Importance of Internet in Legal Research.

Importance of Internet in Legal Research.
Why use Internet for Legal Research?
Benefits of Internet in Legal Research.

Importance of Internet in Legal Research.

In the past few years, many new resources have been put up on the Internet that facilitate legal research

work. The sheer number and variety of resources can sometimes make it difficult to determine where to start, how to choose among similar resources, and how to keep up-to-date on available resources. The present guide is intended to explain why the Internet is useful for legal research, and describe some of the major resources available on the Internet for researching the law of the United States and other countries, comparative law, and international law. It will conclude with some tips for the net-traveling researcher.

 

Why Use the Internet for Legal Research?

The Internet is a cheap alternative to the use of commercial databases such as LEXIS and WESTLAW for finding primary legal materials such as U.S. federal and state statutes, bills, cases, and regulations. Sometimes these materials are available more quickly on the Internet than on LEXIS and WESTLAW (especially if they relate to the Law of Cyberspace/The Internet, Computer Law, Immigration Law, the First Amendment and censorship, Communications Law,Intellectual Property, major criminal and other famous trials, Antitrust Law, elections, or other hot topics). And sometimes, the Internet is the only place where you will find some primary materials, for instance, legislation and case law from foreign countries, treaties involving non-U.S. countries, e-mail addresses and other directory information for legal professionals worldwide, and materials in areas of law that have been traditionally underrepresented in print and electronic legal publications (women and the law, human rights, the rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people, law and literature (for instance, e-texts of Jane Austen's writings), Roman law, law and popular culture, etc.), and non-legal materials that are important to law work or interdisciplinary research.

The Internet can augment an average law library's resources by providing alternate copies of print materials, and information that cannot be found in the law library in print or electronic format. For instance, here are some examples of the types of resources that are on the Internet: census information, uniform and model acts; news; publishers' catalogs; worldwide library catalogs; tables of contents of journals; full text of articles from electronic law and non-law journals; books (such as the Classics); bookstores (Barrister Books (academic textbooks), Amazon, etc.), poetry; Shakespeare's works; Classical music; Bartlett's Quotations; song lyrics; comic strips; tax forms; sports information (such as professional baseball and basketball players salaries and other basketball information); travel information; legal documents (transcripts of hearings, reports, briefs, memoranda, complaints, indictments, oral arguments, etc.). The Internet is strongest for non-legal materials, and for legal materials that are usually not found or will not be available as quickly on LEXIS and WESTLAW and print publications in your law library.

Benefits of Internet to Legal Research

- The Internet is data and information loaded, including a range  of medium

- The search engines that are available online are, fast and powerful.

- The Internet is easy to use

- Easier access to data

- Motivated to share their work online with the world

- The Internet appeals to different learning styles

- Unlike paper the web can present dynamic data sources which change over time

- The characters in an e-mail don’t get transposed or mixed up when they are sent over long distances

- Access libraries around the world