The flurry of articles and posts about Google Scholar yesterday is proof that? plenty of excitement has been generated by the fact that ...
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You will now be able to do the following according to Google..
Here's their press release from yesterday in full. There are plenty of links in the release so you may prefer to read it here...
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/finding-laws-that-govern-us.html
And for an Australian angle you should be proud to notice that Austlii pioneers? Graham Greenleaf & Andrew Mowbray have been name checked in? development of the project along with other champions of free legal information Carl Malmud, Joe Ury & Tom Bruce
Finding the laws that govern us
11/17/2009 09:05:00 AM
As many of us recall from our civics lessons in school, the United States is a common law country. That means when judges issue opinions in legal cases, they often establish precedents that will guide the rulings of other judges in similar cases and jurisdictions. Over time, these legal opinions build, refine and clarify the laws that govern our land. For average citizens, however, it can be difficult to find or even read these landmark opinions. We think that's a problem: Laws that you don't know about, you can't follow ? or make effective arguments to change.
Starting today, we're enabling people everywhere to find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts using Google Scholar. You can find these opinions by searching for cases (like Planned Parenthood v. Casey), or by topics (like desegregation) or other queries that you are interested in. For example, go to Google Scholar, click on the "Legal opinions and journals" radio button, and try the query separate but equal. Your search results will include links to cases familiar to many of us in the U.S. such as Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, which explore the acceptablity of "separate but equal" facilities for citizens at two different points in the history of the U.S. But your results will also include opinions from cases that you might be less familiar with, but which have played an important role.
We think this addition to Google Scholar will empower the average citizen by helping everyone learn more about the laws that govern us all. To understand how an opinion has influenced other decisions, you can explore citing and related cases using the Cited by and Related articles links on search result pages. As you read an opinion, you can follow citations to the opinions to which it refers. You can also see how individual cases have been quoted or discussed in other opinions and in articles from law journals. Browse these by clicking on the "How Cited" link next to the case title. See, for example, the frequent citations for Roe v. Wade, for Miranda v. Arizona (the source of the famous Miranda warning) or for Terry v. Ohio (a case which helped to establish acceptable grounds for an investigative stop by a police officer).
As we worked to build this feature, we were struck by how readable and accessible these opinions are. Court opinions don't just describe a decision but also present the reasons that support the decision. In doing so, they explain the intricacies of law in the context of real-life situations. And they often do it in language that is surprisingly straightforward, even for those of us outside the legal profession. In many cases, judges have gone quite a bit out of their way to make complex legal issues easy to follow. For example, in Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court justices present a fascinating and easy-to-follow debate on the legality of internment of natural born citizens based on their ancestry. And in United States v. Ramirez-Lopez, Judge Kozinski, in his dissent, illustrates the key issue of the case using an imagined good-news/bad-news dialogue between the defendant and his attorney.
We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of several pioneers, who have worked on making it possible for an average citizen to educate herself about the laws of the land: Tom Bruce (Cornell LII), Jerry Dupont (LLMC), Graham Greenleaf and Andrew Mowbray (AustLII), Carl Malamud (Public.Resource.Org), Daniel Poulin (LexUM), Tim Stanley (Justia), Joe Ury (BAILII), Tim Wu (AltLaw) and many others. It is an honor to follow in their footsteps. We would also like to acknowledge the judges who have built this cathedral of justice brick by brick and have tried to make it accessible to the rest of us. We hope Google Scholar will help all of us stand on the shoulders of these giants.
Posted by Anurag Acharya, Distinguished Engineer
As we mentioned earlier the announcement means that the blogs are running hot with the news..
Here's what's being said
Beyond Search reports...? Google Squeezes LexisNexis and Westlaw Hard - The one big reality is that Google is indexing legal content. Furthermore, Google has some nifty algorithms that can and will add metadata to content so that the Google service will be ?good enough.? For law firms struggling to pay their country club fees, Google?s service will be given a close look. My hunch is that the small law firms who cannot afford the fees assessed by the LexisNexis and Westlaw systems will use the Google system. Over time, Google?s approach will choke off much of the oxygen to the commercial legal firms. These outfits have to respond.
So, what are the options?
First, the smart legal publishers will want to figure out how to surf on Google. In my own experience, most of these executives will dismiss this idea, but I think some thinking about this approach is warranted. My videos at http://www.arnoldit.com/video might offer some ideas to legal publishers nervous about the Google?s legal content push.
Second, the firms on the fringe of legal information now have a way to access some information that can be used to enhance their existing content offerings. Google?s service delivers a Ford F 350 stuffed with information that is now accessible. Raw material in my opinion.
Finally, government agencies may just pump content directly into Google. This creates an opportunity for a different type of information service. Lateral thinking is useful for the companies in Washington, DC that recycle information for their constituencies. I see opportunities in this sector.
