G. Conclusions

• Author: Ted Tjaden
• Profession: National Director of Knowledge Management McMillan LLP
• Pages: 153-154

Page 153

Given the wide choices of legal resources - ranging from print, CDROM, Internet, and commercial online services - under what circumstances would one choose commercial online services? There are several possible answers to this question:

· Scope of material: Some of the online commercial services provide access to materials, such as unreported court decisions, that are otherwise unavailable or extremely difficult or expensive to acquire directly from the court file. Most lawyers and legal researchers will therefore want to access these databases to ensure the widest possible scope of their searches.

Page 154

· Precision of searching: Commercial online databases have sophisticated search engines that allow the user to limit keyword searches precisely to specific fields (the name of a party to the lawsuit or the name of opposing counsel), a feature not usually available on free Web resources.

· Online noting up: These commercial services also have current, easy-to-use note up abilities that allow the researcher to verify whether the case being researched is still good law. While noting up can still be done in print, the speed, currency, and accuracy of noting up online is far superior to print resources.

· Bill back: While a potential disadvantage of these commercial online services is their cost, this can also be a...