Internet Newsletter for Lawyers |
|---|
In this article, I describe barristers' websites under three headings:
* Sites which offer significant legal resources, and which are designed to attract solicitors to visit frequently to discover the latest information on particular topics;
* "Brochure" sites, designed to provide useful information about chambers and the barristers within it;
* Sites of individual barristers, generally covering some very specific topic.
To be a "resource site", a chambers must invest significant time and money in the provision of the information. It is not enough to have brilliant barristers and an enthusiastic amateur webmaster; whilst that may have been enough at one time, a site managed in this way now would not remain up to date and relevant to the increasingly sophisticated viewers.
So, how is it done?
Most important of all, there needs to be a clear focus. A "bit of everything" is not good enough.
Then, the site needs to be professionally designed so that it looks good and is easy to navigate. Please keep clear of Flash presentations, large pictures of the buildings or people, and complicated design techniques which take ages to load! Remember that, whilst the larger firms of solicitors have dedicated fast lines for internet access, the smaller firms generally do not.
It also needs to be designed so that the clerks, or a volunteer barrister, can upload new material without being programmers themselves. This is entirely possible, as long as you specify in advance that this is what you want from your site. The web design company Active Lawyer, for example, has designed software specifically to allow "ordinary" members of a firm or chambers to carry out the updating process.
Once created, the site must be kept up to date, with the new material. Barristers, who generally have lots to do on their own account, must be constantly harassed to provide their cases notes, opinions, articles and presentations for the site. This requires them to spend time getting their material into the prescribed form.
The "brochure" information should also still be present on a resources-based site - after all, you do want visiting solicitors to settle on a barrister to instruct! However, I am leaving my comments on aspects of brochure sites to the next section.
Here are a few questions and suggestions to be considered in the design of a resources-based site.
* Should articles be in html form, pdf form, or Microsoft Word form? The problem with pdf and Word documents is that you have to download the whole document - often half or even a whole megabyte in length - before knowing whether you really want it. To prevent people wasting their time in this way, there should be a short summary in html form (i.e. a "normal" web page) describing the document in some detail, before offering the viewer the chance to download it. The size of the file should always be given - it is extremely annoying to click on something only to find that the computer has gone into what appears to be a deep sleep and then, when it finally wakes up, to realise that you did not really want it at all.
* If you are presenting articles in html format, but have a "modern" site with a relatively complicated design, or even just frames, bear in mind that not all viewers with older computers and/or browser software, will be able to print it properly. It is well worth providing a "printer friendly" version of the document in a straightforward form which can be downloaded and printed quickly and easily. And do not forget to include chambers' contact details on every such document!
* Put in the date of publication of all articles, case notes and other contributions. This seems an elementary requirement but it is amazing how often items are not dated, thus seriously undermining their reliability and usefulness. Several sites I visited indicated that the last updating was in 1999 and one site recommended that the site was best viewed with Internet Explorer or Netscape level 3 (current versions are level 5 or 6). Be prepared to remove articles which are no longer valid. This is painful, I know, like throwing away much loved and comfortable old clothing, but it has to be done.
* Another aspect requiring a rather painful self discipline is not to put up all articles written by everyone in chambers. I believe that every resource-based chambers site needs to have a sharp focus and to concentrate on a particular area of work or type of resource. A multiplicity of unrelated items reduces the focus.
* Should you put in links to other sites? My own advice would be only to do this if the set of links is a genuine resource in itself, and is going to be kept up to date. A bunch of miscellaneous links, with some sites "gone missing" or with out of date addresses, does not give you credibility.
* Several chambers, including Fountain court, New Square Chambers and 9 Old Square, are now putting up free updates to books provided by one of their barristers. There is a dilemma here in that the author (and presumably the publisher) do not wish viewers to think that the updated sections are all they need. On the other hand, the site has to have genuinely interesting material for people who have not bought the book, or it is not really a resource at all.
* Some sites, including Hardwicke Building, 1 Mitre Court and New Square Chambers, have put up little programmed calculators for various things - redundancy calculations, currency conversions, interest calculations, date calculations and so on. These can be a relatively simple resource for a chambers to provide since, once programmed, they do not generally need to be updated very often. However, once again, they should probably relate to a particular type of work, since it is a particular type of practitioner that the site is trying to attract.
* Quite a few chambers are offering to send out newsletters in electronic form. Whilst at one time, email newsletters were quite a novelty, most people are now "swamped" by these, and a new one being offered would have to be very good to be worth a solicitor registering for it.
