Nascent legal web
Law Publishing without Boundaries
First published [somewhere] , December 1996 When we think of law publishing we probably first think of Butterworths, Sweet & Maxwell and FT Law & Tax, Tolleys if we are tax practitioners, and perhaps other smaller names. Turning to new media we are not on very sure ground. We may know of Context, pioneers in […]
Why are we here?
First published in the Solicitors Journal, November 1996. Not so long ago the culture of the Internet was such that commercial advertising on the Net was frowned on, and those who transgressed were liable to incur the wrath of the Net establishment. However, it is as a marketing medium that the Web has shown the […]
The Queen’s printer
A First published in the Solicitors Journal, October 1996. End bytes in last month’s column noted the sale of HMSO’s business to the National Publishing Group. The sale completed on 30 September and the new business now trades as The Stationery Office Limited. As always, things are not quite that straightforward. The bulk of the […]
The future of law publishing
First published in the Solicitors Journal, September 1996. These days a month is a long time in publishing, and two months even more so. This summer (still referred to as ‘the silly season’ by those who are writing about those who have nothing better to write about) was no exception. Two notable events occurred while […]
Web page design
First published in the Solicitors Journal, July 1996. Time was when most Web sites looked pretty boring. It was exciting enough just being on the Web as a newbie using a basic Mosaic browser, and the lack of design evident in most Websites was… well …just the way it was. Then came the phenomenally successful […]
The state of law publishing
First published in the Solicitors Journal, June 1996. It may not have been spring fever, nor is it likely to be midsummer madness, but things are certainly hotting up on the UK legal internet. Several new firms are joining the Web each month; sites covering specific aspects of legal practice are popping up all over; […]
Suppliers on the web
First published in the Solicitors Journal, May 1996. In the run up to June’s Solicitors and Legal Office Exhibition, the event of the UK lawtech calendar, it is worth looking at how well the suppliers to the sgal profession are represented on the Web. In short the answer is … not very well. Lawtech suppliers […]
Anything legal?
First published in the Solicitors Journal, April 1996. Once the initial excitement and/or frustrations of being on the Web wear off, your view of what’s out there which is of use to you may well be either ‘It’s all a load of garbage; there’s nothing out there for me’ or (I hope) ‘There’s loads of […]
Electronic reproduction of Crown copyright material
First published in the Solicitors Journal, March 1996. On 9 February, Roger Freeman, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, made a policy statement in the form of a written answer in the House of Commons, on the future administration of Crown copyright. In this statement he confirmed that the government will extend to electronic formats […]
What does Corel’s purchase of Novell’s applications business mean for Web users?
First published in the Solicitors Journal, February 1996. News of the month in the desktop applications market has been the purchase at the end of January of Novell’s applications business by the Ottawa corporation Corel in a $180 million deal. Corel, best known for its market-.eading drawing package, Corel Draw, and the Ventura desktop publishing […]
Information overload
First published in the Solicitors Journal, January 1996. Net ‘surfing’ is no longer an appropriate analogy. Was it ever? If your view of surfing is effortlessly gliding down the face of a wave on one uninterrupted ride to the shore, then I bet you don’t do it on the Web. Not now. Maybe never before. […]
How to spend £100 this Christmas
First published in the Solicitors Journal, December 1995. Back in October Delia Venables and Charles Christian published their Guide to the Internet for Lawyers. This has attracted favourable reviews from Laurence Eastham in Computers and Law (somewhat guarded it has to be said) and Nigel Armitage in the Legal Times (unreserved), though understandably the ‘substantial […]
Because it’s there
First published in the Solicitors Journal, October 1995. What puts most people off information technology, or rather what holds them back from diving in enthusiastically, is the ‘technology’ bit. We are all interested in information in one form or another, but if it’s difficult to get at, it might as well not be there. This […]
Nothing but the truth – shattering a few internet myths
First published June 1995 in The Lawyer What the Internet is not: A hotbed of pornography. Uninformed journalists will write about what they know. They do not know very much about the workings of the Internet. [Update: The hacks were right insofar as the web is full of porn, but they were wrong to focus […]
1995 – Year 1 for Electronic Publishing
First published May 1995 in Computers and Law (1995, vol. 6, no 1, pp. 6-8). Republished here with slight edits to broken bits. Writing in 1985, shortly after its demise, David Warlock reported that Eurolex … had registered some 375 client organisations at the time of its closure, of whom some 200 were paying a […]
