View Article  Is the Land Registry website closed on Sundays?

Take a look at Phil Bradley’s Weblog for a very amusing start to a Monday morning.  Phil cannot quite believe what he has seen inThe Land Registry doesn't get the Internet.

   more »
View Article  Nationwide fined £1m over theft of employee’s laptop containing sensitive customer data

If ever a professional services firm needed reminding of the business risks it is running by having ineffective security systems and controls in place, here is a high profile story to re-focus the mind.  I first caught the story on BBC TV during lunch.  There is a useful report on ZDNet.

 

Any lessons drawn from this story or any other similar high-profile corporate bad news story, to the extent actioned, may also support one of Dennis Kennedy’s technology trends (see my Blog yesterday on the UK perspective to his Seven Legal Technology Trends for 2007 - Widening the Digital Divide in Law Practice a couple of days ago) under Portability with his sub-trend that “encryption [of data] arrives”.

 

Good practice security is not easy to achieve, but one of the morals of the Nationwide story is to raise an organisation’s general awareness of where it is in need of improvement.  In closing, I am reminded of the risk management and information security expert who first introduced me to this subject, whose overriding mantra is that, for risk to be managed effectively, it must be managed from “boardroom to storeroom”.

 

In passing, and to ...   more »

View Article  Land Registry Secondary Legislation for e-Conveyancing Part 1

On Tuesday this week, the UK’s Land Registry launched its latest consultation paper on e-Conveyancing.  This consultation invites comments on the proposed Network Access Rules, part of the Secondary Legislation required for e-Conveyancing.

 

For anyone involved in real estate, this paper is essential reading.  It is also of significance to a wider business and consumer audience interested in the further development of e-working, e-communications and e-signatures and, more generally, business transformation of professional services.  As the Land Registry itself states:

 

“E-conveyancing will transform the way Land Registry delivers its current services and will introduce new services to new customer groups. However, it will do more than this; it will transform the conveyancing process and change forever the way conveyancers provide conveyancing services to their clients.”

 

Topics covered in the consultation are:

The Land Registration (Network Access) Rules, which will define who will be entitled to a Network Access Agreement, allowing access to the electronic communications network that the registrar is setting up under section 92 Land Registration Act 2003.

 

The Land Registration (Electronic Communications) Order, made under Sections 8 and 9 of the Electronic Communications Act 2000, which will provide for ...   more »

View Article  UK Perspective by Tim Travers on Dennis Kennedy's Legal Technology Trends for 2007 (Short Version)

This a short version response to Dennis Kennedy's short version of his great article yesterday.

 

In Seven Legal Technology Trends for 2007 - Widening the Digital Divide in Law Practice, your expressions “technology-forward lawyers” and “technology-backward lawyers” are absolutely apposite and apply equally in the UK.  The current backdrop is simply the Legal Services Act once enacted later in 2007.  Which firms will embrace the opportunities for change and progress, and which will bury their heads in the sand?

 

Only last night, I attended a major event at The Law Society in London on “Alternative Business Structures” under the Act.  Professor Stephen Mayson, Director of the Legal Services Policy Institute, began his address by saying he was alarmed at the general “complacency” and “ignorance” within the profession about its future, based on his experience of talking to firms up and down the land.

 

If a law business is not using IT to gain at least some competitive advantage, it does beg the question what is the real purpose of having IT?  Technology in a law practice is surely more than just a simple utility like water and electricity?

 

1. Reacting ...   more »

View Article  Law Firms, Future Gazing and Internal Think Tanks

Having got going with my Blog during December and January by publishing my own content, in the last week or so, I have begun the process of trying to get into the discipline of commenting on the content of others.  This to me seems only fair.  As I will be delighted if my reflections are read by others, so it seems only fitting to give feedback in return for their interest in you.  The trick I now wish to learn is getting words from mind to page quickly and coherently as I read my news aggregator and while the thoughts are fresh in my head.  So here goes.

 

One of many great posts this week was Future Gazing from Rob Millard’s The Adventure of Strategy.  While the following may seem a little far-fetched, as Rob himself acknowledges, it does serve to challenge how existing law firms might get from where they are today to a point in the future where they are still in business and still doing well.  With the Clementi changes that the UK’s new Legal Services Act will bring when it come into force, all bets about the future are off, save ...   more »

Search