LexisNexis South Africa and Law Credit last week launched Wi-Fi in high courts in Johannesburg and Pretoria.
The facility will enable legal professionals to access free Internet within the law courts.
The lgeal professionals will be subscribed through a My LexisNexis research platform while the visitors will have to purchase data bundles unlike the legal professionals.
At the moment, SA courts connected to The LexisNexis Wi-Fi include the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria; South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg; Western Cape High Court; KwaZulu-Natal High Courts in Pietermaritzburg and Durban; and the Durban Magistrates’ Court.
LexisNexis South Africa’s chief executive Billy Last told the IT Online that significant usage of the company’s online research products via the network shows that their subscribers are making use of the service and that it is beneficial to them.
In June and July, LexisNexis conducted an international workplace productivity survey and found that 90 percent of legal professionals in South Africa were wasting time due to failure to access the right information in time.
According to the survey, the majority of legal professionals do not take into account the time spent on research and were not effectively using their time as they were using too much time and not billing it.
Billy Last says the online connectivity will assist in developing the legal profession and industry as a whole.
“Working with the Department of Justice over the past year, we have been able to acquire the necessary permission to deliver these facilities to two more courts across the country. We look forward to continuing to support the needs of legal professionals by remaining committed as the leading content provider,” he said.
