IN THIS ISSUE
No life in the fast lane - Legal web services join forces - People & Places - Legal news in brief - Industry news in brief - Publishing News - latest UK legal web site traffic figures - Next issue: 30.08.2001

NO LIFE IN THE FAST LANE
Alright, we know the modern lawyer is a workaholic who thrives under pressure but sometimes it can all go sadly wrong. Over in the United States, one of the largest law firms in the Silicon Valley area - Cooley Godward - is being sued for $30 million in damages by the family of a teenager who was killed by a passing car. The driver of the car was Jane Wagner, an associate lawyer at the firm who initially had not even realised she had hit a pedestrian because she had been too busy making a call on her mobile phone.

Court papers subsequently filed in this case suggest that Wagner was so distracted by her phone calls that she was driving erratically, causing her car - a Mercedes - to swerve from one side of the traffic lane to another. Unfortunately it was during one of these swerves that she struck the pedestrian, who had been walking along the hard shoulder, causing the fatally injured body to be thrown down an embankment.

At this point we have an undoubtedly tragic story - and should be pointed out that as soon as Wagner realised what had happened (she saw a report on the following day's breakfast TV news) she turned herself in to the police, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of hit and run and is now serving a one year sentence in a work release programme. However, what transforms this story from being just another road traffic accident statistic is the law firm dimension.

The accident happened shortly before 10.00pm in the evening in March last year - while Wagner was on her way to another meeting - and a subsequent check of her billing records revealed that in February, the month prior to the accident, she had clocked up a massive 307 billable hours - and February is the shortest month! On that basis the lawyer was recording almost 11 hours a day, seven days a week, in billable time, putting her on target for an annual total of between 3500 and 4000 hours. And nobody thought this was odd - although her firm actually reckons 160 hours a month or 1900 billable hours a year should be the norm. (In the UK it is nearer 1300 hours.)

What the lawyers acting for the victim's family are now claiming is that the defendant law firm Cooley Godward is partly to blame for the accident because they were responsible for creating a high pressure working environment in which lawyers not only kept long hours but also were "encouraged" to use mobile phones during journeys to and from meetings.

This claim is not as fanciful as it might sound. Four years ago Wall Street investment bankers Smith Barney settled a claim for $500,000 out of court after they were sued in similar circumstances. The plaintiffs were the family of a motorcyclist who was killed when he was hit by a car driven by a Smith Barney broker - in that case the broker was on his phone making a private call when he went through a red light. Lawyers acting for plaintiffs in the latest case say the publicity surrounding the action has not only flushed out a number of similar claims but it has also prompted a number of companies to get in touch to discuss the formulation of mobile phone safety policies for their staff.

LEGAL WEB SERVICES JOIN FORCES
Two of the UK's leading legal information web sites have announced they will work together to extend the reach and depth of the information they provide. LAW on the WEB - which describe's itself as the British public's "favourite legal gateway"and Consilio (published by Semple Piggott Rochez, the developers of the world's first internet law school) have announced a strategic partnership that will see a sharing of information and technical expertise. The first area of collaboration will be the development and hosting of a new online legal directory that will allow barristers and law firms to promote themselves online for a nominal fee to a combined audience of law students, inhouse lawyers, other law firms and members of the public.

PEOPLE AND PLACES
UK technology company SPIRENT PLC has appointed PAUL EARDLEY to the newly-created position of general counsel. Eardley (40) joined Spirent's legal team in 1998 as company lawyer. Previously he spent 12 years in private practice, initially with Linklaters and latterly as a partner with DLA (formerly Dibb Lupton Alsop).

US trial technology consultants iNDATA CORPORATION have appointed TERRI TOBEY COURT as executive vice president for business development. In this newly created position Ms Court will be responsible for implementing integrated marketing programmes and establishing strategic relationships for inData Corporation. Ms Court has more than 15 years experience in the legal marketplace. Most recently she was vice president of advertising at Law.com. Her previous positions include associate group publisher at American Lawyer Media and legal consultant with Xerox Legal.

