1.8 Million US Court Rulings Now Online

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "For a long time now, lawyers and any serious law students have been bound to paid services like LexusNexis for access to case law, but that is slowly changing. Carl Malamud has posted free electronic copies of every U.S. Supreme Court decision and Court of Appeals ruling since 1950, 1.8 million rulings in all, online for free. While the rulings themselves have long been government works not subject to copyright, courts still charge several cents per page for copies and they're inconvenient to access, so lawyers usually turn to legal publishers which are more expensive but more convenient, providing helpful things like notes about related cases, summaries of the holdings, and information about if and when the case was overturned. This free database is not Carl's first, either. He convinced the SEC to provide EDGAR, and helped get both the Smithsonian and Congressional hearings online."

And the response...

[daveschroeder]

...from Thomson, the provider of Westlaw services:

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/letter_to_west_response.pdf [resource.org]

Seems a pretty reasonable response to his initial query:

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/letter_to_west.pdf [resource.org]

Thus, Thomson is justified in asserting copyright on materials which represent unique, original, or significant contributions to the content, and does not assert any copyright whatever on material which is in the public domain.

And if this work helps provide greater access information which is already publicly, but not easily, available, then it's a Good Thing.

But Westlaw and LexisNexis do a lot more than just make case law available online. There is a lot of editorial work, summarizing, organization, not to mention costs often imposed by the courts themselves, and Carl Malamud correctly acknowledges that.

No search feature

[lib3rtarian]

I think this is a great idea, but from the brief glance at the site that I took, it would appear that is has absolutely no search feature at all. LexusNexxus and the other sites have sophisticated search features. 1.8 million records stored in 1000 pdfs is more or less worthless IMO.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

not to nitpick, but...

[to_kallon]

paid services like LexusNexis

it's actually LexisNexis [lexisnexis.com].

Similar Canadian database

[fishwallop]

Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis have similar subscription case reporters in Canada, where they cooexist peacefully with this free site [canlii.ca], where you can freely search and read most "recent" Canadian case law (e.g. from the mid 1990s to date), as well as some older important appellate cases. The paid services have more "editorial content" such as detailed headnotes and cross-referencing to commentary.

The single most important thing lawyers want, other than the case itself, is to know what other cases say about it: which subsequent authorities cite the case, and why? The ability to "note up" a case ("Quickcite" on Lexis-Nexis Canada, "Shepardizing" in Westlaw-speak) to see at a glance if it has been followed, overturned or otherwise commented on is a critical feature for any online repository of case law. Until Malamud's site does this it's not true competition to the subscription sites.

Re:Similar Canadian database

[ebingo]

Try www.canlii.org [canlii.org] to go to the website.

It's not micromanagement...

[ChePibe]

People sue each other. 1.8 million over a period of 58 years comes to about 31,000 year from a whole lot of courts - not too bad, and not unheard of. If you want to cut down on case law, people will need to stop suing each other. That's not going to happen - and I'm not sure it should. The courts provide a vital means for people to settle disputes without resorting to self-help (i.e. theft, assault, etc.). This isn't even including criminal cases - if you've got a way to stop people committing crimes and appealing their sentences, that's great. Also keep in mind that many of these opinions are as short as a sentence.

There have been, actually, numerous attempts lately to simplify the common law - the restatements of torts, contracts, property, etc. The restatements, however, aren't created by elected officials but a group of law professors, academics, lawyers, and judges. Some states like the restatements and follow them. Some don't - and some legislatures (elected officials) have taken steps to change the common law as in the restatement.

Then there are other areas - the Uniform Commercial code, for example - that have helped to simplify the law. But legislatures still want to tweak these (and with reason).

Then there are other codes, such as the Model Penal Code, for criminal law. The MPC is great and all, but it has its problems as well.

A big problem with these "simplifications" of law, however, are the time required to create them. It can take decades for the ALI to come to a decision on matters and publish a restatement. A legislature can do the same job much more quickly.

Re:So....

[spiritraveller]

Lawyers will not use these services much, they will continue to use annotated and commented editions. This is more a victory for the common man who wants to better understand the machinery of U.S. law and justice.

This is very true. In my solo practice, I tried so hard to make use of the free materials that my state bar makes available online. The system is called Casemaker, and it's actually quite good. But as good as it is, it doesn't come close to what Westlaw provides.

With Westlaw (and Lexis as well), every case has a little symbol in the top left corner. If it is green, it is probably good law. If it is red, then the case is no longer good for at least one point of law. Considering the amount of time that this feature saves, it is well worth the $120 a month that I pay to another law firm to use one of their Westlaw passwords. In fact, if I were to deal directly with West, I would pay at least $200 a month and they would lock me in to a 12 month contract. Other lawyers gladly sign up.

When you think about how much energy it takes to categorize and flag every single case that comes out and cross-reference it with a semi-subjective interpretation of how it treats all the cases that it cites, and to categorize every single paragraph in a case for the specific legal question that it covers, these services are well worth the cost.

If it were just the text of the cases and statutes, then it would be a rip-off. But the text of the cases and statutes are almost always available for free from other sources. Every state government should provide its statutes and caselaw online for free. As far as I know, most of them do. The same is true of the Federal system. But it's hard to make significant use of that if you don't have any of the tools that are available in a good law library. Westlaw and Lexis are like a law library at your fingertips.