Eric Korb of LawyerLinks gave me the grand tour of the LawyerLinks corporate legal research tool recently and I was quite impressed.
While many people believe that I’m interested only in the newest, coolest, most cutting-edge technology, the truth is that I’m most interested in technologies that are simple, easy to use and help me accomplish things better. When that happens with cool, new technology (the leading example today is the whole are known as Web 2.0), it’s a bonus for me.
So, a few minutes into the demo of LawyerLinks, I’m really digging the service and asking tons of questions and saying “that’s right” and “that’s cool.” It was cool because it was simple.
And, it’s a simple idea. Imagine the ideal “encyclopedia” for your area of law practice. It would be fully hyperlinked, updated by knowledgeable lawyers, organized by people who understand the practice and easy to move through. IN my case, I also want to get away from the Boolean search stuff and be able to move through the material in a logical, structured way.
Hey, that’s what LawyerLinks is. It’s simple, yet profoundly useful. It brings me back to the orignal idea of hyperlinks.
The best part is that you can immediately see how this would be helpful to you, especially for quick overviews of subject matter areas. You might get a question from a client. While on the phone, you quickly pull up an overview so you can “refresh your memory” on the topic. You also have the ability to move seamlessly to news, source material and cases. You are instantly knowledgeable (not that you weren’t before, of course – you are just a little smoother now).
Now, flip the scenario. You are an inhouse corporate counsel or even a business executive and you want to get some background before you talk to an outside lawyer. Boom, you’re there.
For those law firms looking to make more effective use of library budgets (my advice: give the librarian a raise and better tools and cut costs on books), LawyerLinks would be a great tool to reduce the need for some of the books taking up space in your library. If you are starting a new firm, well, this might be an easy decision.
LawyerLinks focuses on securities and corporate law topics only at this time. That’s too bad for those of us not in those areas, but it’s great news for those of you in these areas.
Check it out.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
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