WEB REVIEW

Web Review: Specialties
Site Compiles Legal Resources

FindLaw makes legal information more accessible for legal professionals, business owners, and the average person.

REVIEWED BY CHRISTOPHER M. LEPORINI

Web Site: FindLaw
URL: www.findlaw.com

What the Site Offers

Billing itself as the Internet’s highest-trafficked legal site, FindLaw assembles resources that serve the diverse needs of legal professionals, business owners, and the average individual. The site comprises original reporting from FindLaw and articles from the American Bar Association, Nolo.com, government agencies, and other sources. The site explains laws governing real estate, employment, and the Internet, among other topics. It includes sections designed to give laypeople access to legal research, news, and advice.

Two attorneys collected the information for the site in 1995 for a workshop of the Northern California Law Librarians. They published these materials online in 1996 under the FindLaw name. The site was eventually acquired by West Group, a company offering online legal information and solutions. FindLaw, based in Mountain View, Calif., is now an independent division of the company.

Valuable Site Features for Real Estate Professionals

• FindLaw for Business. This section provides information on starting, financing, managing and marketing a business. It includes step-by-step checklists, business plans, legal and other business forms and documents, and legal and business news. The section’s “Articles & Guides” cover business types (such as sole proprietorships and different kinds of corporations), taxes and accounting, employers’ and employees’ rights, and small business legal concerns. Each main category includes a feature article and “Topics & Resources,” subcategories for additional articles, FAQs, relevant case law, related topics, and, when appropriate, downloadable legal forms or documents. They also supply contact information for local lawyers practicing in that legal area, based on your zip code.
  
• MY FindLaw. This feature allows you to customize a page with personalized FindLaw content. You have to register on the site first to use this feature. The free registration involves providing an e-mail address. They can then select among options such as legal news, recent case law, a legal dictionary, bulletin boards, and state government resources. Other options include calendars, weather, and general news.
  
• FindLaw Library. Part of the FindLaw for Legal Professionals section, this online library contains thousands of documents from bar associations, legal publishers, law firms, and the federal government on more than 200 topics. Its Property & Real Estate Law documents should prove especially useful for real estate professionals, with materials on legal concerns for homeowners, eminent domain, zoning and land planning, liens, mortgages, and foreclosures.
  
• FindLaw Newsletter Subscription Center. FindLaw offers dozens of free e-newsletters, including three weekly publications that might appeal to real estate professionals. “Green Page” examines environmental law, “Open For Business” offers legal tips for small-business owners, and “Legal News Headlines” provides daily legal news updates.
  
  Valuable Site Features for Your Customers
  
• FindLaw for the Public.Organized similarly to the FindLaw Business Center, FindLaw for the Public gathers categorized legal resources for the average person. Its real estate category contains articles on homeownership and landlord-tenant relationships, and downloadable forms such as a sample letter of agreement for home improvements, a checklist for buyers evaluating a home, and links to pages containing a mortgage application, lease, and disclosure forms. Its homeselling overview, which emphasizes the customer/salesperson relationship, can help customers understand the process. The section also includes contact information for local real estate attorneys. Other categories examine legal rules for such topics as marriage, probates and estates, and arbitration and mediation.
  
• West Legal Directory. This directory search function allows users to quickly locate a local law firm or lawyer by zip code and practice area, including real estate law.
  
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  More Articles
  ABA LawInfo.org's Your Home , Christopher Leporini, October 2003.
  Web Review: Nolo.com , Christopher Leporini, January 2001.
  Letter of the Law, REALTOR.org
  
  Suggest a Site For Review
  Every week, REALTOR® Magazine Online's Web review editor surfs the Internet to find sites useful to your business and off-hours lives. Have a favorite real estate Web site that you would like to see reviewed? Send your suggestions to Chris Leporini at mediatech@realtors.org. All decisions on which sites will be reviewed are completely at the discretion of REALTOR® Magazine Online's editorial staff. Please note: this column does not review individual practitioner or brokerage sites.
  
  The column's focus includes free sites, as well as sites that charge for goods and services, but which still offer a free component of practical, sustained value to real estate practitioners, such as a free newsletter or regular news information.
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  REALTOR® Magazine Online's "Web Review" summarizes the content of Web sites that may be of interest to members. NAR and REALTOR® Magazine Online are not responsible for, and nothing in the Web site profile shall constitute NAR's or REALTOR® Magazine Online's endorsement of, the web site, its content, products and services, or its provider. NAR and REALTOR® Magazine Online believe the information contained in this profile was correct and accurate as of the time it was prepared, but do not warrant or guarantee the accuracy or completeness of that information and are not responsible for changes in the Web site. Members should conduct their own independent review of the Web site prior to any use of Web site, its content, products, or services to determine their suitability for the member's intended purpose.
  
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