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Digital Technology, Internet Research and Benefits of a Virtual Library

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2021

Zia Akhtar
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Abstract

The search of legal precedence or stare decisis has always distinguished the lawyer who is in professional practice. The development of the internet has led to a greater dimension in this research and to an empirical approach to understanding the application of law. The academic lawyer has always needed access to the newest legislation and case law and the online search engines are of increasing relevance to accessing the virtual library. This is necessary to assimilate because of the impact of law and technology which is not just of relevance to find texts but also the process of artificial intelligence that is of utility in forms of inquiry. It includes portals that can be sourced online, Lexis and Westlaw which have available software packages that are available for lawyers. The issue is if the technology is moving at excessive speed or is the momentum of digital technology sustainable within the profession. This article argues that legal software provides the means for artificial intelligence in an increasingly specialist field and it is necessary for professionals to stay equipped with knowledge updates on computer terminals in order to enhance their research or lose out in the information supply chain.

Keywords

Stare decisisdigital technologyinternet lawempirical legal researchlegal languagelaw as textcomparative legal methodtheory-testingblack letter lawartificial intelligence
Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Legal Information , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , Winter 2020 , pp. 110 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2021

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Footnotes

1

LLB (Lon) LLM (Lon) Gray's Inn.

References

2 Desmond Manderson and Richard Mohr, ‘From Oxymoron to Intersection: An Epidemiology of Legal Research’ (2002) 6(1) Law Text Culture 159, 161. For a breakdown of empirical and doctrinal PhDs in Australia see Desmond Manderson, ‘Law: The Search for Community’ in Simon Marginson (ed), Investing in Social Capital (University of Queensland Press, 2002) 152.

3 Mathias M. Siems and Dalthi Mac Sithigh, Mapping Legal Research, Cambridge Law Journal, Vol 71, Issue 3, (2012) 651-676 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-law-journal/article/mapping-legal-research/EA0828E0AEDBD803D928D138B8CD48C1.

4 Ibid.

5 Amrit Kharel, Doctrinal Legal Research (February 26, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3130525 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3130525

6 Ibid.

7 See, e.g., Smits, Jan M., The Mind and Method of the Legal Academic (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2012), 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar (suggesting that this should research what “the law should be”); Jan M. Smits, “Law and Interdisciplinarity: On the Inevitable Normativity of Legal Studies”, 1 Critical Analysis of Law 75 (2014) (“question of what the law ought to be”).

8 “Although the internet is subject to a variety of laws and regulation including copyright law, defamation law, the data protection framework, and the criminal law, a large volume of activity occurs online which would not normally be tolerated offline. Regulating in a Digital World, House of Lords, Select Committee, 2nd Report of Sessions, 2017–19, HL Paper 299, (2019) p 8 https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldcomuni/299/299.pdf

9 Legal Needs, Legal Capability and the Role of Public Legal Education A Report by Law for Life: the Foundation for Public Legal Education Lisa Wintersteiger (2015), 8 https://research.thelegaleducationfoundation.org/research-learning/funded-research/legal-needs-legal-capability-and-the-role-of-public-legal-education

10 Free Case law resources on line, Info law, September 2015. https://www.infolaw.co.uk/newsletter/2015/09/free-case-law-resources-online/

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14 C.M. Campbell, ‘Legal Thought and Juristic Values’ (1974) 1(1) British Journal of Law and Society 13, 15.

15 Duncan, N. J. & Hutchinson, T. (2012). Defining and describing what we do: Doctrinal legal research. Deakin Law Review, 17(1), pp. 83–119.

16 Ibid.

17 Desmond Manderson and Richard Mohr, ‘From Oxymoron to Intersection: An Epidemiology of Legal Research’ (2002) 6(1) Law Text Culture 159, 161. For a breakdown of empirical and doctrinal PhDs in Australia see Desmond Manderson, ‘Law: The Search for Community’ in Simon Marginson (ed), Investing in Social Capital (University of Queensland Press, 2002) 152.

18 Ibid., p. 131.

19 Amrit Kharel, supra 4.

20 Amrit Kharel, supra 4 and 19.

21 P. Chynoweth, Legal research in the built environment: A methodological framework Type Conference or Workshop Item URL (2008) pp. 670 -680 Available at http://usir.salford.ac.uk/12467

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 Khushal Vibhute & Filipos Aynalem, Legal Research Methods, Teaching Material, Justice and Legal System Research Institute, Ethiopia, 70 (2009).

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid., at 71.

