Barnett to head court 21 project
Barrister Jeremy Barnett has been appointed to lead the Court 21 project at Leeds University. Court 21 is an academic partnership between the university's law and computing departments and its business school, together with the Courtroom 21 project at the William and Mary School of Law in Virginia, USA. The partnership was established in 2001 to undertake research and education in the role of emerging technology in the legal system - its current focus is on the role of emerging technologies in alternative dispute resolution. Mr Barnett, a fraud and regulatory law specialist at St Paul's Chambers in Leeds, has been chairman of the Bar Council IT panel for three years.



Silver lining as firm wins award

National firm Irwin Mitchell has won a silver accolade at the National IT Training Awards for internal project of the year. The firm was recognised for its training programme that delivered the WinScribe digital dictation facility across the firm's offices in Sheffield, Newcastle, Leeds, Birmingham and London. The aim of the training was that as soon as employees had completed the course, they could return to their PCs and begin using the system. Run by the Institute of IT Training, the annual awards acknowledge high standards, best practice, innovation, and excellence.



Adobe picks up the PISCES

Adobe, the global software company that developed the PDF file format, has become a member of PISCES, the independent not-for-profit organisation that develops and maintains open electronic data standards for real estate. Gary Fry, Adobe's managing director for northern Europe enterprise, said: 'The combination of Adobe PDF and our free universal client software, Adobe Reader, that allows anyone to view and print PDF files, means that the real estate industry will be able to build easy, intelligent forms that allow control of how electronic documents are used and distributed.'