A PEEK AT THE NEW LAWNET THAT'S COMING SOON

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LawNet is an early pioneer of legal technology, created more than 30 years ago to empower all law firms with legal research content and technology. Over the years, SAL has continually enhanced LawNet with quality content and productivity features. What’s next for our flagship service?

“We understand that the legal profession faces new opportunities and challenges from rapid social, business and technological changes,” says Alvin, the lead product manager for LawNet. Accordingly, the team has been rebuilding LawNet as a more flexible and agile platform, such that SAL can provide more timely and holistic support for the profession.

This is more than a tech project – people are at the heart of it all. “Our changes run deep. We’ve adopted agile planning and development practices, so that we can co-design and build LawNet in close consultation with our community of legal professionals and legal tech providers,” Alvin explains, adding that work is prioritised based on user needs and feedback.

While the team has had to tear down the occasional wall to move things along, they are just as excited and grateful to be building on the great work of their colleagues and industry partners. All these feature strongly in the upcoming LawNet:

  • Improved legal research – The Academy Publishing, Law Reporting and Legal Research teams at SAL have long been creating and curating trusted legal content, all meticulously tagged and cross-referenced. The new LawNet aims to boost legal research productivity by unlocking the latent value in this rich content. For example, the new search engine blends SAL’s editorial insight with modern algorithms to provide more relevant results for various research queries.
  • Online library – Members will get online access to books and other secondary materials. “Accessibility” is the operative word in our library. Professionals will have simple yet powerful ways to search and browse for relevant content, search within books, and seamlessly flow to and from referenced content on LawNet. We are also working to include content from SAL subsidiaries and industry partners.
  • Open platform for content and services – The new LawNet is designed to support legal professionals all through their career. SAL and its subsidiaries provide a broad range of content and services for the community. Over time, members will be able to rely on LawNet as a hub for such offerings. SAL is also always keen to promote meaningful legal tech that can improve productivity or create new opportunities. LawNet will feature a marketplace to help members find, try and use such solutions. On a deeper level, the LawNet team is collaborating with legal tech providers on initiatives such as access to eLitigation data, common data standards and security.

Keen to learn more about the new LawNet? Contact the team here.