Internet Newsletter for Lawyers |
|---|
Here are a few facts about Solicitor Sole Practitioners:
* There are just over 4,000 SPs in England and Wales;
* Of 8,319 Solicitor Practices earning over £15,000 per annum, 42% are SPs;
* Overall, SPs gross and earn less than partners;
* Most SPs are men and, on average, they are older than partners. A significant number are from ethnic minorities.
* Many SPs work from home with no support staff whilst others have as many as 6 or 7 assistant solicitors.
To generalise about SPs' needs for information, whether traditional or electronic, is difficult but one thing is certain - keeping overheads to a minimum is vital. In consequence, some firms undoubtedly skimp on information resources but for others, although still probably hard up, the drive to compete aggressively with major law firms is strong.
The Sole Practitioners Group of the Law Society represents nearly all SPs in England and Wales. Unfortunately the resources of this Group do not extend to collating information about information user and spread of IT. What the Group knows, however, is the power of IT to enable a switched on SP to have at his or her fingertips, all the relevant research facilities of a big firm. In consequence, SPs are a significant market for suppliers.
Where possible, SPG negotiates discounts for its members, for example, major training organisers BLS and CLT both offer half price training. On the Internet side, Lawtel offers significant discount. Other Legal publishers are showing an increased interest in coming on board.
Sole Practitioners are cautious folk, however, and it requires skill and persistence if an information provider is to survive in this market. Specialisation driven by change has ironically reduced the need for knowledge retrieval over a broad front. Furthermore, the sophistication of intermediate information suppliers enables SPs to graze richest pastures of abundant information by proxy. For example, faxing a request for legal authority or an article to the Law Society's Library is probably less time consuming than researching over the web. Time is a great pressure on SPs. The intermediate supplier can provide information on the basis of what is individually supplied which can often be cheaper than taking out annual subscriptions to other services.
SPs immeasurably benefit from websites that supply forms (Hot docs, Court Service etc) and up to date Statutes (HMSO). Browse time being at a premium, the Newswires can also be useful (e.g.Lawzone). In common with many lawyers, SPs find books and periodicals more user friendly and portable than information on screen downloadable in unwieldy form. The SPG website, http://www.spg.uk.com, provides crisp but important information to members.
The development, now essential to SPs, is the effective "no subscription" directory which will enable SPs, otherwise fairly isolated, to share knowledge and work in co operation as a nationwide Law Chambers and to this end, development of a user friendly database is now in hand.
SPs are selective, critical and, of course, individual. That's why private clients love 'em.
Monty Martin, as well as running his own firm, is editor of the SPG Magazine "Solo". Email monty@spg.uk.com
As Ireland's leading law firm (Global Counsel 3000, Ireland Surveys, 1999-2001) we are in the happy position of being able to purchase both electronic and print resources while preserving access to both, although much care is taken in evaluating all purchases and subscriptions. The role of the library is highly regarded within the firm and the value of information provision is emphasised throughout all departments and practice groups. This is reflected in the investment made by the firm in library resources to enable us to provide a state of the art service.
We have embraced electronic media, subscribing initially to CD-Rom versions and more recently to web services, but have found that we still purchase all relevant print products. The only print subscriptions we have terminated have been replaced with superior products.
Our requirements are broad based to meet the needs of a major law firm providing a full range of services in the corporate legal sector but also specialised to cater for our specific practice groups, such as Banking, Employment, EU & Competition, E-commerce & Technology, Construction, Pensions, Taxation, Media & Entertainment, Intellectual Property, Environmental, Food & Pharmaceuticals, Telecommunications, Energy, Utilities and Public Private Partnerships.
We subscribe to all the major online services including Westlaw, Lexis, Butterworths Direct, Practicallaw.com, Eurolaw and Perfect Information as well as to the majority of specialised electronic services available for our individual practice groups and we are constantly seeking out more products to enhance our research capabilities. We are also continuing to purchase general and specialised print resources, to cater for all our possible needs and to allow for those who prefer the more traditional forms of research. Further, it has to be admitted that despite the wonders of electronic research, there is nothing like browsing through journals or reading a book and I believe that they will be with us a long time yet.
Although our interests are well catered for abroad, Ireland is badly served to date by the dearth of products available in electronic format. There is no comprehensive product available. We are crying out for electronic products to invest in but so far we have to satisfy ourselves with a selection of piecemeal offerings.
