Law Technology

Google Scholar Search Now Includes U.S. Case Law and Legal Journals

By Laura Bergus

The legal research game has just taken a light-year shift, thanks to Google. Last night, Google quietly non-announced that Scholar search now includes U.S. federal and state case law and legal journals.

Recently, the debate on open access to legal information has been raging, with some folks sticking up for the Westlaw/Lexis walled-garden approach that requires steep payments for “value-added” access to court opinions and legal articles and journals. (It’s worth noting that the disagreement focused on “free market” versus public/government-funded approaches, so Google’s “free market” solution of free access will likely derail arguments on both sides of this debate.) For law students and lawyers of the younger generation (and tech-savvy elders as well), the Westlaw/Lexis interface and usability leave a lot to be desired

Now students, attorneys, clients, and – most importantly – average citizens around the world, can freely access an easy-to-use database of opinions and legal scholarship. “Free” really is the operative word, but for many users who have never suffered through terms-and-connecters-based search failures, the additional usefulness of “How cited” and “Related documents” will win the day. I realize that Westlaw and Lexis offer the same kind of content, but for those of us who have a bit of pride in our facility with Google searches and products, the obviousness of how these work and the straightforwardness with which this additional data is delivered is pricesless.

It will take a little while for the legal information experts to dig deep into the functionality and offer comparisons with Westlaw/Lexis on this service, but for now, it’s clear that the scope is pretty darn good. I can’t wait for the new debate, no doubt geared towards finding the chinks in Google’s authenticity armor, to begin.

Thanks especially to @justia for cluing us in (via @rklau).

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Full post as published by Social Media Law Student on November 17, 2009 (boomark / email).