In the dog days of 2011, when all there is to do is eat cold turkey and chocolate (but not necessarily at the same time), I thought it time to give the old blog a make over.  I was a bit jaded with the old blue and grey colour scheme and wanted something minimalist that would fit in with the other two blogs I write – Troubleahead and UK BlawgRoundUp.  I like the cleanness of the white background, contrasting with black writing.  I’d also got fed up with seeing my mugshot in the sidebar.  I might get a new photo done in due course, but for the time being I’m going with the stripped down bare basics look. The old theme – Persephone – didn’t provide much design flexibility and altering the borders round photographs proved beyond my coding skills. The problem was the text font was very hard to distinguish from the background colour: not so anymore.

I decided to opt for Headway (on the advice of Tessa Shepperson, who helped set up the other two blogs) because it offers maximum flexibility over design.

It’s a premium theme – costing about £45 at current exchange rates and that is the basic purchase option.  I justify the purchase on the basis that it puts me in charge of the design, once I’ve got to grips with the design editor, and means I should be able to update it again when I want. It is also said to offer SEO advantages over other themes but I take this with a pinch of salt.

The design editor is the key selling point of Headway. You don’t need to understand CSS or html etc to be able to use it, although I suspect that probably would come in very handy. You also aren’t limited to choosing two or three column pre-set templates.  Headway uses a “drag and drop” system of grids and blocks so that you can put what you want where you want. I won’t pretend that I’ve got on top if it yet, but it promises flexibility for the future.

I’ve still got some tinkering to do with some of the widgets and various other bits and pieces, but please bear with me on this.  I’d welcome your comments on the new look as well.

I’m hoping to get another couple of posts up before the New Year. In the meantime I’m off to eat some more chocolate.

Related posts:

1. Happy New Year!

New Year, New Look originally appeared on Jobsworth by Michael Scutt on 28/12/2011.

Miscarriages of justice might not have been in the news quite so much just recently, but a new film on that subject is out this week: Conviction, starring Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell.  It’s about an innocent American man called Kenny Waters who is  sent to prison for a murder he did not commit and it will, no doubt, raise concerns  not just about the American legal system and lawyers, but legal systems everywhere.  Heaven knows in this country we have nothing to be proud of on this subject.

His sister, “a high-school drop-out” and single parent, played in the film by Swank, works tirelessly over 20 years to qualify as a lawyer and then to represent him to secure his acquittal because he couldn’t afford one. The case was one of the first in which DNA evidence was used to overturn a conviction.  I was unable to attend the Press viewing last Monday because of work commitments, but I will go and see it shortly as it looks good (and I do like Hilary Swank) and will do a review afterwards.

In the meantime, here’s the trailer.

The real tragedy isn’t in the film at all, though. Having been released from prison after 18 years,  Kenny Waters then died six months later when he fell off a wall while taking a short cut. Before his death Waters apparently said

‘The legal system works if you have the money to make it work … if you don’t have the money to make it work, you’re going to prison.”

That’s a sentiment that will resonate in many places, not just the USA.  With this government cutting back on legal aid, the whole issue of miscarriages of justice may be back in the headlines again.

The film opens this Friday.

No related posts.

Conviction: How the Law Failed One Man originally appeared on Jobsworth by Michael Scutt on 12/01/2011.

Just About to Cross the Finishing Line

Yes, on Saturday I ran 10k for Cancer Research at Hatfield House.  I made it round in 58.25 minutes without needing oxygen (well, apart from that freely available to everyone) or having to stop for a pee or a fag (I don’t do the latter in fact) or, heaven forbid, to walk.  Not bad for someone the wrong side of 40  and not the most assiduous of trainers either (I blame all this blogging).  1549 other people ran along a great course through lovely countryside.

I decided to run for two reasons: (1) to motivate myself to do more exercise and (2) to raise money for a good cause.  I guess a lot of other participants had the same idea, but there was also a highly personal angle to it for many.

Many people ran with badges on their backs which said “I’m running for …” and left a large blank space for filling in personal details; in many cases in remembrance of someone who had succumbed to the disease or, in others, to support someone who was fighting it.  One guy earned my admiration for writing “I’m running for my left testicle” –  serious respect due I think.

