InternetBar.org is hosting our second Cyberweek program this week, September 25 -29! It is an exciting program and we hope you will attend and participate in the forum discussions.

Some highlighted programs include:

The Future of Legal Services and Impact of the New UK Legal Services Bill (with Richard Susskind and Richard Granat) - see below
Multicasting Your Practice
Technology Trends from the ABA LTRC Survey
Virtual Real Estate
e-Contracts
Privacy
Resolutionary thinking and the Foundation of a Global Culture of Collaboration
Trust and Honesty: America’s business Culture at a Crossroad
Please go to http://cyberweek.internetbar.org to participate in Cyberweek, or go to www.internetbar.org and click on the Cyberweek graphic.

We look forward to “seeing” you there!

Jeff Aresty, president and Resolutionary
Internetbar.org

London Legal Service Forum on The Future of Legal Services

On September 13, 2006 a one-day Conference was held in London, by invitation only, for financial institutions, such as banks, brokerage firms, and insurance companies who are interested in getting into the business of delivering personal legal services. These new market entrants will be permitted to be involved in the ownership of law firms as a result of the regulatory reforms of the legal profession being introduced into the United Kingdom in 2007 and 2008.

The Conference was sponsored by The Capita Group, a leading outsourcing firm in the UK, and The Epoq Group, a leading internet-based legal solutions company.

The key note speaker was Richard Susskind, whose presentation was titled: The future of Legal Services - technology, law and a changing competitive landscape. Richard has written and edited numerous books, including Transforming the Law (OUP, 2000) and The Susskind Interviews: Legal Experts in Changing Times (Sweet & Maxwell, 2005) and is a law columnist for The Times. He has advised on numerous government inquiries and since 1998 has been IT Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England. In 2003, he was appointed by the Cabinet Office as Chair of the Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information. He holds law professorships at in London and the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. Richard is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the British Computer Society, and was awarded an OBE in the Millennium New Year’s Honours List for services to IT in the Law and to the Administration of Justice.

Richard Cohen, a solicitor, and the joint CEO of The Epoq Group, reviewed the requirements and rules of the new Legal Services Bill. Richard has a long history of involvement with community legal advice particularly with the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaus (”NACAB”).

Richard Granat, Co-Chair of the ELawyering Task Force of the Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association, and the founder of MyLawyer.com, Inc., a web-based legal information solutions company based in the US, made a presentation on Winners and Losers in the U.S. Legal Market as a result of the wide-spread expansion of access to the Internet.

The entire presentation has been converted into a Web Cast, that includes both the presentations in video coordinated with the Power Point Presentations.

Internetbar.org (IBO) is a day away from beginning its second online annual bar meeting. We are reaching out to all who are interested in law reform, online justice, and fairness throughout the world to bring the rule of law to cyberspace and reach across the digital divide.

Starting a bar association in cyberspace seemed like a fool’s errand to many. But from the beginning of our effort, there have been those whose dedication, talent and perserverance through the many challenges we have faced, who have felt otherwise, and are worthy of a special thanks.

Our executive director, Susan Waters, owner of Sextant Consulting, has led our bar with grace, vision, hard work, dedication, and a willingness to persist through our successes and failures to carry on. She has been working tirelessly with Rob Perlman, our resident visionary and resolutionary, whose concepts and business plan of how to build and sustain a trusted online community, have guided us from even before our launch. Rob (who I am in business with at our company WorldWide Digital Media, Inc.) assembled a team of technologists, educators, and staff to support Susan, provided funding to build our website, develop Internetbar.org’s fundraising and outreach strategy, build our first courses for the Virtual Institute and build the Virtual Institute itself, and put together two Cyberweeks. Without Susan and Rob, there is no Internetbar.org. Thank you for all you have done to give us a chance to change the world.

As a virtual organization, IBO’s face to the world is our website and our online bar meetings. Vanessa Haakenson, webmaster for Internetbar.org and Chris Burbul, webmaster for both Cyberweeks, make our virtual presence a shining example for all who rely on open source technology to build organizations and meetings in cyberspace. Vanessa’s work for IBO is based on the Post Nuke open source platform, which she has been a leading proponent and developer of for many years.

To make Cyberweek work, Chris has had to single handedly stay on top of constantly changing agendas, develop a platform that would accomodate all types of content and formats, and make sure that we looked good always. Thank you.

