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For many years I have specialised in private residential landlord and tenant work, my work tending to be mainly for landlords. In June 2000 I set up Landlord-Law Online, which was originally intended just to support my work for landlords and hopefully bring in new clients. It included free information on residential landlord and tenant law, a "questions and answers" page where I answered selected readers questions, and forms allowing clients to instruct me online (with payment offline). I also had a separate TJ Shepperson "brochure" site.
The landlord site proved moderately successful financially, particularly after I obtained credit card facilities (albeit payment still offline). However it also proved popular with the general public, with visitor numbers increasing month on month. The questions and answers section in particular was extremely popular, and from the feedback received it became apparent that there was a great need for easy to understand legal information, as many people were ignorant of their rights and obligations. Response to a question on the feedback section included in all forms, indicated that many people would be prepared to pay a modest subscription fee for an enhanced service.
I therefore decided to take the plunge and set up a subscription service, with increased onsite information, and a secure server so I could take payments online. My ISP, Bitenet in Bristol, agreed to design a data base driven web-site with a shopping cart facility, for a modest charge.
The new Landlord-Law Online website is a complex system involving four different types of information input (standard pages, questions and answers, items in the "shop", and legal instructions). It is fortunate that I am familiar with html and was able to format data myself, in particular the forms, before uploading, as otherwise I am sure the site would have been far more expensive (and would have taken much longer to develop).
The site basically is divided into two halves, pages which allow access to all visitors and pages which are members only. There is a login facility and members are provided with a login and password after payment of the subscription fee, to allow them access to the restricted areas. However there always needs to be a significant free element, to allow potential members to assess the value of the site to them.
New "members only" content includes frequently asked questions on residential landlord and tenant law; an interactive "Tenancy Trail" allowing members to find out what sort of tenancy they have; and documents on site, in pdf format, which they can fill in themselves, with explanatory notes. Creating the forms involved getting to grips with Adobe Acrobat, but this did not prove too hard with the assistance of a textbook on the program, which I worked through chapter by chapter.
Apart from the actual subscription, there are two other ways I can earn money from the site. Firstly, there is an online "shop" with the usual shopping cart facility, where my books can be bought. Members can also buy a standard tenancy agreement which can be personalised (e.g. by adding the property address, landlord and tenants names etc.). I may add other documents to this area of the shop later.
Secondly, members can also instruct me online to do legal work for fixed fees. The services currently on offer are general advice (or preliminary advice with a quotation for further work for complex matters), possession proceedings, and "bespoke" tenancy agreements. Members who have bought a "standard" tenancy agreement can have the cost credited against the cost of a "bespoke" agreement if they want any alterations made. Members now have the choice of paying either offline or online, but either way they have to fill in an online form giving the information I need, and confirmation that they accept our terms and conditions.
The site is a "dynamic database driven site" - this is necessary because of the things I want it to do (have a members only area, a shopping cart, and a mailing facility). All of this work was done by Gill at Bitenet, and the database is written, I understand, in MS Access. Future additions to the site can easily be added, for example an opinion poll and a discussion area, which are planned for later in the year. I was advised by Bitenet to make the whole site (rather than just part of it) run on a secure server, for added security. This means that all communications posted to the site are secure and private, which will give people confidence in the site. It also meant though that only one of my domain names could be used for the site - this is www.landlordlaw.co.uk. The others had to go to another space on the server with a redirect page to the main site. Also, information can now only be loaded direct to the site by Bitenet (i.e. I can no longer load things up by ftp), but there is a comprehensive administration area where I can upload files and do all the changes I would otherwise do by ftp for a basic site.
In fact all in all, it is a pretty nifty site and I am extremely pleased with it. It went live on 29th November 2001 and I was pleased to see subscriptions trickle through almost immediately from visitors to the site. The database provides for promotions, and I had already pre-sold quite a few subscriptions to my existing landlord clients. The standard subscription charge is £20 for four months and £50 for annual membership. At the time of writing this article, the site has been online for two weeks and I have already recovered about 1/5 of my investment, which I do not think is too bad. Using as it does an existing domain name, it is fortunately already well dug into the search engines, and will generally appear somewhere in a search on the words "landlord law", and "tenancy agreement".
Having set up the new site, I am now going to have to devote much time to its maintenance as members will expect (quite rightly) new material to be uploaded regularly. Fortunately I enjoy writing so this is not a problem. My next major task is to market the site, but provided this is successful, I am hopeful that it will become profitable fairly quickly allowing me to develop it further. I have a number of ideas for future developments in mind, both short term and long term. The site as it stands is just the start of a whole new concept in the provision of legal services, and I am very excited at the prospect of creating not only a new online service, but also an online community, for residential landlords and tenants.
Tessa Shepperson, Landlord-Law and TJShepperson, email tessa@tjshepperson.co.uk
Click2law.com is an on-line legal services website
developed by top South Wales law firm, Hugh James Ford Simey. The site
is the culmination of months of careful planning and development.
Click2law.com is aimed principally at the Small Medium Enterprise market
and the needs of the business manager. It recognises that the busy
entrepreneur needs to access business support services immediately when
required and at a cost effective rate.
The site consists of a selection of tailored fixed fee packages, online
documents and client dispute questionnaires. The packages, created and
endorsed by Hugh James Ford Simey, cover every aspect of law in
commercial business, ranging from company, employment and e-business
issues to commercial disputes and debt recovery. Where possible the
services are offered on a fixed fee basis, so that businesses can budget
properly for real quality legal services.
Internet security is an important issue for all website customers and
Click2law.com's security measures include encryption technology to ensure
that all customer information is kept confidential. All transfer of information is
achieved in a secure environment. The site also holds a "digital certificate"
managed by a third party, Verisign Inc, which gives customers confirmation
that they are transacting with click2law.com and Hugh James Ford Simey
Solicitors.
In addition, the collation of all customer information is subject to the terms of
the Data Protection Act and the Distance Selling Directive.
Finally, the real time credit card payment facility built into Click2law.com is
operated by Worldpay Plc, an organisation which specialises in handling
on-line transactions. Click2law.com does not receive or retain any of its
customer's financial information disclosed while on-line.
We intend to continue to develop and expand the range of services offered
on Click2law and to develop new business orientated websites to
complement the Click2law brand.
Alun Jones is Partner and Head of the E-commerce Division at Hugh James
Ford Simey. There is also a "normal" website Hugh James
Ford Simey.
Email enquiries@click2law.com
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Click2law.com
by Alun Jones, Hugh James Ford & Simey