Technology

The “traditionally wide” knowledge gap between lawyers and consumers is “narrowing all the time”, Canadian futurologist Jordan Furlong told delegates at this week’s Legal Futures Annual Conference.

The websites of leading law firms are failing to take advantage of consumers’ changing habits, a new study has claimed. The ‘white video’ issued by digital marketing agency mmadigital reported that 56% of the top 200 law firms do not have a mobile responsive website.

The Law Society has invested over £5m in a new online conveyancing system, to be launched next spring, which aims to revolutionise the home-buying process.

Specialist knowledge and expertise are more important than price or consistency of delivery for law firms choosing an IT supplier, research has found.

East Midlands firm Nelsons has launched Fusion Legal, a new regional support network, following West Midlands firm FBC Manby Bowdler, which launched Hub.Legal this summer.

Legal entrepreneur Brad Askew has relaunched a property website for landlords, which attracts up to 600,000 unique visits a year. The Tenancy Agreement Service is aimed particularly at the 78% of Britain’s 3.5m private landlords who only let one property.

A paralegal who took sensitive information from his employer when moving to a rival law firm was convicted of a criminal offence under the Data Protection Act this week.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has issued a warning to solicitors and barristers over the need to keep personal information secure, especially paper files, in the wake of “a number of data breaches” in recent months.

A young solicitor entrepreneur is seeking crowdfunding for an online documents business that will offer instant contracts via a mobile app and alert customers by e-mail to relevant law changes.

The Law Society has teamed up with software company Mastek UK Limited to deliver its conveyancing portal, which aims to speed up the home-buying process. The pair have set up a joint venture company called Legal Practice Technologies Ltd.

The Law Society is planning to use the European Court of Justice’s ruling on the right to be forgotten online to challenge anti-solicitor websites. The news comes as the society said it was to write to the FCA, SRA and police over Wonga’s use of bogus law firms.

Pinsent Masons is an example to other law firms on how to make the most of a Twitter account, while the ‘private’ setting on Slaughter and May’s account makes it the firm not to emulate, according to a report on the use of social media by large City law firms.

Flight compensation specialist Bott & Co is lining up a “series of similar niches” in the consumer world to capitalise on its successes with aviation, with a focus on IT, processes and client care.

Leading retailer Greg Tufnell, new non-executive chairman of innovative legal practice Radiant Law, has told Legal Futures that changed expectations among clients over pricing is one of the key elements driving disruption in the legal market.

Two million online searches on legal subjects are made every day in the UK, according to a senior Google executive, who went on to advise lawyers that their future clients would increasingly be reached through video and mobile technology.