What is the financial outlook for the LexisNexis-type and Westlaw-type firms? Short term there won?t be much change. Over time, life gets tougher. I do quite a bit of work in online information, and I am not sure these outfits can adapt to the Google?s legal push. Just my opinion.
http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2009/11/18/google-squeezes-lexisnexis-and-westlaw-hard/
The Life Of Books Blog writes ....Overall, Google Scholar's new LOJ is a welcome entry into the free online legal research community. I don't think that West or Lexis have much to worry about, but LII, Justicia, et al, may have "competition."
What impact this will have on Law.Gov, "Free Law," and kerfuffles? This is certainly a game changer
http://thelifeofbooks.blogspot.com/2009/11/google-scholar-almost-great-free-legal.html
Interesting comment about LII having competition.. We're not so sure of that.
If the main LII players have been mentioned by? Google in their press release we suggest that means there must be plans afoot to take the service to the next level to compete with Lexis & West.? HOB surmises that maybe LII? has known for a while that with its limited resources it could never compete with the duopoly. So, instead, why not take its combined knowledge to the obvious place and start to create something that really will give the two big boys something to worry about.
Volokh blog writes .. But again, I assume there are many more improvements to come in the coming years, and perhaps even one day support for Lexis? or Westlaw-like queries, with good proximity searching, segment searching, and more. And even for now, searching for (and linking to) caselaw is much easier today, at least to those without Lexis and Westlaw, then it was before the new Google features.
http://volokh.com/2009/11/18/google-case-law-and-law-review-article-search/
My Shingle Says? My point here is that even as free services launch, the premium legal services still continue to improve. So the gap still remains? between legal research haves and have-nots.? And just when I think that the gap is closing and perhaps the WEXIS duopoly has been cracked, it turns out that the fee services have added some other bell or whistle to keep an edge.
3.? Who's really in danger here?
As I see it, Google's free legal research services won't put a dent in LEXIS or Westlaw, at least not for a long, long time,? Instead, they pose a threat to what I've collectively termed the "second city" providers like Versuslaw, Casemaker, FastCase or Loislaw.? Right now, most lawyers are able to access those services for free or cheap through deals with the bars - but will bars continue to support those subscriptions when there's a robust free option available?? My heart goes out to these companies because they served as an oasis for solos when no other options, save the law library and manual research, existed.? Yet I don't see all of them able to survive the Google onslaught.
The Ordinary League Of Gentleman blog says... This is huge news.? It won?t be the complete death knell for Lexis and Westlaw ? presumably, Google isn?t going to be providing access to unpublished opinions contained in the Lexis and Westlaw databases (the selection of which is proprietary to Lexis and Westlaw), and won?t be able to provide access to a lot of secondary sources such as restatements and the like.? But this will make it much, much easier for solo practitioners to do an adequate job without bankrupting themselves
http://www.ordinary-gentlemen.com/2009/11/googles-attempt-to-takeover-the-world-reaches-new-levels/
And of course this means that you will now be able to access information via your i-phone? ...i phone JD reports......Lots of blawgs are discussing Google Scholar right now, but I don't see anyone talking about how nice it is that this service lets you view or search for virtually any case at any time on your iPhone (or other smartphone).? Now, even if you are out of your office, you can quickly search for cases or pull up a specific case on your iPhone for free.
Google Scholar is not specially formatted for the iPhone screen.? I wouldn't be surprised to see an iPhone version of Google Scholar in the future, nor would I be surprised to see a third party app that acts as an iPhone front end to Google Scholar.? But for now, here are some tips and tricks for using Google Scholar on an iPhone (many of which will also work on your computer).
The first thing that you will want to do is set a bookmark for Google Scholar in Safari on your iPhone.? You can of course just bookmark the main Google Scholar page, but I find it more efficient to bookmark a search page that is set to the state that you are most likely to search.? This allows you to avoid tapping the "Advanced Search" link, and then scrolling down, and then selecting your state, and then running the search.? For me, my default jurisdiction is Louisiana, so I have made the following address my bookmark in Safari:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=apple&as_sdt=4&as_sdts=19
http://lawonmyphone.blogspot.com/2009/11/google-enters-into-realm-of-legal.html
A quick google search will also bring up many many more articles on the development? ... Finally we note that many commentators see that the service itself won't affect Lexis & West in the short term because it can't provide the same depth and breadth of information and both the big players have proprietary information. All this and more is true. But we also know that in terms of the market this development couldn't come at a worse time for Lexis & West. Revenues may be steadyish but the profit line is down and the google scholar will help smaller firms and solo practitioners use the paid services less and although others don't mention it we also think Law Librarians and KM's at the larger firms who have had budghets slashed will investigate any avenue to use Lexis & West less if other free services can help them do the job.
For Lexis & West the thin end of the wedge starts here.
