This is a book review which I published on 12 May 2017 on a blog. There have been a few developments since, but I thought it still contained some points of interest. So here it is, unedited and under its original title. In my view, one of the more interesting…

This article summarises an online discussion held on 23 September 2020, organised by Future of Law: Dundee (FoLD) between Graeme Johnston, CEO at the legal software company Juralio Ltd (facilitator), formerly a dispute resolution lawyer Lindy Patterson QC, barrister at 39 Essex Chambers, practising full time as an arbitrator, adjudicator…

This article summarises an online conversation between people from three prominent organisations in Dundee Scotland on July 21st, 2020 on the above topic. The event was organised by FoLD (‘Future of Law : Dundee’) an informal group established by people in Dundee interested in legal and tech issues but open…

12 July 2020 Sunday evening reflections on how a practical metric for the simplicity of legal text might work (possibly relevant to regulations, procedural rules, advice, contracts or whatever). The nature of the problem The main challenge is to weigh one good thing (simplicity) against a potentially good thing (detail and nuance). And to do…

Why it matters, why it’s hard, ideas for approaching it — This is an article which Denis Potemkin of Potemkin Legal and I wrote together to summarise our video conversation with Ben White of Crafty Counsel. Introduction Most people would sign up in the abstract for the idea that legal things should be made as simple as possible. But in practice it’s…

It appears at least possible that one of the lasting effects of the 2020 pandemic will be to catalyse the trend towards enabling legal services professionals to do more of their work away from physical hubs such as offices and courts. This article discusses a couple of information topics to…

In a recent article, I traced the history of granular time recording in law firms. ‘GTR’ for short. It involves capturing a record of activity down to the hour and minute level. GTR in legal work began life a century ago with reasonable intentions but is widely thought to contribute…

Discussion of time recording in legal services — and of its progeny, time-based pricing — can be more than a little frustrating. Critics understandably emphasise the negative effects on clients, lawyers and society more generally. Such criticisms are weighty. But the question always arises: what does ‘better’ really look like? …