Showing posts with label legal service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label legal service. Show all posts
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House to further regulate accounting services

Friday, October 29, 2010


Legislative Update 01/2010

 

Earlier this year, the House of Representative presented the academic draft on the Law on Public Accountants (download the academic draft here, in Bahasa). The current version of the draft law in its preamble does not seem to provide enough justification on why accounting services has to be regulated. It only states that at present, there is not enough regulation on the profession and that more rules are required to provide ‘legal certainty’ for clients and public accountants.

The academic draft does contain some justifications on why the accounting industry needs to be regulated, among other, that the profession attempts to reduce information asymmetry between principal and agents of an undertaking and provide them with financial information to back up their business decision. However, this is not adequately enshrined in the draft Law.

ILR’s sources at the House of Representative commented that the real aim of the draft law is to curtail the ever expanding growth of foreign accounting firms and provide opportunity for local firms to grow. Provisions regulating foreign accounting firms (Articles 17 and 13 of the current Draft) will become a contentious subject to be debated. On these articles, the number of foreign partners and foreign workers in an accounting firm is limited.

ILR will closely monitor the Draft Law on Public Accountant. If you require more information or tailor made service, please contact movanet@gmail.com







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Enjoy ILR in your Kindle

Thursday, October 28, 2010

The ILR entered into agreement with Amazon yesterday to deliver the blog to Kindle devices through its Kindle Publishing program. If you subscribe to ILR through Amazon, the content will be delivered directly to your Kindle device through Whispernet. Note that Amazon impose a $ 1,99 monthly charge for this subscription and so far, the program will only work if your Kindle country setting is set to United States. Click here to go to ILR’s Amazon Page.

 

Indonesia Law Report (ILR)

 

But, there is a workaround! You can directly download ILR in a mobi format to be used in your Kindle for free by clicking this feed in your Kindle browser. Once the feed goes to the library of your Kindle device, it will provide a link for you to update its content.

Enjoy reading ILR in your Kindle!



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More on evernote for legal practice

Thursday, August 26, 2010

 

 

Here a list on what evernote can do to enhace your legal practice:

  1. As a blogging tool for legal bloggers (of course!)
  2. Research tool (collection of snippet and bookmarks) and digital filing cabinet.
  3. Customer relation management (CRM) tool
  4. Client tagging, note taking, auto forwarding from website contact form

I think evernote is good to be used for start-up lawfirms or those with SOHO (Small Office Home Office) practices. Recently I connected my inexpensive Lexmark s.305 Wi-FI printer to send scanned files (PDF or Pictures) directly to evernote so that it can sync with the system there. But if you have a scanner with autofeeder, I think it would be much faster and better to scan documents, deeds, contracts and all those boring stuffs :) No need to use expensive Knowledge Management softwares, its a waste of money!

Read our previous post: Evernote for Lawyers.



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Evernote for Lawyers

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

 

 

Many lawfirms are investing thousands of dollars for Knowledge Management software only to discover that their lawyers and workers find a hard time implementing it because they are not user-friendly. The reason why most KM software doesn’t work is because they are not embedded in your daily life; the inputs are tedious and time-consuming.

 

It’s time to liberate yourself. Someday you will quit working for that lawfirm and set-up your own (or do better things like enjoy your life) so you better have your own Knowledge Management system to satisfy your future need of information.

 

With evernote, you can write notes, clip web pages, take picture notes and voice notes directly from your desktop and mobile. Evernote has apps for ipads, blackberry, android and other OS. All of them are synced together in the cloud. The software is also equipped with integrated OCR (optical character recognition), so every text in the picture you take or document you scanned will be recognized. Some printers can also directly send scanned files to evernote.

 

Here’s a list of things that a lawyer can do with evernote:

  1. Take pictures of/scan business cards
  2. Use the voice note for interviews (using blackberry – silently :)
  3. Take a snapshot of important clauses
  4. Scan your meeting notes
  5. Scan legal documents
  6. Take pictures during site visit (and tag it in your project folder)

Evernote is linked with many other apps: your email (you can forward your mail to evernote), twitter and google reader, just to name a few. The most important of all: it’s free!
Click here to sign up.



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Add your lawfirm to our Lawfirm Directory (and get featured!)

Monday, May 17, 2010

 

In case you haven’t realize, the Nanotechnology Law blog adds a few links in the tabs: Lawfirm Directory and Add Lawfirm.

Lawfirm directory is a new feature aimed at collecting information about lawfirms practising Nanotechnology related issue. If you fill out the form and request a review, we will consider the application subject to further documentation provided by you.

Please note that the review is not an advertorial. If you request an advertorial, we will have to disclose it in the blog post.

Click here to download the list of firms and here (or scroll below) to fill out the form.

