Freshfields sponsors tech centre

Cambridge University's law faculty has sealed a pact with City giant Freshfields to launch an IT centre for students.The Freshfields IT Centre was unveiled last week with a pledge of 270,000 from the City firm.

The money will fund new hardware, software, staff and a course in legal research skills focusing on the use of on-line methods.

Law lecturer Dr Pippa Rogerson welcomed the development as a response to 'the dramatic revolution going on in the way in which lawyers locate and manage legal resources'.She explained: 'People will no longer go to lawyers because they hold the keys to a dusty book.

Lawyers are no longer gatekeepers to the source material, as they were during the last century.' The future role of lawyers in relation to source material lay in interpretation and guiding the public to the relevant information, she added.Courses in IT-based research will soon be compulsory for first-year students at the university.

Other City firms such as Slaughter and May have helped to sponsor the faculty in the past.

Freshfields partner Hugh Crisp said the sponsorship would help associate the firm as a player 'at the leading edge of IT'.

Sponsorship gave the firm no inside track in recruitment at the university, he added.

Jeremy Fleming