Application of Internet Computer in Legal Research

Application of Internet
and Computers in Legal

Research
( Presented in All India Law Teachers
Congress 2010
Dr. Tabrez Ahmad

Associate Professor of Law
www.site.technolexindia.com
tabrezahmad@technolexindia.com
technolexindia.blogspot.com
www.site.technolexindia.com,
12/9/21 http://technolexindia.blopot.com 2
Agenda
1.Identify Web sources of value for conducting

legal research ( Open Source)
2.Identify subscription databases for
conducting legal research
Digital Revolution Internet Infra in INDIA
Interne
t INDIA Internet
Infrastructure:2008.5 1Mil. Domains
(0.5 Mil. “.in”)
Bhart
BSN i NIC
L
130+ 134 Major Mail
IDCs Servers
ISPs
ERNET
Relianc
TATA
e
Communicatio
ns
4.8 Mil. High DN

Speed Internet S
Enterpris
IT /
65 Mil. Govt. ITES e
Internet Users BPO
Home
248 Mil. Academia
Mobile Phones
8 Mil. Mobile Phones being
added per month
`
Tele Density 24 per 1000

person VOIP,
Targetted Broadband connection = 10
Mil. (2010) IPTV 4
4
The Research Process
Develop a research strategy

Identify appropriate information sources
Keep organized records
Critically evaluate resources
Analyze legal issues
Put it all together
Select a Legal Topic
Select an area of the law: define the problem or
identify the legal issue
Determine “jurisdiction,
Primary Authority =
The Law Itself
Statutes(Legislation)
Case Law(court decisions)
Constitutions
Administrative regulations and decisions
Rules of procedure and ethics
Secondary sources =
Everything else/Not the law
Database articles (scholarly & popular)
Nonfiction books (Print or electronic)
Blogs
Treatises
Encyclopedia articles
Law Review Articles
Where to Start
Secondary authorities help explain and interpret primary
sources of the law
Secondary authorities provide the foundation for
finding, analyzing, and applying the law
Secondary authorities point you to significant sources of
primary authority
Legal Research on the Web
GOOD FOR:
Current and recent documents
Significant or recent cases; SC cases
Central & state codes, statutes and regulations
Government publications
Foreign and international materials
Legal Research on the Web
NOT GOOD FOR:
Older cases; historical materials
Full-text journal articles
Treatises
Complete overview of the law
In-depth, thorough legal research
Most of the Indian Law Journals are not in e-forms
Most of the Law Books by Indian authors are not
available in e-form
What to do if you are unfamiliar with the
Internet
In short, what do you do if you know little or nothing

about the Internet and computers? The prominent
educational philosopher, John Dewey, long ago
established that the best way to learn anything was by
doing it
Where to Start Your Internet Research
and Study
Thankfully, there are numerous overviews and guides
available for inexperienced users of the Internet.
The Internet Society's "Guide to Internet Law,"

