Google Scholar: Now With Full Text Opinions!

Google has added state and federal court opinions to its Scholar service, which I will cautiously endorse as a good first step. But I will suggest that they add a lawyer or two to their team, because the engineers aren't starting from a place of complete understanding:

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.

What did they think an opinion was? "In the case of Roe v. Wade, we're going with Roe." [Gavel strike.]

Without a lawyer on the team, they won't be able to move much past a straight search-and-return model. That is certainly something we need; everyone should have free, digital access to these materials. And building it on a ubiquitous platform means its very user-friendly. But it will need to be much more robust to be useful to practicing lawyers. It doesn't need to offer all the features of a LexisNexis or Westlaw, but a free solution that approaches the functionality of those services would be a welcome option.

Thursday, November 19, 2009