Internet Newsletter for Lawyers |
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The Times has been providing fewer and fewer of its law reports for free on its site for some time and now there is hardly anything left. If you take the "Law" option on the left, you are taken to the current articles and there is apparently a weeks' worth of free law reports kept online but personally I cannot find them. You can also carry out a search on the archive without charge (take "free sample search") but having found something, you can only download it if you pay a fee. It says "Our database contains Law Reports back to 1985 and law related articles from May 1989. The sample search will return one page of results matching your request, each result displaying the heading and the first paragraph of the article. The ability to retrieve an entire article is exclusive to our subscribers". I have tried very hard to get more information from the Times Law section journalists about what the Times is planning to do with its law archive, but none is forthcoming. As far as I can see, it is just a very sad story.
I asked David Swarbrick if he knows what is going on. David has indexed the Times Law reports (amongst other law reports) for many years. His database of law reports is available at www.lawindexpro.co.uk. He says:
"I think that the system is now that you register to subscribe to the reports. This need not (I think) cost you anything but you register with your credit card. Having registered you can go into the law reports section. Within that section reports over the last seven days are free, but anything before that is charged.
That is what I think but I am not sure! I have tried registering twice but failed to pass the IQ test. My email asking for help went unanswered. I did try the first "free trial" but I pushed the wrong button. It set off to download too many articles - then told me I had exceeded my free trial limit and didn't show me any at all!
However, quite apart from the present practical problems, which may well be temporary, it does seem to me that the Times Law Reports are diminishing rapidly in importance.
They used to have two virtues. They came out quickly, whilst others came out very slowly. They are also really only summaries. It was possible to quote them in court because they were often the only report yet available. Now the reverse is true. The Court Service and others are far quicker, and no court will want to rely upon a summarised report where the full one judgment is available.
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