Just in case anyone else has tuned out of work-week-mode and is busy looking busy on a Friday afternoon, here’s a quick legal research tip that is at least somewhat work related…
Try out Lawcite (available on the AustLII website) next time you need to check the judicial treatment of a case. Lawcite is a completely automatically-generated case citator, so it includes all referrences to a case in subsequent cases (even if they’re only brief mentions). The lists of “cases referring to this case” can be rather long for those cases that have attracted a lot of judical discussion, but are great when you need to know you’ve reviewed every reference to a case.
In addition to comprehensive coverage of Australian jurisdictions, Lawcite includes “cases cited” and “cases referring to this case” from other jurisdictions covered by LII sites (UK, NZ, South Africa etc) and will link through to the full text of the unreported version of a case if it is available on either AustLII or one of the LII sites.
One down side to the automated process of compiling this database is that there are no catchwords or headnotes to search across, nor are the cases categorised into particular subject areas (unlike its subscription-based counterparts like CaseBase and FirstPoint). Like any case citator, Lawcite is great for locating cases, not for conducting in-depth research on a concept, phrase or topic. Which reminds me…
Remember, like all case citators, you are not searching across the full text of a case when running a search here – just the text contained in those citator (or summary) documents (party names, dates, judges, court, citations, cases referring to the case and cases it refers to etc). This applies to CaseBase and FirstPoint too – see my earlier article on case citators v full text databases if this is news to you! It’s a common mistake…
Feel free to post a comment or question if you have one!
Happy Friday!
March 11, 2011
Just came across a MUCH easier to use proximity operator for Google (thanks to Digital Inspiration). In short…
privilege AROUND(5) legal
Will find the word privilege within 5 words (either side) of the word legal.
Don’t forget to use CAPITALS or it won’t work people (just like the OR connector… “or” is a poor little word that gets completely ignored, “OR” is a useful search operator).
MUCH better than the old Google proximity search using an asterisk as an ordered substitute for 2 words (2 asterisks for 4 words, etc etc) which thankfully seems to have died… ugh.
Full article: An Undocumented Google Search Operator – AROUND
February 24, 2011
There are plenty of ways that lawyers can (and should) use Google for effective legal research. I’ve talked about some of them previously. In reality, however, experiences seem to oscillate between 2 extremes. There are the oldies who squint skeptically at their screen while typing with only their index fingers before huffing off to the library to read a 1992 text book instead. Then there are the young uns who type in a couple of general terms, scan the first 5 results and then profess that the issue hasn’t been considered. Anywhere. Ever.
Here’s one of my favourite tips for limiting your search to particular sites, domains and website types to keep your searches a little more accurate and time efficient.
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February 21, 2011
One of the most frustrating things to encounter in your legal research is a reference to a case with either a) no link; or b) a link that doesn’t work. It’s something that plagued me for years and continues to plague many of the lawyers I work with.
But instead of cursing the resource you’re using, the person that requires the research or you general choice of degree/profession until everyone within earshot is blushing due to your choice of colourful words, read on and learn what I wish I had understood (or perhaps, had listened to) in first year law school.
Legal publishers don't tend to play nicely with each other
The answer as to why this happens is simple: legal publishers are competitors – so they’re not going to link to each others’ products.
If you keep in mind that legal publishers are competitors, the reasons why they don’t link to each others’ report series and other products can often be easily explained and worked-around. And violent expulsions of expletives avoided.
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February 7, 2011
I love AustLII (yes, that is the nerdiest sentence you’ll read this year). It is an invaluable depository of free Australian legal material which has saved many a time-poor law student from being forced to navigate some of the busier databases out there. But I didn’t always love it. In fact, I pretty much steered well clear of it’s text-heavy interface for the same reason that many lawyers and researchers still do – too many pages (and paaages…) of irrelevant results. The good news is that it really only takes one very simple step to start using AustLII effectively.
Sick of piles of results when searching AustLII? There's a better way!