(www.isoc.org/internet/law) offers links to and brief
discussions of the more useful legal research sites on
the Internet.
The "Virtual Chase," a mega site sponsored by a major
law firm, is strong on research articles and Internet
strategies. It has an excellent section called "Other Legal
Information Guides"
(www.virtualchase.com/resources/otherguides.shtml)
that has numerous links to international legal websites.
"Guide to European Legal Databases."
(www.llrx.com/features/europenew.htm) Authored by
Mirela Roznovschi, Reference Librarian of the New York
University School of Law Library. It includes search
engines for international and foreign law; search tips;
indices; guides; journals; dictionaries; European legal
databases; constitutions; and
transnational/international organizations.
"Guide to Foreign and International Legal Databases."
(www.nyu.edu/library/foreign_intl/) New York
University's huge collection of international
information under the direction of the same person as
the above guide.
"Guide to International Trade Law Sources on the
Internet." (www.llrx.com/features/trade.htm). This
comprehensive research guide to the best Internet
sources for international trade law is compiled by
Marci Hoffman, the Foreign and International Law
Librarian at the University of Minnesota Law Library.
"University of Minnesota Human Rights Library"
(www.umn.edu/humanrts). More than a research guide,
this is a collection of over 6,500 human rights documents
and materials including bibliographies and guides;
refugee and asylum resources; human rights search
engines; treaties and international instruments; with over
2,500 links to other sites.
"Law on the Web"
(http://lawlib.slu.edu/library/LawOnTheWeb.html).
Compiled by James Milles, the Law Librarian at St. Louis
University, this is a well-organized list of legal resources
on the Internet including general guides; selected subject-
area guides (including Comparative and International
Law); search engines; statutes and cases. Milles uses a star
system to recommend sites.
"Guide to Law Online"
(http://lcweb2.loc.gov/glin/worldlaw.html) prepared by the
U.S. Law Library of Congress is an annotated hypertext guide to
sources of information worldwide on government and law.
Strong U.S. and international links including area guides,
international organization links (UN, OAS, and so on),
worldwide reports on human rights, international and
comparative law reviews, political system and economic guides
for many of the world's nations.
"InSite" (http://128.253.118.14:8080/insite/insitetp.html) The law
librarians at Cornell University evaluate useful websites, select
the most valuable ones, and provide commentary and subject
access to them. "InSite" highlights selected law-related websites
in two ways: first, as an annotated publication issued
electronically and in print; and second, as a keyword-searchable
database.
Comprehensive or "Mega" Legal Websites
Comprehensive or "mega" sites are those that include a wide array of
services, functions, resources, and subject areas. Because of their
extensive nature, each of the following websites provides an excellent
starting point for legal study and research:
"Findlaw" (www.findlaw.com) has often been billed as the best site to find
other legal resources. It is designed in easy-to-view sections for legal
professionals, students, businessmen, and the public. Its features include:
current news, community boards (on legal issues such as immigration and
cyberspace law), newsletters, a lawyer finder function, and the noted
search engine, "LawCrawler." This search engine includes an international
option for searching individual country domains. Some 38 legal subjects
are indexed at "Findlaw" including Communications Law, Cyberspace
Law, Dispute Resolution and Arbitration, Family Law, Intellectual
Property, International Law, International Trade, Law and Economics.
"Global Legal Information
Network" (Library of Congress)
(http://lcweb2.loc.gov/law/GLINv1/GLIN.html).
The Global Legal Information Network (GLIN) maintains and
provides a database of laws, regulations, and other
complementary legal sources. The site can be viewed in English,
Chinese, French, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. The
documents included in the database are contributed by the
governments of the member nations from the original official
texts that are deposited, by agreement of the members, at the
Library of Congress of the United States. This database contains:
(1) full texts of the documents in the official language of the
country of origin, (2) summaries or abstracts in English, and (3)
thesauri in English and in as many official languages as are
