A Page on the Web, published in the Solicitors Journal, November 1998.
Just over three years ago I wrote my first ‘Page on the Web’ for the Solicitors’ Journal. Let’s look back to that time and see how things have changed.
What is the internet today?
In October 1995 few lawyers were using the web, most had by then heard of it, but did not know what it could do for them, and it must be that more than a few were blissfully ignorant of it. The October 1995 page covered the basics: Why get wired? – ‘Because it’s useful, easy-to-use and fun’; and getting wired – a summary of what the internet is, what it can be used for, what kit you needed and costs.
It goes without saying that I still contend it’s useful, easy-to-use and fun; but it is now also a necessity.
To the majority, today – as then – ‘the internet’ means predominantly two things:
Email – the single most important application for the decade, which can transform the way you work. Think not just of exchanging (inevitably less formal) messages with colleagues and business contacts, but of replacing conventional mail. Think electronic (or ‘digital’ as some would have it). Anything generated on your computer can be attached as a file to an email and sent around the corner or across the globe almost instantaneously. A transaction which may formerly have taken days or even weeks to conclude can be completed in a matter of hours. Email is also a medium through which you can keep informed and up to date – by subscribing to relevant mailing lists (from which thankfully you can ‘unsubscribe’). When you’re up to speed, why not run your own mailing list? For example, wouldn’t some or all of your clients benefit from useful updates from you? But don’t be tempted simply to use it as an advertising medium: most people get enough unwanted email without your adding to it.
The web – this is arguably the most fun bit. Undoubtedly I find it fun because it’s a publishing medium and that’s my interest. Maybe for you it was not that much fun in 1995 when there was little on the web of direct relevance to lawyers; maybe it was not that much fun in 1996 when every man and his dog rushed to put up a corporate website of limited usefulness and of dubious design quality: but the web has matured, into a really useful medium for the practitioner. Assuming you enjoy your work and are keen to improve the way you conduct your research, make your purchases and deliver your services, how could you not find it fun? A not often-mentioned adjunct to both the above is FTP – which stands file transfer protocol – allowing you to copy files to and from a remote server in much the same way that you can do so on your own machine. If you regularly exchange large files with particular contacts who run a server, then this will be far quicker and more convenient than attaching files to email messages.
Are you adequately kitted out?
In December 1995 I suggested you go out and spend £100 on a modem for Christmas. Any 486 PC would run the necessary email and web browser software which (hopefully) you would get from your internet services provider (‘ISP’). Nowadays you will need a far higher spec PC to run later versions of the software, and download increasingly large and complex pages, but prices have come down to the extent that you’ll get plenty more MHz, RAM and Mb, nay Gb, for your pound, plus a 52K modem and at least the browser software pre-loaded (thank Bill Gates or not, as the case may be), all for around £1,000. If you’re running a lower spec configuration, you’re not doing yourself any favours.
Fast modems are probably fine for most, but if you regularly download or transfer large files, you’d do well to invest in an ISDN line. This will cost about £135 a quarter, so you’d need to be saving about 66 hours a quarter (or 45 minutes a day) at ‘Lo-call’ rate to pay for this. But you should also take account of the added convenience of faster response. You can also use an ISDN line as both a fax and voice line and to serve several extensions, so you could save on regular phone lines into the bargain.
Today your ISP will provide all necessary software, including maybe an alternative web browser, FTP software and other freebies. If you don’t get all you want, look no further than your local newsagent’s stock of PC magazines.
Who and what’s on the web?
In 1995 little more than a dozen enterprising law firms had set up shop on the web. We were interested in these early adopters: they were in demand at conferences and seminars, explaining how they did it and what their experiences were. Today it is as easy to construct a website as it is to produce a decent report using your word processor. The novelty has gone and the expectation is that any sizeable firm will have a website. Indeed, it will certainly count against them if they do not. More than 450 firms in England and Wales have their own websites, more than 60 in Scotland, and more than 70 barristers’ chambers, as well as many individual solicitors and barristers.
But you are not necessarily so much interested in what your colleagues and competitors are doing on the web as what others are offering on the web which will be of use to you. These sites have of course been the subject of most Pages on the Web.
Law associations are on the web – from the Law Societies and the Bar Council, through other specialist lawyer associations to every conceivable professional organisation which may be of relevance to you. By and large these will be reliable resources and useful starting points for you.
We expected the powers that be to offer us useful information and materials on the Web. They were slow to do so, but by the end of 1997 there were substantial and fast developing resources on the CCTA Government Information Service, the Parliament Site, the HMSO site and the Court Services site.
The other main category of organisation with substantial offerings for lawyers now on the web are the ‘law publishers’. Here we run into a difficulty of definition. Certainly we know who the law publishers were a few years ago: Butterworths, Sweet & Maxwell, FT Law & Tax, Legalease and a number of smaller companies. These companies all now have websites, some with substantial information services. Generally the formula is to provide sufficient free news and updates to keep you interested, and to offer electronic conversions of existing services, and some more original web-based services, on annual subscription. While they were slow to adopt the web, there is now no lack of will in developing web-based services. In another camp are the pioneers of electronic publishing, the on-line services including Lexis, Lawtel, Justis (Context) and Link, Lawtel now having transferred its service to the web. Together these publishers must continue to ask themselves To what extent does the medium require a fresh approach? How do we price our services? Who are our competitors? Who will they be in six months’ time? For on the web is the new breed of publishing company – the door is open for new entrants of all shapes and sizes to join the law publishing club and they are signing up daily. None has anything like the legacy of intellectual property of the big law publishers, but innovation and a commitment to the new medium count for as much. These companies are in most cases not publishing ‘hard’ information, but providing a range of services to help you access and use the information and services on the internet.
Whither the legal web?
The web generally, and the legal web in particular, has evolved from an experimental construction site, through advertising gallery to on-line library, and it is undoubtedly an increasingly useful medium for research and hard information. Apart from passive information, it also offers access to ‘live’ mailing lists, discussion fora and the like. But 1998 has seen a huge increase in the number of sites enabling you to do business on the web. You can purchase tangible goods – anything from books, flowers, bottles of wine, theatre tickets and flights to computers and cars – and every conceivable service on the web. Foremost amongst these goods and services in terms of their value to you are those that can be delivered electronically. Company searches and software are obvious early examples. 1999 and the new millennium will see an explosion of such services. You will do well to get involved now and who knows, maybe you will be offering services over the web soon.
