In its ongoing effort to manage the world’s (universe’s?) information, Google has expanded its Scholar service to include case law and legal publications. Preliminary reports are universally positive. The federal case law archive goes back 80 years and the state case law archive goes back 50 years. The “Advanced Search” feature is both powerful and blazing fast.
This new addition to the Google Scholar service will drive down the cost of Westlaw, LexisNexis and the other legal research services. Westlaw and LexisNexis services can easily run in the hundreds of dollars per hour, particularly for access to specialized databases. Accordingly, a large percentage of an lawyer’s bill can sometimes be attributed to legal research. The entrance of Google into this field should reduce the cost of legal services available to the public. Those that go it alone (without an attorney — “in pro per” or “pro se” parties) will have access to the same wealth of information available to lawyers.
Now, thankfully, TheLaw.Net Corporation, a pay service, newcomer to the legal research industry can drop the slogan: “It’s like Google for Lawyers!“
[via American Bar Association Journal]
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Jon Mallin
Founder of Tech Bottle Blog. Attorney & Amateur Blogger. B.A. University of Michigan 1997 and J.D. NYU School of Law 2000.
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