With Ethan Katsh and his team at the University of Massachusetts, IBO had a working partner throughout 2005 and 2006 to build strategic relationships, run Cyberweeks, and arrange speaking and outreach opportunities. Ethan has been a tremendous resource and friend to IBO. We owe you our unending gratitude. Early in our existence, Ethan introduced me to Ayo Kusamotu from Nigeria. Little did we know how important Ayo would become as he singlehandedly spread IBO’s message across Africa, and invited his many friends to join our ranks. And, then, Ayo came to the US to speak to lawyers from all over the world at the recent ABA/IBA Rule of Law conference about the importance of our vision. Both Ethan and Ayo have done tremendous work for IBO. Thank you.

I want to close this first note of gratitude by thanking Lextranet, which is owned by Harold Leach and Neil Aresty (my brother); they were IBO’s first sponsor. They are a leading player in the legal extranet world, and they gave us a road to run on. Please visit www.lextranet.com.

To all our members - our first adopters - we need you and appreciate your support and help in launching our trusted online community.

Richard Granat, chair of the American Bar Association’s elawyering task force, in a recent forum on the future of the legal profession, said that it is the ‘non purchasers’ of the legal industry’s services, who will change the profession. What is he saying?

Let’s start by considering that in the US, where one fifth of the world’s lawyers are licensed, the legal profession hasn’t significantly changed the way it has delivered legal services to the public in the last 100 years or longer. Driven by face to face, paper based delivery systems, even the rise of internet communications technologies has done little to change how the public gets their law from lawyers. What the internet has done is raise the ire of lawyers who are now expected to react instantaneously to client requests rather than have the luxury of time to reflect before giving their answers.

What does this have to do with the Long Tail? Chris Anderson, WIRED Magazine’s editor in chief, in his new book THE LONG TAIL - Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, asks the question, “What happens when everything in the world becomes available to everyone?” From the legal professions’ point of view, Granat says that consumers want a different value proposition from the legal profession - they want legal services delivered in a new way. At present, he points out that a 1999 American Bar Association study demonstrated that there is a latent demand for legal services, as evidenced by the number of people who choose NOT to hire lawyers and resort to self-help when legal needs arise, rather than pay the high cost of today’s legal service delivery models. He concludes by saying that ‘digital termites’ are eating away at the old model of legal service delivery at the fringes of the legal profession, which is still protected by outdated unauthorized practice of law regulations. As these digital termites begin the process of disintermediating the legal profession’s control over legal services by using the internet to develop new models of legal product delivery, lawyers will have a window of opportunity to innovate and position the profession to continue to be the trusted source of legal information and lawyering.

Ed Rholl, a young lawyer who has been at the forefront of training lawyers in how to innovate their practices using internet communications technologies, is joining forces with IBO to develop training courses for our upcoming online bar meeting, Cyberweek, and our Virtual Institute. We are going to work together to train lawyers how to give clients low cost and free legal information, while at the same time, still position lawyers to move up the legal value chain and still be able to earn a living as lawyers in the 21st century.

As travel agents, real estate brokers, accountants, newspaper publishers, and just about every other service provider dealing with information can tell you, notwithstanding the dot com bust, the internet is changing everything. We welcome Ed as our leader in training us how to innovate within the ethical constraints of our profession.

Background
As mentioned by Jeff Aresty, Africa and Kenya in particular is still a long way from affordable internet access to the local ‘mwananchi’(citizen). Kenya has 6 internet gateways. In addition there are 27 internet service providers (ISP) currently. However with this infrastructure, the availability of internet service to the middle class is still not affordable. There is approximately a population of 35,000 (this needs to be researched), nationwide who have internet in their homes. The use of this service is still not easily accessible to the users due to cost.

The greater majority will browse the internet in the offices, if it’s freely available, or use the commercial cyber café’s. This is currently available at 1Ksh per minute.

In order to develop e-commerce in Kenya, we need the service to be affordable to the majority. This majority includes the local ‘mwananchi’, who up to now does not have the culture of buying online. Organizations and individuals still heavily rely on hardcopies of invoices for goods, which are acquired physically as opposed to shopping online. This could be due to the following reasons: not all the sellers with good deals have websites and two, we do not have that culture yet and thirdly, the internet service is not affordable for home consumption.

Developments
We have a few websites with goods that people can buy from. These mainly include gift items that are marketable with the 6 million Kenyans living abroad. The main target market is still not the local Kenyan market, as you can see. The Kenyans abroad include a population that is more familiar with the use of the credit cards and making purchases online. The local market here is still skeptical on the use of online buying and selling.

