Legal Technology Journal

Law firms are stepping up employee surveillance as the redundancy toll in the City rises, but IT directors are still battling against competing forces of cost and disruption to business.

IT heads at the top 20 firms admit that they are particularly wary of confidential material being downloaded into a transportable form now that the credit crunch has begun to bite and is costing jobs both internally and among their top financial institution clients.

Nearly three times as many foreign IT workers from outside the European Union entered the UK last year than during the dot com boom in spite of the economic downturn.

General counsel at 30 top multinational corporations have claimed that a law firm’s website plays a key role in influencing their purchasing decisions.

The claims arise as part of a survey commissioned by Hubbard One, in which 100% of general counsel surveyed said they review a firm’s website when evaluating and purchasing legal services. Ninety percent said that lawyer biographies are the most important section on a law firm’s website.
The results will contradict the view of many lawyers that the firm’s website rarely leads to instructions.

Tikit has announced its preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2008 with pre-tax profits up by three percent to £3.5m and revenues up by eight percent to £28.5m.

The addition of TfB, acquired by Tikit in April 2008 for £7.6m including expenses, contributed £3.9m to the total revenue and £1m towards profits during the year, as well as increasing the number of law firm clients serviced by the group by about 500.