As presaged in our February item, TheLawyer.com relaunched LawZone last month. All traces of its former identity have disappeared and LawZone is now a subsite of TheLawyer site, presentationally similar to the other main sections, Lawyer News, Lawyer Jobs, Lawyer Diary, Lawyer Directories and Business Watch.
LawZone presents News and Features and Articles provided by law firms and chambers. Apart from length, the difference between features and articles is not clear. These can also be viewed by subject using the Specialist Zones links. Some 30 specialist areas are provided for, though only 11 are currently in use: Banking & Financial Services, Company & Commercial, Consumer, Employment, Environment, Family, Human Rights, Intellectual Property, PI & Clinical Negligence, Public and TMT & E-commerce. In the specialist zones are also presented Lawlinks which in fact are case headnotes with links through to the full text on the Court Service or BAILII. So it’s surprising that Cases does not appear as a main menu item.
All in all this is a slick, straightforward and well-presented site. Though apparently it uses the Sift technology used by the former LawZone, it is quite a different animal with no clutter and a clear focus. The weekly LawZone Newswire (register for it on the site) is similarly well-presented.
Centaur sold and Lawzone to relaunch (February)
