Inside E-Law.com

E-Law.com is a web site for the legal community. It includes a search for quickly finding any case handled by the courts in the last 15 years. It has an "E-Watch" feature where individual users may, for a fee, decide to monitor certain cases. As new appearances are scheduled, or motions decided, users are automatically e-mailed with an update.

The system is built on Microsoft's Windows DNA 2001, a comprehensive, integrated platform for building and deploying applications for the Internet. Some of the products and technologies used are SQL Server, Visual Basic, Internet Information Server, Active Server pages, and JavaScript.

Broden's iRAD development methodology facilitated concept to production in 90 days. This methodology includes dividing the application into 3 tiers (see article below). With this approach, data and object models are layed out first. Developers are then called upon to separately and simultaneously build the user, business, and data tiers. Writing ASP web pages with a mix of server side and client side script is a challenging task, as is writing finely tuned queries (SQL). Separating these allows us to leverage the strengths of our developers.

Site's 3-tier architecture

Broden's architecture plan for enterprise class web systems calls for a 3-tier approach. The additional effort in the design stage serves to better capture business requirements and keep maintenance costs low.

The web environment naturally lends itself to separation of the user interface from the business and data layers. E-Law is no exception. All business logic is contained in Visual Basic components that run on the servers. The user interface layer (ASP pages) communicates with the components. Case in point: Is an Appearance the first one or next one, or both? A complex truth table makes this determination. Were this code stored in web pages, it would be difficult to reuse. Making it available from the Appearance business object allows us to use it on both the Motion detail page and the Appearances list page. A logic change in one place is dynamically reflected in both display areas.

E-Law Quick Facts:

Contact: Don Culbertson, President/Sales Manager
Broden, Inc. 36 Midvale Rd. Mountain Lakes, NJ 07046
800.499.8743
donc@broden.com 
 
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