Let's do the show right here

I am reading Paul Carr's "Bringing Nothing to the party... True Confessions of a New Media Whore" (available as an e-book here, but I got my copy from the library).

Most people with an interest in the internet have probably read it, but despite being a fan of Paul's Guardian column (in the good old days) and following him on Twitter I haven't got around to it until now.

In chapter four Paul writes about the Adam Street private members club (networking hangout of choice for web entrepreneurs) and notes:

"It also helps that the club bans lawyers, accountants and other professionals from touting their services in the club in the same way that the Groucho and Soho House ban paparazzi."

I wondered about the lawyers (and other professionals) who also happened to be web entrepreneurs... was this some kind of lawyerist apartheid or would they be welcome provided they didn't try and persuade the dot com millionaires that they should make a will?

The question may be academic; when I think of the late nineties / early noughties dot com bubble there aren't many legal startups which spring to mind.

This time around I think things may be different. The big brands are going to come into the legal services market, but I believe there will also be lawyers who see Web 2.0 as their opportunity to provide legal services in a totally different way. Those who can't accept the pace of change at their big law firms and (to use Paul's words again) think:

"Fuck it.

Let's do the show right here."

Don't get me wrong: there are lawyers who understand Web 2.0 and social media and are using them in a entrepreneurial way right now - I tweet with a lot of them and read their blogs (just take a look at the UKBlawgRoundup for some examples). 

I am thinking on a different scale though. About whether there is someone out there who is right now tinkering with the Google of the legal services market in their garage.

Is it totally impossible that the known factors ("Tesco Law", external investment in law firms, the freemium model) will be eclipsed by something that we haven't even thought of?

I don't think it is impossible. I can't be more specific, because it will be the kind of quantum shift which seems blindingly obvious only with hindsight (and if I knew what it was I would be doing it, not blogging about it!).

This is a bit of a Friday night post, but bizarrely the idea cheers me up. Amidst all the doom and gloom there is no harm in remembering that this is an exciting time to be a lawyer... we don't know what is around the corner, but perhaps a few entrepreneurial individuals and small firms are better positioned to shake up the market than BigLaw?

Is it time to apply for membership at Adam Street and kick off a Law 2.0 boom?

Playing catch up?

Is the law keeping up with social media and web 2.0 (or even web 1.0)?

I have been looking recently at the issue of companies using their competitors' names in meta tags to divert traffic to their site (see the Search Engine Watch site summary of meta tag lawsuits).

In England we have a situation where the Courts still haven't clarified the legal position much beyond the Court of Appeal decision in Reed v Reed. It seems unlikely that they ever will given that Google no longer pays attention to keywords meta tags and the focus has moved on to litigation about Google Adwords.

This isn't an isolated example; even the position on liability of hyperlinkers for breach of copyright isn't particularly clear.

The E-Commerce Directive deliberately fails to cover legal liability for hyperlinks. In theory, the European Commission are meant to review the directive every 2 years from 2003 with particular reference to whether additional protection for hyperlinkers and/or a "takedown" notice procedure is appropriate, but as yet this hasn't led to any real clarification.

Effectively in the UK we are left relying on various arguments about whether a hyperlink can be classified as an instrument for making of an infringing copy (potentially giving rise to liability under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988).

In the meantime, the way that hyperlinks are used is changing (think short links tweeted and retweeted on Twitter with no anchor text and possibly not even a description of who or what is linked to).

A common law system should, in theory, be able to adapt to changes like this as quickly as new cases and precedent can be put place by the Courts, but the reality is that many of these areas are governed by domestic and/or European legislation which can (at most) only be interpreted by the Courts and not amended.

On top of this we have the government's attempts to force through the Digital Economy Bill before the end of the current Parliament to implement various controversial proposals such as disconnection on suspicion of copyright infringement (widely condemned by the Open Rights Group and others).

All of this makes me wonder whether it is actually possible for legislation to keep pace with the development of the Internet or whether the law makers are doomed to playing catch up.

What do you think? Is the current system flexible and adaptable enough to cope… or in an ideal world should we be thinking about changing or even replacing it?

Update on Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 8:47AM by Peninsulawyer

I am interested by the comment left by Mark Bower of Connectegrity that legal bloggers in the UK don't really seem to have picked up on the Digital Economy Bill and its implications.

I hadn't really noticed this, but having looked back through my RSS feeds it does seem to be the case.

As Mark mentioned in his comment there are a number of concerns with the bill:-

• the "three strikes" / disconnection without trial rules which can potentially lead to users being disconnected on suspiction of copyright infringement
• the controversial rules to allow rightsholders to require ISPs to take down or block entire sites upon being given notice of infringing material (with potential legal costs penalties in the event that they fail to do so and are subsequently found to have been in the wrong)
• liability and disconnection for providers of open WIFI networks (coffee shops, bars, libraries etc.) if their users are found to have infringed copyright
• the "orphan works" provisions (of particular concern to photographers) which would allow works to be used without reference to copyright protection if a "sufficient search" (which is not defined) does not reveal who owns the copyright. This is particularly worrying as it is very difficult to ensure that attribution information / metadata remains part of the image to avoid it being orphaned.

