North-East businessman John Dobie has found a gap in the market - selling software to lawyers in the Far East.

Recognising the huge demand for specialist legal software in China, Mr Dobie, managing director of Grierson's, based in Newcastle, visited the country earlier this year.

He said: "China represents a major opportunity for Grierson's.

"With its ten large regions and 40 major cities, it is a truly emerging and developing industrial giant hungry for western technology.

"As the commercial legal profession in China is relatively young and Chinese legal software is scarce, we decided to translate our core offering into both traditional and simplified Chinese using native Chinese language speakers from graduates at the University of Sunderland."

Grierson's offers office management and accounts software for lawyers - available in English, French, American and Chinese.

The company has recently celebrated its first sales in Nigeria after signing a reseller deal with Lagos-based Krystal Digitals, which is targeting the country's 75,000 lawyers and, therefore, a multi-million pound market.

Grierson's has recently concluded partnership agreements for England and Wales to complement existing agreements in Scotland and Ireland.