IN THIS ISSUE
All change for law firm IT directors - Online strategies white paper - The dangers of delay in defamation - SCL revamps web site - Legal news in brief - Microsoft antitrust case - the UK's busiest legal web sites - Industry & Professional news - Next issue: 29.11.2001

IT DIRECTORS - ALL CHANGE AT THE TOP
Whether it is a coincidence or a reflection of growing economic uncertainty but within the last three weeks three of the best known names in the UK law firm IT world have announced their departure.

First to go was Martin Telfer, who has quit his post as head of IT at the Australian firm Malleson Stephen Jaques. Telfer, who is probably best known for his work with Masons in the UK in the 1990s, is considering a number of offers both from within and outside the legal market. Gerard Neiditsch, who recently joined Mallesons from Blake Dawson Waldron, has taken over Telfer's old job. (As part of this merry-go-round, Mick Campbell has replaced Neiditsch at BDW.)

Next to say goodbye was Ed Dean, the head of IT at Lovells. Dean, who has also been a stalwart of the Society for Computers & Law, leaves the firm - and the legal sector - at the end of this year to join the Apax venture capital group.

Finally, Brian Collins, the international IT director at Clifford Chance - and the man widely credited with ensuring the IT infrastucture was in place to support the firm's three way UK/US/German merger went live on 1st January 2000 - is leaving the firm at the end of the year. Collins said that "with the international merger behind the firm and the combined systems now largely in place, it was time to move on to new challenges."

In addition, Lawrence Graham is also losing its IT director Allan Bower, who is moving to the document management systems specialist Kramer Lee & Associates in the New Year.

INSIDER ONLINE STRATEGIES WHITE PAPER
Legal Technology Insider, the companion publication of New Media Lawyer, has published a white paper 'Online Strategies for Smaller Law Firms'. It is available now free of charge in either Word .doc or PDF file format. The white paper contains notes and practical tips covering the confusing range options available to smaller practices considering developing a web site or online strategy for the first time. For a copy of the paper email news@legalnewsmedia.com

THE DANGERS OF DELAY IN DEFAMATION ACTIONS
Our thanks to Louis Joseph of Kaltons Solicitors for providing a commentary on this recent case...

The Court of Appeal in Phillip John Steedman & Ors -v- The BBC [2001] EWCA Civ 1524 (23 October 2001) has emphasised the importance of pursuing defamation actions vigorously and expeditiously. If no action is taken against an alleged libel or slander within one year 'from the date on which the cause of action occurred' (section 4A of the Limitation Act 1980), it will be time barred.

It also pointed out that the court will be very slow to exercise its discretion to disapply the one year limitation period (section 32A of the Limitation Act 1980). That discretion could be applied by the court if it appears to the court that it would be equitable to allow an action to proceed having regard to the degree to which the operation of section 4A of the Act prejudices the plaintiff and any decision of the court would prejudice the defendant.

The time limit for defamation actions has been progressively reduced: from 6 years to 3 years in 1984 and again from 3 years to one year in 1996. The rationale is set out in the recommendations of the working group of the Supreme Court Procedure Committee under the Chairmanship of Lord Justice Neill. Among others, the reasons for this ever decreasing trend are:
* The general recognition that claims to protect one's reputation ought to be pursued with vigour, especially in view of the ephemeral nature of most media publications.
* Memories fade. Journalists and their sources scatter and become, not infrequently, untraceable. Notes and other records are retained only for a short period, not least because of limitations on storage.

The current Pre-Action Protocol For Defamation, emphasizes that there are important features which distinguish defamation claims from other areas of civil litigation. In particular, time is always of the essence in defamation claims; the limitation period is (uniquely) only one year, and almost invariably a claimant will be seeking an immediate correction and/or apology as part of the process of restoring his/her reputation. A letter of claim should be made to the defendant at "the earliest reasonable opportunity".

David Steel LJ said that the discretion afforded by section 32A requires the court to balance any prejudice to the claimant on the one hand and the defendant on the other in allowing the action to proceed or otherwise. All the circumstances of the case must be had regard to in assessing the justice of the matter with particular reference to the length of, and reasons for, the delay and the extent to which the passage of time since the expiration of the limitation period has had an impact on the availability or cogency of relevant evidence.

