Busy Singapore lawyers can now look forward to attending seminars, workshops, lectures and tutorials over the web.

While lawyers want to be updated on the latest developments in fast-moving areas of law such as information technology, life sciences and intellectual property, the workshops and seminars are often held during times when lawyers are in court, busy with paperwork or meeting clients.

The Law Society of Singapore, which plays a major role in organizing continuing education for lawyers, has now decided to place courses online to enable their members to have access to such material at any time.

Announcing this new eLearning initiative, the Law Society's President, Mr Palakrishnan, a Senior Counsel, emphasized that it was much more than simply placing documents on a website. The Law Society's eLearning portal, which will be ready for use in July, is designed to transmit video lectures, provide question and answer discussion rooms, downloadable material and even testing and grading.

"What we want to do is to allow lawyers to maximize their time," Palakrishnan announced. "They don't have to skip interesting talks or workshops because of work commitments. They can attend seminars online even in the middle of the night, or on weekends, without paying a huge price."

A pilot project conducted last year featured lectures by lawyers Philip Jeyaretnam and Senior Counsel Tan Tee Jim on the Art of Cross-Examination and Intellectual Property respectively. The pilot lectures were very well received, with over 480 lawyers asking to be signed up to participate in the lectures. There are plans to invite noted speakers from overseas to address lawyers on emerging legal trends and best practices.

With just a Pentium personal computer with Internet or broadband connection, lawyers will be able to log into the portal to chart their learning path, choose and register for content modules and thereafter track their own progress. The pay-per-use scheme is made possible by secure hosting, creative content development and service delivery by application service provider CrimsonLogic.

"We are thrilled to share the Law Society's vision to create an online learning hub for lawyers not only in Singapore but anywhere in the world" said V. Mathivanan, CEO of CrimsonLogic, the Law Society's technology partner. " We are sure that these online seminars and tutorials will become a valuable means of getting high quality legal information not only for lawyers but also other professionals like doctors and architects." said Mr Latiff Ibrahim, a senior lawyer specializing in Construction and Engineering Law, "This is interesting, I can't wait to try out some of the new courses online. Usually I have to pass on seminars and workshops simply because of schedule conflicts, but soon I shall be able to have the best of both worlds."