Mention ‘e-services’ or ‘online services’ to many of my fellow partners and they would justifiably groan. In common with other law firms and many other industries, we decided to exploit opportunities exposed by the dotcom era.

Our position as legal advisers to many electronic entrepreneurs also helped fuel our hopes of profiting from this new ‘e-services’ age. We flirted with a number of different ideas throughout 2001-02 and, despite some coming close to fruition, most were shelved.