Sole practitioners and small firms can use a variety of inexpensive or free technologies to their advantage. But what should they focus on for maximum benefit? In my opinion, they should:

  • Adopt free and/or open source software. The open source movement involves people around the world collaborating in writing everything on-line from their own software to their own operating systems and dictionaries. Its benefit for a practice can manifest itself in allowing a business to use free and impressive products such as Firefox (a Web browser) or OpenOffice.org (a multi-platform office productivity suite). Another free product, which is not open source, is Skype, allowing one to speak on the Internet for free - to other Skype users - or at hugely reduced rates over a broadband connection.


  • Blog. The phenomenon of blogging is taking off, with a new blog created very second. For free, or for a modest amount, one can start blogging and communicating with the on-line community. As blogs are continually updated, search engines tend to pick up the content better than Web sites. Blogging also represents an effective tool for accumulating knowledge of other participatory media such as podcasting.


  • Use the Web aggressively. For a modest fee, one can purchase an effective Web site template such as at Monstertemplate.com. Furthermore, I am aware that Susan Singleton, the leading technology lawyer and sole practitioner, does much legal research on-line for free - she has a philosophy that one should never buy any product which is free or available on the Internet elsewhere.


  • Outsource and digitalise. Sole practitioners and small businesses can capitalise on the 'death of distance' by considering the adoption of virtual telephone reception services, digital dictation and the outsourcing of secretarial functions. One firm I have dealt with, Flack & Co, has recently started to digitalise all files, enabling staff to access files from home on their broadband connections. In the long term, this means that staff spend less time accessing documents on file, and the firm makes significant savings in office space.



    • Justin Patten is principal of Human Law (www.human-law.co.uk). He is running a workshop on Blogging for Beginners