo and Hoowla. The aim of all these conveyancing portals is to provide the overall structure for a conveyancing transaction, linking all the relevant parties – individuals, solicitors, Land Registry and so on – in a simple overall “view” of the transaction. The problem with any such portal is that all the parties have to “buy into it” – if that is not the case, the overall picture cannot be presented. Since the LSSA software, due to be launched at the end of September, will be provided free to users of the key software systems, there should be no barrier to everyone being part of it. More on this story from Legalfutures at here.
Legal DNA Services go super-fast (next day results)
DNA testing: the fastest route to the truth provides a description of the new next-day service of Legal DNA testing for solicitors, courts and local authorities from AlphaBiolabs. They are also introducing new lower cost prices as DNA testing services for legal reasons are becoming more efficient than ever before. There is also free sample collection from various walk-in centres.
Co-op launches new “fixed price” services
The Co-operative legal site is now headed “The Fee We Quote is the Fee You Pay. When we have provided a written quote for the agreed work, that price will not change.” The website specifies fixed fees and Solicitor hourly fees for services such as Probate, Making a Will & Family Law, where the client wishes.
Legal experts discuss topical issues in this new podcast series from Oxford University Press
Law Vox is a series of podcasts involving talks with legal experts from a wide variety of subject areas who discuss their work.
- Mary Bosworth talks about immigration detention
- Jeremy Phillips talks about intellectual property law
- Charles Proctor talks about international banking law
- Christopher Kuner talks about data privacy law
- Tom Cross and Hafsah Masood talk about Religious Freedoms and Religious rights
- Frank Wijckmans talk about competition law
- Kenneth Hamer talks about professional conduct cases.
- Nigel Blackaby and Constantine Partasides talk about international arbitration
- Nikoletta Kleftouri talks about deposit protection and bank resolution
- Loukas Mistelis talks about international arbitration.
All the podcasts are completely free to listen to – good for using time otherwise “wasted” in car journeys, train journeys, running, washing up….
DPS sets up a sister company in Sri Lanka to find, and make use of, new software talent
DPS now has 10 full time web developers in the new SRI Lanka company engaged in developing new projects that are at the cutting edge of legal software development. DPS believe that the market is moving to a full software-as-a-service model and that the key to success is to continue to develop products specifically built for this model, for example with new levels and types of security, rather than just adapting current software to run online. DPS have been providing innovative legal software for 30 years – I can vouch for this since I have known them for most of this time and they have always been a major contender in the legal market. They are now apparently the largest legal cloud provider on the market, hosting over 140 legal businesses across the UK. See more here.
Delia Venables is joint editor of the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers. Follow her on Twitter @deliavenables.
