To whit: lawyers put know-how across net

By RICHARD BRADDELL

Lawyers, accountants, business professionals and even savvy laypeople will soon be able to use the internet to tailor routine legal documents to their needs, incorporating legal updates.

Owlcentral, owner of www.owldocuments.com, will target lawyers at first, particularly those in provincial centres whose legal skills may not be well-honed in areas such as property leases, with a service that should produce a lease in simple language for around $75, compared with perhaps $1000 for a job done from scratch.

Within two weeks, the site will offer a suite of legal services including property leases, wills and company incorporations, with family trusts coming soon after.

The service has been developed in conjunction with Auckland law firm Hesketh Henry, which will provide informal updates and formally review the site's legal services every six months.

Ultimately, routine legal services such as conveyancing might be in the province of not just lawyers and accountants, but real estate agents who might be able to undertake them from a laptop computer.

Once the system is bedded in locally, Owlcentral plans to tackle Australia in the first quarter of next year. US, British and Canadian markets are other potential targets.

The company, whose main shareholders include former diplomat and chairman Rod Gates and chief executive David Cam, has 35 staff.

It expects to get between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of the commodity part of New Zealand's legal market, which in 1998 had a $1.4 billion turnover. With routine documents comprising 20 per cent of that, its target market could be worth $280 million.

But it sees even bigger pickings in Australia's legal market, worth $A6.2 billion in 1998. A legal partner to adapt systems to Australia has yet to be found.

owlcentral.com