On the evening of the 11 January 1999 the claimants were eight Metropolitan police officers who were called to an incident at Tottenham. The incident concerned a Mr Roger Sylvester. The claimants say that he was apparently locked out of his house and was causing a disturbance in the street. The claimants contend that they detained Mr Sylvester pursuant to the provisions of the Mental Health Act and transported him to hospital. There he suffered a respiratory failure and, following transfer to two other hospitals, his life support machine was switched off on 18 January 1999.

Mr Sylvester's funeral took place on 16 April 1999. That day, as part of the Newsroom Southeast bulletin of local news for the BBC1 Breakfast Programme, the transmission complained of was made: 'The family and supporters of Roger Sylvester are expected to gather in North London today for his funeral. Mr Sylvester died in January, after being restrained by eight police officers. This morning a procession will travel through Tottenham to Summerhill Road where he was killed.'

For some bizarre reason the claimants' solicitors did not issue proceedings within the one year limitation period. Despite them having an almost cast iron case against the solicitors, the claimants asked the Court of Appeal to exercise its discretion under section 32A and disapply the one year limitation provision; Sir Oliver Popplewell, an experienced judge in the defamation field, having earlier refused their application.

Even though the defendant accepted that the incremental delay between the end of the limitation period and the issue of the claim form had had no material impact on its ability to defend the claim, the Court of Appeal held that in these circumstances, whilst the effect of any delay on the ability of the defendant to defend a defamation action remains important in the assessment of the justice of the matter, it is not to be regarded as in any way decisive. Accordingly, the Court refused to exercise its discretion to disapply the one year limitation period.

Brooke LJ stated that under the following circumstances a court might properly be willing to exercise its discretion in favour of a claimant under section 32A:
* Cases where it would be manifestly unjust to allow a defendant to take advantage of a very small slippage of time
* Where the claimant is awaiting the outcome of other investigations, but has made its complaint. In Khalil v Bennett [2000] EMLR 996, indeed, the Court of Appeal reinstated a libel action when the claimant had delayed pursuing it while waiting for the outcome of other proceedings, but in that case he had issued his writ only a few days after the publication of the articles complained of.

Potential claimants and their solicitors must take a very serious look at this case, which has made it plain that the courts are very unlikely to entertain applications to waive the one year limitation rule which applies to defamation and malicious falsehood, unless they are presented with cogent evidence that the claimants took seriously the opportunity to vindicate their reputation from the very outset. Such evidence was woefully lacking in this case.

They offered no explanations for why they did not instantly seek a retraction from the BBC, or make any other sort of complaint about the broadcasts, until long after the time when these might be expected to have any effect upon those to whom they considered that they had been defamed. This made it difficult for the Court to conclude that vindication of their reputations was uppermost in their minds at any time. In such circumstances they have not made out a sufficient case of prejudice to justify the disapplication of the normal rule.

Publishers and the media in general can take some comfort in the outcome of this case. In the context of the internet where defamation is common place and insurance premiums reflect the risk, hopefully insurers will see this as reducing that risk, keeping premiums a little lower.

SOCIETY FOR COMPUTERS & LAW REVAMPS ITS WEB SITE
The UK's Society for Computers & Law has revamped its web site to provide more services to members.

Announcing the relaunch earlier this week Glen Davis, the chair of the SCL media board, was keen to stress that "The changes to our site are not purely cosmetic. The re-launch marks a significant shift to a new way of organizing the SCL's services for members, enabling us to integrate digital online services with our printed materials, particularly the Computers & Law Magazine. The search facilities mean we expect this to become a developing resource of legal and technical information for those practising at the new frontiers of English Law. In addition, the web site should be the first port of call for members who want to find out about the activities of regional and special interest groups.

SCL magazine editor Laurence Eastham becomes the webmaster for the new site, which built for the SCL by Go Interactive and runs on an SQL 7.0 database. www.scl.org

LEGAL NEWS IN BRIEF
TEACHERS OBJECT TO TALKING OUT OF SCHOOL - Confirming everyone's suspicion from schooldays that the terms 'schoolteachers' and 'sense of humour' do not mix, two of the UK's teaching unions are threatening to take libel action against the FriendsReunited.co.uk web site (which allows users to track down their old school friends) because some ex-pupils have been posting allegedly libellous comments about their former teachers.

