“Lawyers collaborate more than they know but their method has been old-school: via email, phone, random in person chats,” Zent said in an interview with Forbes. “There also hasn’t been a way for lawyers to cultivate a reputation based on interactions with their peers — a peer validated reputation is the most valuable of its kind for any professional.”
Zent developed the social network for lawyers so it could be used internally at her law firm, Zentlaw. Because of the experience she gained using it with her firm, Zent decided to turn it into a business of its own.
“There wasn’t one tool that was easy to use, secure, cost-effective, accessible from anytime anywhere, and allowed our lawyers to collaborate with each other in a meaningful way,” she said. “That led me to create one. Early on, we created this private social network just for ZentLaw and use by some of its clients but word quickly spread and we are now set to roll it out for the entire legal market.”
The social network site lets lawyers collaborate in real-time with each other. The lawyers who have been using the beta site have been doing so to discuss legal wording for documents and good practices too. Law firms can also post job openings on the social network, much like LinkedIn, and allows lawyers to manage their reputation online.
As of the end of February there are just 1,000 members on the network.
“Members have shared feedback that they absolutely love the convenience of being able to find, pluck and instantly use language when drafting,” she said. “This was something we needed to solve a real-life workflow need at ZentLaw. We knew others would have the same need but never expected it to have quite a profound effect on our members as it has had so far. Secondly, we have been pleasantly surprised by the response to the reputation feature. We have members coming to us asking if they can publish their Foxwordy reputations on other sites, including their own websites.”
Membership to the network, even when it comes out of beta, is by invitation only. It will not be open to the public. The reason for this is the confidentiality issues lawyers deal with when using social media sites and networks.
“It’s designed exclusively for the legal market,” Zent said. “On Foxwordy, we have various features that are designed to facilitate and enable our members to share and exchange information selectively or anonymously as well as store information for their own use later. Lawyers are bound by a duty of ethics and so we encourage every member to be thoughtful about the level and degree of sharing in which they engage and what they share. ”
Make Judged My Homepage
