Getting free or low cost access to a plain text searchable database is no longer a problem for lawyers. It was 8-10 years ago, but since the entry of Google Sch

Getting free or low cost access to a plain text searchable database is no longer a problem for lawyers. It was 8-10 years ago, but since the entry of Google Scholar (and Casetext, Ravel, and a half dozen or so other providers) getting access to the law is no longer difficult. To echo the original post, the law today is in a place like the "deep, dark, early days of the Web, using search engines like Lycos and Alta Vista". We do need a "Google for the law," but Google isn't good enough to be that. It's a very hard problem to create a good search engine for the law, but legal search engines will eventually get there.