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Editor's Note: This article is excerpted from the book How to Use The Internet For Legal Research by Josh Blackman, Esq.
The communication and marketing advantages of the Internet are clearly unique and unavailable from Lexis or Westlaw. The Internet is also a valuable research tool, although effective use of the Net for research requires an understanding of its unique properties. When most lawyers think of electronic legal research, they think of Lexis and Westlaw. Due to their longterm domination of the field, these two services have determined the nature of online research. The emergence of alternative electronic resources (including CD-ROM, electronic bulletin boards (BBS's) and the Internet) has demonstrated that Lexis and Westlaw have not exploited all the features of electronic research media.
The Internet in particular, offers many new and valuable ways to conduct research. For example, one can access Internet documents from central "collections" created by lawyers and law librarians, one can access databases provided for free by public and private organizations, and one can use the Net to find experts for consultative purposes. One of the most unique research uses of the Net is the ability to ask the legal "community" for help locating a source that may not be available from traditional media. Only three years ago, there was no way to access a welltrafficked "mailing list" to ask the international community of law librarians for example, where to find the new Commercial Code from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). When this question was posed recently at my firm, and no traditional source had the code (including Lexis, Westlaw, the Library of Congress, the U.S. Commerce Department, and the many excellent international law collections in North America), the INT-LAW list provided the answer. Within hours of posting the request to the list, several responses were received which identified an Abu Dabai source for the Code, as well as a recommended translator.
Mailing list archives are also valuable sources of information. Rather than "reinvent the wheel" every time a question comes up, it may save you time and your client money if you check to see if your peers have already resolved the issue. Mailing list archives contain the history of discussions that have occurred on the list. For example, to...