Complicated world of electronic legal research.

One of the basic questions in electronic legal research is: "If you can get access to everything for free on the Internet, why would you ever use a fee service such as QuickLaw?" Over the past few columns, I have reviewed the legislation and decisions available for free on different web sites. It is evident that there is a diversity of available information among jurisdictions. For example, the Alberta Queen's Printer provides access to the statutes on the Internet for free, but they are not searchable. This means you either already know which act you want or you guess based on the title. This unevenness is one reason why private legal research services continue to exist. This column will address other differences between Internet access and pay access to resources. QuickLaw will be the main representative of pay access due to their historical dominance in Canadian legal research and Alberta will act as the jurisdictional example due to their "middle of the road" stance in terms of access.

Quality

When discussing quality, there are two basic points to look at: source and added value. The large majority of free Internet sites with legislation or decisions come directly from the government. Their authority is unquestionable. Similarly, QuickLaw has agreements with each jurisdiction to receive these same judgments and laws. QuickLaw, like any other legal publisher, then adds value to the judgments by adding such features as headnotes. With regard to statutes and regulations, QuickLaw's main way of adding value is in the way it provides access. Free Internet sites generally put the received text directly on the Internet with a minimum amount of value adding. The benefit here is the quick turnaround time from receipt to accessibility. (QuickLaw has a series of judgment databases which operate the same way.)

Convenience

QuickLaw wins hands down when it comes to quantity. The convenience of having access to hundreds of databases through one service is not something to take for granted. Once you have an annotated list of databases, you know where to go and basically how to search it. If you are accessing your legislation or cases through the Internet, you need to know the web site address and possibly a variety of search commands. While there are web sites which compile these various sites for your convenience (such as ACJNet), you can not be sure you are covering everything. QuickLaw and other legal publishers are in the business of providing access to legal resources and are ultimately responsible for ensuring the stability and quality of what they offer. Non-profit organizations such as ACJNet and other compilation pages (for lack of a better description) cannot control what happens on other people's servers. Their main value is their "one stop shopping" approach to freely accessible resources. While they can not guarantee the quality or content of the information once you follow the link, they can apply their selection criteria to sites and regularly review them to ensure their continued adherence.

Date Coverage

With regard to data coverage, many of QuickLaw's databases span several years and in order to maintain their value, must be as current as possible. Most Internet sites only cover the last two or three years worth of information due to the limited availability of that data via the web.

Search Capabilities

The ability to search using the same basic commands using a service such as QuickLaw has already been mentioned. Although each database may have different fields that can be searched, basic navigation, search logic and functions remain constant. In QuickLaw, the string "@2 smith" in any judgment database will search the style of cause (names of the parties). However, if you were to go individually to each free Internet site with decisions, you will see several different ways to find cases by the names of the parties. In QuickLaw, you can always search. On the Internet, if the equivalent database exists at all, you cannot necessarily search it.

In summary, if you are a casual legal researcher, the Internet may provide you with all you need. If, on the other hand, you are a professional legal researcher or require comprehensive legal research, you most likely will require access to services like QuickLaw. If you are somewhere in the middle and need one-time access to these pay services, there are services like LawSearch where you can pay someone to search these databases for you. Typically, services like QuickLaw require you to set up an account first then choose to pay an hourly rate or flat rate for access.

The Electronic Legal Research Environment

Having said all that, there are some rumblings in the electronic legal research environment. At one time, QuickLaw was the only place to go for access to electronic sources of law. However, the technological strides made over the past five years have meant that more and more legal publishers are choosing to offer their resources directly to their customers rather than going through a third party such as QuickLaw. While this makes sense for some publishers, the legal researcher is at a major disadvantage. Now there are several services to subscribe to and several systems to learn rather than just one. Maritime Law Books has taken its law reports off of QuickLaw and set up its own pay service for access. Similarly, Carswell has recently removed most of the Canadian Abridgment (the mother of all legal research tools) from QuickLaw and set up its own web-based service through eCarswell called law.pro. Other legal publishers like the Alberta Queen's Printer have chosen to allow access to its statutes four different ways: through QuickLaw, over the Internet for free, through pay services with increased searching capabilities over the Internet, and via CDROM. While this may seem excessive, it is perhaps the best for users. Heavy duty legal researchers have the convenience of searching through QuickLaw. The casual user can use the free Internet site. People with a higher level of research needs can either pay the publisher directly for value added access through the Internet or the CDROM or visit their local library and hope that the library can afford access to it.

It is a complicated legal research world. Let's be careful out there.

ACJNet: http://www.acjnet.org

eCarswell: http:www.carswell.com/ecarswell/index.html

LawNow: www.extension.ualberta.ca/LawNow

Maritime Law Book: http:www.mlb.nb.ca/

Queen's Printer of Alberta: http://www.gov.ab.ca/qp/

QuickLaw: http://www.quicklaw.com