INTERFACE SOFTWARE has appointment of LOUISE REHLING as the company's new vice president of product development. Rehling will be responsible for leading the company's software development efforts for its professional services CRM product InterAction.

JONATHAN WEST has quit his post as head of legal at UK sports web site SPORTAL to join the new media start up consultancy CATALYST MEDIA MANAGEMENT.

TITE & LEWIS, the UK law firm arm of ERNST & YOUNG, has appointed the following new partners in its new media department: ALISON WELTERVEDEN, will focus on the technology, communication and entertainment sector and specialise in IT and e-commerce, and JOHN EDGELL will focus of financial services and also specialise in IT and e-commerce.

LEGAL NEWS IN BRIEF
E-DISTRICT FACING SHAREHOLDER SUIT - The London law firm Edwin Coe has been instructed by a group of 140 shareholders in E-district.net to pursue a possible claim for £2.5 million in compensation against the internet games and chat company's directors and auditors. The move follows the collapse of the company's share price from its flotation price of 195p to just over 7p after the company admitted that its user numbers and revenues had been "hugely overstated".

SHAW PITMAN SAYS YAHOO TO HSBC - New York based Shaw Pittman acted as advisors to HSBC Holdings in the negotiation of its new global technology alliance with Yahoo! Through the alliance Yahoo! and HSBC hope to remove the barriers to global e-commerce transactions by allowing consumers to send and receive money, at home and overseas, via email, by linking their credit cards, debit cards or bank accounts to their Yahoo! PayDirect account at HSBC. Consumers will be able to sign up for and use Yahoo! PayDirect across HSBC's online services and the Yahoo! network.

PANAMA GETS E-COMMERCE LAW - The Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso this month signed into Law Bill 112 which defines and regulates electronic documents and signatures, certification entities and exchange of electronic documents. The new law grants electronic documents and signatures the same validity as written documents in order for transactions to be enforceable in case of disputes. The law follows the guidelines of the UNCITRAL Model Law on E-Commerce, by regulating the concepts of electronic signatures and documents. The Panama E-commerce Law is the first of its kind in Central America and is expected to open the doors to web hosting, call center and data center companies.

BASS JOINS RIOBRAND REGISTRY - Six Continents PLC, formerly the Bass group, has added its new logo and brand identities to the RioBrand online brand registry at www.sriobrand.com RioBrand is a global brand deposit, view and search service, providing brand owners, designers and IP lawyers with a way of achieving global brand visibility and offering a defence against both innocent or malign trademark infringement.

SWINGS & ROUNDABOUTS FOR ONLINE MUSIC WORLD - Just when the music industry thought it had online pirates on the ropes and services like Napster struggling to legitimise their operations, the US Justice Department has announced plans to open an antitrust inquiry into Pressplay and MusicNet - two new joint ventures in the online music market that are being backed by most of the sector's major recording labels. Apparently the DoJ is concerned these ventures raise competition issues and unfairly discriminate against smaller digital music distributors.

Meanwhile, in a case of what you lose on the roundabout, you win on the swings, a federal court in Philadelphia has upheld a US Copyright Office ruling that radio stations putting their programmes online should pay royalties to record labels. The ruling means that radio stations will have to pay the same webcast royalty rates as web sites that currently stream their music over the internet. The National Association of Broadcasters had argued that the Copyright Agency had overstepped its authority and that radio stations should be exempt from paying royalties because Congress had not specifically provided for this situation.

EIGHTY PERCENT HAVE ALREADY REGISTERED .INFO - The domain names management company NetNames says that 80 of the Interbrand list of the world's 100 most valuable brands have already registered their .info domain names during the current 'Sunrise period'. The Sunrise period, which runs until August 27, 2001, was created so the owners of registered trademarks and service marks could officially register their marks in the .info domain to protect their intellectual property rights, prevent cybersquatting and provide time for IP dispute resolution. The .info domains will be opened to the general public on September 12 with no restrictions on who may register.

