A court listings service, available to all branches of the legal profession, was unveiled last week.

The on-line service provided by Legal Information eXchange will be immediately available in London and will be available in the rest of the country by December.

The listings, which have been part of a pilot scheme by LIX for over two years, will provide electronically transmitted lists from all 78 Crown Court centres.

Civil listings from the 21 regional High Court civil centres will follow in the next few months.

The service is being used in more than 35 per cent of the criminal sets in London.

Michael Price, senior clerk at Ernst Horridge's chambers at Queen Elizabeth Building, said that it is "definitely better than checking the lists manually, and can only be a benefit for all practitioners".

"But," he added, "it was a long time coming."