represented in the database. Information can be searched in
English.
"Hieros Gamos" (www.hg.org)
 touts itself as the "#1 Global Law Site With 2+ Million Links."
Global it is: it can be read in most of the world's major languages,
and has extensive international links and information. HG's
content--divided into business, consumers, attorneys, and
students--is somewhat similar to "Findlaw." Its object was to be
the comprehensive starting-point for all law and law-related
information. It has a search engine to search 11,000 law and
government sites. HG, incidentally, is Greek for the
harmonization of seeming opposites (such as earth and sky) and
in this case, electronic and written information. Recently, its
content and layout has become so large and extended beyond the
law, that the site has begun to lose focus of its original purpose.
"Jurist" (www.jurist.law.pitt.edu)
 it has parallel sites in Australia, Canada, the United
Kingdom, the EU, and Portugal, so it is a superb global
source.
"LawGuru" (www.lawguru.com)
 is a cornucopia of legal materials including a "QA"
section with frequently asked questions (FAQs) and
their answers; a database of thousands of free forms
with a search engine for forms; law news; chat rooms;
discussion lists; and more. Its key feature is its legal
research section that allows you to do extensive legal
research with access to over 500 legal search engines,
tools, and databases. For a listing of its resources by
topic, use the pull-down menu on the "Legal
Resource" page.
Legal Information Institute (LII)"
Cornell (www.law.cornell.edu)
 This site is one of the oldest and still one of the best legal
information sources on the Internet. It is maintained by
Cornell University. The site offers an encyclopedia called
"Law About" where you can initiate your topical research.
There are also vast amounts of materials (core materials for
major law school courses; the UCC; Introduction to Legal
Citation, and so forth that can be downloaded, some for a
fee. It has a very strong collection--under "Law from Around
the Globe"--which breaks down international materials
country-by-country for each continent. The "Spotlight"
section on the home page features law events in the news
from around the world.
"MegaLaw" (www.megalaw.com).
This site is geared toward the practicing lawyer (with
sections, for example, on "Expert Witnesses" "Process
Service", and finding court reporters). It also features
"LawBot", a search engine. Unfortunately, its
"International" section focuses mostly on countries
outside Asia. From the Far East region, only China and
Australia are listed)
"Student Law Centre"
(www.studentlaw.com)
 Sponsored by Britain's BPP Law School, this site is
not as vast as others in this section; yet, it presents
good information for students and from the European
perspective. Features include a search engine, many
links, and a "Studentlaw Wire" with site news
delivered free to your e-mail address.
Virtualchase“
(www.virtualchase.com).
Sponsored by a law firm and with over 500 pages of
information pertaining to Internet legal resources, this
site is especially good for research strategies. It is
designed for lawyers and other experienced legal
researchers and has a good search engine and
hundreds of links.
"The World Wide Web Virtual
Library-Law" at
(http://www.law.indiana.edu/v-lib
/) is presented by the Indiana University School of Law
at Bloomington. You can search with its search engine
or browse the library by subject matter (all of the usual
academic subjects of law) or by information source
(such as law firms, law journals, or the U.S.
Government. As befits its name, it has an enormous
collection of links to other legal websites.
WashLawWeb" (www.washlaw.edu)
 is maintained by the Washburn University School of Law Library.
WashLaw's goal is "to provide users with links to all known law-
related materials on the Internet."(13) Information on the home
page is arranged alphabetically, by subject, and by geographic
location. WashLaw also hosts a large number of law-related
Listserv discussion groups. Discussion groups are intended to
provide scholarly forums for the exchange of ideas, opinions, and
information relevant to law professionals. When you join a
discussion group, you receive e-mail from others who have already
joined. Other highlights of WashLaw include connections to more
than 50 legal directories(14) and, access to foreign, international and
United Nation's materials.(15) You can even subscribe free to a list of
new law-related websites that will be e-mailed to you.
Yahoo!" (http://dir.yahoo.com/law/)
 "Yahoo!" is one of the Web's favorite portals and a

