Internet Newsletter for Lawyers |
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Norton Rose, using content from emplaw in an extranet
Norton Rose is a major firm covering all types of legal work but it has chosen to put a particular
effort into employment law by incorporating the emplaw.co.uk product into their client extranet. The
concept of the extranet is an extension of the firm's own intranet, but allowing clients (under strictly
controlled circumstances) to access some of the information held.
First, a bit of information about the emplaw product. DiscLaw Publishing Ltd and the employment law portal www.emplaw.co.uk offer a version of their product which can be loaded up by solicitors' firms onto their own web site to provide employment law information for their clients. This information can be used either as a marketing tool for the client or as an income generating feature. There are two versions available, a standard version (which is a customised version of the "free area" of emplaw) and a "revenue earning" version which is a customised and password protected version of the "professional area" of emplaw allowing the firm to charge the client for the information accessed. This review describes one of the users - Norton Rose.
Tim Russell, russellt@nortonrose.com, Head of Norton Rose Employment Law Unit, writes:
The version of Emplaw which we incorporate within our extranet, with a few Norton Rose tailor-made accessories, has been extremely well received by the companies, over 200 of them, already accessing our site on a regular basis. Our site offers users our clients free access to employment tribunal case law and template defences, employment law policies, all our seminars and publications and enables clients to create their own documents such as contracts of employment or compromise agreements. The same information is available to non-clients for a subscription, after a free trial period.
Clients using the service have access to a "deal room" which allows clients to look at their documents and provide amendments online. There is also a 24 hour e-mail helpline with a rota of our solicitors set up to deal with this. The core of our extranet is however Emplaw because it is a genuinely helpful A to Z of employment law with an efficient search engine supplemented by the site search that we have for all the documents, know-how and information we have on the extranet site from pending legislation through to recent case law. This enables the right information to be targeted without delay and it even includes all the Industrial Case law reports which, through a weblink, can be accessed through the click of a mouse.
As employment law becomes increasingly complex, clients want access to up to date developments and "breaking news", reserving external legal advisers for those occasions when added value advice can genuinely be given. In our case the Disclaw product is the "hub" which we use to add on other services although clearly it can be and is also a self-contained product which can in our view be used either by lawyers to impress clients and increase profits or by the clients directly.
I think one common misconception is that by giving this kind of information to clients, solicitors will lose market share. In fact it simply creates opportunity.
Winward Fearon has used its particular expertise in construction Law to set up a database of case
law called the Construction Law Database, making it available to clients and other users. Eventually
it will be chargeable (it is intended as a fee-earning project) but at the moment the Adjudication
Section is available free of charge (if you "log in" you will find that guest codes are already set up
for your use). There are 76 case summaries there so far, which can be searched by date, title,
judge, party, barrister or solicitor. Most of these have been produced in-house and the full text of
the judgment is generally available as well.
Tim Gulliver, tim.gulliver@winwardfearon.co.uk, writes:
The objective of the database is to make case law research speedy, painless, up do date and
comprehensive. When launched commercially, it will comprise many hundreds of specially prepared
summaries of the leading judgments and will cover all aspects of construction law.
The format and content of the case summaries have been prepared to enable the user to obtain
a full understanding of the decisions making up the individual findings and of the reasoning and
facts and circumstances surrounding them in clear and non-technical terms. The user obtains such
an understanding in a fraction of the time it would take if he or she were to read the words of
judgment themselves.
However, this does not mean that the case summaries are intended to be a substitute for the words
of the judge. For better or worse "the law" in what is primarily a common law system such as ours
comprises the decisions of judges. It is their words which ultimately constitute the law and not any
summary of those words in any textbook, article or indeed database. This is why all the passages
of the judgment summarised into a finding or a background matter are fully cross-referenced to the
locations of those passages in the published reports of the cases. The user will thus be able
instantly to find the relevant passage in the judgment for each part of the case summary in
whatever report of the judgment the user has to hand.
The are eight different methods of gaining access to the case summaries. The principal method is
the "Menu System." It operates on the basis of the user finding the precise legal topic he or she
wishes to research. It gives the user a series of options to choose from on each screen. As the
search continues, the user gets closer to the precise topic to be researched. Once this topic is
reached, the user gains immediate access the finding in the case summary dealing with it.
The "Quick Search the Menu System" method is allied to and operates in conjunction with the Menu
System itself. It can be compared with and has the visual appearance of the index of a book in that
the user searches for topics alphabetically. Clicking on the chosen topic gives access to the
appropriate part of the Menu System, thus accelerating the search process.
There are six other search methods available. Three are based on the names of the parties and
the date when judgment was delivered. The other three are based on the names of individual
judges, barristers and firms of solicitors involved in each of the cases summarised. These methods
are intended for use when the user knows of the judgment he or she wishes to research and has
the appropriate information for such a search to be conducted.
Paul Gardner, paul.gardner@osborneclarke.com,
Head of the Interactive Media Group at Osborne Clarke,
writes:
We first launched gamesbiz.net in October 2000. It was set up as a niche vertical portal that would
provide legal and other business advice to the games industry. Most of the information was free
but the site also had legal documents for sale. This was in response from people in the industry
complaining that there was a lack of standard documents such as exist in the film and media
worlds. It also seemed expensive to draft the same legal documents over and over again, especially
as many games companies are small start-ups and need a less expensive form of legal advice.
Many of the documents lent themselves easily to commoditisation and could be delivered digitally.
Although the site gained a good many registered users and some great press in its first 6 months,
we realised that there were two things wrong with the legal documents section; the first was that
we offered payment on a subscription system whereby people would pay an amount of money
(offline) into an account. When they purchased a document, this "money" would be debited from
their account. However, it is difficult for people to predict what documents they will need when and,
in effect, gamesbiz was acting as a "bank" for this money. The other major problem that we found
was that people couldn't easily locate the correct document they required to answer their particular
requirement.
The first problem was easy to solve - we added online credit card payment so users can purchase
documents on a pay-as-you-go basis. We use WorldPay, as a recognised industry leader, to
manage the financial part of the process, thus ensuring that our clients' payment details are not
held anywhere on the gamesbiz site.
The second problem was more difficult to solve: how would people who didn't know much about
legal issues find the right document to help their particular business situation? We divided all of our
documents (to date the site contains about 35 free briefing notes, 25 agreements which range in
price from £50 to £750 and 15 checklists which cost between £50 and £175) into different business
activities. These activities range from "starting a development company" to "selling a finished
product". These activities were then further sub-divided into different aspects of that activity, such
as selling to a publisher or to a retailer. Thus, people can drill down a "question tree" and arrive at
the right place. Once located, each document link has a plain English summary, outlining its content
and uses. The documents are provided in rtf format.
The site was re-developed using an in-house team and re-launched at the end of October 2001.
Since then, more people have purchased documents directly from the site and the response has
been very favourable.
Back to Contents.
Winward Fearon and a Database of Construction Law
gamesbiz from Osborne Clarke