Flock of Legals Designing an Interactive Website to Create a Community for Lawyers

Abstract

Our research identified an unserved niche within the legal technology marketplace. We observed that there was no comprehensive system for lawyers to connect with each other externally in a secure environment that would help them build a professional network of colleagues across the U.S. and even around the world. Our interactive website is intended to provide a LinkedIn-style community specifically for lawyers and is not for access by the general public. The tools within our community, tentatively titled Flock of Legals (but changed to Gaggle on the Gavel to avoid trademark issues), are totally within the lawyer’s discretion as to how much of the system he or she wants to use, such as referrals, calendars and tracking of continuing legal education seminars and other events, who he or she wants to connect with and how much information will be shared with external colleagues about cases, career opportunities or research interests. Gaggle on the Gavel (formerly Flock of Legals) will also include visualizations that will show trends in the law with respect the kinds of cases being filed and other issues and statistics that lawyers would be interested in and that would help with strategic planning for law firms.