Virtual law firm Posts

I’m going to pick straight up where I left off in my last offering. In it, I was debating the pros and cons of self-help divorce websites, triggered by the launch of www.intelligentdivorce.co.uk which is designed to help divorcing couples reach agreement on the value of their assets without the need to take up additional court time. It is fair to say that my thoughts on it veered one way and then the other so I thought I would get some input from colleagues on the role they thoug....

I was looking this week at what I think is a pretty good new, online service for divorcing couples wanting to work to reach agreement on the value of their assets before then asking a barrister to give an opinion on whether it is likely to be accepted by the court. However, what spoiled the experience was a careless scaremongering line that suggested that a divorce through a high street law firm “could easily reach £40,000”. On what planet? What are this “typical&rd....

With all the focus on the Legal Services Act – the so called Tesco’s Law – which comes into force in October, little attention has been given to another potential innovation in the sector launched in the US recently and set to come to the UK shortly. The snappily titled Rocket Lawyer, from the venture capital arm of Google, no less, is an “online legal document assembly service” aimed at allowing those involved in certain types of cases, including divorce, to ....

I left the traditional law practice where I had been working as a partner, in 1996. Why? I wanted a different way of working. I wanted to pursue a new road that I thought would help a legal firm operate more effectively as we approached the 21st Century. Fifteen years on and I think I have achieved a certain degree of success. The practice is doing well, it remains a model different from many other firms – perhaps my biggest surprise is that a greater number of others have not yet seen....

I want to come back to an issue that I touched on last week. After mentioning it in passing, I think it deserves more of an airing. The draft Family Justice Review proposals suggest greater use of IT and technology to improve services. This is a no-brainer to me. Having founded a family law firm working with a model of using technology to improve our service to clients, I honestly can’t see why this hasn’t been looked at before now. We live in a fast-paced society with ever increasin....

It’s not often I am shocked but this week there was an exception. A colleague excitedly emailed to say I was on Wikipedia. Now, I have used Wikipedia plenty of times before. I find it a very useful reference tool for everything from who played Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films, to explanations of complicated jargon. I also know that anyone can contribute to it. I had no idea I was on it though. I am not one of those people who periodically Googles themselves to find out what is on the i....