Your columns contain their fair share of criticism of failings in public services, and that seems to me all the more reason to commend those services when they are doing well.

The Court Service is making impressive progress in opening itself up for the use of electronic mail.

On the front page of its Web site (www.courtservice.gov.uk), there is a link leading easily to the relevant practice direction, the guidance, a list of the courts that are on-line, and a list of downloadable forms.

The practice direction and guidance are models of clarity.

As someone who would find practice without e-mail quite intolerable, I am delighted the courts have moved so far from the days I remember in articles, when you could receive a postcard to inform you that your probate application had been stopped and that you were required to attend in person to enable it to proceed, only to find that a fee had been underpaid.

If the Court Service could now master the trick managed by the Land Registry, and provide practitioners with credit accounts they could use to pay fees on-line, all would be (almost) perfect.

Nicholas Bohm, member, Law Society's electronic law committee