Reed Elsevier denies reports that LexisNexis is for sale |
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 Salamander Davoudi (@sdavoudi) of the Financial Times reports that publishing giant, Reed Elsevier, denies reports that LexisNexis is for sale. Management intends to pursue only small-scale merger and acquisition activity within its five divisions over the next 12 months, according to two people familiar with the company’s plans, and has no plans to sell its Lexis-Nexis Legal & Professional business despite calls for its divestiture.
Read more at The LexBlog Network...
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 The Consumer Protection Act (CPA) allows sending unsolicited direct marketing communications (which is commonly seen as spam by many consumers) under certain conditions. However, if one looks more closely, it turns out that it is simply not possible to comply with these conditions with SMS communications.
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 Paddocks Club is an exclusive online learning community for people involved in sectional title and community schemes. Building on its growth in 2011, the Club is launching a private one-on-one legal consulting service in early 2012. Prof Graham Paddock, a leading authority on community scheme law in South Africa, heads Paddocks Club and is now offering interested parties the opportunity to get affordable, confidential and tailored legal advice online.
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Sue Winter has been appointed as the new trainer for the Northern Cape region. Sue has been a Trainer at the LAW Academy in our Cape Town office for almost two years. Prior to this, she worked for one of the major financial institutions as a regional registrations manager and gained extensive knowledge of the conveyancing industry during her 25 year tenure.
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Consternation in the Pietermaritzburg Deeds Office |
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 The heading sounds a bit like the over-dramatic headlines used in newspapers. But let me explain. Yesterday a notice was sent out to conveyancers by the Assistant Registrar of Deeds, Pietermaritzburg to the effect that some clerks were taking out examiner’s notes at prep and further that such conduct was inappropriate and should be discontinued. Then another notice was sent out by the same person to advise that some conveyancing firms were sending “clerks” [i.e. not qualified conveyancers] to “execute deeds on behalf of their principals” and that this “is highly inappropriate and illegal”. The notice went further to state that as from Monday 16th January 2012 only conveyancers would be allowed in the execution room during execution times. The responses from various conveyancers were swift in coming in. Here are some of them:
Read more in the Tech4law Conveyancing4all forum....
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LinkedIn is the most popular social media platform in law firms |
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 LexisNexis, a leading provider of content and technology solutions, announced results from its latest study on law firm engagement in social media methods. The report, 'Global Social Media Check-up: A global audit of law firm engagement in social media methods', reveals that whilst social media has changed the way that millions of people communicate in their personal lives and that many international B2B law firms have registered their presence on the networks, the legal profession overall has a reticent approach to social media engagement.
Read more at Market Watch....
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How long should a law firm close over the festive season? |
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 Working out when to close the office for the festive season is always a difficult decision - the staff deserve a good rest, but the clients bring in revenue - which one do we ignore this year? Take the simple three button survey on the top right of the Tech4Law home page - maybe next year we will have better information to make the right decision.
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 Law Credit Solutions was honoured with two awards at the recently held SBSA Vendor evening. They walked away with the Top Collections Performance in the “Specialised Collections” category, and the Most valued IT Service Provider.
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PC three years old? Fire warning! |
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 One of our customers recently called our support company with news that her PC had set alight, plastic had dripped onto her carpet and burnt that too. By the time she moved the PC outside, she said flames and smoke were pouring out the front of the case.
Read more at Wocky.co.za...
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 This cybercrime conference was held at the Institute for Security Studies in Woodstock Cape Town on the 29th and 30th November 2011. Although we all see cybercrime as a separate division of law, it seems now that it is so large that various specialities within the main subject are emerging, making it difficult for law enforcement to curb the massive wave of cybercrime.
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iPad2 and 2Gb data for R379 |
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 iPad2 is now available from the Apple iStore for R379 per month and includes a 2Gb data bundle from MTN per month. Although you would need the 3G version at R389 to take advantage of the data bundle on the iPad.
Read more about the offer at the myiStore web site...