major directory. Its law section is simple and easy to
use. It starts with a search engine and then a vast array
of subject categories including many unusual ones
like: Booksellers, Attorneys, Self-help, and Indigenous
Peoples. It also contains an annotated list of helpful
legal links. This directory section is not as large as
many other comprehensive sites but it serves as an
excellent starting-point for legal research.
Two Favorite Websites: "Jurist" and
Cybertimes (New York Times)
A. "Jurist"
Both of the websites in this section are ones that I have found particularly
useful and well suited for legal research and study. If I had to pick just one out
of all the websites available worldwide, it would be "Jurist"
(www.jurist.law.pitt.edu). "Jurist" rightly describes itself as the "Internet's
legal education portal," a "university-based academic gateway to authoritative
legal information, instruction, and scholarship online." (16) It is hosted by the
University of Pittsburgh School of Law under the guidance of Professor
Bernard Hibbitts, and edited by a team of law professors from law schools
across the United States and around the world. It is especially designed for
individuals learning, teaching, or researching law --that is, legal scholars, law
students, law librarians, lawyers and judges, journalists, and interested
citizens. It is advertisement-free, non-commercial, and provided to the public
at no charge.
"Jurist" is updated many times daily and is chock full of information.
Cyber Times at The New York Times Website.
The New York Times has long been a mainstay of the world press.
Now, you can register and access the electronic version of The Times at
(www.nytimes.com). Registration is free, fast and easily done on the
site's homepage. Having registered, you can now read the online
version of this authoritative newspaper including a first-rate section
devoted to high technology--that is appropriately called "Cyber
Times", (www.nytimes.com/pages-technology/index.html) . On
Mondays, Cyber Times is devoted to E-commerce and the New
Economy; on Wednesdays, Education; on Thursdays, "State of the
Art"; and best of all, on Fridays, to Cyber Law. The Cyber Law Journal
reports on the legal issues raised by the Internet, including copyrights
and trademarks, privacy, freedom of expression, and restrictions on
pornography and other content. Each electronic issue contains about
twenty articles.
BAILII
British and Irish Legal Information Institute
Access to Freely Available British and Irish Public Legal
Information.
Where you can find British and Irish case law &
legislation, European Union case law, Law Commission
reports, and other law-related British and Irish material.
SSRN
Social Science Research Network
The "Searching the Net" section, for example,
gives you links to 33 different search engines
including "Yahoo!" and "Google."
Some links listed on "Navigator" there that are
particularly helpful in legal study and research include
the following:
"Oyez, Oyez, Oyez" (oyez.at.nwu.edu), a multimedia
site with digital tapes of U.S. Supreme Court oral
arguments and case digests.
"Thomas" (thomas.loc.gov), a site (named for President
Thomas Jefferson) operated by the U.S. government,
this is a one-stop site for federal legislation and
information.
"National Law Journal" (www.ljx.com) by the same
publishers of the popular print journal, with legal
news and policy discussions.
"Cyberspace Law Institute" (www.cli.org) a think tank
without walls that has many good policy papers on
cyberlaw topics.
"Harvard Journal of Law and Technology"
(jolt.law.harvard.edu) a cutting-edge legal periodical.
"Lawyers.com" (www.lawyers.com) a free, online
consumer version of the Martindale-Hubbell Law
Dictionary. Tells you how and where to find lawyers,
includes message boards.
Search Engines and Directories
"All-inOne Search Page" (www.allonesearch.com) is not
so much a single search engine as a site with over 500 of
the Internet's best search engines, databases, and
directories
"AltaVista" (altavista.digital.com)
"Excite" (www.excite.com)
"HotBot" (www.hotbot.com)
"Lycos" (www.lycos.com)
Metacrawler" (www.metacrawler.com) uses many
different search engines.
"Northern Light" (www.nlsearch.com)
"WebCrawler" (www.webcrawler.com)
"Yahoo!" (www.yahoo.com) Although "Yahoo!" is
listed generically here as a "search engine", it is more
accurately described as a "directory." A "directory"
differs from a search engine in that it is manually
created. Live human being submit their websites to
Yahoo for listing, and if Yahoo accepts them, they are
assigned to an appropriate category or categories by an
editor (who is alive as an editor can be).
Here are some "legal specific" search engines:
"CataLaw" (www.catalaw.com) a catalog of catalogs of
worldwide law on the Internet
"Derecho" (http://derecho.org) a Spanish-language
law search engine
"FindLaw LawCrawler"
(http://lawcrawler.lp.findlaw.com)
"LawGuru"
(www.lawguru.com/search/lawsearch.html)
"Meta-Index for U.S. Legal Research"
(http://gsulaw.gsu.edu/metaindex)
"Law Search"
(www.2mediate.com/search/lawsearc.html) a legal
search engine sponsored by the Florida Mediation
Group.
"TheLawEngine!" (www.thelawengine.com) also
designed as a comprehensive law site
"Zimmerman's Research Guide" (www.llrx.com) an
online encyclopedia for legal research.
Technolexindia
TechnolexIndia (
www.site.technolexindia.com) is the content
aggregator dedicated to law exclusively to
the IP Law and Cyberlaw. It is committed to
the cause of creating and promoting mass
awareness about the need to have detailed
national & international legal framework of
cyberspace and IPR.
http://technolexindia.blogspot.com
http://Iplexindia.blogspot.com
http://conferencelex.blogspot.com
Search engines have different strengths and weaknesses,
and even the more efficient ones never search the entire
Web. Indeed, it has been estimated that all search engines
index only roughly 47% of all sites on the World Wide
Web, with the largest single search engine only indexing
about 16% of the WWW's content.(18) A reasonably
prudent researcher should, therefore, use several search
engines for the same query. Because the competition
among search engines is fierce, each is constantly adding
new features. "Check back on search sites to see what is
new," advises one authority, to see "if the new features will
help you on your search."(19) To keep tabs on search
engines, and for useful tips on how to conduct a search,
look at "Searchenginewatch"
(www.searchenginewatch.com).(20)
Subscription-based databases
GREAT FOR:
Locating full-text articles, law reviews, some treatises
Locating retrospective and current articles and cases
Florida case law not in West Law/Lexis-Nexis
Secondary Sources
Treatises
Law reviews and articles
Encyclopedias and dictionaries
Locating treatises
Aleph, online catalog
NetLibrary
WorldCat
Index Master
All are subscription databases.

