Legalweek.com upgrades again (and we even added a print function)

Regular readers will have noticed legalweek.com has gone through a substantial upgrade this week, its second since its groundbreaking relaunch in 2007. I'll spare you most of the back-room jargon beyond saying that the primary reason was to move our web operating system to a new and much-improved platform, but the switch has allowed us to review a number of elements of the site.

Firstly, the general design up been improved with a more modern look and better use of images, which contributes to a punchier homepage. Site navigation - an element we worked very hard on with legalweek.com's initial relaunch - should now be even easier as we have added additional tags making it easier to move between micro-sites such as Law Firms and Wiki. We have also added additional practice area tags like corporate finance and litigation, as you can see on this Clifford Chance story. Overall, the use of links and ability to read related material should make for an improved experience.

But while the homepage has been taken up a notch, regular readers will probably notice the greatest improvement on the sub-sections like Law Firms and In-house Lawyers, which are better organised and visually more arresting. There is also a much-improved Students section with added resources, event listings and related content. The Student site will also feature regular columnists and has its own place for graduate trainee vacancies. The recently-launched and already very popular Lawyer's Life also gets its own sub-section on the site. But most impressively of all, our team of white-coated boffins has, after months of toil, got around to adding a print function to our website. Oh, and BlackBerry addicts and gadget freaks can access the site on the simplified mobile-compliant version.

Overall, we think we have managed to genuinely improve what was already a very good site. This comes on top of other online upgrades and new ventures this year including an improved job section and daily email alert and the launch of our LinkedIn group for in-house lawyers, which has already attracted more than 600 members. But we have no intention of resting on our laurels and hope to add new features in the near future. Feedback and ideas to help with forthcoming improvements gratefully received at alex.novarese@legalweek.com.