There is hope on the horizon, however, as I have recently been informed that the launch of westlaw.ie is scheduled for the Spring of 2002 and the trend of publishing CD-Rom versions in tandem with looseleaf services is finally being launched in the Irish market, by Round Hall, who are also launching a current awareness service in December 2001.
The Wish List for Irish Electronic Services is a follows:-
* A consolidated version of the Acts of Oireachtas and Statutory Instruments, preferably incorporating UK Legislation still effective in Ireland. (i.e. as amended in the UK until 1922 and in Ireland from 1922 to date). Currently, we have the Irish Statute Book 1922-1998 with legislation as published and are compelled to check amendments to every piece of legislation and we also need to summarise and catalogue current legislation for retrieval purposes and to track amendments. Bills and Acts from 1997 are provided on the Oireachtas Web Site in pdf format since 1997, which is useful but not searchable, comprehensive or current. Firstlaw provides Acts and Statutory Instruments from 1999 to date but it is not comprehensive or current.
* A comprehensive case law service, to include the various series of Irish law reports and unreported judgments. Currently, we have the Irish Reports CD-Rom from 1919-2000, Lexis which has varying coverage of cases since 1950 and Firstlaw and the Irish Weekly Law Reports, with coverage from 1998 to date. We are also compelled to summarise and catalogue unreported judgments.
* Tailor-made services such as Consolidated Companies Acts, Environmental and Planning Services for example. Currently, we have the Irish Tax Services and the recently launched Butterworths Irish Property law Service.
* A full text database of the Irish Journals. Currently, there are just a couple of Employment Journals online. Fortunately, Legal Journals Index includes Irish Journals. I agree with Hilary Green (see last issue that the Legal Journals Index is an irreplaceable resource. It is enhanced on westlawuk by the fact that you can link to he full text of available articles from Sweet and Maxwell journals.
The future heralds the arrival of more and more electronic resources, particularly web based services, but I envisage that we will continue to invest in print resources indefinitely.
Thérèse Broy, Librarian, Arthur Cox, Dublin, email tbroy@arthurcox.ie
In her article on this subject in the last issue of the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers, Hilary Green of Barlow Lyde & Gilbert asked the question "What if, to save space, you got rid of those bound volumes and just had subscriptions to law reports via the internet?"Reading the article, I nearly cried out loud"You use your local law society library for the hard-copy!"There are nine local law society libraries in England (none now in Wales) - Birmingham; Bristol; Devon and Exeter; Hull; Leeds; Liverpool; Manchester; Nottingham; and Sheffield.This is obviously not to mention the Law Society Library in Chancery Lane, which is distinct organisation from the local law societies.
At Bristol Law Society the bias is most definitely towards hard-copy over electronic holdings. We share premises with Bristol Crown Court and it is essential for the maintenance of goodwill with our landlords The Lord Chancellor's Department that the local judiciary have access to reports and statutes that they can carry into Court. Our core customers likewise value traditional, portable leather-bound books over CD ROM and online, with the striking exception of Current Legal Information which caused a sensation when I introduced it on our public-access computer. Long live CLI - Westlaw is no substitute!
The down-side of this is that I have to bin with a sigh the publicity that lands on my desk for sophisticated online systems, and think wistfully of the Encyclopedia of Forms and Precedents CD ROM as I wrestle with the index, form finder, and update volumes of the hard-copy. But our reliance on hard-copy has allowed us to play a valuable new rôle for the larger law firms for whom we might otherwise seem defunct - whenever their Internet connections go down and their passwords mysteriously expire, we are there to offer the hard-copy as a back-up.
Obviously in an ideal world everyone (including us) would have dual subscriptions to both hard-copy and online, but I imagine that for many firms that will become difficult to justify. Local law society libraries offer the next best thing. Having said that, even we have had to bow to the inevitable and cancel our subscriptions to the hard-copy Public General Acts and Statutory Instruments this year because they are now all published on the Internet - an untenable duplication of hard-copy and online that worked the other way around.
I hope that this does not make me sound like a technophobe - I would be lost without my subscription to Lawtel, and were I to return to a law firm library or were to set one up from scratch, I would choose electronic over hard-copy every time. And then when that went wrong, I would ensure that I had a good relationship with my local law society library!
Ruth Martin, Information Manager, Bristol Law Society, ruth@bristollawsoc.co.uk. Note from Delia - next time - A Chambers Library (2 Garden Court) - and please contact me if you have further ideas.
Back to Contents.