Fwd: [london-hack-space] Legal advice...
Jonty Wareing
--jonty
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Francis Davey" <fjm...@gmail.com>
To: "London Hack Space" <london-h...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 18 March, 2009 22:44:02 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal
Subject: [london-hack-space] Legal advice...
Hi. I've been mostly lurking at the moment - I'm in the category of
"might use" rather than "would use" a hack space and haven't been able
to make any of the meetings.
Having said that, it seems like a really good idea. When I used to
code a lot doing it with others around was much more conducive to
getting things done.
The "use to" is because although I did a post-grad compsci course and
worked in various capacities (though mostly as a sysadmin) I decided
to switch careers a little while back (being a sysadmin can do that to
you - those of you who are will know what I mean).
I thought that a much less stressful and difficult career might be
being a lawyer, in particular a barrister. I've been doing that for a
while (5.5 years "call" which is a sort of measure of qualification).
I became experienced enough to work on my own and do things my own
way. So, my business now is giving legal advice and assistance to
people in technology of the "I can speak both legalese and computer
science" kind.
So, partly because I think what you are doing is cool, but also
because obviously the more hackers who know me the better, I'd like to
offer to give the foundation any legal advice it needs pro bono (my
time and abilities permitting of course). I'm specialising now in
computer law (comms, intellectual property etc) but I have a long
practice in property law so things like business leases (should you
ever have to sign one) and contracts in general I'm quite used to.
I *doubt* that you'll need much/any help. Things seem competently
organised. But I know that sometimes it feels comfortable to run
things past an expert even if you are fairly sure you are right (or
even just getting someone else's head on a problem). So the offer is
out there - for both London and Birmingham groups though I'm London
based myself.
A friend came to your last but one hack evening and said it was great.
If you ever organise any during the working day I'll make a real
effort to come along. Though I tend to be hacking legal opinions and
contracts rather than code, in many ways they are not as different as
you might imagine (the big difference is testing - you don't usually
realise your legal advice was wrong until way too late).
Francis
hellocatfood
Hopefully we'll both never be in the position that we'd need legal
advice, but it's great to know we've got support!
Francis Davey
On Mar 21, 12:23 pm, hellocatfood <bv3...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks very much, this is great news!
>
> Hopefully we'll both never be in the position that we'd need legal
> advice, but it's great to know we've got support!
again.
Having said that legal *advice* is less awful a prospect (because it
can all end happily) than litigation which almost never does (in my
experience no more than 1 case in 400).
So I completely agree, but you might have to end up signing a
commercial lease or something like that and it can be useful to have
someone look at it and make sure its OK.
All the best with the project though - I will be watching developments
with interest.
Francis