Bitten by the ASP

Securing Security and Qualifying Quality

The two biggest challenges to the success of the ASP model are Internet quality of service (QoS) and security. Technology vendors and infrastructure providers are the ones in the best position to resolve these issues.

Leveraging partnerships with technology vendors and infrastructure providers is what many ASPs are doing to get into business. "We're a legal firm that comprises three lawyers and three support staff members. So we cannot get into the business of developing the technology, putting it up and hosting it ourselves," says Lim Seng Siew, CEO and CTO of WWLegal.com Pte Ltd, as well as Senior Partner at Ong Tay & Partners.

What Lim and his partners, including Ong Ying Ping and Susan Tay Ting Lan (co-owners of Ong Tay & Partners), are building is a legal portal designed to provide online solutions to Singapore law firms. Having received the in-principle endorsement of the Law Society of Singapore earlier this year, Lim approached Solicitec Ltd, the generally acknowledged leader in case management systems in the U.K., for the SolCase case management system that offers sophisticated workflow, business logic as well as document assembly and management, and Horizon.com Ltd in Singapore for hosting. Both WWLegal.com and Solicitec - partners under Progress Software Corp's ASPEN Programme - are building the portal entirely on Progress Software's platform.

To date, Lim tells us, about S$500,000 (US$248,000) has been spent on setting up the portal. "The expenditure has been on everything from hosting, hardware, and design of the user interface on the Web site. But most of it has been on the development of modules," says Lim. "On 27 July, we tested and rolled out three modules where we saw the highest demand - debt collection, divorces and crime. And of the 100 law firms that have already signed up with us, we extended accounts to 14. We're at the testing stage and need to test the performance and the load capabilities before we bring on more law firms and more modules."

Lim believes WWLegal.com's value proposition is enough to make it a success. "If you look at legal professionals and how they work right now, they spend most of their time collecting information. In fact, only five percent of their time is spent on analysis." Lim begins to cite the factors that hamper productivity in the legal profession at present. "Then you notice that they always have great difficulty in collecting fees. And you also find that they are rarely able to advertise effectively, because to the public, a lawyer's a lawyer, and you only know how expensive and how good he is when you step into the office."

WWLegal.com sets out to resolve these problems, Lim says. The portal offers lawyers applications that enable them to not just retrieve and update legal information, but also to connect to Singapore's Electronic Filing System (EFS), workflow tools and a payment gateway (where WWLegal.com's system manages the collection of payments for law firms on it). And the portal offers the first public listing of lawyers with a selection and matching feature, and even interactive advice online for a fixed fee.

"The public still thinks that when it steps into a lawyer's office, it has to pay (S$1000), regardless of the problem, the advice given, and the papers generated," says Lim, quite seriously. "When this interactive advice facility goes up (sometime later this year), any member of the public can just come online, approach a law firm, consult it, state his or her problem, and receive advice for a fixed fee of, say (S$80). And that's the value of WWLegal.com, on top of the case management and accounting applications we offer lawyers, and on top of the connections to the government."

WWLegal.com is certain its value proposition is compelling. With technology and infrastructure partners behind it, the security and integrity of its systems are as secure as they can be. And given that its modules and applications are more or less tagged to the government's legal records and other legal-related systems, WLegal.com's security must be secure.

Internet QoS cannot be too much of a problem at this point in time, as it is a portal for legal professionals, whose work - except when they have to appear at court hearings - is more or less document-based. "No, we don't have Internet QoS issues in Singapore. And besides, we don't really need high bandwidth at this stage for what we're providing," says Lim, who is also currently Chairman of the Court's Electronic Filing System Committee, and member of the Information Technology Committee of the Law Society (of Singapore).

Lim tells us that higher bandwidth requirements may soon appear. "In Singapore, we are looking at electronic hearings. Our immediate plans along with that line have to do with facilitating electronic hearings for mediation and arbitration. That's tentatively scheduled for delivery in January or February 2001. That's also an optimistic schedule. I say that precisely because of the bandwidth issue. It requires videoconferencing and that requires bandwidth. So we're looking at Singapore ONE arrangements for that," he says.