Website reviews

site of the month:

www.scottishlaw.org.uk

The predecessor of this site, Scotslawonline, was first reviewed in these pages nearly two years ago. There is little left of that site now, not even the name. However, the identity of the indefatigable author remains, Kevin Crombie, an independent pioneer in Scottish legal websites. So it’s worth having another look to see whether the aim of the site, which is to be “the very first place that anyone with an interest in Scots Law would visit …on the internet” has been realised. To a large extent it has. Its home page would be a good candidate for the default home page of your browser if you use the web a lot for legal stuff. Thankfully, the site has now eschewed the use of fiddly graphics and most other irritating gimicky stuff (except for pop-up banners: I suppose the site has to be paid for somehow). The uncomplicated, simply-designed home page is easy to navigate with the principal sections of the site accessible from columns on both sides of the page and a straightforward introduction to the site down the middle. The author has packed the site with all sorts of resources. The basic nuts and bolts stuff (caselaw, legislation, government sites, other legal links) are found in the first two sections. The A to Z of law is particularly useful with annotated links to websites listed under categories (e.g. A is for Animals, F is for Family and Z is for Bored.com ). Although billed as the A to Z of Scots law, that is a little misleading as the sites cover law from many jurisdictions. Unfortunately, there are not enough Scots law sites to fill an A to Z. The site works hard at interactivity so there are loads of bulletin boards. Most, unfortunately, are not well used by the public and lawyers which is a great pity since such features are potentially very productive. The site also works hard at appealing to other interests such as law students and trainees with news, journal and discussion sites in these areas. There are fun things to do too: try the xxx..archive in the Shockwave files section and see if your mental age is old enough to continue…(The things a reviewer has to do). The new Intranet for lawyers is a smaller version of the main site focusing on practical resources for lawyers including ancillary tools (such as currency converters, timetables, on-line forms etc.). Although the site no longer advises when it was last updated (a response to the previous review!) the news section is updated daily and the rest pretty frequently. The author of this site has put an enormous amount of work into this ambitious site. The more it is used, the better it’ll be, which must be to the advantage of all lawyers.

Subjective Rating (where 5 is excellent and 1 is poor and no rating indicate that that category has not been assessed)

Usefulness to practitioners  5/5

Usefulness to non-practitioners  3/5

Site design 4/5

Ease of use 5/5

Updating frequency 4/5

www.lawreports.co.uk

this is another of the plain vanilla high-content sites that should find their way to the top 10 basic sites of any lawyer interested in what’s moving in the courts. This is the website of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting which is responsible for publishing WLR, the Law Reports and ICR. The mission of the ICLR is to report those cases that “really matter”. Much of the website is devoted, as one would expect, to the promotion of its wares. But there is more. Usefully, the site lists all the cases reported in the current and previous issue of WLR together with a brief summary of the content.   Unfortunately, although the most recent cases reported in ICR and the Law Reports are also listed, they contain neither a summary nor a link to the rubric and headnote. Pity. It can’t be that difficult especially since the Law Reports contain a selection of WLR cases. The best bit I save till last: hope you are still here. The Daily Law Notes are a “precise and accurate summary” of those cases which will eventually end up in WLR. Speed is the thing, with the cases finding their way onto the website within 24 hours or so of the judgments being handed down. The index is a little primitive in web terms. You can search by court (with the cases broken down by subject area), or by date. There is a useful summary of all cases in the current and last week. If you only know the name of the case, the index will not help and there is no search function. Still, it’s free and wonderfully clear, being devoid of fancy web stuff.

Speed 4/5

Usefulness to practitioners  4/5

Usefulness to non-practitioners  1/5

Site design 3/5

Ease of use 5/5

Updating frequency 5/5

Derek O’Carroll welcomes comments on the reviews and suggestions for sites to review