Graeme Johnston / 10 July 2023 The argument of this article is that people doing legal work typically utilise three highly-developed technology pillars but that a fourth needs more attention if real progress is to be made with the crucial challenges of improving both quality and pricing. I freely admit that this is not…

Graeme Johnston / 13 April 2023 This is just a short piece to introduce the work of Reginald Heber Smith (Reg Smith) who lived from 1889 to 1966, and whose impact on legal work is not as widely known as I think it should be. He studied law in the years 1910-1914. After that, he…

Graeme Johnston / 20 March 2023 The question sometimes arises whether the ordinary law in an area should apply where someone is said to have done something fraudulent, illegal or otherwise questionable.  The general idea that ‘fraud unravels all’ is often mentioned in English law, but its application varies with context.  This post gathers together…

Graeme Johnston / 10 March 2023 The cartoon is English and almost two hundred years old. It dates from just before the start of several decades of radical changes in English law and court procedure. The artist dreams of sweeping away, among other things, the incomprehensible ‘Special Pleaders & their wigs also’ together with ‘Delays…

Graeme Johnston / 3 March 2023 This is the fourth in a series of five posts about time recording and billing in legal work. The first three outlined the history, current status, benefits and problems of that system in England & Wales, and in the United States. This one discusses the forces which may tend…

Graeme Johnston / 24 February 2023 This is the third post in a series of five. It covers the benefits and problems of time-based billing and why change is so difficult. In contrast to the prose of the first and second posts, this one comprises lists. The fourth and fifth posts will explore their implications.…

Graeme Johnston / 17 February 2023 ‘You have your principles, but then there is also the commercial reality’ Head of a specialist litigation function at a law firm, quoted by the Solicitors Regulation Authority – 14 February 2023 This is the second post in a series of five about time recording in legal services. The…

Graeme Johnston / 10 February 2023 This is the first in a series of five posts discussing time recording in legal services. The intended topics are: 1) Setting the scene – the history and current status of time-recording practices – this post, Fri 10th Feb 20232) Different types of pricing and target – appearance and…

Graeme Johnston / 3 February 2023 We’re pleased to announce that Slaughter and May have, since January 2023, started making Juralio available across the firm.  This follows Juralio winning the firm’s Collaborate competition in December 2020 and a pilot in 2021. The 2023 roll-out started with the firm’s London Corporate and Disputes groups and some Business Services…

Graeme Johnston / 30 January 2023 Informating …[A]ctivities… are transformed into information and thus become visible and measurable… [This] can be empowering. However, it can also be used to centralize power… [to] enable… monitoring… and [to replace people] by machines. However, these machines create new forms of information that can be used, simultaneously creating new…