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Korbitec (Pty) Ltd and Another v eThekwini Municipality and Another |
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 A decision in the case between Korbitec (Pty) Ltd with Legalperfect Software Solutions (Pty) Ltd and eThekwini Municipality with Law Active (Pty) Limited where the judge found in favour of eThekwini Municipality and Law Active.
Read the report on the SAFLII web site……
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 Last week we published a short article as an overview to the launch of the new legalSTOR BPM application. I made an assumption that Lawpac was working on a link to the new application, but I was wrong.
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 Sabinet Online Ltd, an information company facilitating access to information for more than 28 years, announced that as from 1 November 2011, the company will offer free access to South African legislation to small law firms in conjunction with the profession's Law Library (formerly KwaZulu-Natal Law Society Library: www.lawlibrary.co.za ). These small law firms will have to meet certain criteria to be able to qualify for this offer of one year's free access to Sabinet's NetLaw product.
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 LAW is pleased to announce the appointment of Saras Kannie, a former Rates Controller at eThekwini Municipality, as the new Municipal Liaison Officer for KZN as from 01 November 2011.
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 The general South African consumer will soon have access to an incredible usable, low cost tablet. Wise Tablets, a South African based company with more than 8 years telecoms experience and 20+ years in IT, marketing and sales, have developed over the previous 12 months a local SA tablet, specific for our SA market.
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 Mimecast®, a leading supplier of cloud-based email security, continuity and archiving, today announced that it was awarded the Service Excellence Award at the recent KnowList Legal IT Awards, for the second consecutive year. TheKnowList Awards are dedicated to the strategic implementation of technology within the legal profession, recognising the success of key individuals, law firms and suppliers who are constantly striving to add value using IT.
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 CAMBRIDGE, England and SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU. or AU.L), a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise, today announced that its customer, international law firm SJ Berwin, has won the KnowList Award 2011 for its deployment of Autonomy's iManage Universal Search (IUS) and Phoenix Business Solutions' Knowledge Assist solutions.
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Sydney firm scraps billable hours |
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 Sydney law firm People Culture & Strategies (for real...) is to abandon billable hours and timesheets. The ridiculously-named firm is the latest in a string of outfits looking to move away from time based billing.
Read more on the Roll on Friday site.
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LegalTech New York 2011 Wrap-Up: Products, Trends, and More |
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 Technology announcements at LegalTech New York often provide a theme that is adopted over the course of the show. Last year, Thomson Reuters announced WestlawNext at the show and put the human element back into legal research. The "human element" echoed in the Exhibit Hall as vendors stressed their ability to facilitate human-computer interaction in e-discovery document review and software interface designs.
Read more on Law.Com
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 Merise Thomas has been appointed LAW’s new Relationship Manager for parts of the Johannesburg and Limpopo regions.
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Google under fire from all sides |
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Google faces accusations of underhand tactics from start-up Mocality, an online business directory based in Kenya, which has accused the search engine giant of malpractice and misrepresentation.
Read more at LegalBrief.....
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5 Predictions for time capture in 2012 |
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 Once again, we’ve come to the time of year where we all start looking forward. We’re going to harness our curiosity about the year ahead and make some predictions relevant to timekeeping. Keep reading to find out why Todd Gerstein, CEO & Founder of Smart WebParts, thinks 2012 will be the Year of Time Capture.
Read more at the LegalITProfessionals web site...
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 With South Africans starting to return to work at the end of the holiday season, there’s nothing more likely to destroy the warm afterglow of a great trip overseas than coming home to an astronomical cellphone bill after being caught in the roaming trap.
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 NEW YORK, Dec. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Vizibility Inc. and LexisNexis announced today the results of a survey conducted to shed light on the use of social media in legal services marketing.
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Tech comes out tops in 2011 |
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 Historians will look back on 2011 as a momentous year, one in which technology and the Internet played a pivotal role, often behind the scenes, but sometimes as the main attraction.