The reason you get sooooo many results on AustLII – all v any
Anyone who uses Google or any of the major Australian legal databases will be familiar with the idea of adding search terms to limit results. The more search terms, the more focussed and less numerous the results. Multiple search terms means you want to look for results with “all of these words” right? Well, usually… (more…)
January 31, 2011
Redundancies are up, billable hours are down and long boozy lunches are fewer and further between – it seems that lawyers are continuing to feel the pinch of the GFC .
So if you’re not one of the busy few working in insolvency or litigation, be smart and spend a little time each day working on your current awareness strategies. A little time invested now will pay dividends when the market turns around. Use this time wisely and be the lawyer who has developed closer client relationships (by keeping tabs on their industry), positioned yourself as a leader in your field (by researching and writing papers and articles) and has the alerts and habits in place to ensure you’re up to date when work picks up again.
For some great subscription-based services that you can use to stay up to date with legal and industry developments, feel free to check out my previous article on developing your current awareness strategies to beat the legal-market downturn. If, however, the research budget has been cut and your firm won’t be signing up for any new resources for a while, fear not – this article is all about the best free resources available for keeping up to date with legal, client and industry developments. I’ve been looking forward to writing this article and sharing some of these resources with you – in my opinion, the free resources listed below often beat their subscription-based counterparts on quality of information and timeliness. Thankfully, it turns out you don’t always get what you pay for – these free resources are worth your time and much more!
May 23, 2009
A huge thank you to Tom Mighell and Dennis Kennedy of the Inter Alia blog for featuring Legal Research Rescue as “Blawg of the Day” on 30 April 2009.
These guys find tonnes of great legal blogs and collate them all in one place – which makes it so much easier for the rest of us to find great reading material in a flash. They also publish Internet Legal Research Weekly – a valuable e-newsletter with handy tips, sites and publications for anyone interested in legal research.
Like most self respecting bloggers these days, you can of course follow @TomMighell and @denniskennedy on Twitter too.
May 2, 2009
There doesn’t seem to be any doubt that in some way or another, the global financial crisis has affected law firms in the same way it has affected many other businesses – work might be a little quieter, jobs a little less secure and clients a little harder to attract or retain.
Believe it or not, there might be some good to come out of all this doom and gloom. If you find yourself with a little extra time on your hands, resist the temptation to steal files off colleagues’ desks and instead use this time to develop your current awareness strategies – know you clients, their industries and the legal developments that affect them.
Relax! Keeping up to date is easy!
Investing a little time and effort in setting up strategies to remain up-to-date on client, legal and industry developments now will make you that much more valuable to your firm and clients – which is important now, when times are tough, and even more so when work does pick back up again. You will be the one with the impressive list of articles and papers to your name, a solid understanding of current industry and legal issues and strong client relationships.
There are some amazing free resources out there, many of them as good or better than the services made available by commercial providers. However, for the sake of brevity (I know, it’s not that brief an article at all!) I’m focussing on one or two specific alert services within a few commonly used paid/subscription legal research services. The other focus for this article (and the one to follow on free services) is on resources that can be used to monitor specific areas of the law or industries and not simply general “news” resources (these are of course useful, but most readers would already be familiar with them).
Read about legal developments before anyone else
Alert services provided by commercial suppliers are valuable tools for monitoring developments in specific areas of law. The ones I find most useful (because of their ability to be customised and/or the targeted ares of law they cover) are:
Lawlex’s legislative alerts – the ability to set up alerts for changes to legislation based on targeted areas of law, or specific Acts and Regulations, or a combination of both (selecting certain pieces of legislation that have already been identified as falling within a particular category) is really useful. The lists of legislation under each category are almost as exhaustive as you can get and a great way to make sure you’re keeping up to date with all of the relevant legislation, not just the one or two obvious Acts. The summaries provided by Lawlex when a piece of legislation is introduced or amended are also valuable as brief, plain-english descriptions of the effects of the amendments.
