The Google Scholar service has been extended so that users can
choose to search 'legal opinions and journals' for information that
they need.
Though court rulings and laws in the US are not protected by
copyright they are usually only available for comprehensive
searching in paid-for services to which universities and law firms
subscribe.
Google Distinguished Engineer Anurag Acharya said in a blog post
that the company hopes that its entry into this search market with
a free product will help US citizens to understand and engage with
their legal rights.
"As many of us recall from our civics lessons in school, the
United States is a common law country," said the blog. "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," said
Acharya.
Acharya said that the research tool was designe to help people
who were not familiar with the structure of legal information to
access it in an understandable way.
"We think this addition to Google Scholar will empower the
average citizen by helping everyone learn more about the laws that
govern us all," he said. "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."
Acharya acknowledged the work of other people who have worked to
make legal information and research available to people on a cheap
or free basis. Amongst those named is Joe Uri of BAILII, the
British And Irish Legal Information Institute. It publishes UK and
Ireland court rulings for free.
Ury told OUT-LAW Radio last year that BAILII was working not
just on publishing current judgments but the most important
historical ones, too, on which UK law was now based.
"We felt that if any judgments should be freed so that the
public can have access to them it should be this core of judgments,
which basically make up the judgment side of the common law
system," he said. "It seems natural that a member of the public
should be able to find out what that reasoning is, it shouldn't be
cloaked in secrecy."
Acharya said that ordinary users should not be intimidated by
the rulings and opinions Google Scholar is now set up to search. He
said that they are more accessible than the average layman might
imagine.
"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," he said.
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