Web Enabled Legal Aid

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Curran, Kevin | Higgins, Lee

Affiliations: Enterprise Computing Research Group, Northern Ireland Knowledge Engineering Laboratory, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, UK

Note: [] Corresponding author: Kevin Curran, Enterprise Computing Research Group, Northern Ireland Knowledge Engineering Labo-ratory, University of Ulster, Magee Campus, Northern Ireland, BT48 7JL, UK. Tel.: +44 (0) 28 7137 5565; Fax: +44 (0) 28 7137 5470; E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: As the demand for legal services increases and the Internet threatens to dominate as a general research and business tool, two related challenges are presented to the Information Technology and Legal Communities: The provision of easy to use services/applications which are cost-effective to develop and which improve the efficiency of the lawyer's research task; Finding effective means of making such services widely and publicly available across the Internet. This paper demonstrates in the first instance how such services might be created by building on lessons learnt from an investigation into current legal applications.  Secondly it examines those technologies that offer an appealing means of realising the second goal above, with the eventual goal of describing the framework of an application provides the basis for meeting both challenges.

Journal: Information Knowledge Systems Management, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 189-205, 2000