Advocate's Studio

Here is a bit of common sense from real life example: when using Google Scholar for your legal research, use care in making sure that versions of a case match. Legal Writing Prof Blog has a post about an attorney preparing a brief for filing who noted a discrepancy in the footnote numbering between the official Wisconsin Reporter version of a case and the Google Scholar version. The Blog quotes the attorney’s findings as follows:

The source of the discrepancy quickly became apparent.  In the official version of the case (as in all official versions of Wisconsin cases), the filing of a petition for review in the Wisconsin Supreme Court gets noted in the caption with a footnote placed at the end of the name of the party that filed the petition.  The symbol for this footnote is a dagger, not a number.  Google Scholar, however, designates this footnote with a number (in this instance, the dagger became “1″) and renumbers the remaining footnotes accordingly.  Where there’s more than one footnote attached to the caption – e.g., Ellsworth v. Schelbrock, 229 Wis. 2d 542, 600 N.W.2d 247 (Ct. App. 1999) – Google Scholar shifts the footnote numbers even more:  in Ellsworth, the caption has two footnotes, so the numbered footnotes shifted by two as well, making footnote 1 in the official version into footnote 3 in the Google Scholar version.

My thinking on the proper role of Google Scholar is this: the greatest cost in using the paid databases is the time spent poking around looking for the main cases on a point of law. Once you have identified those cases, the costs of pulling them down out of the paid databases is relatively inexpensive. I see Google Scholar as an effective (but not sole) tool for the former task. When writing an appellate brief to any court, I would not feel the slightest bit comfortable relying on Google Scholar’s version. At that point, I would be pulling the actual cases from the paid databases. While these sources are far from infallible, they do have a longer track record with respect to accuracy, as well as complete citations and the ability to Keycite or Shepardize, a must for briefs to be filed in any court.

So there you have it. Use the free resources with your eyes wide open to their possible shortcomings, and you should not go far wrong.

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I admit that I am a bit late on breaking the news on this one, but I do want to link to my article reviewing Google Wave that ran last month in the GP Solo Technology eReport published by the ABA. Already, the information appears a tiny bit dated, but that’s just the speed that the Web travels. Check out some of the other great articles too, you might recognize a few names and certainly will pick up some good information!

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Further to my earlier post about Wikis and Blogs as sources for legal authority and judicial citation, here is a great link to the Harvest Christian Academy’s page entitled “Lose Your Wikipedia Crutch.” The page lists 100 places to go in search of information on a variety of topics, arranging the places by type such as Library & Reference, User Contributed, Encyclopedias, Science & Math, Social Studies, Fine Art, Language & Literature, Technology, Question & Answer, General and Miscellaneous. If you just aren’t sure about that Wikipedia entry, why not try one of the alternatives listed in this article to jump-start your search?

Also, in the spirit of healthy competition, Google has announced its own user-contributed-content encyclopedia, Knol. The tagline is “a unit of knowledge.” According to itself, a “knol” is an authoritative article on a specific topic. From the site:

Knol makes it easy for you to write and share your knowledge with the world. Knol offers:

Ease of use
All you need is an account, a name and a desire to write and we’ll take care of the rest.

Control
You specify the level of collaboration you want with the community. Your knol, your voice.

Community
You can connect with other experts in your area of interest to share and grow knowledge.

Visibility
We value and promote authorship. Great content will be visible on any search engine.

Growth
Sharing your knowledge with the world is rewarding for everyone.

It was launched on July 23, 2008 and appears to still be in beta form. There is still plenty of room for good “knols” contributed by all of you bursting-with-knowledge sorts.