[Commons-Law] Logistical Issues in Setting up a Free OmnibusLegal Portal

[Aniruddha Shankar]

Dear all,

In my opinion, the biggest hurdle towards setting up a legal portal is, 
simply, MONEY. I believe there are dedicated people who would put in 
their time and effort into a legal portal - provided they were at least 
paid a living wage.

Setting up a free omnibus legal portal:

Basic structure : Central hub of co-ordinator(s)( at least 2 (?) ), 
Modest office premises, 1 Administrative staffer, other Contributors 
networked through the Internet, at least 1 Tech person, 1 Content 
Editing person, possibly even 1 design person. Entity acquires, through 
purchase / licensing the digitised copies of judgements / materials in 
areas not already covered by other entities on the Internet.

Capital Costs:
	1. Deposit towards rent on office building
	2. Computers and networking, fax machine, photocopier (?)
	3. Cost of acquiring digitised legal content
	4. Cost of designing webpage / graphics
	
Recurring costs
	1. Salary for regular employees
	2. Honorarium / At-cost compensation for other employees
	3. Infrastructural costs - telephone, water, electricity, 	internet 
connectivity
	4. Web hosting
	5. Maintenance
	6. Consumables
	7. Rent

If the entity gets, oh, (to hazard a figure off the top of my head), 
enough money to spend about 2.5 lakhs a month on Recurring costs and say 
  30 lakhs on the Capital front, it'd be comfortable. It'd be great if 
such an organisation could focus on what it was good at - providing 
legal content and not be forced to focus on what it shouldn't be doing - 
providing a revenue stream for profit-motivated funders (however 
altruistic).

Karim the dot.bombed