 

Related:

Solo Practicioner Lawyer, a Trend?
The future of work: no cubicle culture, smaller companies, working from home



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HOWTO: Tweet the right lawyers

Thursday, May 13, 2010

 

(and get a free advice on something)

Jennifer asked:

Who would be a good person to tweet for advise on Clemency and human rights? I support Australian Schapelle Corby who is mentally ill and her lawyer has appealed to the Indonesian president for clemency. I believe she is innocent and did not receive a fair trial but now her mental health is priority. She was sentenced to 20 years which is harsh by Indonesian standards with no testing of the evidence despite her demands to police and prosecution (these tests may of proved her innocence). She has suffered enough and needs to come home. Thanks, any info would be appreciated

Short answer: perhaps these people can help:

@taufikbasari @arijuliano @anggarasuwahju @TodungLubis @lisrasukur

Long answer: follow them on twitter, discover their network and give a shot. Perhaps it is better to drag people’s attention through your own twitter campaign. A lot of people is using twitter to extend their advocacy to the online world.  An important feature in this effort is in creating incentives for people to tweet their opinion. The incentive could either be external (from outside factors, such as a praise or a thank you note from other people) but they are mostly internal (they just feel good about tweeting). I will try to elaborate this further on my next post.


Related posts:

Twittering the Indonesian Legal Community
ABAnet Twitter Debate on Virtual Law Office
6 Free Collaboration Tools for Lawyers



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ABAnet Twitter Debate on Virtual Law Office

Friday, May 7, 2010

Quick blogging. Follow this hashtag #22TwDb

 



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Twittering the Indonesian Legal Community

Monday, May 3, 2010

Some of the most prominent figures of the Indonesian legal community is sharing their thoughts in twitter. Sometimes, when they are happy, they provide advices too, with 140 characters, that is.

(Hey, in this world, nothing is free, except for advices. And for lawyers, oftentimes, that is also not free. So, 140 characters is a good thing to start.)

So, who’s on Twitter? Here’s a list of those benevolent lawyers.

1. Taufik Basari often tweets about human rights law.

2. Pramudya tweets about Law and Economics.

3. Ari Juliano, who is the Indonesian Coordinator for the Creative Commons Project, often tweets about IPR

4. Faiz, our future Constitutional Court Chief Justice, tweets about, well, Constitution.

5. Arsil has his own Jurisprudence class in Twitter.

6. Anggara, our savvy Press Lawyer (he did several Judicial Reviews related to press law by the way) tweets here.

7. If you are a law student, keep an eye on Legal101 (from students, for students :)

8. Oh, I tweet too. You can find me here. I tried to organize my useful tweets, with this hashtag #lawtalk . Pram is also joining me in this hashtag. 

These people are quite friendly. So I think they will be happy to answer your twitter queries.

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6 Free Collaboration Tools for Lawyers

Sunday, May 2, 2010

You just start up a small law firm and can’t afford to pay expensive IT costs? No problem. There are tons of freebies out there which you can use to enhance your law firm’s productivity.

1. Delicious

Bookmarks cluttered your browser page? Use bookmarking sites. There are many free bookmarking services including google notebook and Digg, but I prefer delicious for my bookmarks. I have been sharing these bookmarks with colleagues in other countries working on the same issue. I don't lose anything by sharing what I found in the net and they don't risk the possibility of reinventing the wheel.
 

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In delicious, have a look at my Water Law bookmarks. If you do European Law, have a look at my EU Law bookmarks. For nanotechnology law, have a look here.
 
Important tip for delicious. In tagging, always use root words. Don’t use “nanotechnology+law” or “nanotechnologies”, unless you really have to.

2. Manymoon
Manymoon is a cool software for project management. It has project management features such as milestones, tasks, calendar, link sharing and progress report.
 
 
  













For example, if you are doing a merger, you can set the milestones into (i) Merger Plan, (ii) BoC Approval of the Merger Plan, (iii) Shareholder’s Approval for Merger and (iv) Notifications to Employees. You can add tasks to each milestones. For milestone (i) you can assign the drafting of a Merger Plan to a junior lawyer and a reviewing task to the more senior lawyer. You can set dates for these task, set a deadline and a reminder.
What I really like with Manymoon is its integration with Google Apps. Manymoon is integrated to Google Docs, Email and Calendar. It has a reporting tool too, but unfortunately, the free version only has one reporting for each projects.

Sign up to manymoon for free, here.

Oh, in case you are a time-sheet freak, yes, manymoon does track your lawyer’s time sheet.



3. Tungle
You are a very busy person with lots of schedules, but yet, your firm can’t afford to pay a secretary? It’s OK, not a problem. Tungle will help to sort out your scheduling problem.

 

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Tungle use google calendar to check the dates when you would be available. Clients can then propose several dates for a meeting or web conference or telephone call. Not clear enough, you can try scheduling a conference call with me, using my tungle here.


