Getting on the case

Interview with Stephen Moore, the solicitor who has developed the CaseCheck service for researching the law and demonstrating the user's own skills

The Journal, February 2008, page 34

An embryonic legal “wiki” is looking to attract individual Scottish lawyers, and legal firms, interested in commenting on developments in their area of practice.

CaseCheck (www.casecheck.co.uk), the brainchild of lawyer and legal technology consultant Stephen Moore, began last October as a free, online, searchable archive of Scottish court and UK employment appeal tribunal decisions. Developed from an email newsletter which Moore used to distribute under the banner of Intersettle, his former online dispute resolution system, it is now a platform in its own right with a growing breadth of coverage.

Lawyers who have recently visited the site may have noticed the appearance of a variety of articles as well as the initial case law database, which in Moore’s words “are turning CaseCheck into more of an online legal magazine”.

Easy, but not too easy

Moore has learned the hard way what sort of IT works for lawyers and what does not. Intersettle, an online negotiation system which Moore set up as a trainee in 2000, involving seven or eight leading litigation practices in Scotland, fell into the latter category. “Culturally it didn’t take off, it was too difficult, it was asking lawyers to do something which took them outwith their normal day to day activity”, he reflects. To win their favour, IT “has to be easy to use, it has to be effective, but it also must save time now”.

His case summaries however are not entirely of the spoon-feeding variety: users browsing through the 32 subject areas will find descriptions of the facts and issues, and a link to the full judgment, but not generally a distilled ratio as in a conventional law report or digest. This is deliberate, Moore explains:

“The stance which I have always taken has been to inform people what the case was about, not what was actually decided. This fits in with the approach favoured in academia where students are encouraged to find out about cases and draw their own conclusions by reading the full decisions themselves. In addition, the service is a free service… In any event, if somebody does specialise in a particular area they should want to read the full decision, if it is of relevance to them.”

A stage awaits

Although the initial summaries are provided by a regular pool of volunteers (the site carries an invitation for others to apply), the wiki aspect comes in the form of an open invitation to users to post comments on decisions and their implications. Moore becomes quite  animated describing this feature of CaseCheck, which he believes to be unique.

“It can effectively act as a platform for solicitors, a stage for anyone who wishes to comment on case law, and their opinions demonstrate their skill and expertise in a particular area. As a young lawyer or as a student what would have been excellent for me would have been to have read a case report with a link to the full judgment, and beneath the report to have explanations or comments from solicitors who are particularly experienced in that area to say, this is what that case actually means to you, this what you have to do in terms of pleadings, here is some of the background of what was actually happening.

“I also think that for anyone who wishes to contribute to this resource they have no idea who might be reading it: it might be a potential employer, a potential employee, a potential client: it goes beyond traditional marketing material by giving an opinion of how somebody’s handling, interpreting a case.”

Global reach

Comments at present remain somewhat few and far between, but Moore is in discussion with a number of firms about their becoming expert opinion providers, perhaps with direct feeds from their commentaries into their own intranets or websites. “It may be that particular firms with notable expertise in a legal discipline become expert commentators, thereby leveraging a different type of market awareness than that which is currently available.”

The site has already developed in the four months since it went live, and while Moore hopes to add the facility to comment on legislation, and aspects of practice management, he will be guided by what proves popular to users – something he can of course monitor. Experience to date has already confirmed that with the web, anything is possible.

“Currently I am involved in a project whereby CaseCheck will be reskinned, reconfigured and reused as the first law journal of Afghanistan. Believe me, when I started down this road not even I thought that would happen.

“CaseCheck, I am hoping will be the first step to creating a legal community unlike that anywhere else in the world.”

Stephen Moore is a qualified Scottish solicitor who runs the consultancy Moore Legal Technology.

www.moorelegaltechnology.co.uk
www.casecheck.co.uk