NextClient in the News

THREE NEW SERVICES FOR LAWYERS ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB

By Barry D. Bayer
St. Louis Countian

St. Louis, MO - November 21, 2000

We've been touting the World Wide Web for use by lawyers for years, and it looks as if the legal profession has finally caught up with us. Certainly every lawyer who does legal research should be aware that paid services, such as Westlaw, Lexis, Loislaw, Quicklaw and Versuslaw, maintain substantial databases of primary and secondary legal material at prices ranging from hundreds of dollars to $6.96 per month.

But lawyers do not research by statutes, judicial opinions and treatises alone. This week we look at Juritas, a new Web site that will rise or fall on the premise that lawyers can obtain useful insight, and maybe copy a document or two, from litigated case files as they are generated in the real world. We also report on some features recently added to LexisOne, the limited but absolutely no-cost slice of the Lexis legal reseach system.

But first, for those lawyers who still have not been able to distinguish between the Internet, the World Wide Web and AmericaOnline, a few words about how easy it is to get connected. (More experienced lawyers please jump down a couple of paragraphs or, perhaps, clip the following and send it to your senior partners and others who really need it.

What we now know as the Internet began life in the late 60's as DARPA, a government experiment in computer-to-computer communications. Over the next couple of decades, the successful experiment expanded to a commercial communications backboles that permitted almost anyone in the country to obtain an Internet account and communicate.

By the early 90's more powerful PCs, operating systems based upon GUIs (Graphic User Interfaces), such as Microsoft Windows and the Apple Macintosh OS, became practical, and the World Wide Web, an overlay to standard Internet protocols, made it clear that data could be pictures, music, videos or anything else. The World Wide Web would revolutionize the world we live in and, quite incidentally, the practice of law.

Today, lawyers use the Web to do legal reseach, to find lost witnesses, to check credit records, to aggregate time and expenses for client billings, to file court documents, to order office supplies, to make reservations at restaurants and to perform a host of other chores. Virtually any new computer purchased in the last five years is capable of accessing the Web. All that's needed is a modem or a network card and an agreement with an ISP (Internet Service Provider) at a cost of nothing to about $50 per month, depending on access speed.

In addition to the connection and the hardware, you'll need system software which usually comes free with the Macintosh or Microsoft operating systems, a browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator, both available without cost) and an e-mail program again available at little or no cost. These programs do all of the hard work and, once set up, work without effort at all. Once you're connected, just click on the access icon and go.

The process is easy and inexpensive and is guaranteed to help you work faster and better.

If it is your fist time litigating a particular issue or if you're litigating with a firm you've never dealt with before, it might well pay to send a clerk down to the courthouse and check out similar cases or cases in which your new opponent represented a party. If a brief on a particular point of law persuaded a judge prehaps even the judge assigned to your case once, try modeling the brief you are writing after the successful brief. If the successful brief was written in your office, your document management system should find it. But how would you find that brief if it was written by someone else in town or across the country? Use Juritas!

Juritas is a Web-based collection of court documents from cases that have gone to verdict or judgment in a federal district court. The collection holds complaints, answers, motions, briefs, orders and just about anything that is actually filed with the court. Cases are divided into 16 topics from antitrust and banking to securities and tax and currently are only from courts in California, Delaware, Florida, New Jersey, New York and Washington. (The developer claims to have more than 50,000 separate documents currently on file. Eventually cases are to be available from most of the district courts.) The user can serach by case topic, jurisdiction, Boolean search for specific words or some combination or in segments like party, law firm or filing date.

Each case contains a docket sheet that shows related documents together. A motion to dismiss is followed by the brief in support, the reply brief and, finally, the order granting or denying the motion. Each document is available as an image or in text or image PDF format.

Although you must register to use some of the features on the site, Juritas lets you assign time used in the system to a client and matter, for example everything but actually looking at a document is free. If, after seaching, finding a case and reviewing the docket list, you find a document you would like read, select the document and be prepared to pay $4 per document page for the privilege. Payment can be by credit card or you can open an account.

Juritas provides a service you might need someday. Bookmark www. juritas.com on your browser.

One thing that the Web allows attorneys to do is to troll for new clients. It doesn't cost a lot of money to put your own firm's name on the Web, and most large law firms and a lot of small ones have thir own sites. (If you're not ready to spend the $20 or $70 it costs to reserve your own domain name and the $10 per month required for your virtual host, Findlaw and other systems provide free space for a small site, and your own ISP probably will give you five or 10 megabytes of space for your own site.

To make an impression, your site needs content. Of course, you'll want to post each lawyer's background and qualifications and brag a little bit about famous cases you've handled. It would also be nice to post little articles about your practice areas, but most lawyers don't have a lot of time for creative writing.

Enter NextClient, a new company that will set up a newsletter in the practice area of your choice an provide five different 300 word articles each week for a $59 monthly fee. NextClient will not combine practice areas; if you'd like two articles for estate planning and three for real estate, you'll have to buy two newsletters, at $99 per month. If you go with it, just insert a hyperlink on your Web site and treat your viewers to a fresh, personalized Web-based newsletter each week, looking just as if you had prepared the page yourself.

While we're a believer in keeping a Web site current, there is no promise that your articles will be current and some or all might have run on some competitor's Web site last week. Further, we have some doubt that potential clients will rush to an attorney's Web site each week to review the newest personal injury articles. But then we haven't tried the service and suppose it can't hurt. If you have been looking for practice-specific content for your Web site, give NextClient a try.

The URL is www.nextclient.com.

We regularly sign on to LexisOne to check a recent case, to download a form or just to see what's new. The newest addition that we've noted is electronic access to sister-company Martindale-Hubbell's Law Digest. We know of lawyers reputed to use nothing other than the printed version as primary source material for their practice. We certainly don't advocate that, but the Law Digests on line are handy, mostly authoritative, easy to use and, as with all of LexisOne, is free of charge. If you need a quick answer about a point of law in another jurisdiction, the law digests on LexisOne is probably as good a place as any to begin your research.

The URL, of course, is www.lexisone.com.

Juritas presents court file documents from closed federal trials, so you can look for a model brief or complaint or perform due diligence on opposing counsel. Searching is free; reading is $4 per page.

LexisOne adds the Martindale-Hubbell law digests free of charge. If you need a quick look at the law in another state, this file may be enough.

NextClient provides five new 300 word articles a week for your firm Web site at less than three dollars per article.

Juritas.com. 120 S. State Street, Chicago, IL 60603.
Phone: (888) 877.9695 or (312) 424.0800. Fax: (312) 424.0700.
Web: www.juritas.com

NextClient.com, Inc. 700 North Brand Blvd., Glendale, CA 91203.
Phone: (800) 942.7182 or (818) 550.8989. Fax (818) 550.8980
Web: www.nextclient.com. E-mail: info@nextclient.com

LexisOne. www.lexisone.com

Copyright MM Law Office Technology Review

Back to NextClient in the News