At about 8.5 km, when I have to admit my mind was wandering along very odd tracks, I saw one girl whose badge said she was running for “my two aunt Gertrudes”.  That struck me as odd: Gertrude is a pretty rare name and to have two seems even more unlikely.  Could it be that an ” Aunt Gertrude” is a slang name for a breast?  Can anyone enlighten me please?

I was pleased to see the finish line and to be met by my family, who had turned out en masse to offer support.  I was also delighted to raise (at the last count) £320 for the charity, thanks to the generosity of friends, family, business contacts and fellow tweeters: thank you all.

It’s not too late to donate if you want to.  Please see the link at the top right.

I’m going to keep running.

No related posts.

Just Done It For Cancer Research originally appeared on Jobsworth by Michael Scutt on 11/10/2010.

I blogged last week on my forthcoming run for Cancer Research on 9^th October at Hatfield House.  Time for an update.

My training regime hasn’t been as dedicated as perhaps it should.  I haven’t got a sports watch so I’m not timing myself: at the moment my main concern is to be able to keep running without stopping over a reasonable distance.  Last night I went out after The Archers finished and got back around 7.45 p.m, so roughly half an hour’s running.  More encouragingly I  felt quite good doing it – normal breathing, no walking and I didn’t end up on all fours at the end. Progress!   I felt energised and could have gone for longer.  Possibly it was the fairy cake that my daughter had made that I ate about 5.45 that gave me the boost. No sports drinks here on this training plan:  this isn’t so much the George Best or Hurricane Higgins hard living approach to sport, more the Delia Smith diet.  It comes without a hangover afterwards and it might just work.  Whether I will shift the spare tyre on this plan remains doubtful and  I refuse to get on the scales.

I have also found two other benefits to running.  First, I bought myself an iPod shuffle but because of my failure to read the instructions or to comprehend the fiddly little control near the earphone, I am left with listening to much of the music I normally don’t select when I am in control.  Last night’s runI was inspired by Handel’s Messiah – perhaps not the obvious choice for running music.  It will also be a chance to listen to the podcasts I’ve got queued up but never quite get round to.

The second benefit is that it gives me time to think about blogging. I “wrote” this piece whilst running around.  Thinking about what to write is often the hardest part of blogging but running seems a great way of clearing the head.  Expect more training updates!

So running, gets you fit, reacquaints you with music you purchased ages ago and helps you write. Marvellous and unbelievably, I am multi-tasking. Girls are you impressed?

You can encourage my efforts by sponsoring me – it’s for Cancer Research – see the widget box on the top right of this page. Please!

No related posts.

Keep on Running originally appeared on Jobsworth by Michael Scutt on 02/09/2010.

August marks the anniversary of when I started blogging. Two years have zipped  by since I put fingers to keyboard and, if I may, whilst on holiday and trying not to think about work, I’d like to take a look back and get all personal.

Necessity is said to be the mother of invention and so it was in my case.  I was writing a weekly newspaper article on law for the now defunct “Docklands” and wondering how to make better use of them.   After all, once a newspaper has been thrown away that material is lost.  Archant, the publishers had a website which published the articles online, but I wanted to take more control.  Initially, I thought about putting up a website  but that wasn’t really what I wanted.  I didn’t have much technical knowledge or have much idea about social media at all.  Looking back I can’t recall how I hit upon writing a blog: it just seemed to happen.  I started experimenting with Blogger and quickly realised I didn’t like its lack of flexibility or its look.  I  signed up to WordPress.com and found it much better – a much greater choice of themes and add-ons, although still quite limited particularly as you can’t use Google Analytics with it.  That was a major disadvantage and led me to move to WordPress.org and a self-hosted solution about a year ago.  I should have done it much sooner: self-hosting gives far more flexibility because you can use a huge variety of plug-ins to add extra functionality.  I’m not a programmer and nor do I have much technical understanding of what goes on “under the bonnet”, but I do enjoy tinkering around with plug-ins and widgets.  Blogging has certainly increased what IT knowledge I did have enormously.

