Legaltree as a forum for publications

Many useful legal articles are published on firm websites, but generally lawyers do not browse other firm websites when searching for research articles. Legaltree is a legal research website with resource lists and many articles on various topics, and so will be visited by lawyers when researching. Furthermore, links to Legaltree are listed on bar association and library websites which means that there is likely more passing traffic on Legaltree than on firm websites. Therefore, providing a link to an article on a firm website by posting on Legaltree is a good way to promote the firm’s website and legal services. All links posted on Legaltree must comply with the Link Policy.

Some employers may question the value and appropriateness of publishing legal articles on the internet. Pointing out the following to such employers may convince them otherwise.

 

Literally millions of legal articles are already online; Hein Online alone has over 21 million pages from over 900 legal journals, albeit mostly covering American law. Legal articles published by well respected Canadian legal education organizations, such as the Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia, are also available online. Apart from their established reputation, the key difference between those services and Legaltree is that currently they require paid subscriptions while Legaltree does not. Like those services, Legaltree is committed to hosting only high quality content. Users are contractually obligated to publish only well drafted, professional, and up to date content. Legaltree has the contractual right to remove material from the site, and will do so where the specified criteria are not met. Furthermore, unlike for those other services, contributors retain the copyright in the material they publish on Legaltree and may remove it at any time.

 

Websites such as CanLII and Wikipedia confirm that the current trend is towards readily accessible online content. Law firms who wish to remain at the forefront of the profession should embrace this evolution; many already have by publishing articles and blogs on their company websites. Legaltree offers a public forum for publication, or republication if the material has already been published elsewhere. It is suggested that firms apply similar screening criteria for publishing on Legaltree as they have in the past when approving articles for publication in traditional paper based legal journals.