Why you should subscribe to emplaw™

QUALITY - for British employment law research the professional version of emplaw™ is probably the best on-line information source available from anywhere at any price. A simple way to demonstrate our belief that this claim is justified is to compare our weekly e-PSL e-mails and our dedicated British employment law search tool (which provides cleverly filtered employment law results from internet sources rather than just "in-house" materials) with the equivalents offered by other providers. An even simpler example would be to compare our Equality Act 2010 cross-reference tool with those provided by others (eg this one).

UPDATING - employment law probably develops more rapidly than any other branch of the law so updating is vitally important. Rather than "maintaining" some commentary our purpose built proprietary software ensures that all main commentary has relevant updating material added at least once per week (an update tab is attached to every commentary "fact card"). In addition, to ensure you don't miss anything, a scrolling alerter on the home page, a weekly e-mail and a Twitter/RSS feed highlight the most generally important developments, all linked to more detail.

PRECEDENTS - a wide range of precedents with practice notes is now included. An annual subscription to emplaw™ provides free access to the employment law library of precedents provided by SimplyDocs. Also available, but at extra cost, is discounted access to the world-leading RapidDocs document assembly system and an on line set of employment precedents prepared by barrister Michael Duggan of Littleton Chambers.

LOW PRICE - emplaw™ subscriptions are excellent value for money, especially in comparison to the sometimes exorbitant prices charged by competitors. An annual subscription to the full emplaw professional service costs only £550 single user; £850 two users; £1,000 for 3 users (plus £150 for each additional user up to ten - thereafter by negotiation). These prices are exclusive of VAT

ADVERTISING (free listing) - law firms with an annual subscription to emplaw™ are now entitled at no extra charge to an enhanced listing on our "Find a Solicitor" webpages (normal price £149 + VAT). The site regularly attracts over 75,000 to 80,000 visitors per month. A Google search for "employment law" or "UK employment law" shows how valuable this can be, especially in an international context.

SAVE MONEY - a subscription to empla™ can save money. Emplaw™ subscription prices are not only less than those charged by others but also mean that there is no longer any need to subscribe to any other employment law information service. For example, every case reported in IRLR and ICR since 1st Jan 2000 is summarised in emplaw, with links to the full text judgment and to relevant emplaw commentary. You can actually make savings by using emplaw™ and cancelling other subscriptions.

OTHER SERVICES - Emplaw™ provides (i) customised employment law NEWSLETTERS and (ii) automatically updated and fully customised employment law SUB-SITES for law firms at a surprisingly low cost.

FURTHER INFORMATION - Please ring us on 01865 593050 for more information or send an e-mail to info@emplaw.co.uk.

GENERAL

emplaw™ is the leading online resource for British employment law. Our website provides almost 5,000 pages of comprehensive up-to-date information, covering all aspects of employment law, from Age Discrimination to Unfair Dismissal, more technical topics such as TUPE and Data Protection, and major developments such as the Equality Act 2010. We also provide summaries of employment law cases with links through to full text judgments.

Our unique e-PSL facility ensures that the most recent news, cases, legislation and all other materials relating to British employment law are made available to all our subscribers, via a weekly email newsletter. This highlights the most important recent developments, and is incorporated into the news archive on the emplaw™ website itself.

As a subscriber, you will also gain access to our powerful employment law-specific search engine. Not only does it search through our own information and archives, but it also trawls through thousands of employment law cases from all the main courts and tribunals, including the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal. You can also use it to find everything from legislation, codes of practice, consultation papers and official entries in Hansard to news stories.

emplaw™ also provides various tools and resources, including a Redundancy Pay Calculator, legal forms, document assembly and precedents, and a Find a Lawyer database. Our latest addition is a dedicated conversion tool allowing a read-across from the previous anti-discrimination legislation to the Equality Act 2010 that replaces it.

A brief history

emplaw™ first appeared on disc in 1993, evolving to CD-Roms and eventually going online in 1997. Henry Scrope, the founder of the business, began its development in the early 1990s. Henry qualified as a solicitor in 1968, before what we now call employment law was invented, after obtaining a history degree at Cambridge University. He was with Clifford-Turner & Co (now Clifford Chance) and Freshfields before becoming in-house lawyer for a private international group of companies in the City of London in the mid-70's. This job in industry gave him practical, in-depth experience of employment law over a period of almost 20 years. During this period, he designed and prepared content for an employment law computer programme, originally for his own use and as a study aid.

The programme became known as e-LOAD (Law On A Disc) and began to attract interest as early as 1993. Believing that accurately referenced law information presented in straightforward language would be useful to the educated man on the street as well as to lawyers, Henry formed DiscLaw Publishing Ltd and began to commercialise his employment law programme.

In the late 1990s, there was no dedicated website for UK employment law on the internet, and Henry recognised the internet as a two-fold opportunity. Firstly, an online version of the programme could make direct links to cases and other material appearing on the internet and secondly, it would make the programme more accessible. By February 1997, the entire programme had been modified and went live as www.emplaw.co.uk, the first British employment law site on the web. Within six months, users were averaging 50 per day. This number has grown to over 2,500 users per working day.