Legal services online

Published on: April 29, 2015

Preventing Link Rot: Lawyer and Librarian Friend Perma cc Wins Webby Award

By Laura Orr

From ABA News: “Site aiming to prevent ‘link rot’ for legal researchers wins 2015 Webby,” by Molly McDonough, 4/27/15:

Excerpt: “A service that enables courts and researchers to make permanent links to research found on the Web has won a Webby Award for best legal site of 2015.

Perma.cc, developed by the Harvard Law School Library and supported by a network of more than 60 law libraries, takes on the widespread problem of broken or defunct Web links, also known as “link rot,” which can that can undermine research by scholars and courts….” [Link to full ABA article.]

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Published on: July 2, 2014

Human Lawyers (and Law Librarians) vs. Online Legal Services: It’s Not About You

By Laura Orr

Jim Calloway’s blog post: GPSOLO: Law Practice 2020 has lots of tips including this one from GP Solo, vol. 31 No. 3, by David Hiersekorn:

“Online Legal Paper Mills: Are They a Threat and How Do We Compete?

…. Using LegalZoom as an example, a consumer goes to the website and sees testimonials from smiling customers. Then they go through the online questionnaire, never encountering a question that they can’t answer. And soon they find that they are just a credit card number away from having the document they went looking for.

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Published on: May 13, 2014

Big Law, Big Bucks, Big Data, Big Ideas: Better Mousetrap or Sucker Punch?

By Laura Orr

Provocative ABA Journal article – and Comments also worth reading:

ABA Journal, May 2014: “These venture capitalists skip law firms for legal services startups”

This particular Comment resonates in my world, where legal shortcuts land clients in hot water – and their attorneys in the law library wondering why the client didn’t seek legal advice first and saved themselves big bucks and big headaches:

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