Lawyers and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)
Neither one of us is able to think nor able to fully appreciate all the uses of a new technology until we have our hands on it. But, and once one start using it, one cannot live without it. This has continued from the discovery of fire, to wheel, to electricity to silicon chip. In June, 1997 WAP Forum was formed by Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia and Unwired Planet and on June 14, 2000 Indian WAP Initiative was launched. As an indivisible part and process of globalization, India is taking the same route in technological development as the counterpart in US and more so when it relate to commercial and professional world. Indian legal system is a few years behind in technological usage, but there is always a possibility of quantum jump, which may bring us to the fore.
World over (except in India), the lawyers love affair with book based research officially ended about 15 years ago (1985) when Lexis and Westlaw in USA, CLIRS (Computerised Legal Information and Retrieval System) in Australia, LAWNET in Singapore and other similar organisations, with full co-operation from Government and Courts, developed computer based research tools for judges, lawyers, academicians and litigants and large law firms switched over to meet the expectations of their clients in an e-age developed interaction. The global issue relating to Law-IT is, whether lawyers will now be able to leave their desk and computers, as the legal research go wireless, along with the commercial world using WAP which expects:
- 1 billion mobile (Phone, PDA, pagers) users by 2002.
- 650 million mobile phone users by 2002.
- 30 billion US$ m-commerce market by 2002.
Some time back Motorola, Westlaw and Ideas Corporation had teemed up to develop and start a software platform called pocket paralegal which enabled legal research to be performed using Motorola page writer pager. Westlaw was thereafter looking to port its data on wireless devices with Microsoft driven PCs, RMI, Black Berry and Rocket-e Book. But Motorola and Westlaw have decided that more research and testing may be needed.
The lawyers are divided as always. The opinion on one side is that data like this will prove to be very useful to judges, lawyers and litigants specially when a judgment is unexpectedly referred to during the course of an oral arguments and may also be very handy in hotels, airports and automobiles where it is difficult to stay wired and when the user is are thinking on her/his legs or dealing with an opinion.
The other side thinks that remote excess of law may not be required, for it is not often that one needs to do is a immediate legal search in the court room and the hallmark of every good lawyer is over preparation. Photocopies of important judgments accompany senior lawyers in every case and at one point of time advocates were prohibited to refer to judgments not listed to in the statement of case. It is also felt that services provided may not be available at a cheap rate.
However, the greatness of every technological advancement is to bring about efficient, accurate and cost-effective tools, which can help the professionals to perform better in the social system. How lawyers will use the new IT tool and what advantages it is going to give to them can only be fully used and exploited after the technology is put in full use. As such those who are willing to give it a try, think that remote legal search is really a great idea.
The basic difficulty which Westlaw, Lexis, Findlaw and other similarly situated Judgment Text Hyperlinked Databases Search are finding is that they are basically using an industrial age book form to an e-age research/speed and, therefore, the result are haywire/chaotic. The most powerful e-age tool is, therefore, one provided via Interlinking Database Legal Retrieval Search System developed by Law Information Centre, (SPOTLAW). There is a clear possibility of availability of text of judgment, catch word, judgment on a particular section of a statutes, follow up/ citator/ shepherdising or by name of a Judge available through WAP technology at a throw away price. The change is inevitable, it is only a matter of time, how soon it will be done or how much time it will take for the lawyers in India to make full use of Information Technology to their benefits and in turn to the social system.
In India, Law Information Centre had launched their website in 1996 and SCC on line during the same period had commenced selling head notes on a CD-ROM. There are several products in the market now like SCC On Line, AIR, JURIX, JUDIS, The Laws, LAWINC 2000 GOLD and several websites in the field like air.com, advocate4u.com, lawindia.com, indialaw.com, lexcite.com, supremecourtofindia.com, supremecourtonline.com, supremecourtcaselaw.com, scconline.com, vakilbabu.com, vakilno1.com, waqalat.com, but lawinc.in seems to be having a march over all of them, all the way.
Aruneshwar Gupta
September 29, 2000
