In February, we met our protagonist Tony, who was introduced to the Law Society's website and discovered a wealth of information. Tony became very adept at navigating the website and even tried his hand at e-filing his practising certificate! Recently, Tony found out that the Law Society, which has been faithfully faxing or posting him all mailers and notices, has decided to go paperless. Tony is not comfortable with the idea and decides to talk to someone at the Law Society of Singapore ('LSS').
Tony: Hello, is this the Law Society?
I was at your website and I saw a notice saying that you are planning to go
paperless. What about all the faxes and letters I used to receive? How will I be
notified of news and notices in future?
LSS: Please don't worry. By going paperless, we by no means intend to stop communicating with our members. We will continue to keep you informed, by fax and, our new direct mode of communication, a personal e-mail to you.
Tony: E-mail? Is that safe? I mean, will I get it? What if you leave me out?
LSS: Oh no, that won't happen. We are collating all our members' e-mail addresses and have a system whereby all news and notices will be sent directly to our members' e-mail addresses.
Tony: I don't like the sound of this.
I prefer getting the postal mailers and faxes. At least, I have something in my
hands that's not going to disappear.
LSS: But don't you find that a postal mailer becomes old news by the time you receive it? Or waiting for your law firm or law corporation to circulate a fax from the Law Society some days or weeks later unhelpful? Sometimes, in a week we send out five to six fax mailers and I'm sure it can be quite irksome to receive them late.
Tony: That's true. It can be quite a bother. Not to mention the wastage of paper, especially if a particular notice is of no interest to me. But tell me, how does the Law Society intend to carry out this exercise of going paperless?
LSS: Remember the fortnightly Jus News bulletin that is faxed to your firm? Well, we are going to convert it into a weekly news bulletin that will be e-mailed directly to you every Tuesday. It's going to be called e Jus News and the first issue will go out on 6 August 2002. e Jus News will contain all the notices, practice directions, CLE seminars, events, announcements etc, that are currently being faxed or mailed to you. We will combine everything into a nice e-mail bulletin. And the best part is, you don't have to read the whole thing if it doesn't interest you because the bulletin will only contain summaries. Then if you find a summary interesting and relevant to you, you may click on the hyper link to see the notice in its entirety.
Tony: Hey that sounds cool. But what about the regular stuff that I always like to read about? You know, like the movements of practitioners. I like to know who amongst my peers has moved on, that sort of thing.
LSS: Do you mean the 'Professional Notices', 'Operating Hours of Law Firms' and 'Holiday Closures'? Well, that will come under a banner called 'Regulars'. You just scroll down your e Jus News and click on 'Regulars' and it will bring you to that section of our website.
Tony: Right. And how about 'Classifieds'? Occasionally my firm runs advertisements in the present Jus News. Do you mean to say we can't advertise anymore?
LSS: You still may. Again, it will be in the 'Regulars' section. The advertising rates remain unchanged. Only thing is, your advertisement will be considered an online one, and you will need to go to our website to key in the advertisement details yourself.
Tony: You know, all this sounds excellent and very forward thinking of the Law Society. But I don't think you'd be able to reach all your members with the e-mail bulletin, because there will be some who don't have an e-mail account.
LSS: We understand that. While we urge all members to get an e-mail account and to give us their e-mail addresses, we know that there will be some members who cannot respond so quickly. And we don't wish to leave them out either. So we will continue having a faxed version of the e Jus News which will be faxed to all law firms/law corporations every Thursday. This faxed version will be exactly like the e-mail version, so you'd still have to go to our website to get full details of anything that interests you. The only difference in the faxed version is that it will contain the advertisements in full. We will still give our members the option of placing their ads online, or in the fax Jus News or both.
And I must tell you that notices that have to reach members urgently, or are required by the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161) to be sent by post, or upon specific directions of Council, will be snail mailed to you.
Tony: Hmm, sounds good. I guess all that's left for me to do is to give you my e-mail address.
LSS: You can send your e-mail address to our IT Department at it_dept@lawsoc.org.sg. If you have any queries regarding the e Jus News or fax Jus News, or about placing advertisements, just call our Publications Department at 6530 0228.
Tony: Thank you for explaining it all to me. I really look forward to receiving the first issue of e Jus News on 6 August!