I also wanted to raise my own profile and generate another source of work for Dale Langley & Co.  Rather naively I thought that once I started blogging the clients would just roll in.  Two years on I know that was unrealistic, the web doesn’t work like that.  I have taken on some very good work via people reading this blog and I receive regular enquiries about advice, all of which I am delighted to receive.    There is though a fundamental mismatch between promoting professional services on-line which are then delivered in the “old-fashioned” way i.e. by a lawyer charging by the hour, and the need for new ways of accessing legal information.  It’s not just about providing advice for free, but providing it at times and in ways that people want. Anyway, I digress.  I wanted to raise and extend my own profile and this I think I have achieved.  Thanks to blogging I’ve made contact with some great people also involved in social media – lawyers, consultants as well as clients. I’ve particularly enjoyed being involved in the UK Lawyers Network, which led to the UK BlawgRoundUp (#4 due out at Halloween hosted by @in_house_lawyer).

Another example of my naivety was in thinking that people would flock to the blog and leave lots of comments.  Again, it doesn’t seem to happen like that although I’ve been quite pleased with the level of comments and feedback that I have received.  Commenting on other blogs is something I don’t do enough of, mainly because of time constraints and  I guess that is true for a lot of other bloggers juggling work and family life.  I must do better!  I tend to write or read (other) blogs when on the train, or late at night.  One of the major impacts that social media has had upon my daily routine is that I now virtually watch no television nor read newspapers.  The former doesn’t bother me much, but the latter does as I have been in the habit (encouraged by my parents early on in life of the importance of reading a quality daily paper).  I worry that I am less well  informed now about current affairs than I was before I started blogging, which is bizarre given how much news is available on-line. This is one reason why I find Twitter such a useful tool – the really important news stories or the ones that interest me anyway, tend to get picked up by my network and I read about it in 140 characters or fewer.

Although I am an enthusiastic adopter of social media, I remain sceptical about it to  a degree. It’s a powerful tool to be used in promoting a business, person or cause.  In most cases it isn’t an end in its own right – it’s just a very powerful method for keeping in touch and, social media buzzword coming up, “engaging” with others.  It isn’t a method for making money in its own right unless you are telling other people how to make money from social media – those are the only people making money.  In my case I have been asked to give lectures, for which I have been paid, and have taken on new clients, who have paid professional fees to my firm, but blogging, as such, hasn’t made me money.  I would think that is true for the majority of bloggers. Agree?

My biggest frustration with blogging is that the less time I spend on a piece the more attention and RTs it seems to get on Twitter!  Very odd, especially when we’re always told  ”Content is King”: how can you plan to produce the best content you possibly can when blogs rushed off almost on a whim do better?

The other big frustration is not having enough time to blog and my aim (as ever) is to write more frequently.  I admire John Bolch who gave up practising law to write full time.  That’s a brave decision and not one to be taken lightly.  That is an increasingly attractive option for me, but Mrs Jobsworth might take some persuading.

Ultimately though, I think the best response  to the question “Why I blog” is a simple one: because I enjoy it and wish I’d started years before.  I hope you enjoy reading it as well. I’m always thinking of ways to improve this blog and I would very much welcome your views on what I am doing right, what I am doing less well or just plain wrong and what I can do to make it better.

Thank you for reading!

Related posts:

1. Blog Off!

Why I Blog originally appeared on Jobsworth by Michael Scutt on 24/08/2010.

Having written this blog for almost two years I’ve just discovered that I’m not the only Jobsworth out here in cyber-space.  There’s another one who tweets under the name of Jobsworth.  Mr J P Rangaswami, who writes a very interesting blog called “Confused of Calcutta” on the subject of information and privacy in the digital age, and tweets on a wide variety of topics, has noticed some confusion when I tweet posts on this blog, because WordTwit sends out “New @ Jobsworth …” . This has caused a (very) few people to query why he’s started tweeting about UK employment law.  I tweet in my own name – @michaelscutt but blog as “Jobsworth by Michael Scutt” on employment law and on UK legal services deregulation as “There may be Trouble Ahead“.  To hopefully avoid any further problems I’ve amended WordTwit to now tweet “New @ Michael Scutt at Jobsworth“.

