Rollonfriday
Encyclopedia
RollOnFriday is a British website
designed for and used by those involved in the legal profession, from law students to qualified solicitor
s and barrister
s including Queen's Counsel
. Its readership also includes journalist
s and others from outside the profession.
The site provides an irreverent insight into the workings of the legal profession in the United Kingdom
. As well as its own satirically intoning editorial, RoF includes information on salaries paid by large law firm
s and a forum allowing all comers to discuss the workings and operations of law firms in an anonymous and frank manner.
(where Warburton still works as a partner). Warburton said at the time that the site was intended to be 'young, irreverent and a bit cheeky'.
From launch, the site provided silly weekly news stories, detailed information on individual law firms http://www.rollonfriday.com/load.asp?page=insideinfo.htm - including the salaries they pay - and weekly features such as 'glamorous solicitor' http://www.rollonfriday.com/load.asp?page=glamour.htm showcasing some of the more interesting looking of the world's lawyers.
In 2001, the website launched the discussion board and more recently has developed a jobs database and other recruitment facilities. Over the years the site has grown in popularity and is now an established part of the legal market. Over 50 of the UK's leading law firms use it as a means of advertising
and make use of its graduate and lateral recruitment databases: Fast Track and Make Me An Offer. RollOnFriday's significance as a talking shop for UK lawyers lies in providing a balance to the many vested interests purporting to provide similar services to the profession.
The website had a major revamp at the end of May 2009.
According to the site's Terms of Use, RollOnFriday is a "Pete and Katie free zone".
users often being referred to as 'RoFettes' ('fets' is a recent innovation) although 'luv' has become a more common form of address.
The board has grown in popularity over the life of the site. Posters debate legal issues and news stories, discuss the profession and swap details of London
life, construed generously to include the minutiae of their private lives. On occasion posters help co-posters with job applications and provide advice on academia, life crises and good restaurants. At other times the board serves as a dating service, a means for individuals to post emoticons, a place to tell other posters that they have email
and as an excuse to arrange drinks evenings. The recent addition of a dedicated trainee discussion board has allowed those seeking entry into the English legal profession to seek advice from fellow job seekers and those already practising.
Over the years, the posters of RoF have developed their own patois with words and phrases such as 'lollers'
, 'alan'
, 'orla'
, 'everybody cheered', 'growler
', 'heh', 'bloata', and 'nuffink' assuming special meaning. Terms such as 'norty', 'filf', 'leetle', 'horn', 'hmong', 'mongtard', 'ghey' and 'wood' (and its rhetorical or sometimes genuinely inquisitive counterpart, 'wood u') are also common parlance. In a related development, mobile phone textspeak has been hijacked and encouraged to grow into something whose comedic qualities have been set ablaze by the careful and knowing economy that marks the usage of a small band of leading posters. Moving somewhat nearer the boundaries, oblique references to seeing you next Tuesday mushroomed to the point where RoF's administrators were forced to launch their own lexical counter-offensive, resulting in phrases like 'ladypart' and 'kittens' unexpectedly and automatically peppering general discussion. RoF terminology is complemented by the ability to present text in italics, bold or even miniature font. The expression *throws sandwich* is used to highlight a poster's weight issues.
National newspapers
Legal journals
Universities
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
designed for and used by those involved in the legal profession, from law students to qualified solicitor
Solicitor
Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...
s and barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
s including Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
. Its readership also includes journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
s and others from outside the profession.
The site provides an irreverent insight into the workings of the legal profession in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. As well as its own satirically intoning editorial, RoF includes information on salaries paid by large law firm
Law firm
A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to represent clients in civil or criminal cases, business transactions, and other...
s and a forum allowing all comers to discuss the workings and operations of law firms in an anonymous and frank manner.
History and content
The site was established in 2000 by Matthew Rhodes and Piers Warburton. The two met while solicitors at the London law firm AshurstAshurst (Law firm)
Ashurst LLP is a full-service international law firm. Its principal business focus is mergers and acquisitions, corporate and structured finance...
(where Warburton still works as a partner). Warburton said at the time that the site was intended to be 'young, irreverent and a bit cheeky'.
From launch, the site provided silly weekly news stories, detailed information on individual law firms http://www.rollonfriday.com/load.asp?page=insideinfo.htm - including the salaries they pay - and weekly features such as 'glamorous solicitor' http://www.rollonfriday.com/load.asp?page=glamour.htm showcasing some of the more interesting looking of the world's lawyers.