This is only very brief summary typed at some speed - the Open Rights Group site has more details of the proposals.

There is a new service on the 38 Degrees site which allows you to write to your local MP to express concern at these issues and the way that the bill is being pushed through parliament (effectively the government want to use the "wash-up" procedure to pass it with little or no debate before the end of the current parliament).

I have done this already and judging by the traffic I have seen on Twitter so have many others. If you are concerned about the effects of the bill on internet users and would like to see it properly debated then please do the same.

Law Web 2.0?

What is Web 2.0?

I ask, because a criticism I have seen levelled at a number of law firm websites is that they are "flat", "brochure ware" and most crushingly of all... "so Web 1.0".

The recent comments about the Shoosmiths Access Legal site on the Law Society Gazette LinkedIn group give a pretty good flavour (unfortunately you have to be logged into LinkedIn to follow the group link... sorry).

Wikipedia has a very detailed definition of Web 2.0, but to me the core of the concept is the move from "information" sites to "participation".

Some lawyers and (to a lesser extent) law firms have proved enthusiastic users of Web 2.0 social media tools for business development, but how many law firms have actually embraced Web 2.0 in their own web sites?

Looking deeper than this, to what extent is it even possible for a law firm site to make this "information to participation" shift?

The expeditionary force in the Web 2.0 infiltration was the blog, which has found its way into a number of sites (although in many cases what is termed a "blog" is more of a re-badged news feed which lacks the comment facilities to give it real Web 2.0 credentials).

The other area which is seeing some real marketing spend at the moment is the integration of online legal drafting technology into sites. Jon Busby blogs about this over at his Legal 2.0 blog for those who want a more detailed rundown (disclosure:- by day, Jon is the business director at Epoq Legal... other online drafting platforms may be available!). Some firms are also taking the next logical step into e-commerce (i.e. clients buying and paying for their legal work via the site itself).

A number of sites have incorporated "follow us on Twitter / Facebook" buttons (my favourite being a local firm I won't name whose Twitter button on the main site of their page links to an account with a single follower and one tweet dating from July 2009 - well done guys!).

Social sharing and bookmarking buttons seem to be less common, but the Access Legal site referenced above does have these. I haven't managed to track down a site with the Tweetmeme button and counter to allow articles to be easily re-tweeted, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are some out there.

So what else does Web 2.0 have to offer which law firms could be incorporating into their sites?

Looking at the Wikipedia page for inspiration some other options might be:

• social networking elements (maybe via Ning or similar?)


• wikis (Wikivorce is great, but I don't think it is really a wiki in the Web 2.0 sense of allowing users to edit content)


• web-based communities (client forums?)


• video sharing (maybe not ideal for law firms, but who knows?)


• Mobile applications tying back into the site

I may have missed a site somewhere which has one or more of these features, but my gut feeling is that law firms won't necessarily incorporate these more "social" aspects of Web 2.0 into their main sites.

Law firm web sites are effectively providing information and branding for the firm. This requires control over the content and the level of user participation requiered for a wiki, a forum or even unmoderated blog comments is likely to conflict with this.

This isn't limited to law firms. Even the parts of the Twitter site which are about Twitter, Inc. are effectively a flat Web 1.0 site combined with a blog - and there is probably no need for them to be anything else.

So what would the perfect law firm website contain? Online drafting technology and the associated e-commerce functions seem to be the most logical next step, but other than that the focus seems to be on integration with external social media and Web 2.0 (rather than building them into the site).

It is risky to make this kind of prediction, but I wonder if law firm web sites (in the sense we currently recognise them) have much further to go? Will the next stage of development actually be to strip out features rather than adding them in?

We are already seeing this to an extent with LinkedIn. A public LinkedIn profile is already the first port of call for many people when preparing for a meeting with a new business contact. Why not just replace your lawyer "bio" pages with a link to their LinkedIn profile?

In ten years' time maybe firms will just maintain a "core" site which is used to provide online legal services, e-commerce, client areas and basic information about the firm. The more social and participatory elements would come from the blogs, wikis, tweets and buzzes of their individual lawyers, which would orbit around this core.

What do you think? Is there more Web 2.0 functionality left to be built into law firm sites... or is it time to streamline things?

Update on Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 2:35PM by Peninsulawyer

Steph Kimbro messaged me on Twitter after this original post to ask whether I had looked at the Virtual Law Office Technology which is used by some practices in the USA to offer what they term "unbundled legal services" to online consumers.

Steph is one of the co-founders of VLOTech and her own firm Kimbro Legal Services operates using the platform.

I hadn't at the the time, but I have since taken a look at it and it is quite interesting - covering client take-on, online payments, case management, discussion threads and a whole host of other stuff as well as online document production.

Obviously this is a US based service, but it is certainly worth a look to see what can be achieved with Web 2.0 tech for virtual law offices (or as an add-on to a traditional firm).

I don't know whether this type of service could take off in the UK? What do you think?