Russell Shepherd of Capform has asked me to correct an error in the previous post, repeated from the Media Guardian article, saying that:

We have no intention of introducing charges for our current free forms service on Capform. Capform will introduce new chargeable services next year – but this will not affect the provision of free forms as any charges will relate to new services and products.

Further, he says that he thinks that the value of the site is precisely the same as Everyform – in that it provides a free and useful resource for all governement forms, in the easy to use Hodocs format. He acknowledges that obtaining the forms direct from the government agencies is a viable and sensible way for busy lawyers to get their forms “provided you want to spend what can seem like most of your life navigating the web to find them”. While it is true the forms are distributed across many sites, I find it hard to believe that nowadays, for example, a conveyancer could not easily bookmark the Land Registry forms page; a litigator, HM Courts Services forms page; and so on. More on this anon.

But – as ever (in agreement here) – the market will decide.