LloydLaw LLP

Professor Larry Lessig in London

I went along to see Larry Lessig give the SCL (Society for Computers and Law) Annual Lecture in London this week. I was wondering what to expect given his apparent change of direction away from pure intellectual property issues, to corruption, but he'd clearly considered his audience and there was probably more of the "old" Lessig than the new. 

I won't try to report the speech in any detail, but he made the point that we were sleepwalking (my word, not his) into a world where policy makers who fundamentally fail to understand how the internet works, could  bring it all to a grinding halt by using ill-considered legislation to bring an end to the so-called ills of the internet. It wasn't entirely clear what we were supposed to do about it ("Leadership"?) but I tend to take the view that Lessig excels at pulling these ideas together and it's not for him to tell his audience what they should be doing.

The full talk is available as a download here. Plus there's some more detailed comment on the SCL website.

Interesting to see Alex's comments over on Freeth Cartwright's blog, Impact, but I'm with Geeklawyer on this one. And I didn't really think the talk had anything to do with corruption.

NB Larry Lessig is clearly impressed (because he referenced a couple of times) by Professor Jonathan Zittrain's new book, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, which came out this week and would appear to be essential reading for those of us interested in the internet and its future.

Better Bankside Christmas Gifts

Better Bankside's Bring & Buy a Better Christmas’ appeal is asking for gifts which it will wrap and distribute to five local charities. A poster appeared in our lift today, alerting me to the fact that one of the drop-off points is in this building:

                                    Volunteer Centre Southwark

                                    Wigglesworth House, 69 Southwark Bridge Road.

The guys from the Volunteer Centre are on the second floor.

LloydLaw and the Environment

In the week that Sir Nicholas Stern's report has highlighted the economic implications of global warming, it seems appropriate to consider what we at LloydLaw do to minimise our impact on the environment.

As lawyers, we use a lot of paper and we do print out a lot of documents including reports, emails and drafts. Until now, we haven't been using paper that comes from a renewable source and we are looking into ways of ensuring that as much paper as possible comes from renewable sources. All our waste paper, including junk mail (of which we receive too much)  is shredded and along with newspapers and any packaging that comes into the office it gets recycled. The London Borough of Southwark operates an efficient scheme for businesses.

We are tenants in our offices which does restrict what we can do to some extent, but we do try and minimise our use of the air conditioning, the lights and the lift (we are on the third floor).

Penny and I both cycle to work most days and when we don't cycle we travel in using public transport. We do not impose any obligations on our staff, although almost without exception, anyone who has worked for us has used public transport.

We always recycle the consumables we use (e.g. printer cartridges) and in replacing computers and photocopiers we always look for the most environmentally effective way of disposing of equipment. Ideally, we would like to find a use for any equipment we dispose of, although that is difficult with computers. The hard drives of all computers contain confidential information, and whilst it may be overcautious, we believe that the only effective way to dispose of a hard drive is to destroy it. Simply wiping it clean is not sufficient. Screens are different and if we cannot find a useful way of recycling them, we try and dispose of them ensuring that the glass is left intact.

I flew to a meeting in Aberdeen in August 2005 and Penny recently (September 2006) flew to Edinburgh for a meeting. Those are the only flights either of us has taken for work purposes in the last three years. If we needed to travel more in our business we would have to consider the impact of air travel on our carbon footprint.

Incidentally, when we travel around London we almost always use public transport rather than taxis, and where possible we walk.

We are continually reviewing our approach to our business and its impact on both society and the environment and we will continue to do do.

Slip Sliding Away

One of the great advantages of being in London SE1 is that we are only a short walk away from Tate Modern (and the Millenium Bridge, of course). It's fair to say that we probably don't go there as often as we would like to (what with having to do a bit of work from time to time) but we shall certainly be popping in for a ride on Carsten Holler's fantastic looking slides  which opened this week.

"English Law is Very Odd"

The quote comes from Professor Eric Barendt, Goodman Professor of Media Law at UCL talking about privacy laws in England - as compared to other jurisdictions.

Prurience or privilege:                 are politicians entitled to a private life? (MP3, 59 minutes, 23MB) is a interesting  discussion in the British Library Conference Centre with Mark Oaten MP for Winchester; Professor Eric Barendt, Goodman Professor of Media Law at UCL; Michael White, Assistant Editor of the Guardian; and Alastair Brett, Legal Manager of Times Newspapers. The event was chaired by David Sherborne, a barrister at 5 Raymond Buildings.

Incidentally, I have only just come across it and there's no precise indication either on the British Libary website, or in the podcast itself, when it was actually recorded. It's obviously the summer of 2006, but that's as close as I can get. A point worth bearing in mind, for anyone producing podcasts.