Let’s compare six legal advice websites – three in the UK and the others in different countries – New Zealand, Australia and British Columbia in Canada. The starting premise is that all six will deliver competent information. But, the interesting question is how well they do it. In particular, how good are they at seeing a problem from the point of view of someone who has one – rather than someone who might advise upon it? And how much assistance will they give beyond giving the information? Will they give practical help in solving the problem with draft letters, emails or even links to on-line resolution of one kind or another? And, finally and overall, are there any overall lessons that we can take?
The test
We need to test the sites with a problem that has a roughly similar, and certainly comparable, shape in each jurisdiction. So, let us take housing disrepair. We are tenants suffering under a leaky roof. The landlord does not really want to know. What can we do? The answer is likely to be broadly similar in all four of the jurisdictions: the landlords are liable; you need to document your approach to them and may want precedents; you may want to consider specific forms of resolution for this type of problem; you are certainly going to ask if you can withhold the rent. The marking scheme is out of ten with points deducted as explained in the text.
The contestants
From the south we have New South Wales’ LawAccess (www.lawaccess.nsw.gov.au) and (no relation) LawAccess New Zealand (www.lawaccess.govt.nz). From the north, we have the Legal Services Society of British Columbia (www.lss.bc.ca). From the UK, we have Shelter (www.england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice), Citizens Advice (www.adviceguide.org.uk) and AdviceNow (www.advicenow.org.uk)
LawAccess NSW
This site is an aggregator: it leads you on to material provided by others. The opening site is bright and approachable. In three clicks, you go through options listed as ‘home’, then ‘tenancy’ to a choice of two leaflets. The first is a factsheet from TenantsNSW. Here a problem seems to arise because the factsheet is headed the ‘Residential Tenancies Act 2010’. It tells the reader that a tenant will have rights in relation to repair but lists them among a whole number of others. All the information is within the context of the Act, reasonable enough for an adviser but surely the wrong way round for a user. A tenant begins with their problem not the Act.
Actually, the site provides a better alternative in the leaflet listed second. This comes from the Fair Trading. It gives details of what you can do in urgent (which is specifically covered by legislation) and non-urgent cases. It also makes reference to the Consumer, Trading and Tenancy Tribunal to which you may apply for a disrepair order. A further click takes you through to the website of the tribunal. This, in turn, allows you to lodge an application on line.
So, I would subjective assess this as a 7.5/10 site. It loses two points from the maximum for not taking you through a decision tree ie a series of interactive options that lead you through to a result. It loses another for no precedents but it gets a maximum score once you dodge the first factsheet offered and get moving with Fair Trading. It also gets a bonus of 0.5 for taking you through to the digital portal of the tribunal.
LawAccess New Zealand
This is pretty similar to its New South Wales counterpart. Three clicks and you have passed through the opening portal of ‘housing, homes and animals’ through to information about repair. You take a bit of a circuitous route but, as in New South Wales, you can end up directly applying for mediation or to the relevant tribunal. I’d give this another 7.5/10 on the same reasoning as above.
Legal Services Society, British Columbia
This raises interesting scoring issues because the actual advice and assistance given, reachable through the usual clicks, provides better information than the two Antipodean sites. However, this arises from the straightforward pasting onto the net of a digital copy of a booklet from the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre. TRAC clearly know what they are doing and even give a specimen letter to the landlord. So, this gets 7/10. This represents the (not unworthy) triumph of content over form. There is not much use of digital potential here.
Advice Guide (UK)
7/10. An acceptable number of clicks get you through to a straightforward script on the law. But the site makes no real use of digital possibilities. Nor is there any digital link with further dispute resolution proceedings.
Advice Now (UK)
This is 6.5/10 with half a mark deducted for no original content. It gives nine references to the Shelter and one to the Advice Guide site. Nothing else: it is difficult to see what value is added on this topic. It could be argued that the Legal Services Society does just the same but the Canadians slide ahead because of the quality of the TRAC booklet.
Shelter (UK)
This is the best site in terms of content – as you might expect from a national, specialist housing agency. For example, it covers disrepair in a number of situations. Where appropriate (for social housing), it links to relevant ombudsman sites. The pages give a clear link to a free phone service. There are downloadable precedents. So, I would give it a top mark of 8/10 with just the two marks lost for failing to use a decision tree approach which would show the user only the information and choices immediately available to them.
Conclusions
A comforting conclusion for advisers is that class will out. Shelter and BC’s Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre have the most practical experience of dealing with housing disrepair cases and it shows. On the other hand, no site used the sort of interactive approach which can be found in NHS Direct’s ‘Symptom Checker’ where you progress up a decision tree with only one question before you at any time. A separate question, to be followed up, is the extent to which the value of a website can be leveraged by linked telephone services. So, some achievement, room for improvement.
Anybody want to suggest any other contenders?
