Author: Delia Venables
Delia Venables founded her Legal Resources website in 1995 and the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers in 1998. She edited the Newsletter jointly with Nick Holmes from 2007 to 2018. Email deliavenables@gmail.com. Twitter @deliavenables
Practice management systems in the cloud
The phrase “in the cloud” has only been in common use for two or three years. Previously, phrases like “hosted systems”, “outsourced systems” and “software as a service” (SaaS) were used instead, and meant much the same thing, but the take-up of such systems was rather slow. Now, nearly all the major suppliers of legal […]
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Barristers Public Access: How successful has it been so far?
Many chambers and individual barristers are represented on my web page . I contacted them recently to ask if they would give me their views on how successful the Public Access scheme has been so far and how they see it developing in the future. Here are their responses, mainly from groups of barristers working […]
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The case for offering free legal advice
In the last issue, Shireen Smith of Azrights Solicitors explained why she thinks that giving free legal advice to attract clients is a bad idea. She thinks that lawyers who do this are letting themselves be taken advantage of and that they should not give away their “treasure trove” for free. However, Shireen is an […]
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The end of print? Not yet!
Looseleafs still have their fans Our series on “Law publishing – the end of print?” was launched with an article by Nick Holmes in the May/June 2011 issue. He suggested that particular types of print are under threat – particularly looseleaf. In the September/October 2011 issue, we carried responses from several key legal publishers, in […]
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QualitySolicitors – how is it going?
Delia Venables talks to Craig Holt Delia: How many firms are there now in the Quality group? (You do not keep a list of these on your site at qualitysolicitors.com). And what number are you aiming for? Craig: We’re currently up to about 110 QS firms, which equates to around 220 “branches” across England & […]
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Connect2Law – referral with a difference
Basic Information from Paul Coombes, of Pannone LLP The Connect2Law network for law firms was established in 2001 by Pannone LLP. There is no cost to membership and the primary benefit was to offer member firms the ability to service their clients in areas of law they didn’t undertake themselves by referring them to Pannone. […]
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Key sites for keeping up to date with case law
BAILII (the British and Irish Legal Information Institute) provides access to the most comprehensive free and up-to-date collection of British and Irish primary legal materials on the internet with 76 databases covering 7 jurisdictions including the Court of Justice of the European Communities and the European Court of Human Rights. Also on BAILII are Law […]
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DPS hosted systems
Over recent issues, we have covered hosted systems in a number of ways, including reviews of several products and services, with comments from users. In this article, we look at the DPS hosted solution. Founded 25 years ago, DPS Software is one of the UK’s leading providers of case management and accounting software with over […]
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Keeping a specialised website up to date
In the last issue, we discussed the pros and cons of setting up specialised websites with contributions from two firms who are doing this (Bonallack & Bishop and Douglas Silas) as well as two specialists in legal marketing (Sue Bramall and David Gilroy). One of the points made in the article was that keeping specialised […]
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Transcripts of Judicial Proceedings in England and Wales
This Guide, published by the Inner Temple Library and compiled by Sally McLaren, is a revised and expanded edition of the Library’s 2006 guide. It is intended primarily for information service staff who need to obtain transcripts of the proceedings of courts and tribunals in England and Wales. The guide (in PDF) costs £19.99. Details.
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Specialised websites
Most specialised websites relate to a particular work area, usually with a work-related domain name. Instead of a firm trying to cover all its work areas in one website, the task is split up into a number of separate sites with each concentrating on one legal area. I have collected all the firms with specialised […]
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Quill Pinpoint outsourced legal cashiering service
Outsourcing and hosted systems are topics we have covered frequently in the Newsletter over recent issues since we consider that these developments will, over the next few years, transform the legal IT world. Quill Pinpoint (www.quill.co.uk) was established by Tony Landes in 1978 to supply legal software, with Hilary Fisher joining in 1979, Andrew Sherwin […]
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