(Continuing the article What is Web 2.0?)
Inevitably, Web 2.0 has spawned numerous industry-specific buzzwords: “Gov 2.0” is Web 2.0 in the context of government, “Library 2.0” is Web 2.0 as it relates to librarianship, and of course “Law 2.0” is Web 2.0 for lawyers.
What relevance does Web 2.0 have for lawyers and the provision of legal information? In short, it enables lawyers, as much as others, to collaborate effectively, learn from each other, network, serve themselves and cut out the middle man.
Web 2.0 and its offshoots as represented on Dion Hinchcliffe’s Web 2.0 Blog
Collaboration
Most lawyers do now use technology to work together on documents, projects and cases, and they increasingly use the internet to share documents, videoconference and so on.
The benefits of collaboration have become clearer to lawyers as the use of free and low-cost Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and the many other online office applications has proliferated. At the same time, their clients are using technology to collaborate and expect them to follow; in some areas (IT/IP in particular), they may even be expected to lead.
Knowledge acquisition and sharing
Law is a knowledge business. Web 2.0 tools such as RSS feeds, social bookmarks, blogs and wikis provide extremely efficient and effective means to gather information and harness and distribute collective knowledge.
Social and business networking
Web 2.0 effortlessly connects users to users – the many to the many. Social networks such as Facebook and Linkedin and the networked communities that evolve through blogging provide effective ways to keep in touch with those of like interests and to expand business networks.
Marketing
To give just some examples, blogs provide an effective, low-cost way to establish individual lawyers as thought leaders in their fields and to promote the expertise of firms and chambers; video sharing on YouTube or podcasting can spread recorded marketing messages virally at no cost once the recording is made; and a presence in a virtual world such as Second Life can operate as an effective complement to a real life shop front.
Outsourcing
Many in-house office functions can be outsourced via the web using “software as a service”, replacing high capital and maintenance costs with low monthly fees for everything from email hosting to human resources management.
Legal information services
Web 2.0 is rapidly changing the playing field in most spheres of publishing, and law publishing is no exception. For example:
- Blogs enable individual lawyers or small groups easily to publish news and comment and showcase their expertise. Many bloggers are establishing themselves as leaders in their fields and winning attention previously focused on commentators in the traditional media.
- RSS feeds deliver constantly-updated latest information from government, blogs and news sites, in many cases, in aggregate, reducing the appeal of conventional current awareness services.
- Wikis are effective collaborative publishing tools with many advantages over more conventional publishing systems.
And of course there is now a vast corpus of free public sector information to tap into.
Web 2.0 has the potential for individuals and small players in concert to upset the law publishing status quo. At present LexisNexis, Westlaw and other specialist law publishers win and retain business not just because they provide comprehensive access to up-to-date law, but because of their valuable added commentary and other features. The freeing up of legal information will begin to have significant impact when Web 2.0’s potential for leveraging and adding value to that information is better understood. How best to marry the increasing amount of independent commentary from the web with newsfeeds and comprehensive and up-to-date public access source materials is the challenge of “Law Publishing 2.0”.
Nick Holmes is co-editor of this Newsletter.
A much-extended version of this article is published in the Legal Web e-book on Legal Information and Web 2.0 (www.infolaw.co.uk/ebooks).
