By Nomfundo Manyathi-Jele
Attorneys can now locate Sheriffs and courts in Gauteng via a web application (app) called Jurisfy. The app has a GPS to get you to the destination which is similar to Google Maps.
Jurisfy lists Sheriffs and also shows their physical jurisdictions, on a digital map. The app powered by Google, allows users to search for a specific address and see the Sheriff and courts that have jurisdiction over that address. The app also helps ascertain a correspondent attorney if necessary.
The founders of Jurisfy (back from left) Alison Hugo, Cassandra Zamparini (front from left) Lawrence Botha, Stanley Bondi and Daniel Quibell.
The Jurisfy team consists of Daniel Quibell (28); Lawrence Botha (32); Alison Hugo (29); Cassandra Zamparini (30) and Stanley Bondi (32). Mr Quibell is an attorney at Johannesburg law firm, Frese Moll and Partners, while Mr Botha, Ms Hugo, Ms Zamparini, and Mr Bondi are co-founders of a web application design and development firm, Fixate Web and Design, based in Johannesburg.
Jurisfy is currently investigating ways to provide value to firms who want to list themselves as correspondent firms when a court is selected, as well as directing lay people to those firms as potential clients. The app was launched in April 2015.
| De Rebus news editor, Nomfundo Manyathi-Jele had the opportunity to interview Cassandra Zamparini who spoke on behalf of the founders of Jurisfy. |
Nomfundo Manyathi-Jele (NMJ): Please tell me about the app. What does it do, why is it important and how does it work?
Cassandra Zamparini (CZ): Jurisfy is a web app aimed at providing a one stop service to ascertain the relevant service area of a court or sheriff, and correspondent attorney.
NMJ: What inspired you to start it?
CZ: Jurisfy was borne out of the frustrations a young attorney experienced when Sheriffs were difficult to get a hold of and were unsure of their jurisdictions. There was also the frustration of dealing with the delay and additional costs for matters where documents were not served by the correct Sheriff.
Frustrated with the lack of a good system, Mr Quibell approached Fixate, realising that there may be an opportunity to improve the situation for law firms and Sheriffs alike.
The whole system was a big surprise to us, as well as the fact that this information was not available digitally. We immediately knew that we could develop a better way to get this information.
NMJ: How long has it taken to get to this stage?
CZ: Work on Jurisfy began in the last quarter of 2014.
NMJ: How did you do it?
CZ: From the outset our strategy has been to gather reliable boundary data for all Sheriffs, beginning in Johannesburg, followed by the remainder of Gauteng, and then the rest of the country, and plot our data on a map.
From the beginning, we knew we would have to focus on one province in order to get Jurisfy off the ground. Because we are based in Johannesburg, it made sense to start in Gauteng.
After some research, we discovered that most of the areas that make up the Sheriffs’ jurisdictions are listed on the website of the South African Board for Sheriffs. After some research we found that some of the information was incomplete, inaccurate, or absent.
Soon we realised that the data from traditional sources is not only difficult and time-consuming to interpret, but also frequently inaccurate or contradictory. We decided that we needed to develop a new strategy to gather sheriff information, and would have to start almost entirely from scratch. Before we could begin collecting any jurisdictional information, we needed to build a system that allowed us to capture and edit the data we collated. By integrating with Google Map’s solid infrastructure, we were able to build a powerful tool that enabled us to map out and visually represent the jurisdictions of Sheriffs throughout Johannesburg.
Leveraging the 2011 census data, we plotted jurisdictions based on the information available to us in Hortors and the Sheriff’s Board website. To our dismay, it was not long before we saw that the data was incomplete and unintuitive, and that again we needed a new approach in order to get accurate information. We decided to visit the individuals who would know best – the Sheriffs themselves.
Armed with a large printed map representing the jurisdiction of Soweto East, we visited the office of Hettie Botha, the Soweto East Sheriff. Because she took over the job from her father, she was more than aware of the inadequacies within the system – many of which stemmed from years past. She explained that much of the workday was spent on the phone redirecting callers who had phoned the incorrect Sheriff’s office. We were not surprised, as her phone rang throughout our entire meeting.
It became apparent the only reliable data would be first hand data obtained directly from the Sheriffs themselves, and so we began the task of visiting, speaking with, and collaborating with the Sheriffs to determine their jurisdictions.
From Ga-Rankuwa to Alberton, and Pretoria to Kempton Park, we travelled to almost every Sheriff’s office to verify our data (a handful of Sheriffs refused to meet with us). We became more aware of how broken the system was with each visit to a new sheriff. Not only did many Sheriffs claim to serve the same areas, but there were also areas that no one claimed to serve at all.
In order to account for these ‘disputed regions’, we implemented a system into Jurisfy that allowed us to point out any problem areas to our users. Currently, if a user searches an address that falls within a ‘disputed region’ (one in which two or more Sheriffs claim to serve), or a ‘no man’s land region’ (where no Sheriffs claim to serve), our system will highlight the area and provide our users with an explanation of the issue. It is then up to the user to phone Sheriffs and determine the relevant Sheriff’s office – although, they are likely to encounter the same problem we did when trying to ascertain which Sheriff was relevant. As time goes by we have been able to eliminate a large amount of ‘no man’s land’ areas with the Sheriffs.
NMJ: Is it a free service?
CZ: While in beta, Jurisfy is free for users to sign up and locate Sheriffs. This will eventually become a paid service once we have covered the Western Cape, and are confident in our data. We are confident in our data for Gauteng.
NMJ: What are your future plans for Jurisfy? I see that you plan to monetise it eventually. Will you wait until you reach a certain number of members signed up?
CZ: Currently Jurisfy only serves jurisdictions in Gauteng. To date, we have listed 54 Sheriff jurisdictions on Jurisfy.
Jurisfy’s primary goal is to –
We are already listing correspondent firms that are within 15km of a court. With national coverage and an increase in traffic to Jurisfy, we can then begin offering a listing to correspondent firms and counsels at a premium.
Once we have gathered and confirmed data for Sheriffs in the Western Cape, we feel we will have a sufficient offering to open subscriptions for users to pay for access to Sheriff information.
Access to correspondent attorneys and counsels will always remain publicly accessible to maximise those organisations exposure to the public, justifying their premiums.
NMJ: How many members do you currently have signed up?
CZ: From our current data, we are getting an average of three to four signups per business day. We currently have just over 700 users, with a growth of 15 to 20 new users per week. We have recently hit 9 000 visitors per month in traffic and this is growing steadily. This is data for courts and Sheriffs in Gauteng only.
Nomfundo Manyathi-Jele NDip Journ (DUT) BTech Journ (TUT) is the news editor at De Rebus.
This article was first published in De Rebus in 2016 (Aug) DR 6.