Read the great article at GeekBeard
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 Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) announced today that a selection of premium apps worth a total value of more than US $100 will be offered free of charge to subscribers as an expression of appreciation for their patience during the recent service disruptions.
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Connecticut Courts Weigh In on Social Media as Evidence |
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 When defendant Robert Eleck wanted to impeach the credibility of a key prosecution witness, he turned to a source that has increasingly provided a treasure trove of evidence in court cases: Facebook. The messages on the witness's Facebook page appeared to contradict her testimony that she had no contact with Eleck after he was accused of stabbing another teen at a party.
Read more on the Law.com web site....
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 LegalSuite have launched a competition to the local legal market, which will see one lucky winner working from the latest Apple iPad2. The competition will close on the 30th September 2011.
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German Roll Top : The Laptop from the Future |
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 The future of the laptop and the tablet PC has been rolled up into one. German designer Evgeny Orkin has developed a concept design for The Rolltop. The Roll top computer is constructed of a flexible OLED display that wraps around the removable power supply stand. Tucked into the power stand is a webcam, speaker sound bar, USB ports, and the power supply and power cord.
Read More at Gadget World...
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Target age groups for lawyers and law firms are reading blogs and using social networks |
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 According to the latest Pew Survey, there is little question that the target audience lawyers and lawyers are trying to reach are reading blogs and using social networking sites. About 35% of Generation X (age 34 to 45) read blogs About 28% of Younger Boomers (age 46 to 55) read...
Read more at LexBlog...
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Microsoft loses Supreme patent fight over Word |
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 America's top court has rejected Microsoft's appeal against a ruling that Microsoft Word infringed on patents owned by a tiny Canadian software maker. The US Supreme Court unanimously upheld an earlier court's ruling that said Microsoft willfully infringed on i4i's XML patents in Word 2003 and 2007. Microsoft was ordered to pay i4i almost $300m in damages and told in the ruling that it could no longer ship Word 2003 and 2007 with the offending code. Microsoft issued a patch to sidestep the XML code and continue selling its software.
Read more at The Register....
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 How on earth do you become a qualified municipal electrician in South Africa?
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 Leaked application tokens can give third parties access to Facebook users' personal info and the ability to post to their walls.
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The Best of ABA TECHSHOW 2011 |
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 Whew! ABA TECHSHOW is in the record books for another year. I enjoyed the Keynote and EXPO - always good to see product demonstrations and meet new vendors. And the weather was a welcome break for those of us who have yet to experience spring. As always, there is much to enjoy in Chicago by way of art, architecture, and museums. All In all, it was a perfect Silver Jubilee.
Read more at Oregon Law Practice Management site...
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 On the 1st November I attended the "Microsoft Device Update" presented by device guru Colin Erasmus (Windows Client Business Group Executive at Microsoft South Africa). My intention was to see what was relevant to the attorneys of South Africa and this is what I learnt.
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Johannesburg - 2 November 2011 - Mimecast ®, the leading supplier of cloud-based email archiving continuity and security for Microsoft Exchange, has implemented Unified Email Management (UEM) for international legal firm, Spoor & Fisher, to enable email archiving and intelligent spam filters.
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 Project ISIS - The City of Cape Town has developed an Integrated Spatial Information System, called ISIS, which is in the process of being tested for implementation by 28th November 2011. In support of City of Cape Town's vision for Project ISIS, LAW is hosting free information sessions.
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 The Mobile Revolution - Mobile Law is the topic for this years Cyber Law Conference in Midrand on the 1st and 2nd November 2011.
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 It gives me great pleasure in advising you that the African Center for Cyberlaw and Cybercrime Prevention (ACCP) in collaboration with Institute for Security Studies (ISS) - hosted by Snail Attorneys will be convening the 2nd ANNUAL SOUTH AFRICAN CYBER CRIME CONFERENCE which will take place on the 29 November 2011 - 30 November 2011 in Cape Town.
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News in brief
