Computer-assisted legal research (CALR) or computer-based legal research is a mode of

legal research Legal research is "the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a probl ...

that uses databases of court opinions, statutes, court documents, and secondary material. Electronic databases make large bodies of

case law Case law, also used interchangeably with common law, is law that is based on precedents, that is the judicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based on constitutions, statutes, or regulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of a l ...

easily available. Databases also have additional benefits, such as Boolean searches, evaluating case authority, organizing cases by topic, and providing links to cited material. Databases are available through paid subscription or for free.

Subscription The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, and ...

-based services include

Westlaw Westlaw is an online legal research service and proprietary database for lawyers and legal professionals available in over 60 countries. Information resources on Westlaw include more than 40,000 databases of case law, state and federal statute ...

LexisNexis LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer informa ...

JustCite JustCite is an online legal research platform from Justis Publishing Ltd. It is designed to help users find leading authorities and establish the current status of the law. JustCite has a legal search engine, with built-in citation index functi ...

HeinOnline HeinOnline (HOL) is a commercial internet database service launched in 2000 by William S. Hein & Co., Inc. (WSH Co), a Buffalo, New York publisher specializing in legal materials. The company began in Buffalo, New York, in 1961 and is currently b ...

Bloomberg Law Bloomberg Law is a subscription-based service that uses data analytics and artificial intelligence for online legal research. The service, which Bloomberg L.P. introduced in 2009, provides legal content, proprietary company information and news ...

, Lex Intell, VLex and LexEur. As of 2015, the commercial market grossed $8 billion. Free services include OpenJurist,

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

AltLaw AltLaw was an American academic project from 2007 to 2010 aimed at making federal appellate and Supreme Court case law publicly available, "to make the common law a bit more common." The project was a collaboration between Columbia Law School's Pr ...

Ravel Law Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...

WIPO Lex WIPO Lex is an online global database launched in 2010, which provides free public access to intellectual property laws, treaties and judicial decisions from around the world. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) maintains and devel ...

, Law Delta and the databases of the

Free Access to Law Movement The Free Access to Law Movement (FALM) is the international movement and organization devoted to providing free online access to legal information such as case law, legislation, treaties, law reform proposals and legal scholarship. The movement b ...

Purposes

Computer-assisted legal research is undertaken by a variety of actors. It is taught as a topic in many

law degree A law degree is an academic degree conferred for studies in law. Such degrees are generally preparation for legal careers. But while their curricula may be reviewed by legal authority, they do not confer a license themselves. A legal license is gra ...

s and is used extensively by undergraduate and postgraduate law students in meeting the work requirements of their degree courses. Professors of Law rely on the digitization of primary and secondary sources of law when conducting their research and writing the material that they submit for publication. Professional lawyers rely on computer-assisted legal research in order to properly understand the status of the law and so to act effectively in the best interest of their client. They may also consult the text of case judgements and statutes specifically, as well as wider academic comment, in order to form the basis of (or response to) an appeal. The availability of legal information online differs by type, jurisdiction and subject matter. The types of information available include: # Texts of statutes, statutory instruments, civil codes, etc. # Explanatory notes and government publications relating to statutes and their operation # Texts of governing documents such as constitutions and treaties # Case judgements # Journals on legal matters or legal theory # Dictionaries and legal encyclopedia # Legal texts and materials in the form of e-books # Current affairs and market information # Educational information on the law and its operation

Before the Internet

Prior to the advent and popularization of the World Wide Web, access to digital legal information was largely through the use of CD-ROMs, designed and sold by commercial organizations.The "free access to law movement" in India: supporting legal education, research and practice Priya Rai and Akash Singh (2015) Legal Information Management 178 Dial-up services were also available from the 1970s. As the use of the Internet spread in the early 1990s, companies such as LexisNexis and Westlaw incorporated Internet connectivity into their software packages. Browser-based legal information started to be published by Legal Information Institutes from 1992.LII/Legal Information Institute, Cornell University https://www.law.cornell.edu/

Publicly available information

The first effort to provide free computer access to legal information was made by two academics, Peter Martin and Tom Bruce, in 1992. Today, the

Legal Information Institute The Legal Information Institute (LII) is a non-profit, public service of Cornell Law School that provides no-cost access to current American and international legal research sources online alaw.cornell.edu The organization is a pioneer in the del ...

freely publishes such resources as the text of the

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven ar ...

, judgements of the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

, and the text of the

United States Code In the law of the United States, the Code of Laws of the United States of America (variously abbreviated to Code of Laws of the United States, United States Code, U.S. Code, U.S.C., or USC) is the official compilation and codification of the ...

. The

Australasian Legal Information Institute The Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) is an institution operated jointly by the Faculties of Law of the University of Technology Sydney and the University of New South Wales. Its public policy purpose is to improve access to just ...

(AusLII) was established soon after in 1995. Other legal information institutes, such as those of Great Britain and Ireland (BAILII),

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

(CII) and South Africa (SAfLI) soon followed. LIIs were partially formalized in 2002 following the signing of the Declaration of Free Access to the Law, which has been signed by 54 countries. At the time of writing, the World Legal Information Institute contains in excess of 1800 databases from 123 jurisdictions. Many governments also publish legal information online. For example, UK legislation and statutory instruments have been publicly available online since 2010. Depending on the jurisdiction in question, the decisions of higher appellate courts may also be published online, either by the Legal Information Institute or by the court service directly. Sources of

European Union Law European Union law is a system of rules operating within the member states of the European Union (EU). Since the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community following World War II, the EU has developed the aim to "promote peace, its valu ...

are published for free by

EUR-Lex Eur-Lex (stylized EUR-Lex) is an official website of European Union law and other public documents of the European Union (EU), published in 24 official languages of the EU. The Official Journal (OJ) of the European Union is also published on EUR- ...

in 23 languages, including judgments of the European Courts. Similarly, judgements of the

European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...

are published on its website.

Purposes

Before the Internet

Publicly available information

Further reading

References

See also