Twenty-two years ago today I formed and opened Inksters. Inksters in the Beginning Way back then it was just me and my PA, Fiona, in a small office in Oswald Street, Glasgow. I decided to set up my own law firm, Inksters, as I was frustrated by the partnership model (although I had never been…
LawHouse – The Social Media Audio App Just for Lawyers
Since Clubhouse came on the scene audio only Apps have become the next big thing in Social Media. Lawyer Tik Tok videos are now very old hat. All the cool lawyers want to follow the tech bros into audio only rooms. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have all announced development of their own versions of Clubhouse…
Clubhouse is not for Lawyers – 12 Reasons
I am not on Clubhouse. I can’t readily access it (see reason 1 below). However, even if I could, I don’t particularly want to be on it (see reasons 2 to 12 below). This blog post gives the reasons why I think Clubhouse is not for Lawyers or indeed not for anyone connected with the…
Atrium’s mistakes from the Horse’s mouth : An analysis
I wrote a couple of detailed blog posts last year about the demise of Atrium (the Californian legal start-up that burned $75.5 million of VC funding in its short existence): (1) Is the Atrium ‘pivot’ really shades of Clearspire? and (2) Atrium: A Post-mortem. I also took an opposite view from Artificial Lawyer about his…
Lawyers and Twitter – 11 years later
Over the years, Twitter has brought me many connections and opportunities in a way that no other social media platform has. It is “networking on speed” and certainly can connect you faster and more easily with people that you want to connect with than conventional networking ever would. When I started tweeting, back in February…
Lawyers don’t need a ‘Second Life’ conference
In the time of lockdown, Nicole Black has pondered at ‘Above the Law‘ that:- Surely there’s a way to hold a virtual conference that’s more interactive and allows attendees to be more engaged with both vendors and other attendees. Nicole thinks we need something more than Zoom. Her suggestion is that we should have avatars…
Registers of Scotland scramble to find a ‘Digital Solution’ in the time of COVID-19
Registers of Scotland today announced that they were closing Meadowbank House, in Edinburgh and St Vincent Plaza, in Glasgow from today. As a consequence, the application record to register title to land in Scotland has been suspended until further notice as they will be unable to process any paper applications after today. This step was…
When you can combine venture capital with legal services
Artificial Lawyer this morning posted an article entitled: ‘It’s hard to combine venture capital with professional services’ – Atrium Co-Founder, Augie Rakow The premise taken by Artificial Lawyer from an interview with Augie Rakow was that Atrium didn’t work out because of this combination. Artificial Lawyer observes that:- scaling up a law firm from scratch…
Atrium: A Post-mortem
On Tuesday (3 March 2020) Tech Crunch broke the news that Atrium, the Californian based hybrid legal software and law firm, was shutting down. Tech Crunch said this was “after failing to figure out how to deliver better efficiency than a traditional law firm”. Atrium has now laid off all its employees, which totaled just…
What if… Lawyers aren’t Innovating?
Artificial Lawyer has asked the question What If…Big Law Pulled The Plug On Legal Innovation? This is perhaps a hypothetical question (I don’t think any Big Law firm will be willing to admit they are no longer innovating even if they are not) but it apparently arose because:- In the last few weeks we have…