27 Doctrinal inquiry involves deriving answers to legal questions from the study of existing legal provisions, which are reflected in legislation and case law, as well as commentaries provided on these sources within literature, thereby assuming that these legal provisions are internally coherent and consistent' (Vranken 2009,) Vranken, J.B.M., ‘Methodology of Legal Doctrinal Research: A Comment on Westerman’, in: van Hoecke, M.A.A. (ed.), Methodologies of Legal Research, Oxford: Hart Publishing, pp. 546–547Google Scholar.

28 Sanne Taekama, Theoretical and Normative Frameworks for Legal Research. Putting Theory into Practice. Law and Method (2017) https://repub.eur.nl › pub › RePub-111977-OA

29 Ibid.

30 Jan Smits, The Mind and Method of the Legal Academic, Edward Elgar Publishing (2012) 1.

31 W. van Boom, ‘Empirisch privaatrecht. Enige beschouwingen over de rol van empirisch onderzoek in de hedendaagse privaatrechtswetenschap’, 2013 Tijdschrift voor Privaatrecht, no. 1, pp. 7–84.

32 Ibid.

33 Frans Leeuw, Empirical Legal Research : The Gap between Facts and Values and legal Academic Training. Ultrecht Law Review, 11 (2), July 2015, 19–33.

34 R.K. Bullis, ‘Promoting Communications Between Social Scientists and Lawyers’, 2014 The Jury Expert 26, no. 4, pp. 2, 3.

35 D. Ho, L. Kramer, ‘Introduction: the empirical revolution in law’, 2013 Stanford Law Review 65, pp. 1195–1202.

36 S. Seidman Diamond & P. Mueller, ‘Empirical Legal Scholarship in Law Reviews’, 2010 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 6, p. 581.

37 Ibid. p. 587.

38 Jonathan Klick, The Empirical Revolution in Law and Economics: Inaugural Lecture for Erasmus Chair in Empirical Legal Studies (Erasmus Law Lectures). Eleven International Publishing (November 8, 2011).

39 Hazel Gunn, Martin Partington, Sally Wheeler, Law in the Real World, Improving our understanding of the law works, Final Recommendations, Nuffield Inquiry of Empirical Legal Research (2006) p. 31,

40 Vogel Friedemann, Hanjo Hamann and Isabelle Gauer, Computer-Assisted Legal Linguistics: Corpus Analysis as a New Tool for Legal Studies, Law and Social Inquiry, Vol. 43, Issue 4, Fall 2018, 1340–1363.

41 Ibid.

42 Jan Vranken, Exciting times for Legal Scholarship, Boom Juridischtijdschriften (2012)https://www.bjutijdschriften.nl/tijdschrift/lawandmethod/2012/2/ReM_2212-2508_2012_002_002_004

43 Ibid.

44 Schauer, F., Thinking Like a Lawyer. A New Introduction to Legal Research. Cambridge (MA) 2009, p. 11Google Scholar.

45 R. Stürner, Das Zivilrecht der Moderne und die Bedeutung der Rechtsdogmatik,’ Juristenzeitung 2012, pp. 10–24.

46 J.E. Owoeye, Information Communications Technology (ICT) Use as a Predictor of Lawyers Productivity, Library Philosophy and Practice e Journal, 11/2011, University of Nebraska. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/662.

47 Ibid.

48 Tom Fenwick, Richard Edwards, Exploring the impact of digital technologies on professional responsibilities and Education. European Educational Research Journal, Vol 15, Issue 1, 2016 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1474904115608387.

49 P.G. Korrel & O.W.M. Kamstra, Sociaal wetenschappelijke & juridische methodologie. Amsterdam: Melkman 1991 p. 18; R.A. Posner, The problems of Jurisprudence, Harvard: Harvard University Press 1993 p. 70; M. Salter & J. Mason, Writing Law Dissertations. Harlow: Pearson Education 2007 p. 6. J. Smits, The Mind and Method of the Legal Academic, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing 2012. p. 37.

50 Salvatore Caserta & Mikael Rask Madsen, “The Legal Profession in the Era of Digital Capitalism: Disruption or New Dawn?,” Laws, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 8(1)(2019) pp. 1–17.

51 Section 23 (2) of the Legal Services Act allows a range of Alternative Legal Service Providers that provide unregulated legal services providers, which includes charities, not for profit public, community interest company, independent trade union. These bodies can offer legal services on their own account without additional authorization, for example as an SRA-regulated independent solicitor.

52 Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 27, 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation).

53 Parah 8 of the preamble. Directive (EU) 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/790/oj.

54 Article 15 Rights in Publications.

55 Bianca Whiley, Governance and How Code is Becoming Law, Centre for International Governance Innovation, Data Governance in the Digital Age, Special Report (2018) 86–92. https://www.cigionline.org/publications/data-governance-digital-age.

56 Jessica Dheere, A Methodology for Mapping the emerging legal landscape for human rights in the digitally networked sphere. Global Information Society Watch (2017) https://www.giswatch.org/en/report-introduction/metodology-research-laws.

