Legal Research on the Internet
| Author | Ted Tjaden |
| Profession | Faculty of Law and Faculty of Information Sciences University of Toronto |
| Pages | 94-113 |
CHAPTER
5
LEGAL
RESEARCH
ON
THE
INTERNET
A.
INTRODUCTION
Legal
research
has
changed drastically over
the
last
five
to ten
years
due
to
the
Internet. Traditionally, legal researchers used print materials
in
law
libraries
to
find
law-related information. This meant that
one was
limited
to the
amount
of
space
and
materials
the
print-based
law
library
could
afford,
a
limitation
that
often
meant that
the law
library
had a
finite
collection focusing
on
materials
from
within
its own
juris-
diction. While CD-ROMs
and
online commercial databases (Chapter
6)
have brought legal research
to the
researcher's desktop (especially
over
the
last
ten to
fifteen
years),
it has
been recent Internet technolo-
gy
that
promises
to
revolutionize
the way
legal research
is
conducted.
This chapter will
focus
on
freely
available Internet resources, which
have several applications
for
legal research:
as a
source
of
information (searching
the
World Wide Web)
as
a
means
of
communication (using e-mail)
as
a
virtual community (using law-related discussion groups)
The
usefulness
of the
Internet
for
legal research
is
reinforced
by its
wide availability throughout most
jurisdictions
in the
world
and its
rel-
ative
ease-of-use.1
A
particularly nice
feature
of the
Internet
is the
abil-
1
This chapter assumes
the
reader
has
some experience
in
"surfing
the
Net"
and is
comfortable
with using
Web
browsers
to
navigate
"back"
and
"forward"
through
94
Legal
Research
on the
Internet
95
ity
to
expand legal resources beyond
the
walls
of
one's
own
print
law
library
to
online
international
and
foreign legal resources that would
not
have been easily accessible
to
most researchers through traditional
means.
While
the
Internet
has a
number
of
useful features,
it is
always
necessary
for the
researcher
to
evaluate
the
quality
of
information that
is
being
found,
especially since
not all
material
on the
Internet
has
been subject
to the
same level
of
editorial control
as
most print
or
fee-
based publications.
B.
EVALUATING
WORLD WIDE
WEB
INFORMATION
There
are
standard criteria
by
which
free
Web
sites
should
be
evaluat-
ed.2
These criteria include
a
number
of
things that evaluate
the
quality
and
reliability
of the
information
to be
found
on the
site:
Authorship:
Who
authored
the
material?
Is it
clear
who
owns
the
Web
site?
Is the
site
affiliated
with
a
reliable
or
known publisher
or
organization?
Does
the
site provide
a
mailing address, phone number,
and
e-mail address?
It is
always important
to
consider authorship
when using
freely
available
Web
sites
—
anyone
can
publish
a Web
site
with relative ease with
no
objective
editorial
policies
or
control.
Accuracy
and
quality:
Is the
site
free
of
spelling
and
grammatical
errors? Does
the
site
contain broken links? Well-maintained
Web
Web
pages,
to
"bookmark"
favourite
Web
pages,
and in
downloading
or
saving
information.
If
readers
are not
familiar
with these sorts
of
things, they should
first
consult introductory books
on the
topic, including such works
as
Lewis
S.
Eisen's
Canadian
Lawyer's
Internet
Guide,
3d ed.
(Thornhill,
ON:
Amicus
Legal
Publishing, 1997) (also available
on
Quicklaw,
database identifier:
CLIG);
or
Drew
Jackson
&
Timothy
L.
Taylor,
The
Internet
Handbook
for
Canadian
Lawyers,
3d ed.
(Toronto: Carswell,
2000),
both
of
which
are
listed
at the end of
this
chapter.
See,
e.g., Hope
N.
Tillman, "Evaluating Quality
on the
Net" (March 2003),
online:
Hope's Happy Home Page
Sabrina
I.
Pacific,
"Getting
it
Right:
Verifying
Sources
on the
Net"
(1
March
2002),
online:
LLRX.com
Mirela
Roznovschi,
"Evaluating Foreign
and
International Legal Databases
on the
Inter-
net,"
online:
LLRX.com
Brian
Jones, "Evaluating Internet
Legal
Resources" (1997)
22
Can.
L.
Libraries
8;
Gene Tybursky,
"Publishers
Wanted,
No
Experience Necessary: Information
Quality
on the
Web"
(24
June 1997), online:
LLRX.com
2
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