When I started my career as a barrister in the early 1990s, many of our working practices had been unchanged for decades, in some respects for centuries. Most instructions still arrived by courier (or DX) tied in pink ribbon. Hard copy opinions were stapled with a corner tag and signed off with a looping mark on the back-sheet. The chambers diary was maintained in a single well-thumbed book on the senior clerk’s desk. Telephone messages were recorded on blue sheets of paper that were left on our chairs.  The height of innovation, in my first couple of years in practice, was the “New Law Fax” service, providing by fax the case summaries that later became Lawtel.  I still recall the struggle I had to persuade my colleagues that we should subscribe!
Despite all that has changed in the interve...