Freshfields grants Cambridge students head start in legal ITLaw students at Cambridge University have been given a head start on getting to grips with legal IT thanks to funding from City giant Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.Ahead of a requirement that qualifying law degrees include a basic level of IT and IT-based research skills, coming into force in September, the firm has backed a new seminar room at the university equipped with 24 state-of-the-art PCs.The one-term 'Freshfields legal IT course' has been designed by former Lovells solicitor Daniel Bates, who has also been appointed to deliver and administer it.

It held its inaugural lecture last month - given by Professor Richard Susskind - with 325 students and staff attending.Freshfields is also helping with subscriptions to on-line legal resources and 'effectively paying me', said Mr Bates.The course will offer the 250 first-years basic training to meet the qualifying law degree standard.

Second and third-years will receive more focused training.

The 750 law students currently at Cambridge are on catch-up courses until September.Mr Bates, an environmental lawyer, said Cambridge 'very specifically wanted a lawyer who had been in practice' to run the course.

'IT was effectively a hobby for me,' he added.

'I was a closet anorak.'Under the joint statement of qualifying law degrees issued by the Law Society and Bar Council in 1999 - effective in the next academic year - students should be able to: use paper and electronic resources to produce up-to-date information; conduct searches of Web sites to locate relevant information; exchange documents by e-mail and manage information exchanges by e-mail; and produce world-processed text and present it in an appropriate form.Neil Rose