Category Archives: Legal

General IT, Legal

Internet Blackout N.Z

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The whole music and film industry against “the internet” is getting a little ridiculous. From the Pirate Bay trial (follow it on twitter) this week to the Davenport Lyons debacle (yes, debacle! a friend of mine got a letter and the one piece of evidence? An IP address, I mean come on!)

Through following Stephen Fry on twitter I come across this law being put into effect in New Zealand. From what I can tell a section of this law will allow “for internet disconnection based on accusations of copyright infringement without a trial and without any evidence held up to court scrutiny”. Basically if you’re accused, your internet connection is taken down!

Find more details at http://creativefreedom.org.nz/

I don’t even think the whole copyright theft or illegal file sharing is the root issue. I think it’s the fact that the music industry and film industry know they were too late to the internet party and rather than use technology to innovate they got scared and decided to use what they know, the law.

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Legal

Are you ready for the upturn?

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There is so much in the news about the economic turmoil. Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Hammonds making redundancies, we’re questioning the very make up of our firms, Osborne Clarke outsourcing staff, the list goes on and on. Then there’s the commentators all over the media predicting the worst recession since 19xx and our own Prime Minister making a “slip” and claiming we’re in a world depression! What with the weather as well (Brits, we always give a mention to the weather!), you just want to bunker down and hope it goes away quickly, right?

So is now the time to ask whether we’re ready for the upturn?

I say “Yes I think we should” and I think others are starting to give the same answer. Seth Godin this week makes a case for getting some breathing room and being creative at times like this to “change the game”. Lee Bryant of headshift, again this week, puts forward a case for using the recession as an opportunity to introduce web 2.0 into Law Firms.

Now is a time for support departments in law firms to shine, a time to equip the firm for the upturn. While the lawyers work hard to keep the clients and win the business in a difficult market, the support staff can ensure things are ready for when the firm begins to grow again. Because irrespective of all the comment on whether things will get worse or when things will end, one thing is for certain, it will end and there will be an upturn in the economy!

What can we do?

  • For years in the “good times” we’ve wished for a period of consolidation to shore up the foundations. A chance to get those IT systems “sorted”, a chance to really look at costs and get even better deals with suppliers, exploit the the systems we have rather than add more systems, a chance to exploit Knowledge Management and show the value it can really deliver (I’m not a KM practitioner, but read Karen and Toby’s articles), etc
  • It’s a time to look at those destructive technologies. How can we get these into organisations, ready to be exploited when the upturn appears. And not be chasing the pack trying to implement these systems when they are the norm and our firms are growing. Remember some of the new technologies now will be the next equivalent of corporate email (and email will probably be dead!).
  • Time to be wary and look after your remaining staff. Growth will bring churn into your departments, there will be opportunities galore for people as other firms grow and need to move beyond the skeleton staff they’ve had to operate with under current times. Your best people will be out the door first if they haven’t been “looked after”.
  • Maybe now it’s time to use any downsizing to re-organise and refresh your teams, mould them for what’s to come. Not for what is now!

But basically get out of the bunker, be creative and get ready! The upturn is coming!

Update: I wrote this Wednesday evening and scheduled it to post on the blog today. Every day though I realise getting back in the bunker is so easy to do, today I find a relative is facing redundancy and all those questions and worry creep back! I still stand by the post though, the upturn will come and for those of use fortunate to keep our jobs the time to look ahead and get creative is now!

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Legal

The law firm of the future

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Seven years ago we had a training day for the IT department, we were set a task to set a task to prepare a very short presentation on “The Law Firm of the Future”.

The reason I remember this was thanks to an article I saw re-tweeted on Twitter last week from the Financial Post in Canada. The article was about changes in law around the globe that effectively enables law firms to launch an IPO.

This reminded me of a slide we put together in that 2002 presentation:

futurelaw1

Looking at the rest of the slides some of our other points weren’t bad either.

  • Fixed price contracts for legal work, leading to lawyers working on projects rather than cases.
  • Full project management expertise for the legal project manager who has a team of lawyers, secretaries, IT personnel etc for each project.

These two bullets may be specific, but I think we were trying to point out that the traditional bill by the hour partnership model would not last. Quite in line with current “in vogue” thinking during the today’s economic climate (for example, see Optima Legal’s warning on small firms and the Adam Smith, Esq. blog report from the London City firms)

Not bad thinking for a bunch of IT geeks!

Back to the IPO point in the Financial Post though. I wonder how long it will be before we see the first IPO of a larger firm? Given the current economic turbulence, probably not soon. But thinking about the proceeds an IPO would probably realise for partners of a top 200 firm, surely it can’t be that long before someone tries!

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Legal

“All this new technology has meant more work for private practice media lawyers”

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Read a post on Iain Dale’s blog this morning regarding defamation.

I was interested more from a law firm perspective rather than from that of a blogger. Although thinking about it I suppose my comment on Clifford Chance’s London office yesterday could be considered as such and maybe I need to think more from a bloggers point of view?!? (Let me say any implication on CC’s London office is not to be taken seriously!)

It just reminded me of the Davenport Lyons saga (if the name itself doesn’t explain, Google their name for stories like this), the law firm blunderbus approach to new media. To be fair once I’d read the article from the Law Gazette I realised it came across as fair and a sensible approach to the law (dealing in the most part by negotiation rather than taking the case to court).

But Iain’s right, bloggers need to be aware of the legal aspect. The days where bloggers could say what they wanted about anyone have probably past. There was a great example of why in yesterday’s Metro!

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