INDUSTRY NEWS IN BRIEF
AUTONOMY BACK ON FORM - Shares in Autonomy, the company behind the search engine technology a number of UK law firms are now considering as the basis of their knowledge management portals, this week saw a 16 percent increase in the value of its shares after IBM confirmed that it was using Autonomy to power IBM web applications.

PRO BONO LAWYERS GET SOFTWARE PRO BONO - US legal systems developer ProLaw has rolled out its case management software within Public Counsel, the largest public interest pro bono law firm in the United States. ProLaw provided its program and training pro bono as a gesture of support for Public Counsel's activities. Public Counsel's staff of over 50 active members and, since inception, more than 18,000 volunteer legal professionals and law students serve the legal needs of Southern California's low income population. Practice areas include child care law, children's rights, homelessness prevention, immigration, community development, and consumer law as well as major litigation. Last year Public Counsel donated more than $41 million in free legal services to those in need.

ELITE ENJOYS RECORD QUARTER - The legal PMS supplier Elite Information Group has recorded record revenues and improved profitability for is second quarter to 30 June 2001. Revenues for the quarter reached an all-time high of £17.4 million, up 22 percent on the preceding quarter and 27 percent up on the same period last year. Elite's net income for Q2 was £1.3 million, compared with a net income of just $106,000 during the same period last year. Elite chairman & CEO Chris Poole said it was especially rewarding to see Elite growing while most other software companies in this market were struggling. Elite predicts strong revenues throughout the second half of its trading year.

SOFTWISE UPGRADES TO XP - SoftWise, the US developer of macro/template solutions for streamlining law office wordprocessing activities, has just launched version 2.9 of its flagship product MacroSuite. New features include the ability to integrate the address book with Lorus Notes and support for both Microsoft Word XP (Word 10) and Corel WordPerfect 2002 (WordPerfect 10). SoftWise has also appointed Erik Goldring as its new product support specialist and Marcia Okon as director of business development.

MICROSOFT REVIEWS PASSPORT SET UP - With the launch of Windows XP getting increasingly close - latest reports suggest PC manufacturers will be shipping XP on their hardware as soon as late September - Microsoft has announced it is reviewing its Passport web authentication service. Although originally promoted by Microsoft as a way of making life easier for computer users, so they don't have re-enter the same information - such as credit card details - to use different online services, concerns have been expressed about the privacy aspects of Passport as it will effectively allow Microsoft to create a massive database of personal information including consumers' e-commerce preferences. Microsoft has now agreed to review aspects of the Passport system although the company continues to argue that the "Big Brother" fears being expressed by privacy groups stem from a misunderstanding of the technology underlying Passport.

PUBLISHING NEWS
BLACKSTONE SOLD TO OUP - The business services company BPP Holdings has sold its 82.5 percent stake in its legal publishing subsidiary Blackstone Press for £11 million. The buyer is the Oxford University Press which will also acquire the remaining 17.5 percent from Blackstone's founding directors. Last year Blackstone made an operating profit of £700,000 on a turnover of £5 ,million. Blackstone's latest title is Telecommunication Law (ISBN 1-84174-121-3, price £35.95) edited by Dr Ian Walden, the head of the IT law unit at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies in London, and John Angel, the head of online legal services at Clifford Chance.

THOMSON LEGAL GETS NEW EURO HEAD - Helen Owers has been appointed to the new position of director, European operations, for Thomson Legal & Regulatory Europe. This new position has been necessitated by the growth since 1999 in Thomson Legal's European operations, including the launch of Westlaw services for European markets, which now encompass 11 companies in 16 European locations employing nearly 1700 staff. As director of European operations, Owers will report directly to managing director Mike Boswood and be responsible for the coordination between online projects in UK, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and elsewhere. She will also represent the European group in global knowledge sharing and sales initiatives.

