Justice secretary Jack Straw has heralded the success of the UK's first virtual court cases, saying the system will cut the cost and speed up the process of delivering justice. More...

nFlow today announced that its Digital Dictation System (DDS) has been integrated into LawSoft, Pilgrim Systems Plc’s Practice Management solution, to offer a new joint solution to the legal sector. Central London law firm Magrath LLP is the first organisation to go live with this integrated solution, extending the core functionality of the individual nFlow DDS and LawSoft software and thereby maximising its existing investment in these technologies. More...

Another company offering digital dication for the Apple iPhone is the long established DictaNet.

Key features include:

• Revolutionary operation through the use of the integrated movement sensor for dictation control
• Professional dictation functions such as Insert, Voice Activation (can be deactivated), Conference Mode
• Separate dictation folders for dictations, drafts, voice recognition dictations, dictations in conference mode
• User interface and controls can be adjusted for right- and left-handed use
• Attachment of photos to a dictation (e.g. for experts) with optional location designation
• Dictation author initials and text comments can be added to the dictation
• Up to 100 hours (with 8 GB) or 200 hours (with 16 GB) of digital quality dictation recordings
• Automatic dictation import over WLAN in DictaNet WF and DictaNet Tandem dictation systems
• Includes future updates: no additional costs for program maintenance and support

 Full details here

Eclipse Legal Systems, has announced the latest developments to its Proclaim case and practice management solution.  Proclaim is now in use by over 10,000 individuals throughout the UK, and the developments outlined below will be available to all users – free of charge – under Eclipse’s standard maintenance contract.

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Leeds Day Solicitors, one of East Anglia’s most well-established and respected practices have selected Linetime’s Liberate legal accounting and Liberate Signature Edition case management system to replace their AIM Evolution software.

The 8 partner, 70 staff practice provide a range of legal services from 3 offices throughout the region, specializing in conveyancing, personal injury, commercial work and litigation. More...

Google Sites remained the top search destination for Web surfers in April, with 9.5 billion searches throughout the month, according to data from comScore.

Google was the only major search to gain market share in April. The site was up 0.5% to 64.2% of the overall search market.

Meanwhile  WolframAlpha the new computational search engine launched yesterday. Originally touted as potential Google killer it turns out that this search engine is very different. Rather than indexing content from other web sites it relies on its own knowedge, computational models and knowledge provided by leading experts to provide answers to very specific questions. At the moment is more likley to be used as a research tool for anyone who wants computational based information.

Longer term it will be interesting to see if and how it develops expertise in more structured but non-computational knowledge. Experience from developments in legal expert systems could be applied thereby providing proven answers to basic legal questions.

 

Lancashire-based Napthens LLP Solicitors has placed an £80,000 order with Solicitors Own Software to standardise on SOS Connect for integrated case and practice management across its five branches. Napthens expects to drive new efficiencies and improve working practices by replacing legacy case management systems inherited from the three mergers that the firm has experienced over the last two years.

Napthens provides a wide range of legal services to clients in the central Lancashire area with revenues equally divided between business and private clients. Offices are located in Preston, Chorley, Blackburn, Blackpool and Longridge where 200 people are employed. The law firm has used SOS Practice Manager for accounts since 2001. With each of the three mergers, partners re-assessed the other accounting systems in use – including Axxia and Eclipse, before deciding to standardise on SOS for accounts. With this latest order, that decision has now been extended to replace the diverse legacy case management systems with SOS Connect.

Interesting article from The Times on the growth in demand for Autonomy's software, helping business to search and extract value from their unstructured data.

Last week Citrix announced the availability of the Citrix Receiver application on the Apple App Store. The app gives iPhone and iPod touch users access their Windows applications and documents from anywhere. Businesses will be able to quickly and securely leverage their existing Citrix XenApp™ infrastructure to tap into the power of an agile and productive mobile workforce.