[1]Well, I would if I wasn’t the driver of the getaway car.
Premonition [2] are inside the Bank of British Barristers taking their intellectual capital. All the information covering High Court cases is freely available, if you’ve got the capacity to do the data mining and analysis, but no-one at the bar has realised that this is a treasure trove and, really, belongs to them.
So, they’ve done nothing about it and allowed others to come along and use it as the basis of a successful and growing business.
As a barrister said, at a recent seminar I was at, “we should have seen this coming”. Just so; as it is with many other business opportunities at the bar which, predictably, third parties are developing and commercialising.
The seminar was organised by the London Legal Networking Group run by two enterprising and resourceful young barristers’ clerks, Dan Sullivan and Sam Collins. I was speaking in person and my colleague at Premonition, Toby Unwin, was Skyping from Florida (get him, eh?).
Neil Rose of Legal Futures was also a speaker. Hearing that 500 solicitors, Trade Unions, Local Authorities, etc and 150 accountants had set up ABS businesses through the SRA left me wondering why there were only half dozen or so barrister ABSs and why the BSB were so slow in getting round to being able to regulate these for the bar.
Stephen Ward of Clerksroom, also a speaker, described how his Direct Access business, cunningly called Clerksroom Direct, was going stratospheric and I ruminated over how pitiful many traditional chambers are at developing this fabulous business opportunity.
During the seminar there was a debate between some barristers about how, if a litigant was using Premonition data, perhaps a Judge, suspecting he might be being ‘played’, might have to recuse himself (no, me neither).
Often, when I’m in chambers, I hear a lot about what can’t be done and too little about what can be done. It’s a common theme as is rehearsing ancient history and avoiding thinking about the future. You snooze, you lose.
I imagine, now, that I’ll be hearing from a barrister that it isn’t robbery but theft or burglary, or larceny, in contravention of S……..zzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
By Ian Dodd. UK Director, Premonition