Apparently the most common allegations relate to drunkeness, sexual perversion and incompetence (no change there then) however FriendsReunited is taking this problem seriously and has created an "Abuse" button which can be pressed to have dubious comments removed. Given the Godfrey -v- Demon Internet (1999) precedent in the UK, it looks like this excellent web site could be heading for tears and litigation.

UK FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT FROZEN - Speaking in the House of Lords earlier this week, the Lord Chancellor Lord Irvine revealed that key provisions of the UK's Freedom of Information Act would not now be implemented until January 2005. Instead of going for the big bang option, provisions of the Act will be phased in over the next three years. However while government departments must publish details of their "publication schemes" for allowing public access to their records, the public will have no right to see this information until January 2005. A case of New Labour but sam Old Secrecy.

ANTI-TERROR BILL AND THE ISPS - The Home Office has published details of its Anti-Terrorism, Crime & Security Bill which is intended to beef up security in the UK in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on America. The proposed measures, which the British government hopes to have on the statute books by the end of the year, cover a broad range of topics including giving the Home Secretary new powers to regulate the retention of information by phone and internet companies on the grounds of national security and crime prevention.

As reported in the last issue, there still remains a lot of uncertainty surrounding this provision however it would appear that ISPs will be required to hold internet traffic data for up to 12 months; that police and security forces will not require a warrant to obtain access toi data relating to web site and email addresses; and that the provision will be based upon a voluntary code backed up, if necessary, by legal measures. The bill also commits the UK government to paying an as yet unquantified "appropriate contribution" towards the cost of storing and retrieving all this data.

MICROSOFT AND THE ANTITRUST CASE
With most of us glued to CNN watching the Northern Alliance chase the Taleban out of Kabul, it is easy forget that the long running battle between Microsoft and the US Justice Department over the antitrust allegations still rumbles on.

As was widely reported last week, the DoJ and Microsoft have now agreed settlement terms. In addition, nine of the US states that were suing Microsoft have also agreed to the settlement and the presiding judge - Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly - has now given the dissenting states until 22nd February 2002 to file new motions to continue their battle against the company.

A statement from these states is still awaited but in the meantime Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has made the following statement: "We are pleased that nine states have joined the Department of Justice in supporting this settlement. The fact that so many states have joined the federal government in supporting this agreement is a very significant positive step toward resolving these issues once and for all.

"We made every effort to reach a compromise to address the states' concerns and allow everyone to move forward. At the request of the states we made some additional revisions to clarify the proposed decree and better capture the intent of the parties. We hope that the remaining states will join in this agreement, so that everyone can focus on the future and avoid the unnecessary costs and delays of further litigation.

"While this decree will place significant restrictions on our business, we believe this is a fair and reasonable settlement that will be good for consumers, good for the high tech industry, and good for the economy."

THE LEGAL HITLIST - THE UK'S BUSIEST LEGAL WEB SITES
Welcome to the Legal Hitlist - the definitive list of the UK's busiest legal web sites. Since we last published this chart we have made some important changes both to our format and methodology. We are now using data supplied by Hitwise UK which means all rankings are derived from objective data (showing a site's web traffic as a percentage of total UK legal internet traffic) drawn from ISP server logs. We are planning further enhancements to this service, including a realtime feed going direct to our web site at www.legalnewsmedia.com/hitlist.htm

In the meantime key points to note are the busiest sites by far are the online legal information sites run by Butterworths and Lawtel, followed - with the occasional exception - by the big governmental information sites. No surprises there - although it is interesting that the industry critics were wrong and that Freelawyer really is generating a huge amount of traffic. It is also good to see two independents - the Delia Venables site and Henry Scrope's British Employment Law - holding their own in this market. And, finally, whatever happened to Sweet & Maxwell's online strategy as it is now even trailing the BAILII free legal information site in the web traffic stakes?