4. Dimdim
You are in Bali and too tired to go to Jakarta for a meeting, or you simply have a ‘virtual’ lawfirm and only work at the office if you have too. Besides, who needs an office these days, right?

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With Dimdim, you can always hold meetings online. Share presentations, share your computer screen, hold a web conference! Dimdim can record your meetings too. Again, no need for a secretary.


5. Offisync
The old school of doing review is by turning the track changes on and then sending it once you made the review. Well, there’s a more effective way of doing it.

Offisync, well, sync, your office files with Google Docs and allow instant, online collaboration with coworkers. However, there is a caveat. You may not be able to save the doc files in its original MS Word Format, unless you have a premium account with google apps. So, everytime you save docs in offisync, it save it in google doc format. If you have plenty of tables and footnotes, you might want to be a bit careful using the service. I hope they will sort out this problem soon. I will update you when they do.



6. Finally, Google Apps




Get 50 free (7GB each) email@yourlawfirm.com with google apps, integrated with calendar, docs and other google services such as video and sites. Yes, you get the email with your company’s name but using gmail services. Ain’t that cool? Sign up here.
All of the software I listed above (except for Delicious) are integrated into Google Apps. So when you sign up to google apps (the basic version) and go to the Marketplace from your domain management console, you can install those apps in your domain. Have fun! 

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Will blogs transform the nature of legal services?

Friday, January 26, 2007

It has been an honour that political analyst Fatih Syuhud reviewed this blog in his "blog of the week" feature. Here's a quote:
Some non-law students are just reluctant to read anything to do with law because the writer uses too rigid a language which is hardly understood by non-law student...

The stark substantial differences between modern people and "primitive" ones is not about the physical appearances, it's about how thirsty we are to acquire new knowledge and information, which are ups for grabs in front us. Al Afghani's blog content is one of those information that we should read regularly and joyfully to quench our thirst of knowledge just in case you are one of those modern and civilized persons.

Not only that the law is difficult to understand for lay people, it is also expensive and not reliable. Am I right or am I wrong? In theory, the law is created for the people, and not the other way around. Is there any way to bring the law closer to the people?

It is possible. Ever heard of "Law 2.0"? Click it if you are curious. Blog is a part of Law 2.0. Blogs can make legal services faster, better and cheaper. How?
  1. Collaboration. My researches and blog posts may be useful for the legal people. They can cite, improve and edit my article to create a legal memo. No need to do another research. There is no use reeinventing the wheel
  2. Better scrutinies. If you write a legal analysis alone and put in your desktop, only you and probably your partner knows if you made any mistakes. But if you publish it online, maybe other lawyers or me would be able to comment should you make errors, vice versa
  3. Niche-creation. If there are too many law blogs (US has so many legal blogs), bloggers will start creating niche content to attract visitors. This is positive for legal specialization
  4. Blogs will give opportunities for small and boutique lawfirms or even solo career lawyers. In light of regional autonomy, this is very good
There are barriers to these possibilities: (i) slow internet connection, (ii) reluctancy to write, (iii) fear in giving away opinions, (iv) materialism. Point iv is really something outdated, if you read Time's 2006 man of the year.

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Law 2.0: exchanges with mazyar hedayat

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Mazyar Hedayat posted in his blog a draft business model for Law 2.0. I'll give you a quot:

the business model of the website is simple: users post content for others to download, such as:

  • documents: pleadings, letters, briefs, memoranda, research
  • presentations: power-point, flash, PDF
  • media: videos, photographs
  • applications: applets or widgets

authors and items receive user ratings. highly rated authors and items are featured more prominently. revenue would be generated through

  • e-commerce: host site would take a fair % of the value of each transaction
  • advertising: start simply by deploying ads then work up to sponsorship
  • subscriptions: as mentioned above
  • licensing: application could be licensed for use within an enterprise
The content looks perfect to me. The means are already available. With Google Docs, Google Notebook, Flickr, You Tube and del.icio.us they are virtually already here. But, aside from Creative Commons, I have never seen any boilerplates provision available online for free. Why? What would attract the hourly paid lawyers to tag, post and share their docs on the net? Can the networking power of web 2.0. altered the way legal services are delivered?

If you have a say, join us in this conversation. Give a link and we'll link you back.



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How virtual office works

Thursday, January 4, 2007

How stuff works posted an interesting article on how to run a virtual office. For advanced techies most of the tips provided there are basics and refers more to Small-Office-Home-Office (SOHO) concept, nevertheless, there are some which is relatively new such as the use of Virtual Assistance. There is also a link to Virtual Office Group, a london based company offering telephone reception services and renting office spaces on hourly basis.

I can actually lists down free programs that could be used for Virtual Offices as I have been using it myself, but I think I'll just do it on a later post. See also my previous post on virtual lawfirm, long tail and law 2.0.

