Google Does Evil to LexisNexis and Westlaw?
Last week Google engineer Anurag Acharya sent a shot across the bow of the multi-million dollar legal publishing business. “Starting today,” he wrote on the Google blog, people will be able to use Google Scholar to “find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts.” And in typical Google fashion, these searches will be intuitive and simple. “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,” he wrote.
That sounds familiar…. That sounds like a service law firms pay bajillions of dollars for every year. There’s been some speculation across the Web that Google Scholar’s new offering is a red flag for LexisNexis and Westlaw.
Robert Ambrogi of Legal Blog Watch writes:
Inevitably, Google’s announcement leads to another round of predictions that 2012 has arrived for Westlaw and LexisNexis. Scott Greenfield wonders whether the news signals the end of the duopoly. Social Media Law Student says this could fast become the preferred tool for “law students and lawyers of the younger generation (and tech-savvy elders as well).” But Carolyn Elefant says Google is unlikely to replace Wexis for some time to come. “Even as free services launch, the premium legal services still continue to improve,” she writes. “So the gap still remains between legal research haves and have-nots.”
We checked in with LexisNexis and Westlaw. They aren’t citing any fear. After the jump, get their reactions and take our poll about your plans for Google legal scholar.
Don Cruse of the Supreme Court of Texas Blog gave it a whirl and has a how-to guide on his site. He’s planning on using it for a few briefs and reporting back. Meanwhile, the Antitrust Review points out some problems:
[T]he inability to search for cases within a particular federal district court or circuit is an odd limitation (especially given the the ability to search for state cases by state). Other limitations: there is no indication if the case has been overruled, vacated, etc. (nor is there a way to Sherpadize a case) and the search tools are not as powerful as those found on Lexis or Westlaw. Hopefully, Google will work to improve this search tool.
A spokesman from Westlaw tells us they’re not worried:
We believe that court decisions, statutes and related legal information should be accessible to the public, and Google joins existing sites such as FindLaw, the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School and scores of others that offer this information free of charge.These sites are useful for general reference or backgrounding on a particular case or legal issue. But it’s important to distinguish between a free case and a West case, and between a free repository of case law and a purpose-built research tool built expressly for legal professionals.
Our customers rely on us for very specialized and accurate information and legal insight, and use Westlaw to find exactly the right answers on very specific points of law.
We provide the breadth of information and technology tools to help quickly zero in on specific cases and the facts embedded within them. We provide the context, expert analysis from our attorney-editors and links to supporting materials to help users find the right answers, faster. And, Westlaw includes workflow tools so that our customers can use this information as part of their client workstream.
LexisNexis has similar sentiments:
Free case law is not new to the Internet and is included on some of our own sites like lexisONE, LexisWeb and lawyers.com. However, our legal customers generally require more than raw, unfiltered content to inform their business decisions. They look to LexisNexis to find needles in the ever-growing information haystack, not the haystack itself. Not only do we provide the most complete portfolio of public and proprietary legal content, but LexisNexis enables legal professionals to conduct their research more efficiently, effectively, and with the assurance of accuracy. The LexisNexis legal research service provides critical analysis and commentary such as Mathew Bender, citation analysis like Shepard’s, deep online linkages built over time to relevant content, and unique functionality such as pinpoint searching by topic or by complex legal phrases. Our goal is to deliver relevant, reliable results that enable our customers to make informed decisions faster.
Both Lexis and Westlaw think their analysis and assurance of accuracy and completeness make them immune to the Google challenge. What’s your take on Google’s new tool? Do you plan to start using it?
Finding the laws that govern us [Google]
The Google Gorilla Enters the Research Game [Legal Blog Watch]
Google wades into free legal research (for Texas, too!) [Supreme Court of Texas]
Google and Legal Search [Antitrust Review]
Shiny Object Syndrome Alert: Google Scholar Now Offers Free Access to Caselaw [Young Lawyers Blog]
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Comments
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Do you think readers here don't visit any other websites? WSJ Blog ran this a week ago. I don't even know why I visit ATL anymore. Does anyone have any suggestions for alternative distractions at work?
Please make your suggestions below!
good, f lexis/westlaw
Happy Thanksgiving!
