A grand day out

What does it take to attract 250 Scottish and Irish solicitors and 12 sets of exhibitors to Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall for the day? Not the venue’s usual theatrical or musical performances but an alternative event, featuring a raft of virtuoso presentations from experts in their own fields.

“Nothing But The Net” (NBTN) is the Law Society of Scotland’s highly successful legal IT conference, now in its sixth year. The focus of the event has matured from the heady dot-com days. The audience tends to be less impressed with technological wizardry and more interested in how all the hardware and software translate into running a successful business whilst keeping within the laws of cyberspace – fast becoming the most over-regulated area in which lawyers are expected to practise.

This year’s NBTN paid careful heed to the feedback from delegates at the previous events and in particular the desire for a more targeted offering, as the marketing boys and girls would say. For the first time therefore, NBTN adopted a “twin track” policy – longer seminars for the more IT-aware and shorter, punchy events dealing with more of the fundamentals for the remaining participants. Into the former “Stream A” category fell presentations on IT outsourcing, advertising standards online, winning IT litigation and document management software. The punchy “Stream B” presentations covered the threats associated with doing business online, managed email securing, firewalls, and disaster management/business continuity planning, as well as introductory presentations in relation to IT budgets and case management systems.

The above workshops were flanked at either end of the day by heavyweight sessions for all delegates, dealing with money laundering and the role of IT in its detection, film piracy, recent developments with automated registration of title to land (ARTL), and the rights and wrongs of radio frequency identification tags (RFID). No more acronyms in the article, I promise!

A further innovation that was well received by delegates involved the practical demonstrations on firewalls, which were run as an interesting alternative to biscuits during lunch and afternoon coffee break.

It is impossible to do justice to all of the 18 speakers who participated in the course of a very busy day, but the following is a flavour. John Kingston of the Joseph Bell Centre of the University of Edinburgh gave a sobering keynote presentation on the role of IT in detecting money laundering, including the use of behaviour detection platforms, the SAS anti-money laundering system, and a useful guide to jargon such as red flagging and text mining. The theme of organised criminality was immediately picked up by a graphically illustrated talk from Raymond Leinster, the new Director General of Federation Against Copyright Theft, who argued that there was a demonstrable link between organised crime and DVD piracy which many criminals view as easy money. Examples of piracy included brazen resale of pirated items on popular internet auction sites.

Jane Fraser of Maclay Murray & Spens kicked off the “Stream A” presentations with a useful summary of the TUPE rules in the context of IT outsourcing overseas, and offered six steps to successful transfers. Ryan Taylor of the Advertising Standards Authority followed up with an analysis of ASA online and the new media covered by the ASA/CAP system. Meantime the “Stream B” presentations included an overview of the threats associated with doing business online, presented by Dr Aydin Kurt-Elli, CEO of Lumison. Though very pushed for time due to another prior speaker over-running, a most entertaining presentation was given by David Hutcheson of Glen Abbot Ltd, who reminded delegates that disaster planning and business continuity should all be moved up the IT manager’s agenda. As he put it – no one plans for the office next door to go on fire, but if it happens and the flames don’t get you, the water used to put them out will! None of this is your fault, but have you prepared for such an eventuality?

The “Stream A” presentations continued after lunch with Mark Culbert of Osbourne Clark, whose presentation on winning IT litigation seemed to strike a chord with the assembled delegates: the spectacle of a Sassenach citing Scottish case law always goes down well with the punters. This presentation was followed by the usual animated (in every sense) performance from seasoned campaigner John Gailey of VisualFiles, who reviewed the current state of the document management market and posed the question “whether document, case, and records management software were the Holy Trinity of legal IT, or just three bits of software one could easily live without”? No concluded view was reached but top marks as always for entertainment value.

The afternoon “Stream B” session commenced with a presentation direct from the horse’s mouth by Gordon Brewster, Director of IT, the Law Society of Scotland who spoke on budgetary matters, followed by Stuart Munro, Livingston Brown on case management systems (luckily John Gailey was out of earshot), and concluded with a practical firewall demonstration provided by Castle Computer Services and introduced by Gordon Brewster.

In a departure from previous events the afternoon rounded off with a lively sparring session between Will Roebuck of the E-Business Regulatory Alliance, and Christopher McDermott of NoTags.co.uk, each of whom spoke passionately about the seemingly unstoppable march of radio frequency identification tags. Will Roebuck emphasised their benefits to both consumers and supply chain mangers. Christopher McDermott pointed out that individual freedom in 2005 Britain was already something of a qualified privilege – car number plates were scanned daily in London and elsewhere; credit cards could be traced; mobile phones can give away the user’s location without even being switched on. RFID would further diminish individual privacy. He cited the possibility of RFID tagged passports and driving licences, the latter offering the daunting prospect that the individual driver will in theory become instantly traceable, anywhere in the world where a suitable scanner is in range.

The number of delegates who stayed until the very end of the conference is a tribute to the organisers, and also the principal sponsor n-Flow Scotland, who made the event possible. Those who left before the final whistle also missed the presentation on Automated Registration of Title to Land, and whilst there have been many false dawns in relation to ARTL it is now scheduled to go “live” in early 2007 – definitely! A subject which will no doubt be debated at length when NBTN 2006 occurs (most likely in Glasgow again) next October.

Paul Motion is a partner with Ledingham Chalmers and chaired NBTN 2005. He is Chairman of the Scottish Society for Computers & Law, and the Convener of the Law Society of Scotland’s Technology Committee.