Charles Christian

Charles Christian is a former practising barrister turned independent commentator and journalist who has been writing, reporting and advising on developments in law office technology and online legal services for over 30 years. He was described in one national legal magazine as “one of the top ten key individuals who act as movers and shakers in the legal IT world today.”

After a brief career at the Bar in London in the mid-1970s, he worked as a corporate and IT PR consultant, including having responsibility for UK launch of the Commodore PET, one of the first generation PCs.

He then worked for a number of years as a freelance journalist - writing on a range of topics, including law and technology but a variety of publications & organisations including Computer Weekly, Lloyd's List, Reuters, and most of the legal press, including the Law Society Gazette, New Law Journal, The Lawyer, Legal Week Computers & Law and Legal Business. During this period he was also (on a freelance basis) a consultant editor for the Law Society Gazette on technology & practice management, launch editor of the legal IT publications Practice Today, Legal IT magazine and the Legal Technology Journal. In 1994 he was also winner of the National Newspapers Technology Journalist of the Year Award.

In 1995 he formed own business Legal Technology Insider Limited to operate as independent provider of legal technology information. This publishes the Legal Technology Insider newsletter - described by Richard Susskind in The Times newspaper as "the invaluable monthly whose bright orange pages adorn the desks of most serious legal technologists", the America Legal Technology Insider newsletter, the Insider 250 guide, the LegalTechnology.com website and TheOrangeRag.com breaking news blog plus ad hoc white papers and research reports. The website has been described by The Times newspaper as “the UK's definitive online resource for legal technology information”.

For two years he was a part-time member of Professor Stephen Mayson's faculty at Nottingham Law School's Department of Professional & Legal Studies and a tutor on IT-related topics for the School's postgraduate and MBA in legal practice courses. In addition, he provides consulting services, including market intelligence, primarily to legal IT vendors (including infrastructure providers such as IBM, BT and Microsoft) on business and product development strategies, plus branding, marketing and media issues. He was also been an adviser to the English Law Society on its annual Software Solutions Guide for solicitors for seven editions. He is a former council member of the Society for Computers & Law and also associated with the initial formulation of Gray's Inn's website strategy.

Since the mid 1980s, Christian has regularly been asked to speak at and/or chair legal IT and law firm management related conferences and seminars both in the UK and abroad. He has also been involved with programme planning of many of these events including: Central Law Training events, the Ark Group's Lex conferences, Informa's original Legal IT Forum at Gleneagles, the Legal IT Exhibition & Conference and American Lawyer Media's LegalTech in New York. He also devised (and subsequently sold on) the format for the original Loties legal technology awards, later the Legal Technology Awards.

He has been writing books on the subject of legal IT for over 25 years, including Computers for Lawyers (Longmans 1985) + Legal Practice in the Digital Age (Bowerdean 1998) - described by Professor Richard Susskind as “essential reading for every lawyer in the land” + Year 2000 Compliance - the lawyers guide to surviving the millennium bug (Law Society 1999) + Online Strategies for Law Firms (Legal Technology Insider 2004) He is also contributor (on IT, online strategy and marketing topics) to The Probate Practitioners Handbook (Law Society 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th editions), Internet Marketing - strategies for Law Firms (Law Society 2003), The Trust Practitioners Handbook (Law Society 1st & 2nd editions), and Solicitors Industry Accounting & Audit Guide (CCH/Kluwer 2007).

His next book Legal Practice in the Digital Age Release 2.0 is due to be published in the first half of 2012 and, by way of something completely different, his collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories This is the Quickest Way Down (Proxima Books 2011) is available on Amazon now. You can find him on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on his personal blog and lurking on FaceBook, in wine bars, at poetry readings and sitting on the Norfolk beach waiting for the sun to rise.