Contributing content to FreeLegalWeb
Who may contribute?
Anyone who registers will be able to contribute to FreeLegalWeb. The aim is - over time - to build up a corpus of legal guidance and commentary equivalent to what is found in standard legal textbooks and we are therefore primarily encouraging qualified lawyers and legal academics to contribute. However, we wish to be as inclusive as possible and not to discourage anyone else who is willing and able to make a valid and useful contribution to the project - to explain the law at whatever level.
We'll put in place specific features to indicate authority and to achieve a self-moderating, peer-reviewed service. We won't know exactly what's needed until the service becomes established.
Why should I contribute?
Whether or not you already publish articles on your own blog or website, here's the value FreeLegalWeb will offer to contributors:
- An effective channel for promoting your expertise and for gaining professional recognition. You're not on page one of the search engines and crave more Google juice, right? FreeLegalWeb will provide it, both by exposing you directly and also by linking to your site.
- A hosted publishing service for your more enduring and worthy writings, with an easy-to-use, blog-like interface and import and export facilities. You'll own your own articles and be in full control over editing and licensing. We'll be in the cloud at your service.
- Full author profiling, including your specialisms, qualifications, positions, association memberships, websites, social networks, publications and case representations. (Allow us a while to put this all in place.)
- Automatic cross-referencing to all primary law sources and many secondary law sources cited in your articles. No sweat. FreeLegalWeb will recognise citations in your articles, link to the appropriate public access sources and generate liinks to all related resources.
What should I contribute?
There's more than enough news, updates, comment and law-lite published on blogs, law firm brochure sites, self-help sites and forums and the web at large. That's part of the problem. What we'd like to attract are the more substantive and enduring law texts you've written (or are planning) - case summaries, legislation commentaries, subject-based articles on legal topics. Serious stuff that will help others understand the law and build your reputation as one who knows their onions.
How can I contribute?
If you already publish suitable articles on a blog or website, just let us know that you'd like to share these on FreeLegalWeb and we'll advise how these can best be transferred or syndicated.
If you don't already publish materials, but would like to do so, you will be able to contribute directly to FreeLegalWeb once the initial site is launched.
I'm game. Who do I contact?
If you'd like to contribute or want to know more, please contact Nick Holmes at nickholmes@infolaw.co.uk telephone 020 8878 3033
Our Pilot project is focussed on Housing law, so we're extra keen immediately to recruit housing law contributors.