Locating law reviews
LexisNexis Academic
Index to Legal Periodicals (ILP), 1980-
ILP Retrospective, -1980
LegalTrac
Hein Online
JSTOR; Project Muse
E-journals page
All of these are subscription databases

Locating law reviews
Emory’s list of legal journals
Findlaw’s list
Google Scholar
Law Library of Congress
University Law Review Project
All of these are free Internet sites

Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
Pathfinders/Research Guides
LLRX (Law Library Resource Exchange)
LexNotes.com Pathfinders
Online encyclopedias
Zimmerman’s Online Encyclopedia
Cornell LII’s Wex
Online dictionaries
Law.com dictionary
‘Lectric Law Lexicon
Case Law
Court Web sites
Florida Supreme Court
Portal Web sites
Florida State Courts
Findlaw.com
National Law Journal
Subscription databases
Lexis-Nexis Academic
Hein Online
Case law – Portal sites
Text of Opinions
Findlaw: Cases and Codes
LexisOne.com
Cornell LII
American Law Sources Online (ALSO)
National Law Journal
Federal Court Locator
Florida State Courts
Case law – US Supreme Court
Opinions
FREE
Supreme Court 1991 to present
Findlaw 1893 to present
Lexisone.com 1790 to present
SUBSCRIPTION DATABASES
Hein Online 1754 to present
BNA U.S. Law Week, 1997 to present
LexisNexis Academic
Case law – US Supreme Court
Oral Arguments
Supreme Court site (transcript)
Oyez Project (audio)
Records and Briefs
Findlaw 1999 to present
Case law – Federal courts
PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic
Records) www.pacer.psc.uscourts.gov
Electronic public access to service that allows
users to obtain:
Case information
Docket information
Documents
From Federal Courts
Courts of Appeal
District & Bankruptcy courts
Searching PACER
U.S. Party/Case Index
PACER District Look-Up
Subscription database:
agencies or individuals must register
Very inexpensive
$.08/page (applies to number of pages that results in
any search), OR
$.60/minute charge
$2.40 maximum per document
Other sites for federal cases:
www.uscourts.gov free Internet
LexisNexis Academic subscription
Case law – Florida
Free, Internet
Florida Law Online portal site
ALSO: Florida (portal site)
Florida Supreme Court 1999+
Fla. SC Records and Briefs Apr 1998+
FSU Briefs and opinions Nov 1989+
WFSU Oral Arguments Online 1997+
Opinions from other Florida courts
Subscription
Florida Law Weekly 1995+
LexisNexis Academic – State search
Court Rules
LLRX’s Court Rules
U.S. Supreme Court, Cornell LII
Federal Judiciary
Constitutions
U.S. Constitution (GPO Access)
U.S. Constitution (Library of Congress)
Florida Constitution
Statutes - Federal
Portal sites
Law Library of Congress
Federal
GPOAccess, Cornell LII,
US House of Representatives site, Thomas
Statutes - States
Florida
Online Sunshine constitution, statutes
Department of State public laws
Digest of General Laws only electronic
Law Library of Congress portal site
Other States
Findlaw, Cornell LII, Law Library of Congress
Municipal Codes -- municode.com
How the Internet helps in legal research & teaching-
Always keeps you in touch with students- A model for
teaching IP Law
Google Group- ipr.kls
Ibibo Message Group-Technolex
Free Blogger Blog- IPLex
See syllabus of different universities in India and the
world
Syllabus uploaded on group- IPLex
Research on Manupatra, WestLaw and Lexis Nexis
Relevant cases and articles uploaded on group ipr.kls
before every lecture-
PPT slides are uploaded on internet authorstream.com
and shared on the group
Sharing of question and answer on the group-ipr.kls
Recent developments written on blog IPLex and
linked to the group
Feed back on class test, examinations, and
presentation shared on the group-ipr.kls
Students are asked to follow good blogs,
For eg. Michael Geist Blog, Ipkat, IPLex, SpicyIP,
IPCanvas, WIPO website.
Conclusion.
The advent of the Internet has begun to transform
commerce and academia alike. Legal research on the
Internet presents a low-cost, efficient supplement to
traditional means of scholarship, and in Asia, as in
other developing areas, is particularly useful since
there are no great libraries. It is hoped that this
presentation will give the participating law teachers
some ideas on the possibilities of integrating this new
technology into their legal research and teaching.
Do you have any question?
Thanks

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Application of Internet Computer in Legal Research

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Application of Internet

and Computers in Legal

Dr. Tabrez Ahmad

1.Identify Web sources of value for conducting

4.8 Mil. High DN

Tele Density 24 per 1000

Develop a research strategy

In short, what do you do if you know little or nothing

The Internet Society's "Guide to Internet Law,"

 "Yahoo!" is one of the Web's favorite portals and a

All are subscription databases.

All of these are subscription databases

All of these are free Internet sites

Lexisone.com 1790 to present

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