Bar's web site keeps growing

by KATHLEEN O. BEITIKS
Staff Writer

The State Bar has added attorney membership records and legislation updates to its web site (www.calbar.org), with advertising in the online version of the California Bar Journal soon to follow.

In a related development, the bar's Law Office Management Assistance program (LOMA) has launched its own web site (www.lomex.com), offering the state's lawyers immediate law practice information.

Individual State Bar membership records went online this month, providing the public and others in the legal profession with instant information regarding attorneys authorized to practice law in California.

Basic membership data such as name, address, telephone, fax and e-mail numbers, status, date admitted and schools attended is available.

Data is provided for one member at a time and searches based on other parameters, which could lead to the development of mailing lists, are not permitted by board policy.

Currently the bar receives more than 1,000 membership-related calls a day, with the volume growing as new attorneys join the ranks of the state's legal community.

The bar's Office of Governmental Affairs is up and running with its own web site, which is linked to the State Bar home page and offers up-to-date information about Sacramento legislation affecting the legal profession.

The new site is maintained by the bar's governmental affairs office in Sacramento and includes a list of significant bills in areas of substantive law sponsored by various entities of the State Bar, individuals and other organizations.

Bill summaries are linked to the appropriate page of the state senate's legislative information web server.

At last month's meeting, the Board of Governors also approved an advertising policy for the online version of the California Bar Journal.

Working with internet consultants, advertisements will be handled in the same manner as the print version of the Bar Journal, by the newspaper's advertising representative, the R.W. Walker Company of Los Angeles.

Editor & General Manager Dean Kinley said no date has been set for the first ads to appear in the online version of the Bar Journal, but he expects the operation to be in full swing by January. All issues of the California Bar Journal beginning with January 1996 are on the web site.

Other new items added recently to the bar's web site include information about the Annual Meeting in Long Beach, Oct. 10-13, and a description of the 133 resolutions to be discussed at the meeting by the Conference of Delegates.

The LOMA web site is based on the LOMA hotline developed earlier this year to give attorneys information in areas such as starting a new practice, setting up a time and billing system, trust accounting and other related topics.

Bar officials say that since the State Bar's web site was established in September 1995, it has grown from 40 to 2,000 files with information ranging from discipline summaries to announcements of legal seminars.

In January 1996, the site was receiving 7,000 hits a week and, by August, that number had jumped to 30,000.

Bar's web site keeps growing

by KATHLEEN O. BEITIKS
Staff Writer

The State Bar has added attorney membership records and legislation updates to its web site (www.calbar.org), with advertising in the online version of the California Bar Journal soon to follow.

In a related development, the bar's Law Office Management Assistance program (LOMA) has launched its own web site (www.lomex.com), offering the state's lawyers immediate law practice information.

Individual State Bar membership records went online this month, providing the public and others in the legal profession with instant information regarding attorneys authorized to practice law in California.

Basic membership data such as name, address, telephone, fax and e-mail numbers, status, date admitted and schools attended is available.

Data is provided for one member at a time and searches based on other parameters, which could lead to the development of mailing lists, are not permitted by board policy.

Currently the bar receives more than 1,000 membership-related calls a day, with the volume growing as new attorneys join the ranks of the state's legal community.

The bar's Office of Governmental Affairs is up and running with its own web site, which is linked to the State Bar home page and offers up-to-date information about Sacramento legislation affecting the legal profession.

The new site is maintained by the bar's governmental affairs office in Sacramento and includes a list of significant bills in areas of substantive law sponsored by various entities of the State Bar, individuals and other organizations.

Bill summaries are linked to the appropriate page of the state senate's legislative information web server.

At last month's meeting, the Board of Governors also approved an advertising policy for the online version of the California Bar Journal.

Working with internet consultants, advertisements will be handled in the same manner as the print version of the Bar Journal, by the newspaper's advertising representative, the R.W. Walker Company of Los Angeles.

Editor & General Manager Dean Kinley said no date has been set for the first ads to appear in the online version of the Bar Journal, but he expects the operation to be in full swing by January. All issues of the California Bar Journal beginning with January 1996 are on the web site.

Other new items added recently to the bar's web site include information about the Annual Meeting in Long Beach, Oct. 10-13, and a description of the 133 resolutions to be discussed at the meeting by the Conference of Delegates.

The LOMA web site is based on the LOMA hotline developed earlier this year to give attorneys information in areas such as starting a new practice, setting up a time and billing system, trust accounting and other related topics.

Bar officials say that since the State Bar's web site was established in September 1995, it has grown from 40 to 2,000 files with information ranging from discipline summaries to announcements of legal seminars.

In January 1996, the site was receiving 7,000 hits a week and, by August, that number had jumped to 30,000.