Lawlex’s regulatory newsfeeds – Rather detailed summaries of regulatory, legal, legislative and news developments in certain areas of law such as Environment, OH&S , Building & Construction and Financial Services. The Corporate Law newsfeed is one of the more valuable alert services available.
LexisNexis’ case law alerts – These are my favourite alerts for monitoring Australian cases when you are only interested in monitoring a relatively specific aspect of new cases. Once you have set up a personal profile within LNAU, simply run a case law search from the red “Cases” tab (using as many of the available search fields as you wish) and save the results as an alert. I use this one to monitor how certain judges treat particular issues, to see whenever a client or their competitors are involved in litigation and for monitoring many other issues, words/phrases and topics. Be sure to set your initial search to “last week” or some relatively short period as the alert has the effect of running that same search every morning (or whatever other time of day you set) and sending you the results list. Thus, if there is a new case in an area of interest, it gets sent to me each morning for a week. Kinda annoying (any longer than a week and it would be unbearable), but worth it for the level of personalisation afforded.
Thomson’s Alert 24 – This is another combined alert, providing details of legislative, case law, regulatory, policy and news developments for particular areas of law. I find the coverage really comprehensive and commercially focussed, which is what most of us are after. Once you’re within the “Current Awareness” > “Alert 24″ section and have had a look at the type of information covered under each of the subject areas, jump into “preferences” to set up your email alert. I find “Court Practice and Litigation” the one I get the most out of – good general updates on procedural issues. I know that the Bankruptcy and FSR alerts are both also popular with people I work with. Of course, the relevancy of the topics will be based on your prractice.
Know your clients and their industry
When it comes to monitoring clients and their industries, the free services (such as Google News and web alerts, Business Spectator and others) are some of the best services out there. Some of the subscription based alert services that I find useful include:
Dataanalysis - The Datanalysis alert service is a nightmare to navigate, but once you get through the set up process, the result can be very useful. Use this tool to receive an alert any time an announcement (or a particular type of announcement) is made by a publicly listed company (ASX only). Monitor clients, their subsidiary or parent companies, and other companies operating in the same spheres.
Merger Market – This isn’t one that I use regularly, but I have colleagues that swear by it. News about potential and definite mergers, takeovers and deals is provided and categorised based upon how reliable the source is. While they are admittedly very fast to market with validated information, it’s the “rumoured deals” that set this product apart.
These services are just the tip of the iceberg – the free resources you can use for keeping up to date with legal developments and industry news will blow you away – but I have to leave something for next time, don’t I?! If you’re interested in free tools you can use to monitor these kinds of developments, come back in a week or 2!
If you have any other subscription based products that you use for current awareness, please share!
April 16, 2009
Thanks a million to Chris McLean, founder of the Australasian Legal Technology site for blogging about LRR here!
Chris mentioned that he found the LRR Legal Research Library on Google Books of particular interest – see my original blog article on the topic here – which is really encouraging! I’d better go and make sure the library is as up to date as it should be – I have at least one reader now!
Before you visit the LRR library to curl up and read Black’s Law Dictionary (you know you will), be sure to check out McLean’s site – he describes it as “dedicated to providing information about technology used by the legal industry in the Australian and Asia Pacific market”. I am absolutely hooked – it’s an incredibly comprehensive, up-to-date and topical site for Australian legal professionals.
February 27, 2009
I’m so excited and honoured that LRR has rated a mention on Sean Hocking’s Practice Source blog!
LRR’s 5 minutes of fame on Practice Source / House of Butter.
Legal Research Rescue and Linda Moore’s new blog KM Librarian were both featured as useful Australian (yay!) legal research/knowledge management blogs.
Another great Australian legal research/KM blog I follow is Jo Hicks’ Bibliophile – it’s great to see so much support and information for Australian lawyers, law librarians and legal researchers out there.
Thanks again Sean!
Don’t forget to follow Sean Hocking, Linda Moore, Jo Hicks and/or me on Twitter!
February 10, 2009
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