FAQ

What is JD Supra?

JD Supra is an online repository of useful legal documents - a community-based research tool that offers everyone free access to the law and its practitioners. And, like many of the best online tools and services today, JD Supra is so much more than that. Borrowing from the moniker of “Web 2.0,” JD Supra is:

• A community, in which members of the legal world post their court filings, decisions, and articles to a searchable database that is free for anyone to use.
• A networking tool, in which lawyers, law firms, and other members of the legal community create and maintain in-depth professional profiles that link directly to the documents they’ve posted.
• A consumer resource, in which anyone with the need can 1) find a lawyer with demonstrated expertise and experience in any given issue, and 2) preview a prospective lawyer’s work.
• A real-time news source, in which the media 1) has instant and simultaneous access to important court filings and decisions, and 2) can find legal experts easily.
• A gateway to a vast amount of truly useful information, in which everyone is provided free access to the law.

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How much does it cost to use JD Supra?

JD Supra is free for both contributors and users. There is no charge to post documents, create profiles, or to search and browse profiles and documents.

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How much does it cost to create a profile on JD Supra?

There is no charge to create (or maintain) a profile on JD Supra. However, in order to qualify for a profile you must become a contributor (you must submit at least one substantive document attributed to you or your organization).

If you enhance your profile with active links to your website(s), blog(s) and/or e-mail, an annual fee of $240 ($20 per month) will apply.

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What is “Top 10 Contributors” and how often is it updated?

It is a list of the ten contributors who have posted the most documents on JD Supra. The “Top 10” list is updated simultaneously, on an ongoing basis, at the time of document posting.

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Why should I share my work on JD Supra?

There are many excellent reasons to share work on JD Supra, depending on who you are. All start with a common refrain: exposure.

• For lawyers or law firms, posting your work is a powerful way to advertise your services. It helps the right clients find you, and helps you to receive national recognition and media attention for your quality work and successes.
• For various members of academia, posting work on JD Supra helps potential students, supporters, and/or employers see, first-hand, quality work by students, professors, editors, journal contributors, and others within your circle.
• For not-for-profit legal organizations, posting work on JD Supra helps to spread the word about your cases and your mission, creating vital exposure within the legal community to potential clients and donors, and to the media.
• For legal researchers, posting work on JD Supra supports a free research resource with documents that are not available anywhere else.

Other immediate benefits:

• Easy archiving: Posting documents on JD Supra allows you to convert your archives into word-searchable PDFs that you can download to include in your own internal library.
• Easy file sharing: Avoid the hassle of e-mailing large documents between colleagues by posting the files on JD Supra first and then sharing just the link.

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How will JD Supra help me get new clients?

When attorneys and members of the legal community post their work to JD Supra’s easy-to-use database, the payback is immediate. All documents are connected to the professional profiles of the contributors who posted them. And so, when potential clients use JD Supra for research (finding whatever legal information they need) they are able easily to connect to an attorney with experience in their particular issue. It is this simple: when your documents match particular research questions, users immediately understand that you have experience with their issue - and they can contact you directly.

Participating in the JD Supra community also helps you to expand your peer connections online, and helps to grow your network of referral sources. As you build up your body of work, you'll also be building online relationships. You'll connect with attorneys in your area of practice who live all over the country -- and potentially all over the world.

Consider the following:

• More than 44.5 million people use the Internet monthly to find services in their area, including to find attorneys. (comScore Study (2006))
• The overwhelming majority of business consumers (93.4%) use the Internet to research purchases for their own business, including legal services. (Enquiro Search Solutions and Marketing Sherpa, Oct. 2004)
• More than one fourth (27%) of Americans turn to the Internet to find information about legal matters. (comScore Study (2006))
• 85% of attorneys use free online legal research resources, and spend an average of 17% of their time doing legal research. (ABA 2007 Legal Technology Survey Report.)
• 82% of business and transactional firms get new cases directly as a result of their presence on the Web. (Survey by Alyn-Weiss & Associates, 2007)
• “Performing a local search drives consumers to take action. During the second quarter of 2006, 47 percent of local searchers visited a local merchant as a result of their search behavior, while 41 percent made contact offline. More than one-third (37 percent) made contact online as a result of conducting a local area search.” (comScore Study 2006)

In today’s market, it's not enough to say you're an expert in your field of practice, you must show it. JD Supra lets you do that. It is a unique web site that allows attorneys to establish credibility with potential clients by demonstrating their expertise in their area of practice.

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How will JD Supra help me to receive national recognition and media attention?

JD Supra also works as a source for reporters and the media. Rather than simply interviewing a lawyer with name recognition, reporters can use JD Supra to find a lawyer with a proven track record and direct experience in the issue they are researching.

