Criminal Solicitor Dot Net
by Gavin Burrell
Criminal Solicitor Dot Net (www.criminalsolicitor.net) came to life in 2004. I had registered the domain
name in the year 2000 but I failed to do anything useful with it for some years. In 2004 I had joined an
e-mail based mailing list for criminal solicitors and I saw that similar questions were asked time and time
again. Also resources were requested repeatedly. The functionality of an e-mail based mailing list struck
me as being fairly poor. An e-mail would be sent from one user and distributed to others on the list but
the e-mails were not accessible or searchable. I decided to set up a forum based web site for criminal
solicitors since this type of site could keep a record of the questions and answers which would be far
more useful than an e-mail based mailing list system.
I searched the web for suitable forum software and came across an open source portal solution called SooP (see www.soopportal.org). SooP is based on active server pages that are hosted on a Windows server. I was fortunate enough to have access to a Windows server so I began to experiment with the software and found it relatively easy to customise. I have no formal qualifications when it comes to web design although I have over the past few years got to grips with the basic concepts of different types of web page languages such as .asp and .php, and I have also had to learn how to deal with ‘back end databases’ such as MySQL and MSSQL.
I set up the web site in order to establish a community in the world wide web for criminal solicitors to discuss issues such as criminal law and criminal contracting. Since 2004 the Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site has grown from being ‘just’ a forum to containing several distinct parts that are of use to every criminal practitioner. To get the most out of the web site users need to register but this is free and the only requirement for registration is a valid e-mail address.
What's on the site
The backbone to the Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site is the forums. The forums allow registered users to post questions, request assistance and interact with each other. The discussions that take place are searchable so if a user is looking for an answer to a question that has been asked before they will be able to find the answer.The site also provides news and updates. The Case Law Updater area contains cases from April 2004 onwards that are seen to be of paramount importance to criminal practitioners. A case report on the Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site will usually include a short summary of the case and a copy of the full report if the case has been reported on a free web resource such as the British and Irish Legal Information Institute, BAILII (www.bailii.org). The Legislation Updater contains items of legislation relevant to criminal practice from April 2004 onwards. The Legislation Updater reports contain a summary of the legislation and then the full content of the legislation from the Office for Public Sector Information (www.opsi.gov.uk). News items such as new developments in law or criminal contracting are posted in the forums allowing members to comment.
In addition to the information available within the Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site I operate a newsletter that is distributed by e-mail on a weekly basis. The newsletter lists updates to the content of the web site so that users who opt to receive the newsletter can be sure that they do not miss relevant news or forum posts.
The Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site has grown steadily and at present there are over 800 registered members and about 2,000 different visitors each month. The site is updated regularly with news, case law and legislation updates, and forum discussions are added on a daily basis. Management of the site is relatively easy as the web pages are dynamically generated. All of the information on the web site is stored in a database and when a user requests a particular page the relevant information is extracted from the database and shown to the user.
The greatest cost involved in managing the web site is time. At the end of each working day I add material to the web site and try to engage in the discussions taking place in the forums. There are also financial costs in operating the web site. Unfortunately as the web site has grown in popularity so have the operating costs since there is a direct link between the volume of bandwidth a web site consumes and hosting costs. The hosting costs are broadly paid by the site taking advantage of the Google Adsense programme. Adverts relevant to keywords within the web site are displayed at various points within the web site and revenue is generated when users click on the adverts.
Why do it?
I set out in February 2004 to create an online community for criminal solicitors and I hope that I have now achieved that goal. The Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site will continue to grow and develop in the future and recently the web site started to publish information through RSS feeds. A popular news website (www.ukcjweblog.org.uk) that digested criminal justice news from UK newspapers recently fell into decline and I established a news service to effectively replace it with news reports from the UK newspapers relevant to criminal justice in a daily news feed. The next possible development is the free provision of CPD points. I am currently in discussion with a software developer about bespoke software to enable the web site to take advantage of distance learning CPD courses based on the content of the web site.I do not run the Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site for financial gain, nor do I run the web site as an advertising base for the firm that I am employed by. I run the web site simply so that criminal practitioners have their own place on the world wide web to discuss criminal law and criminal contracting. As the web site is not affiliated to any organisation, or supported financially by any organisation, the discussion and views offered are truly independent.
When the Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site was originally set up I did receive a number of comments pointing out that the site appeared to be much the same as Andrew Keogh’s CrimeLine (www.crimeline.info). CrimeLine is a very useful resource that keeps subscribers informed of updates in criminal law, and Andrew Keogh also offers criminal practitioners the ability to receive up to 12 free CPD points a year. His new WikiCrimeLine (www.wikicrimeline.co.uk) is an ever growing resource of criminal law knowledge.
The Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site is rather different. It is an online resource that allows users to interact and discuss matters. It is rather like a portal that presents a wide range of up to date news (both legal and media based), case law and legislation to users when they visit the site and it also provides daily updates. I would suggest that these sites compliment each other rather well.
Gavin Burrell is a solicitor with BTMK Solicitors, Essex.
email gavin@criminalsolicitor.net.
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