Advanced Legal Research

Joshua Lenon – ClioEd Walters – FastcaseAdam Ziegler - Mootus

Agenda

• Modern Search Engines – 20 minutes• Crowdsourcing – 10 minutes• Academic Publishing – 5 minutes• Alternative Sources – 10 minutes• Research Plan – 5 minutes• Questions – 10 minutes

Modern Search Engines

Modern Search Engines

Ed Walters, CEO, FastcaseJanuary 28, 2014

<1> Intro

Chaos

Hammurabi

Blackstone

West Key Number System

LexisNexis

Google

“standard of review” w/3 question w/10 (law and fact)

Hey, Siri, is the judge going to review my mixed issue of law

and fact de novo?

</1> Intro

<2> Filter and Sort

Filter

Overinclusive and Underinclusive

Where’s the algorithm?

Sort

Google

PageRank

</2> Filter and Sort

<3> Beyond Filter and Sort

Numerosity, proximity, density, diversity

Empower people with customized sorting.

Created citation analysis tools.

Data Visualization

Read me.

Forecite.

One more thing.

</3> Beyond Filter and Sort

<4> What’s Next

</4> What’s Next

Crowdsourcing

What is Crowdsourcing?

Opening labor, decision-making, or information gathering to an undefined public.

- Wikipedia

Photo by Jeremy Nicoll on Flickr under Creative Commons License

Crowdsourcing

• Old vs. New– Stock market– Sports betting– American Idol– Kickstarter

Photo by Andos_pics on Flickr under Creative Commons License

Crowdsourcing Professional Knowledge

• Programming• Design• Research/Science/Data• Architecture• Medicine

Photo by Michael Kramer on Flickr under Creative Commons License

Crowdsourcing Law Knowledge

• What’s new is old: common law = crowdsourcing

• Collaboration is heart of lawyers’ work– Colleagues– Online/offline groups – Blogging/commentary– “Moot” arguments– Amicus briefing

• Crowdsourced legal research/analysis is the next step

Photo by yuan2003 on Flickr under Creative Commons License

How Crowdsourcing Works

• Applications– Q&A– Annotation– Curation

• Contributor Incentives

Photo by amanky on Flickr under Creative Commons License

Crowdsourcing

Advantages• Quality• Efficiency

Limitations• Tool in the toolbox• Responsibility remains

with lawyer• Ethics and

confidentiality• Field still developing

Photo from the Library of Congress

Academic Publishing

Academic Resources

• “There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content.” – Professor Fred Rodell, “Goodbye to Law

Reviews” (1936)

Photo by chickeninthewoods on Flickr under Creative Commons License

Academic Resources

1970-80s 2000+0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Academic Source Citation

Source: New York Times, “Lackluster Reviews that Lawyers Love to Hate,” 10/21/2013

Social Science Research Network

SSRN eLibrary Statistics:• Abstracts: 525,956• Full Text Papers:

431,203 • Authors: 244,094 • Papers Received in

Last 12 months: 66,308

Citations:• Papers with Resolved

References: 249,640• Total References:

8,855,914• Papers with Cites:

238,195• Total Citation Links:

5,911,972• Papers with Resolved

Footnotes: 86,465• Total Footnotes:

8,931,406

SSRN Top Downloads

Alternative Sources

Alternative Sources

1. Source Materials2. Local and State Resources3. Non-Profit Sources4. Non-Academic Writing5. Non-Legal Search Engines

Source Materials

• Legislatures and Courts publishing their own materials– US Office of the Law Revision Counsel– Bound Volumes of the Supreme Court– State Court Opinions– Regulatory Opinions

Photo by Sarah Price Photography on Flickr under Creative Commons License

Local and State Resources

• Libraries– Courthouses– Law Schools– Bar Association Headquarters

• Bar Association Resources– Member Benefits

Photo by Dan Cronin on Flickr under Creative Commons License

Non-Profit Sources

Non-Academic Writing

Non-Legal Search Engines

Scholar.google.com

Non-Legal Search Engines

Research Plan

Research Plan

• Use Academic Sources and Non-Academic writings to maintain subject matter competency

• Turn to Alternative Sources for basic research

• Confirm results using Modern Search Engines

Questions

joshua@goclio.com@Joshualenon

Thank You

www.goclio.com@goClio

Smallfirminnovation.com@SFInnovation