Darn it. I just checked, and the healthcare bill taxes use of free legal search services (see page 1,432, paragraph 265).
Kash,
You need to redesign the poll. I am not going to use Google Scholar, not because it's evil, but because it's inferior. Most people would feel the same way if you put that option up there.
Google really will need a good shepardizing feature for this to take off.
it is about time... GO google.. f wexis...
I think if you practice adminstrative law, or a specific area of law, this is excellent. It's like a BNA subscription service without the fee. Which lawyers rely on Westlaw for "critical analysis." Bad ones. A good attorney plows through or has her associate plow through available cases for the needle, usually hidden in the footnotes.
What five and six say. I can't believe anyone would perceive this current concept as a threat to Lexis and Westlaw.
I emailed this idea to Google a few years ago, I'm glad they put the resources behind it. It seems like a no-brainer for a company best known for organizing the world's information to get into the (highly lucrative) legal search market. Not to mention, their interface will probably be easier to use.
If you know the citation, or need a first-run search, it's a lot quicker to use Google rather than logging in.
But without headnotes and shepherdizing, you can't use it for real work.
Good luck Google. We have an awfully significant head start on you and devote far more resources to legal search and content than you do.
Westlaw Secure
CHECK YOU SEARCH RESULTS
You people are idiots. It will cut into some of the things like the get & print functions or e-mail functions which are stupidly pricey on the pay services.
12
But Google employs smarter, more forward-thinking people than you. Give it 3-5 years and I'd bet Google will supplant Wexis for most common legal inquiries.
At the end of the day this is good news for everyone. The competition was sorely needed, and it should incentivize Wexis to further develop their niche capabilities. It is a great thing for the country that the lifeblood of our judicial system will become far more accessible to lay citizens.
I actually used it earlier today. It's good for general research, but you're not going to find the more nuanced stuff.
14,
exactly
16 - in other words, it's great if you're a small firm working on the weekend and need a cite to Marbury v. Madison, which you don't have in your hardback reporters that only go back 50 years.
The writing has been on the wall for a looong time
8 - "A *GOOD ATTORNEY* plows through or has *HER* associate..."
Hahahaha -- this is the funniest thing I've read on this site in weeks.
LOL@ using an Elefant quote!!
WTF? You can't find a better quote than some victimizer of the victims of the law school scam????!!!
"(nor is there a way to Sherpadize a case)"
Sure there is...you set up base camp and bring Tenzing Norgay with you to the summit.
And this affects me how?
Yeah 15, lay people will find it useful and attorneys may do some general research with it, but premium content will continue to be sought from Westlaw and Lexis by serious lawyers. BTW, we are very smart and forward thinking, that's why we bought FindLaw. Then again, you probably didn't know that.
12/Westlaw Secure
Small firm practicioner here-will continue to use the cheapo version of lexis for substantive legal research. But the minute lexis tells me that going to the case I just clicked on will cost me "$12.50" or what have you, I'll scope it out on google...biggest issue is lack of shepherdizing, and I don't see how google fixes that and remains google.
Who really cares about shepardizing? Really, how often does law change? If your case is a loser, settle fast.
Google's service works pretty well. It doesn't have KeyCite/Shepardize stuff, true.
However, Google provides a better way of seeing "what other cases are saying about X v. Y." Their citing sources list provides exerpts of quotations.
I'm actually working on something at my clerkship right now, and on a whim I tried Google's service to check my research. I found important case language, refuting a point at issue, almost without trying.
Thanks, Google!
I wonder if google scholar will save every search you ever run in the same way traditional google does.
I agree with 11 & 14.
I agree with 29.
Quite exciting, this computer-based legal research magic!
Pro: Google isn't cluttered by headnotes, so it's easy to read.
Con: Google isn't cluttered by headnotes, so it's harder to glean the issues at a glance.
I must say, using it so far just to test the waters has been rather impressive
No more Lexis/Westlaw fees = NY to 190?!?!?
Clients are not going to pay for paid legal research when it can be found for free.
So I guess this means the folks at Bloomberg just lit a match to several million dollars...