THE TOP UK WEB SITES FOR THE WEEK ENDING 12 NOVEMBER 2001

1. (14.22%) Butterworths LEXIS Direct www.butterworths.co.uk

2. (13.46%) Lawtel/The Lawyer www.lawtel.co.uk

3. (9.27%) The Court Service www.courtservice.gov.uk

4. (5.75%) Freelawyer.co.uk www.freelawyer.co.uk

5. (5.56%) UK Patent Office www.patent.gov.uk

6. (5.09%) Lord Chancellor's Department www.lcd.gov.uk

7. (4.51%) HM Land Registry www.landreg.gov.uk

8. (4.50%) The Law Society www.lawsociety.org.uk

9. (3.78%) CABx Advice Guide www.adviceguide.org.uk

10. (3.43%) British Employment Law www.emplaw.co.uk

11. (3.05%) Legalease/International Centre for Commercial Law www.icclaw.com

12. (2.65%) Delia Venables Legal Resources www.venables.co.uk

13. (2.48%) Solicitors-Online www.solicitors-online.com

14. (2.24%) Divorce Online www.divorce-online.co.uk

15. (1.91%) Law Careers.Net www.lawcareers.net

16. (1.72%) BAILII (British & Irish Legal Information Institute) www.bailii.org

17. (1.66%) Law Society Gazette Online www.lawgazette.co.uk

18. (1.63%) Sweet & Maxwell www.sweetandmaxwell.co.uk

19. (1.59%) LawZONE www.lawzone.co.uk

20. (1.58%) Bar Council www.barcouncil.org.uk

21. (1.50%) Just Ask! www.justask.org.uk

22. (1.45%) Butterworths Law Direct http://macdonald.butterworth.co.uk

23. (1.29%) Legal CV www.legalcv.com

24. (1.28%) Law on the Web www.lawontheweb.co.uk

INDUSTRY & PROFESSIONAL NEWS
LINKLATERS BLUE FLAG TO COMBAT CYBERSQUATTERS - Linklaters this week launched Blue Flag Netmark, a new online domain name portfolio management product in conjunction with the domain name registration service provider Net Searchers. The idea for Blue Flag Netmark stems Linklaters' recent work for a number of clients which highlighted the need for a service that more closely integrated the functions of the domain name service providers with those of the legal adviser, not least where the latter is also managing the trade mark portfolio.

According to Roland Mallinson, a partner in Linklaters' London intellectual property & technology group, and who heads the project: "Although businesses are increasingly appreciating the true value of intellectual property assets, domain names are often regarded as the poor and neglected relative amongst them. We believe they should be considered and treated as an integral part of a company's IP portfolio. The typical FTSE 100 company might have to keep track of up to 1000 domain names but often businesses don't know for sure who has registered what, with whom or when."

LAW FIRM IN NEW MEDIA LEGAL BRIEFINGS VENTURE - London law firm Sprecher Grier Halberstam is to produce a series of CD and web based legal briefings for its clients. The briefings will be produced as part of a collaborative venture with Legal Web TV, the multimedia legal news service. Sprecher Grier Halberstam has been running conventional briefings and training courses for its clients for some time however as part of this new venture the briefings, in the form of a 20 to 30 minute televised talk plus supporting textual materials, will be distributed on CD. In addition, the accompanying web site will provide interactive supporting material in e-book and streaming video format, plus a bulletin board for discussion and course web pages enabling the speakers to keep their courses up to date. www.legalwebtv.com

FAST LEGAL TEAM REORGANISED - The Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) has reorganised its legal services team to increase its focus on corporate underlicensing and web enforcement. Solicitor Julian Heathcote Hobbins has been appointed legal counsel for internet investigations and Kam Sidhu has been appointed corporate investigator. Paul Brennan continues to head the team as general counsel.

LAW GYM TO DO A PRICELINE - LawGym, the UK registered and regulated law firm is to offer legal advice to businesses using a pricing model similar to that of Priceline. From 18 November, businesse visiting the LawGym site www.LawGym.com can choose whether to buy legal advice at prices that LawGym has set or at prices they want to pay.

After a quick registration, customers can post their job to the LawGym site by detailing the problem on which they want advice, and by saying how much they want to pay for such advice. Within 48 hours of a job being posted LawGym will contact customers whose work they decide to do. If they decide they cannot (or will not) do a job no contact will be made. LawGym is keen to stress that posting a job is free and without any obligation on either them or the customer. Patricia Ogunfeibo, LawGym's CEO told New Media Lawyer: "LawGym started out with the aim to make the purchase of legal services easier and cheaper for SMEs. This is just another step towards our ultimate goal. When we give advice under our 'You Set Price' model, we know that there can be no dispute over price."

POCKET PC VERSION OF TIMESLIPS NOW AVAILABLE Sage US has just announced the release of a Pocket PC version of is Timeslips time and billing software. The product will be called Time to Time Pro for Timeslips and was developed in conjunction with Tom Thumb Software, who specializes in applications geared for the Windows CE/Pocket PC operating environment.