THE UK'S 25 BUSIEST LEGAL WEB SITES Q2 - 2001
Welcome to our second chart of the year - and we will draw a veil over what a nightmare it has been to get people to submit figures this time around thanks to staff departures, system failures and a surprising lack of marketing gumption by many web site operators.

The period covered is April to June 2001 and while some sites continued to put on visitor traffic, others bizarrely saw their rankings in the chart climb despite poorer figures. The Butterworths site now incorporates the Everyform service, TheLawyer.com is the new names for the old interactive-lawyer/LAWTEL site and this quarter also sees the entry (or re-entry) of five new sites. We also have the Hammick online legal bookshop, Osborne Clarke's GamesBiz site and the new Legal-UK community all just lurking outside the top 25.

As to our methodology - basing rankings on page impressions taken from sites' own log file data - well it may not be perfect but according to the UK publishers association PPA, that is exactly the same method that 68 percent of all UK web sites currently use.

1. (1) Butterworths LEXIS Direct www.butterworths.com
Page Views 24.04 million - Sessions 1.46 million

2. (2) TheLawyer.com www.thelawyer.com
Page Views 7.2 million - Sessions 179,074

3. (4) Legalease/International Centre for Commercial Law www.icclaw.com
Page Views 3.20 million - Sessions 250,000 (estimated)

4. (3) Solicitors-Online www.solicitors-online.com
Page Views 3.0 million - Sessions 150,000 (estimated)

5. (9) LegalCV www.legalcv.com
Page Views 1.56 million - Sessions 168,378

6. (6) The Law Society www.lawsociety.org.uk
Page Views 1.5 million - Sessions 200,000 (estimated)

7. (8) Smith Bernal Casetrack www.casetrack.com
Page Views 1.27 million - Sessions 92,878

8. (13) Sweet & Maxwell www.sweetandmaxwell.co.uk
Page Views 1.26 million - Sessions 216,286

9. (7) Divorce Online www.divorce-online.co.uk
Page Views 1.13 million - Sessions 167,551

10. (10) Lord Chancellor's Department www.lcd.gov.uk
Page Views 1.09 million - Sessions 97,346

11. (12) Delia Venables Legal Resources www.venables.co.uk
Page Views 1.02 million - Sessions 90,811

12. (11) Law Gazette Online www.lawgazette.co.uk
Page Views 950,000 - Sessions 100,000 (estimated)

13. (15) Employment Law www.emplaw.co.uk
Page Views 734,367 - Sessions 49,992

14. (25) Consilio www.spr-consilio.com
Page Views 563,734 - Sessions n/a

15. (14) DLA Solicitors www.dla.com
Page Views 541,056 - Sessions 55,674

16. (17) Desktop Lawyer www.desktoplawyer.co.uk
Page Views 450,000 - Sessions 100,000 (estimated)

17. (18) elexica from Simmons & Simmons www.elexica.com
Page Views 439,315 - Sessions 31,054

18. (-) Context/JUSTIS www.justis.com
Page Views 380,425 - Sessions 95,077

19. (22) Semple Piggot Rochez Internet Law School www.spr-law.com
Page Views 365,172 - Sessions n/a

20. (23) Law Careers.Net www.lawcareers.net
Page Views 346,092 - Sessions 101,853

21. (25) Legal News Media.com www.legalnewsmedia.com
Page Views 286,354 - Sessions 43,814

22. (-) Osborne Clarke www.osborneclarke.com
Page Views 205,560 - Sessions 110,386

23. (-) Law on the Web www.lawontheweb.co.uk
Page Views 175,741 - Sessions 55,860

24. (-) Infolaw www.infolaw.co.uk
Page Views 128,551 - Sessions 48,847

25. (-) Just Ask! (CLS) www.justask.org.uk
Page Views 111,233 - Sessions n/a