From the website:
Searching the Web is easy. Why should searching the law be any different? That’s why Fastcase has created the Public Library of Law — to make it easy to find the law online. PLoL is one of the largest free law libraries in the world, because we assemble law available for free scattered across many different sites — all in one place. PLoL is the best starting place to find law on the Web.
Well…., yes, I suppose “[s]earching the Web is easy” but getting useful results is not.
Getting useful results from searching the law is even more difficult. Far more difficult.
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (US Federal Courts) run just under one hundred pages (one sixty-eight (168) with forms). For law student there is The Law of Federal Courts, 7th Ed. by Charles A. Wright and Mary Kay Kane at ten (10) times that long and is a blizzard of case citations and detailed analysis. Professionals use Federal Practice and Procedure, Wright & Miller, which covers criminal and other aspects of federal procedure, at thirty-one volumes. A professional would also be using other resources of equal depth to Wright & Miller on relevant legal issues.
I fully support what the Public Library of Law is trying to do. But, want you to be aware that useful legal research requires more than finding language you like or happen to agree with. Perhaps more than most places, in law words don’t always mean what you think they mean. And vary from place to place more than you would expect.
Deeply fascinating reading awaits you but if you need legal advice, there is no substitute for consulting someone with professional training who reads the law everyday.
I have included the PLoL here because I think topic maps have a tremendous potential for legal research and practice.
Imagine:
- Mapping case analysis, law, to pleadings, depositions, etc.
- Mapping pleadings, motions, etc. to particular trial judges.
- Mapping appeals decisions to particular trial judges and attorneys.
- Mapping appeals decisions to detailed case facts.
- Mapping appeals decisions to judges and attorneys.
- Recording paths through depositions to other evidence.
- Mapping different terminologies between witnesses.
- Mapping portions of pleadings, discovery, etc., to specific facts, courts.
- Harvesting anecdotal stories to create internal resources.
- Or creating a service that offers one or more of these services to attorneys.