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Long-tailing the legal service: The Googlawfirm

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Hit-driven economics is a creation of an age without enough room to carry everything for everybody. Not enough shelf space for all the CDs, DVDs, and games produced. Not enough screens to show all the available movies. Not enough channels to broadcast all the TV programs, not enough radio waves to play all the music created, and not enough hours in the day to squeeze everything out through either of those sets of slots. This is the world of scarcity. Now, with online distribution and retail, we are entering a world of abundance. And the differences are profound.

Being an underdog? Worry not, the internet gives you hope. Welcome to the economy of abundance, where there is a demand for everything, everyone.

I am sure that most of you have heard about Anderson's Book, The Long Tail. But if you haven't heard it, here's a short description from wikipedia:
"....products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough..... Where inventory storage and distribution costs are insignificant, it becomes economically viable to sell relatively unpopular products; however when storage and distribution costs are high, only the most popular products can be sold".


If you look at the wikipedia's graph above, the long tail is the yellow part. Let's assume that this is a music or film industry. The red part is the Hit, bestseller singers like, say Robbie Williams, or blockbuster movies like say, Saving Private Ryan. The yellow part is for the less known singers, street musicians, amateurs, Cafe Singers, or independent movies, etc. Now, the bottomline here is, there is always a market for everyone. The traditional 80-20 power law, where 80 per cent of the market is controlled by 20 percent producers could no longer be applicable.

What makes long tail possible? First, The Internet. Second, human's psychology. Hey, everyone's unique. I like documentaries, you like war movies and the other loves drama. There's no accounting for some people's taste.

Recently, there is an article in Law.com on how the future legal service will respond to this long-tail phenomena. The article asked several important questions. Here, I'll try to suggest some possible answers:

Q: Lawyers mostly create new legal work at high cost for one client at a time. Aren't lawyers at increasing risk of competition from Internet-based models of legal service and information?

A: Yes, as they are doing this virtual online legal service thing

Q: And are they even at risk of having to compete with their own past work, much of which is now available on the Web in official and unofficial repositories?

A: As far as I know, some companies' legal departments are now looking for answers to their problems in Blawgs. It is more efficent, and cheap.

Q: What indeed will the long tail of lawyering look like? Will the power law effect that the "rich get richer" on the Internet, exacerbate existing inequality in the legal profession?


A: Could be in terms of internet companies, No for lawfirms. Traditional lawfirms are, I think, is being jeoperdized by the Internet. They still survive as they relied on (1) Trust, (2) Jurisdictional Protection (through bar exams), (3) Local Networking. Lawyering is a service business and "Trust" is the best marketing tool. This is what differs lawyering from selling books at Amazon. But, it may not last long.

Q: Will local and traditional CLE organizations be supplanted by national Internet-based CLE organizations and CLE content aggregators? If so, will speaking and reputation-building activities be drastically reduced for lawyers whose volunteer efforts have made CLE work until now?


Lawyers will speak through blawgs, I think.Q: If Internet-based services can assist clients in locating just the right lawyer, and if lawyers across firms can work together collaboratively on project teams, exactly what is the role of the law firm going forward?

A: If the legal service can be completely unbundled, then there is no need for a lawfirm. But it may take time to get there. Only until lawyers can practice in different jurisdictions, maybe. Confidentiality could also be an issue if we can work cross-lawfirm, I guess.

Q: In an era of information abundance, much of it highly pertinent to law practice, does one risk liability by not taking full advantage of it? How do rules of ethics and liability need to change to acknowledge the fact that lawyers cannot know everything, even with a good portion of the world's information literally at one's fingertips? Will tenacious clients be able to find out more about their legal problems than their own lawyers have gotten round to discovering?

A: When I talk to computer programmers, they know more about creative commons licensing than any corporate lawyers I've ever met. Creative Commons is the "living law" of intellectual property licensing, but there are some lawyers who never even heard about it.

Consider the role of tax consultants and investment consultants, they are taking the role of lawyers. Also, internet users are becoming more advanced and they have a very good personal knowledge management skill. Lawyers know better on how to wrap their arguments, they know the theories better. But, practice may not always require theories. Take for example free boilerplates provision available on the internet. Programmers just put it in their programs and launch them. But of course, there are cases when they still need alegal advice from a lawyer.

I think giant internet companies will eventually replaces lawfirms. I think both Google and Yahoo has the power to do it. Take for example, Ask Yahoo and Google Scholars. They can make a good future consultation service. All they need to do is to agregate! Google can agregate legal knowledge from various continents in their website and provide a legal service across all jurisdictions. This will certainly kill all giant lawfirms but it will help lots of lawyers to spend more time with their family :)


Email me in movanet@yahoo.com if you are interested in the concept