Some women groups are ahead on this one in that some have websites and have established markets abroad (www.begakwabega.com). A very impressive group of women in one of the slum areas of Nairobi is the Bega kwa Bega project. This group is actually meeting the market needs of baskets, beadwork jewelry, dolls and other fabric items, and availing them to markets in Japan, Canada, USA and Italy. They are running a production unit right there in the slums, all year round. Their goods are seasonal, to meet the needs of their market. What was very impressive is that they make custom orders.

This group Bega kwa Bega, has used some help from the Catholic missionaries working and leaving among the slum dwellers. The missionaries have established partnerships with the markets abroad. However, for this business to flourish as it does, the manager takes two days before he checks his emails. This is usually from a cyber café in town or from cybers in a neighboring estate to the slum. This therefore means taking public transport which is not only cumbersome, but also takes his time away from managing the unit.

Drawbacks
Setting up internet facilities is not only expensive in terms of the capital needed to acquire the equipment, but also a security risk for the equipment, not only in the slum area, but in most places too.

Another issue with this women’s group is that many of these women have been rehabilitated from prostitution and do not have literacy skills, let alone computer literacy. Therefore they rely heavily on the employment of a manager who represents them in trade fairs and liaises with their markets, on their behalf.

Currently the market rate for internet connectivity in the city of Nairobi is 1Ksh per minute. There is a new concept that is selling in Nairobi (before they move to Mombasa) called Popote wireless (www.popotewireless.co.ke). Apart from the availability of a computer in the home, the additional cost to operate with Popote would be the equipment costs of a phone worth 200 dollars, USB and external cables that would cost an additional 70 dollars. To support this service, there is the option of either pre-paid or post paid service. The pre-paid offers internet service at 1Ksh per minute, which is the equivalent of .5995USD cents per hour. For post paid service, unlimited internet service is being offered for Ksh 3,500 or USD 48.6 per month in comparison to almost half of this cost or less in the US.

This would not be viable for the women group in the slums and indeed not affordable to most individuals. The initial target for Popote wireless is Nairobi and then Mombasa. These are the two largest cities. After the concept sells here, they will slowly roll out their services to other parts of the country, just as the mobile phone service providers did.

While the cost is unaffordable to those in the rural areas, it will take time to ever get there since the infrastructure has yet to be set up.

The other alternative to Popote wireless or other ISPs in the rural areas including Telcom Kenya, would be the VSAT technology which is way too expensive.

The question still remains, ‘how can we acquire affordable internet service to the rural areas where most of the cottage industries are located?’ If this is achieved, we will have the rest of the population with access to internet as well.

Some suggestion:
1. We can work with the existing infrastructure nationwide that belongs to the government – Telcom Kenya. The question that arises for Telcom Kenya is whether their service would be profitable in the long run. On the other hand, the small operations such as Popote are in competition with the said Telcom Kenya. Would the two be willing to work together?
The issue therefore is the need for local or international grants that would support telecommunication infrastructure nationwide. Like the women in the slum areas, we need some help in lobbying for this kind of support. This is probably where Senator Obama comes in. While he visited Kenya recently, he made promises to help Kenya where he can.
2. The internet service providers can work towards reducing the cost of email and internet services to the individual consumers and make their money from the advertisers as is the case with yahoo and google.
3. Corporations can work towards reducing their use of office space and operate on virtual space. This will have two-fold benefits: as they provide internet access to their employees in a onetime capital outlay through acquisition of equipment to various parts of the cities, they will reduce the cost of office space. Secondly, they will be involved in community development, since the access will benefit more than just their employees. This is already working in Sudan – UNDP.

Evidently there is a demand for the internet service at all levels. This is evident in the number of cyber cafés located all over in the towns. The cybercafés serve the youth who use them mostly for communication with friends and educational research for those in colleges and universities. Many others need internet for marketing and information, not to mention for the spread of justice as InternetBar is striving to do.

While I surf the internet in the cybercafés, I cannot help but share in the frustration with those pursuing distance education, and a few following up on a purchase of an imported car, etc, when the computers in the cybercafés are either too slow, or do not have all the accessories that one needs in order to work, such as the flash disk ports.

Many a time we endure the inconvenience of using these cybercafés because we cannot afford the same service at the convenience of our homes. As mentioned earlier, having the very facilities in the homes becomes a risk for attracting armed robbers.

The bottom line to all this is the high level of poverty. This is by no means downplaying the progress that the current government has brought about to Kenya, in the last four years. The economy has really improved as is evident to me, having been out of the country for two years. Economic development is sure to improve steadily if we continue in good governance and reduce corruption and poverty to manageable levels.