Internet Newsletter for Lawyers |
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The result is a huge database listing more cases from more courts, and from
more years, on more topics, and with more full judgments than other systems.
There are 95,000 case listings, 92,000 links to full text decisions, 104,000
references to external paper resources and neutral citations, 33,000 case
summaries, and 24,000 cross-references between cases.
Casemaps provide a very helpful way of seeing a case in context, working in a
way similar to map pages on the Internet where clicking on a location, “re-centres” the map on that point of interest.
Cases Cited By pages and Cases Cited show respectively how the logic of a
case has been developed, and lay bare the historical logic of a case.
The service has been created by solicitor David Swarbrick, one of the pioneers
of the legal internet, who has provided the free lawindex service since 1993 at
www.swarb.co.uk. Incidentally, the free
service is still available.
I asked Angus Hamilton, a solicitor in private practice in North London, to review
the service. Angus’s firm, Hamiltons Solicitors,
www.hamiltons-solicitors.co.uk
specialises in criminal litigation, data protection
issues, regulation of the internet, computers and the law and e-commerce.
Angus did not find it particularly helpful (see below). I also asked David
Swarbrick to explain a bit more about the service (further below).
The unique selling point of Lawindexpro appears to be that any case that is
researched is placed in a context, referred to on the site as a ‘Casemap’, which
provides links to both the cases cited by the particular case and the cases which
cite it. The idea is to illustrate how case based or ‘judge made’ law has
developed through a series of judgments.
Lawindexpro also provides a weekly e-mail based updating service which lists
significant judgments of the preceding week. The resource is subscription based
although some limited facilities are accessible without charge.
My approach to Lawindexpro was as a criminal litigator specialising in offences
committed utilising the medium of the Internet. Currently my principal resources
are Sweet & Maxwell’s Crime Desktop, a CD ROM based service which links
case law and commentary together and which is updated 6 times a year;
Crimeline, a free weekly e-mail based case reporting service; Criminal Law
Week’s weekly online subscription based statute and case law updating service
and Butterworths online service. An increasing number of significant cases are
also now available free of charge online – for example through BAILII.
The main question I posed about Lawindexpro was whether it offered a
significantly different service from that offered by my current resources.
Ultimately I don’t think that it does and it is not a resource that, as a criminal
litigator, I would currently consider investing in. My present most common route
for researching a point is to use Crime Desktop to look at the law as it was
approximately 3-4 months ago and then to use Criminal Law Week and
Butterworths to check on recent developments. All recent reported cases will
indicate whether they are overruling, confirming or clarifying previous decisions
and therefore the facility offered by Lawindexpro to place a case in context
seems to me to be of limited value. It is possible that a practitioner practising in
a different area e.g. civil litigation or employment law may find the resource
more useful.
I must say that I also found Lawindexpro’s search facility frustrating. I tested the
facility by searching for the Court of Appeal’s decision in Oliver Hartrey and
Baldwin from November 2002. This is the leading authority on sentencing in
cases involving indecent photographs of children. I entered the year, court and
name of the decision. Frustratingly the search did not lead me to Oliver but to
a couple of earlier authorities. The search also produced a long list of other
authorities none of which seemed to have anything to do with the case I was
looking for or the criteria I had entered – which was rather bewildering. It is
possible that I was not using the search facility properly although I would expect
such a facility to be either ‘obvious’ or to have clear instructions about usage.
Email hamiltons@btinternet.com.
The ways in which case law is accessed and used are changing rapidly. The fact
that a case is looked up on the internet changes fundamentally the way it can
be read, and will change the way that cases should be read. Lawindexpro sets
out to make the best use of the internet in first finding cases and then presenting
the cases in ways which make the best use of that environment.
Where a particular named case is wanted, we facilitate the name search. Name
searches form over 90% of all cases access requests. We know that in 71% of
5,000 recent searches for particular cases, the case sought was found - a very
high success rate. These cases are from all areas of law, law reports and
jurisdictions.
Lawindexpro is interactive. It is a continuing conversation between our
subscribers and ourselves. Our users tell us which cases they want more
information on, and we provide the information, as far as we can. In this way, we
are collecting only material which has continuing relevance.
When faced with a case which our reviewer felt deserved noting up, he need
only hit a button to request that the case be upgraded. The case itself is not
available in full text through lawindexpro, but we have to reflect the selections
made by the resources we rely upon. In this case neither the judges, the Court
Service, nor BAILII have felt it necessary to publish the case. We have a
summary and references to three paper resources for further information. We
list some 13,000 cases from that court.
We are creating a new and very different way of researching case law. As
students we learn that common law is built upon the principle of precedent. Each
judgment is derived in part from previous judgments. Paper based systems
necessarily present cases as if they stood alone. Lawindexpro makes it possible
to see case law as it actually works - as a continually developing flow of logic.
We are not a specialist service. Even a specialist must have general case law
resources. Lawindexpro provides that general resource very effectively and at
a fraction of the costs of other services.
I would be pleased to provide any subscriber to the Internet Newsletter for
Lawyers with a free one month trial. Please contact me on
ds@lawindexpro.co.uk.
Back to Contents.
Lawindexpro: Review and Discussion
Introduction by Delia Venables
Lawindexpro (www.lawindexpro.co.uk) is a case law database and research tool.
It links to UK and European cases as they come on line, and notes up and cross
references important cases, adding and noting up older cases as they are cited. Angus Hamilton’s Review
David Swarbrick’s Comments