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LN and Westlaw's real service is their ubiquity. Every law student has access to it and every firm expects proficiency. While they generally suck, the last time
by ahi 1y ago
LN and Westlaw's real service is their ubiquity. Every law student has access to it and every firm expects proficiency. While they generally suck, the last time I used it (looong time ago), their boolean search was quite nice. That kind of text search has mostly been replaced by non-deterministic black boxes which aren't great for legal research.
- piker 1y agoYou forgot to mention their claim of copyright over the bulk of, e.g. obscure state case law.
- ehecatl42 1y agoSo, you have to pay to access the law that you are subject to?
- piker 1y agoIf you want it digitized, yes, odd as that seems. You can go find individual prints of it or perhaps digital copies of opinions elsewhere, but those are also technically copyrighted in a lot of cases too.
- jfil 1y agoIn some jurisdictions, like Ontario, there are secret agreements that only allow 3 organizations to have digital access to Case Law (https://www.cameronhuff.com/blog/ontario-case-law-private/ https://www.cameronhuff.com/blog/ontario-case-law-private/). This says a lot about our society, and how much we still have to improve.
- throwup238 1y agoThey've also got the Microsoft effect going on. Usually at least one of their products like their personal information aggregator used for locating people (like when serving lawsuits) is mandatory for a firm so it's just easier for them bundle everything else in.