57 Ibid.

58 See, e.g., P. Leith et al. ‘Rewarding Merit in Judicial Appointments? A research project undertaken by the School of Law, Queen's University Belfast for the Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Commission’, January 2013. Available at http://www.nijac.gov.uk/index/what-we-do/publications/qub_final_report_merit_2013.pdf.

59 See Retail Servs., Inc. v. Freebies Publ'g, 364 F.3d 535, 541 n.1 (4th Cir. 2004).

60 See Eugene Volokh, Google: First Amendment Protection for Search Engine Results, Volokh.com, Apr. 20, 2012, http://www.volokh.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/SearchEngineFirstAmendment.pdf.

61 See generally Rosetta Stone Ltd. v. Google, Inc., 676 F.3d 144 (4th Cir. 2012)(alleging direct, contributory, and vicarious trademark infringement liability for search engine using third-party advertising keywords).

62 See Jack M. Balkin, The Future of Free Expression in a Digital Age, 36 PEP. L. REV. 430 (2008) (addressing the challenges to free speech protections.

63 See generally Rosetta Stone Ltd. v. Google, Inc., 676 F.3d 144 (4th Cir. 2012)(alleging direct, contributory, and vicarious trademark infringement liability for search engine using third-party advertising keywords).

64 Alex Heshmaty Legal Research: What does the future hold. 4/5/18 https://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/blog/future-of-law/legal-search-what-does-the-future-hold.

65 Ibid.

66 This implies that academics may need to spend less time on formulating instructions for search engines. Law Society document, Capturing Technology Innovation Report, January 2007, p. 28. https://www.lawsociety.org.uk › research-trends › documents › capturing-t.

67 Ibid.

68 Supra 79, 85. Ibid.

69 F. Vogel, H. Hamaan, I. Gauer, Computer assisted legal linguistics: Corpus analysis as a new tool for legal studies, Law and Social Inquiry (2017) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/lsi.12305.

70 Ibid.

71 Y. Bai, I. Gauer, H. Hamann, F. Vogel, Computer assisted Legal Linguistics (Cal 2) An Interdisciplinary approach. (2017) p9 https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-artslaw/corpus/conference-archives/2017/general/paper246.pdf.

72 A. Hueck, A., & H.C. Nipperdey (1957). Lehrbuch des Arbeitsrechts. Berlin: Vahlen.

73 Bindman, Geoffrey, and Karon Monaghan. JAC Report: Judicial Diversity: Accelerating Change. (2014) https://jac.judiciary.gov.uk/sites/default/files/sync/news/accelerating_change_finalrev.pdf.

74 The impact of ODR technology on Dispute Resolution in the UK (2016) Thomson Reuters, p. 9 https://blogs.thomsonreuters.com/legal-uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2016/10/BLC_ODRwhitepaper.pdf.

75 F. Vogel, H. Hamaan, I. Gauer, Computer assisted legal linguistics: Corpus analysis as a new tool for legal studies, supra 79.

76 Lawrence M. Solan, The Language of Judges. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (1993) Linguistic Issues in Statutory Interpretation. In The Oxford Handbook of Language and Law, ed. Peter Meijes Tiersma and Lawrence Solan, (2012)87–99. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ——.Can Corpus Linguistics Help Make Originalism Scientific? Yale Law Journal Forum (2016), 126:57–64.

77 Dan Bindman, Legal Technology: The future of the legal profession. https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/features/legal-technology-the-future-of-legal-services.

78 See, e.g. https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/law-firms-join-forces-with-university-in-lawtech-initiative.

79 Ibid.

80 Ibid.

81 Ibid.

82 Eduardo Reyes, Education is Ready for Anything. 26/2/18 https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/features/education-ready-for-anything/5064951.article.

83 Never Without My Lawyer. Jonathon Goldsmith Embracing the IT Revolution, 29/10/18 https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/commentary-and-opinion/embracing-the-it-revolution/5068084.article.

84 Protecting and Promoting Competition in response to Response to “Disruptive” innovations in Legal Services paragraph 74 (2016) Organisation of Economic and Cultural Development (OECD) (2016) paragraph 74, available at: https://one.oecd.org/document/DAF/COMP/WP2(2016)1/en/pdf.

85 Six Ways the legal sector is using A1 right now, Seedrs, 13/12/18 https://www.lawsociety.org.uk.lawsociety.org.uk/news/stories/sixways-thelegal-sector-is-using-AI.

86 Lex Machina (acquired by LexisNexis) filters through vast amounts of US case law to predict outcomes of various legal strategies. There is also the utilization of evidence search tools that are being effectively used to reduce the costs and time of e-disclosure, in a process known as predictive coding.