In 2001, the website launched the discussion board and more recently has developed a jobs database and other recruitment facilities. Over the years the site has grown in popularity and is now an established part of the legal market. Over 50 of the UK's leading law firms use it as a means of advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
and make use of its graduate and lateral recruitment databases: Fast Track and Make Me An Offer. RollOnFriday's significance as a talking shop for UK lawyers lies in providing a balance to the many vested interests purporting to provide similar services to the profession.
The website had a major revamp at the end of May 2009.
According to the site's Terms of Use, RollOnFriday is a "Pete and Katie free zone".
Discussion board
For many users, the highlight of the site is its discussion board. The board allows posters on its forum to choose unique usernames. Such users are known as 'RoFers' or just 'fers', with the femaleFemale
Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...
users often being referred to as 'RoFettes' ('fets' is a recent innovation) although 'luv' has become a more common form of address.
The board has grown in popularity over the life of the site. Posters debate legal issues and news stories, discuss the profession and swap details of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
life, construed generously to include the minutiae of their private lives. On occasion posters help co-posters with job applications and provide advice on academia, life crises and good restaurants. At other times the board serves as a dating service, a means for individuals to post emoticons, a place to tell other posters that they have email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
and as an excuse to arrange drinks evenings. The recent addition of a dedicated trainee discussion board has allowed those seeking entry into the English legal profession to seek advice from fellow job seekers and those already practising.
Over the years, the posters of RoF have developed their own patois with words and phrases such as 'lollers'
LOL (Internet slang)
LOL, an abbreviation for laughing out loud, or laugh out loud, is a common element of Internet slang. It was used historically on Usenet but is now widespread in other forms of computer-mediated communication, and even face-to-face communication...
, 'alan'
Anal sex
Anal sex is the sex act in which the penis is inserted into the anus of a sexual partner. The term can also include other sexual acts involving the anus, including pegging, anilingus , fingering, and object insertion.Common misconception describes anal sex as practiced almost exclusively by gay men...
, 'orla'
Oral sex
Oral sex is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. Cunnilingus refers to oral sex performed on females while fellatio refer to oral sex performed on males. Anilingus refers to oral stimulation of a person's anus...
, 'everybody cheered', 'growler
Growler
Growler may refer to:* Growler , for testing electric motors* Growler , pseudonym of singer Errol Duke* Growler , an internally transportable vehicle, or a horse-drawn carriage known as a Clarence...
', 'heh', 'bloata', and 'nuffink' assuming special meaning. Terms such as 'norty', 'filf', 'leetle', 'horn', 'hmong', 'mongtard', 'ghey' and 'wood' (and its rhetorical or sometimes genuinely inquisitive counterpart, 'wood u') are also common parlance. In a related development, mobile phone textspeak has been hijacked and encouraged to grow into something whose comedic qualities have been set ablaze by the careful and knowing economy that marks the usage of a small band of leading posters. Moving somewhat nearer the boundaries, oblique references to seeing you next Tuesday mushroomed to the point where RoF's administrators were forced to launch their own lexical counter-offensive, resulting in phrases like 'ladypart' and 'kittens' unexpectedly and automatically peppering general discussion. RoF terminology is complemented by the ability to present text in italics, bold or even miniature font. The expression *throws sandwich* is used to highlight a poster's weight issues.
Mentions from outside
On occasion stories have broken on the website, legal and otherwise, which have been taken up in national newspapers. The following is a list of some outside mentions.National newspapers
-
- The Times
- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,200-2177760.html
- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1750863,00.html
- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,4003-2189092.html
- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1750863_1,00.html
- The Independent
- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article140472.ece
- The Guardian
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian_jobs_and_money/story/0,,1211702,00.html
- The Daily TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/11/nmoney211.xml
Legal journals
-
- The LawyerThe LawyerThe Lawyer is a weekly British magazine for commercial lawyers and corporate directors, first published in 1981. It is owned by Centaur Media plc....
- http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=106327&d=11&h=24&f=23
- The Law Society GazetteThe Law Society GazetteThe Law Society Gazette is a British weekly trade magazine for solicitors in England and Wales published by the Law Society of England and Wales....
- http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/features/view=feature.law?FEATUREID=241307
- The Lawyer
Universities
- Various UK and overseas universities recommend the site to law students for information about UK law firms
- University of HullUniversity of HullThe University of Hull, known informally as Hull University, is an English university, founded in 1927, located in Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire...
- University of Hull
- http://www.hull.ac.uk/law/courses/ug/lawyer.html
- Imperial College
- http://www.union.ic.ac.uk/scc/law/links.html
- Lancaster University
- http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/law/current/resources/careers/index.htm
- the University of Victoria
- http://cdo.law.uvic.ca/CareerResearch.html