I believe that this will be helpful to everyone regardless of whether they already Lexis & Westlaw.
Checkpoint has functions where you can shepardize and access other research tools at the specific subsection level in the tax code. Westlaw tax does this as well I belive. Get at me when Google accomplishes this.
Google will crowd-source the headnoting and shepardizing by providing Wiki-like annotation features, and then Westlaw and LexisNexis will have a problem.
Shepardizing and Headnoting are tools, but you can't rely on them completely; you should double check things. Same with crowd-sourced annotations.
Competition = good. Newspapers thought they could continue to charge for content in the mid-90s. I give Westlaw and LexisNexis a decade, tops.
Look, this project was run by a bunch of non-lawyer computer engineers. In their release they made such observations as "we were surprised to see how easy it is to read a case."
That being said, as soon as Google reads those comments from Lexis, they'll hire lawyers to annotate, link, and otherwise duplicate Lexis for free.
I used this yesterday... it's very good for quick and dirty searches when you need a paragraph like "It is well settled that one cannot change a party to a contract without mutual assent" [cite], but I haven't yet seen the other capabilities (quick cite, etc) that I really liked on Lexis. I'm sure it's coming. You guys know they sunk TOM TOM 2 weeks ago when they dropped the navigation software on the new Android phones, right? navigation.google.com
TOM TOM stock fell almost 40% immediately after the announcement.
18 = one douchebag to rule them all.
This is the beginning of the end of lawyers: clients will conduct legal research themselves, not hire firms to research legal issues.
I agree with comment 43. This is as much a threat to lawyers as it is to Lexis and Westlaw. This gives a significant new tool to an increasingly empowered laity.
20:
Is it as funny as when you try to satisfy you're wife with your barely-there sexual organ? I bet SHE isn't laughing.
-8
@1: Ratemycameltoe.com is a nice distraction.
43 and 44 = two posters who have never read pro se briefs.
David Saint Hubbins = Worst ATL Character
47- absolutely. If you've ever had to deal with a pro se litigant, you would understand why lolyers are never going away. It's no different than when someone sees a show like "sweat equity" on TLC then thinks they can renovate their own house, and end up destroying it.
What happens to a lawyer who relies on Google scholar? She gets disbarred.
You mean plessy v. ferguson isn't good law anymore!?
"What is a 'Google'? People will never use something so silly to search the internet! We don't have to worry."
-Excite.com CEO, Sept. 1998
I've used it this week and am quite impressed. Of course it doesn't replace wexis for shepardizing your cases or jurisdiction-specific searching (yet), but it's great to know that I don't have to waste my clients' money when I just need to read a case quickly ("get by citation" is about $10 on lexis I believe, which is outrageous) or when I'm just starting to research a question and need some ideas about what to look into. I can't flee from wexis yet, but this is a welcome addition to research tools, for sure.
Google does not provide unpublished decisions.
Are they able to report cases for which the West Unofficial reporter is the only source?
ATL consistently proves how stupid lawyers are when it comes to business. Google doesn't need to beat Wexis at everything they do well. All Google needs to do is eat away 5 - 10% of revenue, which is most likely their margin. Google will do that easily with the basic find and print, and other such uses which are the bread and butter i.e. low labor input/large volume.
Wexis are fucked. not bankrupt, but fucked. they are going to have to seriously up their game, and their curent margins just went out the window. this is GREAT news for lawyers, but it's a shitty day to be a mid-level manager through senior exec at Wexis.
41,
TomTom has long been f&cked. Garmin tricked them into a poison pill acquistion in the 2007 business environment. Then Google comes right back around and attacks the low-end of the nav market.
Plessy v Ferguson was never explicitly overruled...
Google Scholar beats a blank, but it's no match for Westlaw's advanced search features and premium and secondary source content.
Google Scholar beats a blank, but it's no match for Westlaw's advanced search features and premium and secondary source content.
I used this google program when i was working on the second draft of a brief this week. I did the original research for my first draft on westlaw, but pretty much re-wrote the brief. So my second time around, i used google.
I can report that google does a better job of search. My key word searches give me more relevant results, every time. it's also easier to use, faster processing my request, easier to read the cases (without those pages of useless headnotes) and more coherent to use to track down cases that cited to the case i had in mind.
