Comments on: Free Legal Research by Google & What It Means

By: Les Kite

Les Kite — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 18:23:00 +0000

Most helpful. I am using a file managmement program and it has a link to Google legal so that I can add all matters searched to a give file.

Any significant addiitions/iimprovements to Google legal since you 2009 post/

Thanks,

Les Kite
les@kitelaw.net

By: Sfishman

Sfishman — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 03:40:00 +0000

I would not underestimate the power of Google. They are projected to add 6000 new employees within the next two years. I have faith this legal research service will continue to improve and hopefully make legal research easier, more cost efficient and just as good as the “duopoloy” of Westlaw and Nexis.

By: Kathykuzman

Kathykuzman — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:57:50 +0000

The above thought is smart and doesn’t require any further addition. It’s perfect thought from my side.

One Law Center
**********
kathy

By: Michael Goldstein

Michael Goldstein — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:22:41 +0000

This new legal search tool by Google is going to be a great help to those new attorneys or those looking to start up their own firm, limit their initial overhead. I know when I started my firm every dollar spent had to be scrutinized, and WestLaw was a big decision.

By: R Barrera

R Barrera — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:52:41 +0000

Google is playing coy - see podcast at http://legaltech.law.com/my_weblog/2009/11/by-ari-kaplanspecial-to-the-legal-technology-blog--i-spoke-with-rick-klau-the-product-manager-on-blogger-for-google-who-was.html - but eventually, in my view, Google will offer a Google Docs Legal Edition which integrates the case law research component and targets Microsoft Office/Sharepoint.

By: Matt Van Sickle

Matt Van Sickle — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:03:44 +0000

You indicated that you can download cases in PDF and that they look terrific. Is there anyway to do so without having the list of Google services on the header?

By: David Dilenschneider

David Dilenschneider — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:43:29 +0000

“[E]ven though many circuits don’t permit cites to unreported cases”? Check the applicable court rule. Fed. R. App. P. 32.1(a) states “[a] court may not prohibit or restrict the citation of federal judicial opinions, orders, judgments, or other written dispositions that have been: (i) designated as ‘unpublished,’ ‘not for publication,’ ‘non-precedential,’ or the like; and (ii) issued on or after January 1, 2007.”

By: Carolyn Elefant

Carolyn Elefant — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:22:13 +0000

Lisa – thank you for the link. I know that MD doesn’t give its decisions to LEXIS and Westlaw.
Venkat – excellent idea about the blog posts. Very similar to my comment idea, but actually better because so many bloggers offer great analysis; far better quality than what would go into comments.
John – definitely agree w/competition comment. I think the secondary services also had the same impact on LEXIS.
Susan- Great insight – I think you have just given all of us lawyers a great marketing idea: explaining why we bring value to clients beyond what they can obtain from online Google research. This could make an excellent series of blog posts (in fact, when I resume blogging at my law firm blog I am going to do just that)!

By: Richard Maseles

Richard Maseles — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:23:57 +0000

I’m still playing with the possibilities. What impresses me so far is that a search by case citation, even a West Reporter citation, not only seems to pull up the case itself, but citing cases, which leads to the possibility of it functioning as a citator in the way that Loislaw’s citator does– no interpretation, just the fact of the case being cited. It won’t displace Shepard’s or KeyCite– yet, but the possibility is there, especially considering that both of those products have used algorithms for most of their analysis for some time.
I think the comments could be very valuable as a form of wiki-type annotation by practitioners who’ve discovered that, say, Smith v. Jones contains an in-depth analysis of (or overrules, or distinguishes) Hatfield v. McCoy.
Now if Google wants to really hit one out of the park, they could take on statutes and regs.

By: Susan Cartier Liebel

Susan Cartier Liebel — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:27:41 +0000

My concern is less that lawyers will use this service (althought it is highly valuable as a starting point) and more that those who want to go pro se will erroneously feel they have the ability to figure things out because they can’t afford representation. Or they will believe it’s ‘not hard’ to do research.
Google is consumer-driven. I’m not sure this was necessarily geared towards helping lawyers (though it can). I think it was geared towards helping consumers impacted by the law and may falsely make them feel they can effectively argue their case by simply doing a google search.