Innovation has been on my mind of late. From the probate business I met last week that outsources legal work to an English solicitor working at an Australian law firm so that it gets done overnight, to Birmingham firm Blakemores and its stands in shopping centres, to the QualitySolicitors firm with branded and non-branded offices on opposite sides of the street.

Journalists love a good landmark and 6 October is a corker for those of us who get overly excited by legal services reform – the Legal Ombudsman opens today and in a year’s time, the first alternative business structure should open its doors. But is anyone keeping an eye on all the other reform agendas around litigation costs and funding to ensure that access to justice does not fall through the cracks?

With the growth in lawyer rating and comparison websites, Legal Futures Associate Jamie Claret asks why law firms are not more concerned about protecting their online reputation. Just because lawyers do not take such sites seriously does not mean the public treats them the same.

Is it me, or is the Legal Services Board’s suggestion that regulators should collect and publish all agreements between introducers and lawyers slightly barmy? Can you have too much transparency?

Martin Gregory begins a series looking at three of the less well known/utilised on-line applications. In the coming weeks, he will concentrate on Squidoo and Hubpages – tools that can help promote your law firm’s visibility on the World Wide Web, but he starts with Foursquare, which he says is possibly the most intriguing and scaleable social media network to emerge in recent years.