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It's often simpler than that. You have a corpus of knowledge that you need to dig through. Cases are interconnected by footnotes (i.e. case X referenced preced

by hirsin 11y ago

It's often simpler than that. You have a corpus of knowledge that you need to dig through. Cases are interconnected by footnotes (i.e. case X referenced precedent set in case Y [and succeeded]). The relative strength of referencing a case is predicted by the number of references made to it [successfully]. The biggest use of highly-paid, entry-level law grads was to run from case book to case book, chasing down all those footnotes and getting photocopies of them. Digitizing them (i.e. OCR, make them searchable) and turning footnotes into hyperlinks basically negates the entire point of those entry-level grads. So, no use of predictive algorithms or fancy ML - just PageRank applied to a set of case books.

rayiner 11y ago
The downturn in the demand for "highly-paid entry level grads" is quite recent, and driven mostly by the general economic downturn in the U.S. Slower growth = fewer transactions that need to get papered and fewer busted deals that turn into litigation. Meanwhile, West/Lexis went electronic in the 1970's, and electronic research has been standard at business law firms probably for the last 20-30 years. In any case, the process of legal research was probably faster than you think pre-computers, because cases were all indexed by West/Lexis on the basis of their content. So even back in the days of book research, the primary use of young associates was, as it is today, discovery, not research. And it's funny you mention PageRank. Google Scholar has gotten better for legal research, but it's still vastly inferior to old-school search queries in WestLaw. PageRank is pretty much useless for legal research. The strength of referencing a case has nothing to do with how often it's cited, but the similarity in the factual/legal scenario in that case compared to your own.[1] A case nobody cites that addresses the specific wrinkle of the law your situation falls into is infinitely more authoritative than one that's highly cited for some generic principle of law. [1] PageRank is pretty good at finding seminal/controversial cases in an area of law, but that's rarely useful. You already know what those are, because you paid at least a modicum of attention in law school and/or you started your research by reading a chapter in the relevant treatise, which lays those cases out for you.
- hirsin 11y ago
  You got me - I only play a lawyer on TV. Thanks for the perspective, is West/Lexis still hiring people to read over content and rank/organize it?

by hirsin 11y ago

rayiner 11y ago

The downturn in the demand for "highly-paid entry level grads" is quite recent, and driven mostly by the general economic downturn in the U.S. Slower growth = fewer transactions that need to get papered and fewer busted deals that turn into litigation. Meanwhile, West/Lexis went electronic in the 1970's, and electronic research has been standard at business law firms probably for the last 20-30 years. In any case, the process of legal research was probably faster than you think pre-computers, because cases were all indexed by West/Lexis on the basis of their content. So even back in the days of book research, the primary use of young associates was, as it is today, discovery, not research. And it's funny you mention PageRank. Google Scholar has gotten better for legal research, but it's still vastly inferior to old-school search queries in WestLaw. PageRank is pretty much useless for legal research. The strength of referencing a case has nothing to do with how often it's cited, but the similarity in the factual/legal scenario in that case compared to your own.[1] A case nobody cites that addresses the specific wrinkle of the law your situation falls into is infinitely more authoritative than one that's highly cited for some generic principle of law. [1] PageRank is pretty good at finding seminal/controversial cases in an area of law, but that's rarely useful. You already know what those are, because you paid at least a modicum of attention in law school and/or you started your research by reading a chapter in the relevant treatise, which lays those cases out for you.

hirsin 11y ago
You got me - I only play a lawyer on TV. Thanks for the perspective, is West/Lexis still hiring people to read over content and rank/organize it?