Practicing Law on the Internet

• Publication year: 1998
• Pages: 8
• Citation: Vol. 11 No. 4 Pg. 8

Practicing Law on the Internet Vol. 11 No. 4 Pg. 8 Utah Bar Journal May, 1998

Toby Brown, Judge.

Fear seems to be the biggest motivator these days for lawyers to start utilizing the Internet in their practices. This fear appears to be split between fear of the unknown and fear of being left behind. Of course these two fears are incompatible, since you will be left behind if you do not face the unknown. This article attempts to deal with both of these fears. Hopefully after reading this, the Internet will become less "unknown" and maybe even compelling, bringing you up-to-date on a number of law related Internet topics.

Assuming a broad range of knowledge among my audience, I will start with relatively basic Internet concepts and move towards actually practicing law on the Internet. So, if you are already partially "assimilated," you may want to skim ahead.

CONNECTING TO THE INTERNET

There are two basic options for obtaining an account to connect to the Internet: local providers and national providers. These providers are usually referred to as Internet Service Providers or ISPs. As usual there are advantages to each type of provider. National providers, such as America On-line (AOL), can be accessed almost anywhere in the U.S. and have value-added information native to their sites, such as directories and databases of other information. This unfortunately is their downside as well, as you must wade through these "value-added" features to the real Internet.^[1] I prefer local ISPs due to the accessibility and local support they provide and because they can better facilitate web site development, as your Internet presence grows.

As a Bar member you can take advantage of a discount ISP package set up with Arosnet, a Utah ISP. This Utah State Bar Connection Plan provides discounted access, support and other services. This plan has options for expanding your link to the Internet as well as your web services for clients. For more information about this plan, contact Lincoln Mead of Arosnet at (801) 924-9070 or at lincoln@aros.net.

I will not go into all of the types of physical Internet connections here. Basically you need some type Pentium or Macintosh Power PC computer, some sort of modem hardware (28.8 or better recommended) on your computer or network, a phone line and access to the modem type hardware at an ISP. The usual economic principles apply since the faster, full time connections are of course, more expensive. You should have a plan in place before you implement your Internet connection and/or web page and your physical connection type will be based on those decisions.

NAVIGATING THE INTERNET

The next question I am usually asked is which Internet Browser should I use? The browser is the software which enables you to "surf the Internet. With the browser you can navigate through different sites on the Internet. Your two real choices for a browser are Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer (IE), from Microsoft. Coincidentally, the most recent version of both of these products is version 4.0 and they are both available free on the Internet. Which one should you use? This is a Ford versus Chevy argument. I use them both, but primarily use IE, since it integrates well with my other software programs. Try them both and use the one you like. They both have similar functionality but sometimes label functions differently. For example, Netscape calls its list of saved Internet sites "Bookmarks" and IE calls them "Favorites."

Once you are connected and on-line with a browser, you will want to start surfing or browsing. You have likely seen Internet sites advertised everywhere. Internet addresses, called URLs,^[2] usually look like this: http://www.utahbar.org/directories.html. The "http://" is a geekonym you won't care about and isn't usually listed when a site is advertised. The newest version...