Internet Newsletter for Lawyers |
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Criminal Law Week, the weekly journal specialising in criminal law updates for practitioners, has been published since 1997. It digests 26 sources of case and comment as well as new legislation and contains commentary by James Richardson, editor of Archbold. Initially it was offered in printed form only and sent by post, but after the first year, a website was developed at http://www.criminal-law.co.uk which provided more or less the same function as the printed version, but with the ability to search through all back issues by a single word or phrase. Lawyers could choose to subscribe to the printed version or the internet version or both. The majority chose the printed version, but the internet version has grown steadily in popularity. One advantage of the internet version is that subscribers have free access to all back issues.
By the start of this year, the CLW team decided it was time for some significant enhancements and the site was completely re-written with a new database design, using web designers TheMediaLounge.
To make the existing data more valuable, all cases covered had dates of judgment and judge names added. Subscribers can now search on multiple words or phrases, using "and" and "or". They can also search by date of judgment, judge name and CLW section, giving a much more powerful research tool.
There are links to other valuable sites, such as Casetrack for the full text of judgments and sites for the text of statutes and statutory instruments covered. Cumulative tables of cases, statutes and statutory instruments are included as well as a subject index. A search facility is provided within the table of cases and index.
CLW offers a CPD accredited distance learning course for solicitors whereby registrants can gain 12 CPD hours each year by answering multiple choice questions based on previous issues of the journal, thus ensuring they are keeping themselves up-to-date with criminal law. Questions are sent out by e-mail or post and answers can be submitted through the new website. Marking is still done manually, however.
Editor James Richardson (james_richardson@criminal-law.co.uk) says, "The launch of the new website was not without difficulties and our staff now have an increased weekly workload to keep the site up-to-date. However, the changes have brought benefits to our subscribers and their feedback has been very positive. We endeavoured to make the new site as easy to use as possible and this has been borne out by the ease with which existing users have moved across. We have plans for further enhancements, including annotated statutes, which would be a very valuable service to our users."
CLW now has about 10,000 users, including the CPS throughout England and Wales. They expect to see a move away from the printed version to the internet version as the message spreads.
There are good group rates available for internet access subscriptions. For example a chambers with twenty barristers specialising in criminal work may be offered rates of £65 + VAT p.a. per head, compared to the full price of £135 + VAT p.a. (£150 + VAT p.a. from January 2002). There is a free trial available.
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