Therefore there’s really no need for confusion.  If it’s about employment law, it’s from this Jobsworth.  If it’s on  just about any other subject,  and it’s from @jobsworth it’s the other Jobsworth.  Simple.

Related posts:

1. A new look for Jobsworth
2. Who (or what) is a Jobsworth?
3. Jobsworth is One

Jobsworth is having an identity crisis! originally appeared on Jobsworth by Michael Scutt on 23/05/2010.

I haven’t blogged much on here recently, partly because of being busy at work but also because I have been setting up two other blogs and a podcast.

The first blog – ukblawgroundup – I’ve mentioned on here before.  This is the name of the blog carnival for UK Lawyers which reviews the UK legal blogging scene.  The next edition is published on the 31^st March, with submissions due by 17^th.  Peninsulawyer will be hosting it.

The other new blog I am starting is one that focuses on the Legal Services Act 2007 and the whole debate over Tesco Law.  I’ve lectured on this recently and I’ve due to start a series of lectures (to solicitors) for MBL Seminars the week after next. Much of my time over the last couple of weeks has been spent preparing the notes.  Whilst doing that it occurred to me that it would be a good plan to start a blog specifically devoted to legal deregulation, rather than putting it up on this blog as I have been to date.  I have created a blog called “There may be trouble ahead” and it will go live shortly.  URL details will be posted here.

I plan to kick off with a post on the issue of who would actually want to buy a law firm and then a guest post from Mark Greenhouse of Resq on the application of “Lean” principles in law firms.   I’ll be looking for guest bloggers to give their take on Tesco Law – please contact me if you would be interested in contributing. Other projects include a series of slidecasts (slideshare presentations but with added sound) on the basic aspects of the LSA, to give some background on the basics.   I’m hoping people will contribute and that we can have,  as Mrs Merton used to say on her show “a heated debate”.

When I’m not blogging on Tesco law I’m still going to be writing on employment issues here at Jobsworth.

Finally, I recorded a podcast with Brian Inkster of Inksters Solicitors Glasgow.  That will be up very shortly – hopefully this weekend.

Have a good weekend.

No related posts.

News from Jobsworth originally appeared on Jobsworth by Michael Scutt on 12/03/2010.

Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, has come under fire for not only being a political lightweight out of his depth in one of the most important offices of state, but also for wearing a moustache (well, we are approaching the silly season).  An article at www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article6709864.ece suggests that a moustache often signifies the wearer is homosexual or, of more importance to this blog, that it is a symbol of ”the constipated mentality of an inept, small-town jobsworth”, being the impression that Mr Ainsworth’s “facial furniture” gives to some.  I make no comment on that. 

Luke Leitch, the author of the article, also mentions notable other Jobsworths, including the bus-conductor Blakey from On the Buses  -  the inspiration for this blog.  I can just see him now saying “I hate you Butler” (or should that be “I hate you Mandelson”?)  Marvellous.

This Jobsworth doesn’t wear one by the way.  Mrs J wouldn’t hear of it.

On the subject of the family we’ve just come back from a relaxing family holiday (there’s a non sequitur for you) and I am still in holiday mode.  I was interested to read that the government wants to review the default retirement age of 65.  This announcement comes in the week that the Heyday challenge  makes its long circuitous route back to the High Court.  I doubt that we’ll get Judgment this week, of course, but at long last the end may be in sight. 

Whether the government’s decision to review the state retirement age has anything to do with them contemplating defeat in the High Court I couldn’t say but with increasing  numbers of pensioners to support in the next thirty plus years it makes sense to allow those who want to carry on working able to do so.  There is a mechanism in place at the moment where employees can ask to work on after the default retirement age but it is a bit of a palaver and, like many people, I cannot see how a default retirement age does not discriminate against older people.

More to come on this.

Related posts:

1. Will you be made to retire at 65?
2. Work ’til you drop
3. Heyday loses

Do Jobsworths wear moustaches? originally appeared on Jobsworth by Michael Scutt on 15/07/2009.