A Wikipedia-style database of English criminal law is to be set up, just weeks after Professor Richard Susskind called for lawyers to work together to create such a resource.


Following coverage of Prof Susskind's comments in the Gazette (see [2006] Gazette, 16 March, 11), where he called for the creation of an on-line collaborative encyclopaedia of English law, Andrew Keogh, co-founder of the free on-line criminal law resource CrimeLine, realised a system he had tried to set up previously could be far more easily built using wiki software.



A wiki is a Web site on which any page can be changed by any user, meaning anyone with legal understanding can add to this knowledge base.


Mr Keogh said: 'I'd known about wikis and Wikipedia but what I hadn't realised was that the software was available... I was able to work out within the space of 24 hours that it was feasible and realised that what he [Prof Susskind] was talking about... was now achievable in a sensible way. It was really just the penny dropping.'


The goal at the moment for the WikiCrimeLine, as Mr Keogh has called it, is to 'gather up the extensive knowledge base that exists' and try to tap into the thousands of criminal lawyer members of CrimeLine to provide material for the wiki.


'It's not meant to be an exclusive resource - quite the opposite,' said Mr Keogh. 'It's meant to grow into a public resource, although there is an obvious appeal to lawyers as well. It's all very saying access to law but WikiCrimeLine is different. It's one thing having access to law, it's a different thing having free access to something that explains law.'


Kevin Calder, a Mills & Reeve associate and part of the team behind its NakedLaw news blog, welcomed the wiki. 'Anything which helps people get a better understanding of the law has to be a good thing for both lawyers and the general public alike.'


There are issues of accuracy to be addressed - a constant reminder that wikis are a potentially unstable resource - but Mr Calder is positive about the Web site's value. 'Lawyers will worry about the liability issues if they get the law wrong, but I think the wiki could take off as a chance for practitioners to show off their skills and knowledge,' he said.


In his speech to the Society for Computers and Law, Prof Susskind predicted that a Wikipedia-style resource for law could be an enormously valuable resource 'for years to come'.


Link: www.wikicrime.co.uk