* Once the site has genuine legal material on it, a suitable disclaimer should be provided. Some sites require the viewer to click a button saying "I agree" and other just place the disclaimer on the page.
* Advice to other professional bodies is just starting to take off, from barristers' sites. Arden chambers, for example, offers advice to members of the Chartered Institute of Housing within a set fee structure.
* It is particularly important, for chambers which are investing heavily in time and money to provide legal resources on their site, that the site should appear in search engines. Make sure that the key words appear in the title of the site (e.g. XX chambers, Manchester, key work areas) and also that the "metatags" are used to their full extent. Then also spend time, or get your design company to spend time, in registering the site with the key search engines. It is also well worth using letters, brochures, emails etc. to tell solicitors about the web resources you are offering.
There is nothing to be ashamed of in a brochure site! Indeed, until a chambers has provided the basic information about its work, location, style of operation and individual barristers, anything else is really just a waste of effort since the visiting solicitor will not stay around long enough to find it.
Here are a few suggestions for brochure sites:
* Provide a simple but attractive opening page, with perhaps an illustration or a logo, a description of the work of the chambers in a couple of sentences, and a clear indication of how to continue to explore the site. Do not just assume that a visitor will know that he/she should click on a logo to gain entry.
* Remember that your hoped-for visitors are likely to be sober and businesslike and are not looking for visual entertainment. It is vital that the site loads quickly. Do test this from "ordinary" computers (not your own - that probably has lots of the material already in cache memory). If it takes more than a few seconds, complain bitterly to the designer. Get rid of Flash introductions and large opening photos (there are hardly any sites with Flash introductions mentioned in this article).
* Barrister information should be accessible from the work group pages as well as by name in an overall "Barristers" page. Personally, I think barristers should be listed alphabetically rather than by date of call. The information on each barrister should be as full as possible, covering special areas of work and key cases. Make sure that it prints out easily - you want the solicitor to print out a copy and put it in his file.
* An email address for each barrister should be given. (Amazingly, some chambers' web sites do not even have an overall email address, let alone individual ones.)
* There should be a small photo for each barrister and it is worth making sure that these are good photos. If necessary, chambers should invest in a professional photographer to provide a uniform set of good photos. The size of the picture files should be checked carefully; there are techniques to reduce the size of the file without losing a lot of quality and the web designer should be able to do this. Many chambers use black and white or "sepia" photos to keep file sizes down and it works perfectly well.
* It is of course possible to provide some articles or case notes on a site even if it is primarily a brochure site, but if so, the material must be kept up to date, must be dated, and must be easily printed and/or downloaded, as described earlier.
As to which are good brochure sites, I am now finding it difficult to choose since there are simply so many. I would say that the quality of web sites has increased substantially over the last year.
Over the page are a number of sites which caught my eye. These sites are in addition to the resource-rich sites described earlier, which are generally also good brochure sites.
I hope the other chambers with good brochure sites will not be offended that they are not also present in the list!
Some of the chambers with good brochure sites:
Atkinson Bevan Chambers |
Lamb Building |
These are almost invariably "home made" (i.e. the barrister has learnt basic web skills) but they are none the worse for that and the enthusiasm of the barrister for the topic shows through. The sites generally offer legal resources on one very specific topic.
It is very difficult to provide generalities about these, or even to give advice as to how they should be developed. If you have not done it already, it is probably too late!
Peter Barrie, of Guildhall Chambers, Bristol, has set up a site called Compensation for Personal Injuries noting developments in personal injury law since January 2002 as a supplement to his textbook of the same name.
Francis Bennion wrote the weekly "In Parliament" column for New Law Journal for several years, and you can read these, and many other articles, here. There is also an amazing archive of Francis' letters to the Times from 1949 to the present day - over 100!
Tony Bingham, of 3 Paper Buildings provides information about Building and Construction Law, Arbitration, Adjudication and ADR, and a good set of links.
Elizabeth Birch has combined her personal information with the site of the company she founded, A Commercial Initiative for Dispute Resolution. There is extensive information on arbitration and ADR.
Bill Braithwaite of Exchange Chambers, Manchester, provides articles and case reports of cases he has been involved in involving Personal Injury. There are also notes of cases which have settled and the amounts of settlement.
Jonathan Schwarz, of 3 Temple Gardens Tax Chambers, specialises in international taxation. The web site contains information on transfer pricing and EC law relating to taxation.
Back to Contents.