IT & the Lawyer

The "Assistant-at-Law" identifies the five biggest wasters of law firm time and resources.

Build your own future, says Professor Richard Susskind to the legal profession.

The Legal Technology Insider newsletter has just come out.

Lizelle Kilbourn gives us twelve tips to allow us to free up some time away from the Inbox.

Recently Richard Susskind delivered the Society for Computers & Law's annual lecture on the topic of "The Next Ten Years".

"Decreasing your staffing ratios is simple, but is it best?" asks Seth Rowland.

Law firm websites range from the excellent to the bizarre and the downright awful.

Learn how to avoid and correct the most common flaws in your firm's web site design.

In Legal Technology Predictions for 2005: Color My World, Dennis Kennedy does some crystal ball gazing.

It is official: lawyers now like e-mail more than the telephone, but they prefer both forms of remote communication to a face-to-face meeting.

Lawyers process information. Today, most of that information exists on paper and in digital format. Adobe Acrobat™ bridges the divide.

Homeowners in England want the technology.

Christian Beck looks at some recent advancements in conveyancing software and at what will be setting the future pace.

A look back at the last decade's winners and losers in the battle for lawyers' hearts, minds and technology dollars.

UK - The legal IT market is maturing as firms slow down in their race to invest in IT.

In this, the first segment of a two-part article, well known writer and speaker, Dennis Kennedy, sets forth his legal technology predictions for 2004.

The Law Society of Scotland has decided to pull the plug on its Lawseal secure e-mail project.

Mydoom, a new computer virus spreading by e-mail, is breaking records for new infections and fouling up networks. It generated more than 100 million infected e-mails in its first 36 hours.

In Seven Easy Ways for Law Firms to Throw Away Money on Technology, in Law Practice Today, Dennis Kennedy contemplates the ease with which firms waste technology expenditure.

UK lawyers are arrogant, ignorant and they still don't understand IT - and those are the politer things said about them!

A fascinating picture is beginning to emerge of the trends in Internet growth, electronic banking and e-commerce. Well-known local commentator Arthur Goldstuck pulls together the threads of various research projects.

The Batho Pele Gateway portal is now a useful single-entry point to both government information and government services.

Tesco has just launched its Legal Store thereby adding legal services to its range of consumer products.

If you think you don't have spyware on your network, you're probably wrong, Chris Hayes investigates this aspect of the Internet.

Conveyancers are at the forefront of legal IT use and adopting the latest technologies.

Disaster recovery for small and medium firms is eminently worthy of one's attention, according to disasterrecoveryworld.com.

In Strategies for law firms: The use of technology and technology platforms, Sean Bosse maintains that law firms will succeed once they understand and apply the benefits of technology to their business.

Property Direct is the largest solicitor's conveyancing operation in the UK and their entire conveyancing operation is handled online.

Could be because you have a jerky, dirty mouse.

This précis of a presentation given by Brian Blackwell and Allan Carton at Legal IT 2003 in February highlights the need for conveyancing firms to embrace technology to increase their profitability.

In this the second segment of a two part article, well known writer and speaker, Dennis Kennedy, continues with his legal technology predictions for 2003.

On 31 December 2000 and 31 December 2001, Microsoft terminated its support for Windows 95 and Word 95 respectively.

A useful article by Wendy Werner in Law PracticeToday gives tips on how and why law firms should spend more time on client development.

Most legal firms have invested significant sums of money in technology. However, it is widely recognised throughout the legal profession that lawyers have not succeeded in harnessing the full return on investment (ROI) potential of their investment.

In the April/May 2003 edition of The Property Professional, Richard Gahagan (CEO of Property24) remarks that estate agencies need to choose the right technology partner.

Richard Susskind, described in an interview as the "new media guru" and "the most accurate of futurologists", has a vision for the future of technology and the legal profession that is both alarming and compelling.

In an article in the Law Gazette on 21 March, Charles Christian advises solicitors on the best ways to keep up with the rapidly changing technology market and the benefits that such developments can bring to firms.

The phrase "The Digital Lawyer" was first coined by Professor M. Ethan Katsh in a series of articles and his book, Law in a Digital World. What does it mean?

Emerging technologies are making the legal marketplace more competitive in South Africa, yet lawyers continue to deliver traditional methods of service. Why?

This is a must-read white paper by Charles Christian, which appears on the Legal Technology Insider website. He provides a concise overview of developments in the online world and then comes up with ideas and practical advice to help firms determine their Internet and online legal business strategies.

E-mail is becoming more widely used and vital to the practice of law - how one can use it more effectively and efficiently is the subject of an article by Dan Pinnington on the Law PracticeToday web site.

WinXfer Plus is a useful bulk search tool for property transfers. It is used by amongst others financial institutions, mortgage originators and estate agencies to retrieve information from the deeds office about South African property sales.

A survey by the Law Society of England and Wales into the extent and nature of solicitors' use of information and communication technologies has revealed that their reluctance to use computers is holding back universal desktop PC access at small and mid-sized law firms.

Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP is a United States Law firm with over 1600 PC users, including 600 attorneys. This Case Study documents their implementation of GhostFill Document Assembly and Document Management software during 2003.

The smaller legal firm has very real and immediate problems facing it. These include rising overheads and an inability to afford the real cost of technology, including the purchase price, training, support and replacement. Time spent on administration as against fee earning is also high.

During the last week two insidious viruses have blighted the business world, causing much irritation, damage and embarrassment all round. These are the W32/Sobig.f@MM and W32.Blaster high-risk worms (a worm is a variant of a virus).

Buying a good monitor can be confusing, what with terms like "dot pitch" and "bezels". This article, by Rhoda Alexander of Stanford University, should go a long way to putting you in the picture.

In this article from TechnoLawyer.com, legal technology consultant John Heckman discusses the basic functionality of document management systems, including a checklist of features to help you decide which ones are essential to your firm.

Will the provision of IT services eventually be as easy as obtaining water or electricity, where the flick of a switch or the turn of a tap provides as much of the resource as is required?