That said, i was working with solid knowledge base of the cases i was dealing with. because google doesn't tell you whether cases have been overturned, it was not easy to trust it on first blush. Plus, i was worried that google wouldn't have all the cases available, but i found no gaps.
like the post says, it was harder to search within a circuit, but the overall quality of the search made that less of a problem than i expected.
overall, i would give it a B+. I normally give west a B. So i would say Google is better. I am not ready to trust Google yet, but i would be willing to migrate totally if it fixed a couple bugs (Search within circuits, categorization by civil/criminal, a list telling us the range of cases being searched (does it search tax court cases? I didn't check, but i don't know), and to a lesser extent, some way to let us know if the case has been overturned).
lexis and westlaw dont have to worry, they just have to adapt and pray that google doesn't stock g-scholar w/ all of the features that their portals have.
the firm i summered at had a pay per click plan going for most secondary materials. so when i was doing research, i hit ssrn first. when lawyers and partners saw the print outs, they were dumbfounded. when they saw it was free, they were amazed, but, of course, didn't adopt it, as far as i know.
prediction: google scholar's impact will be a function of (1) how prevalently the tool is introduced to law students and (2) its ability to replace the wexis for cost-conscious solos and small firms.
I just can't believe those fags at Legal Zoom (who came up with the idea of outsourcing legal work back to the client) didn't come up with this first
Westlaw's answer... upsell clients for old cases and call it something that stirs emotion... How about...."Rise of American Law" From WL: "access 1,700 commonly cited out-of-print 19th and 20th century legal volumes."
Westlaw's answer... up-sell clients for old cases and call it something that stirs emotion... How about...."Rise of American Law" From WL: "access 1,700 commonly cited out-of-print 19th and 20th century legal volumes."
Westlaw's answer... up-sell clients for old cases and call it something that stirs emotion... How about...."Rise of American Law" From WL: "access 1,700 commonly cited out-of-print 19th and 20th century legal volumes."
oops... browser reload... duplicates.
I wish ATL brought this story up sooner. This past Friday, my partner asked me if I knew about the Google Legal Scholar thingi..and my answer was no (which made me sound a little out of touch)..
he wanted me to do the initial research on it an then jump into wexis... guess what.. I did not need to jump into weslaw. The state law that I was researching on was more than available on Google and I guess I saved our client a crap load of money..
Now, how you think Wexis is going to survive in a decade is beyond me. .
Knowing how Google operates, they will hire 300 lawyers over the next five years and have them cite and cite till the cows come home.. in 5 years, they will have a very decent product. In 10 years, Wexis can close their doors and bid goodbye to all those customers from whom they blood-sucked money like no man's business - especially the small lawyer shops..
4, I don't see it there. I think you're making a joke - right?
Google Scholar only shows page numbers in the margin on the line where they appear, so I wrote something to display cases using inline star pagination. http://links.lawstoreapp.com/stars
I tried Google Scholar and wasn't too impressed with the search platform and search results. They have a long way to go.
Richard D. Vetstein, Esq.
http://vetsteinlawgroup.com
thread is old but posting anyways: this service is incredibly useful! It lacks the precision of West's Boolean commands, but I got a lot of relevant results.
I used it last week to research a remand motion, where I ended up getting cases from federal courts all across the country. It would've been VERY expensive to search "allfeds" for these cases, as we don't have them in our plan.
Shepherd's is easily worked around- just use your cite as a query term, "234 f.3 26" and you'll get the cases that cited it, and can see if it's been overruled.
I'll log on to Westlaw to pull the cites and double-check to make sure the cases are not overruled. It will cost, maybe $20, rather than $500. Big win in my opinion.
It has a couple of main uses: (1) a convenient quick source for local cases when you don't need to bother logging on, (2) the perfect place to start your research of out-of-state cases. I like the relevance of the results. Some of the areas they need to improve on are links to statutes; and some of the "how cited" stuff. Ideally they'll offer PDF versions of imaged opinions for free (it's absurd that Westlaw charges for this).
This will only get better in the future, too. Thank you Google.