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Title:
Researching the legal web: a guide to legal resources on the Internet
Review:
In the two years since the first edition of this useful handbook was published there has been an enormous growth both in the information available for lawyers on the web and, most significantly, in the internet-awareness of the legal profession. Nick Holmes and Delia Venables have made themselves household names to the internet-aware legal community, and their book is designed as an introduction for the (pretty much) novice. Concise enough to be read on the daily commute into London, it is a valuable resource to have by the PC as you try to make sense of what's out there. The book thankfully avoids listing URLs, preferring to describe the material available, and leave the user to find the sites on the authors' own websites.
The main sections of the book include Who's On The Legal Web - official government sites, courts, solicitors and barristers and professional associations, etc.. What's On The Legal Web treads the sometimes difficult path around the available free legal information services. Law Publishers On The Web looks at the subscription services currently available. Further chapters range across information on legal topics, e-commerce, doing business, knowledge management, legal education, etc., in many cases using legal practitioners' web sites as exemplars of the topic under discussion. The book therefore provides a valuable short cut to seeing some of innovative work that lawyers are doing on the web.
The section on international legal resources is inevitably somewhat rudimentary - it merits a whole book on its own, and the European Union could do with rather more than the page which it is given. It is the earlier chapters, however, which I would think give the book its value to the practitioner. Inevitably, the book is out of date before it appears - the government web site is pictured in its previous incarnation, new resources have become available on subscription, but this doesn't really matter, since the book is designed as a kick start, and anyone using it will rapidly learn to keep up to date by using sites such as Delia Venables' own portal.
Free Pint Reviewer:
Sarah Carter is Law Librarian at the University of Kent. She maintains a website of legal information on the web known as LAWLINKS . This was originally developed as a resource for students at the University of Kent but has since become widely known, and she receives comments on it from all over the world. She can be contacted at S.H.Carter@ukc.ac.uk
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