With JD Supra, attorneys have the unique ability to provide the media with convenient access to court filings, decisions, and verdicts simultaneously with their filing. Simply designate your content as a “Hot Document” when you post it, and your target audience will be able to see it in our Hot Docs section, which is available from the home page. Additionally, users are able to subscribe to an RSS feed of these hot documents.

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How will JD Supra give me access to documents not available anywhere else?

Today there are millions of court filings, decisions, and articles on the law sitting idly in the various hard drives and filing systems of the legal community. Only a fraction of these documents are on Westlaw, LexisNexis, and other expensive services. Many of these documents, particularly trial court level filings, orders, and decisions are unavailable, even through paid subscription services. These documents are a valuable resource to anyone doing legal research – as form models, detailed expositions on the law and its application, and insight into how a particular judge has, and might, rule on a particular issue. At JD Supra, these documents – and many, many others – are now easily and freely available.

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Will there be hidden or future costs to participate on JD Supra?

No. In the future, we may offer additional products and services to our users for a fee. However, lawyers and law firms will never be required to pay a fee for a standard profile, or to post documents on the site, and we will never charge a fee to search or access the user-generated documents on our site.

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What kind of documents should I post?

JD Supra welcomes the following types of documents: court filings, such as a pleading, memorandum of law, or appellate brief; decisions or rulings on a motion, case or appeal; verdicts; and articles, newsletters, and whitepapers, and legal forms.

Case alerts and articles help to establish your general subject matter expertise. Court filings and favorable decisions and verdicts are powerful evidence of your specific experience and the quality of your representation. We recommend posting both kinds of documents.

Please do not submit documents simply describing you or your firm. There is ample space in your profile to do so, and there is a link to your profile wherever your posted documents appears on the site.

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How many documents should I post?

The more documents you post, the more exposure you receive. JD Supra prominently displays your name and a link to your profile each time a document you post appears on the site. We also actively spotlight our most generous contributors by listing our top ten contributors on the home page.

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What format documents can I post?

You may post documents in PDF or DOC formats. We automatically convert all documents into searchable PDFs for viewing on the site, and you may download documents from the site in either PDF or DOC formats.

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Should I create an individual or organizational profile?

You do not need to choose between these two types of profiles. You can create a firm or organizational profile to showcase the full scope of your practice, and also create individual profiles for each of your lawyers to put faces to your firm or organization and highlight individual attributes and accomplishments in greater detail.

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What should I include in my practice description?

Have fun completing the “Practice/Organization” section of your profile - include information that sets you apart from other contributors such as your mission, philosophy, favorite quote or anecdote, work style, and office environment. There is a separate section of your profile to list your specific practice areas.

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Should I post my photograph or logo?

Yes. We highly recommend that you include a photo or logo with your profile. Studies show that people are much more likely to connect with (and contact) you if they can see a picture of you. Similarly, your logo communicates a lot about your firm, and posting it promotes your brand and recognition to your target audience.

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Why is my profile not appearing on the site?

Your profile will appear on the site after you post your first document and the document is processed by our system. You will receive an e-mail alert when your document is processed and your profile is up.

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Why do I need to post a document to get a profile?

JD Supra is about members of the legal community coming together to create a robust database of legal documents connected to information about themselves: promoting free access to information about the law and the people behind it. It requires your participation, your contribution(s), to succeed.

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How can I use JD Supra to learn about a legal issue?

You can learn about a legal issue by simply searching JD Supra’s database by keyword, with the option of downloading whatever relevant documents you find as either PDF or Word files. It’s that simple.

Lawyers, law firms, and other members of the entire legal community are constantly expanding JD Supra’s database of legal documents by posting court filings, decisions, articles, and much more. When attorneys post their documents, JD Supra automatically converts them into keyword-searchable PDF files and indexes them – and then makes them available to you via our easy-to-use search utility.

Because many of these documents are directly from the source, they serve as a valuable resource to anyone doing legal research – for example, as form models, detailed expositions on the law and its application, and/or insights into how a particular judge has, and might, rule on a particular issue.

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How does JD Supra help me to find the right lawyer?

You can use JD Supra to find the right lawyer in a number of ways:

• Search a free database to find a full array of documents from cases just like yours and the lawyers and law firms that have worked on those cases, have won favorable decisions, or have written articles about the issue(s) you are facing. Lawyer and law firm profiles are just one click away from the documents they post.
• Search profiles of law firms, lawyers, and public interest organizations by location and practice area.
• Browse detailed, individual lawyer and law firm profiles, including practice area, education, awards, association membership, links to websites and posted articles, court filings and decisions, and much more.

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How Do I Find The Most Recent Newsworthy Documents?

Visit our “Hot Docs” section and browse the most recent newsworthy filings. You can also subscribe to receive summaries of these documents via RSS feed as they are posted.

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