Long gone is the time when attorneys walk into a dusty room with staggering bookcases to find the latest version of a statute or situation that will stand out the judge. Decades ago, legal work was a time-consuming process that required long days and nights buried within a law library. I’m able to Internet and digitization of books came significant advances and changes in legal act resources. Now, this industry that provides these modern tools could be as big, if not bigger, than a fraction of the largest law firms in the territory.
Attorneys in modern day age have to be able to comprehensive indexes of cases and statutes with a simple click of a button. These databases and research hubs are operated by a handful of companies that staff hundreds or 1000’s of employees to appear at latest cases are usually published, usually through state or federal court. The employees then provide summaries of the cases, which highlight present themes or rulings. In addition, these digital databases offer numerous resources beyond cases and statutes. They also contain secondary sources such as law review articles that analyze certain topics in the law or treatises, are usually respected summaries of certain areas of law.
One of the primary aspects of persuasive legal writing could be the citation of cases that are current and still good law. That means there cannot be subsequent cases that overturn or negatively affect the holding reached in initial company was established case. This task used to be accomplished by the time-consuming process of cross-referencing and reading extra cases. However, with these modern digital databases, task gets done from your legal resource firm.
These advances in legal research tools have dramatically changed the size and existence of legal libraries all a fair distance. In the past, every respectable law firm, courthouse, legal aid center, and law school had large levels of their buildings concentrated on storing books. Now, many of these institutions have dramatically cut down across the size of physical legal books an incident books. Some may retain a small portion of their previous collection as ornaments rather than practical resources.
One realm that has not been dramatically impacted by these modern innovations is the research of legislative history, such as looking at the first sort versions of legislation or determining the intent of federal government in drafting regulation. Much of this information is unavailable digitally or online, likely because among the sheer volume among the work and the relatively low demand by attorneys. For those resources, legal researchers must turn to the old fashion approach of going any state or federal library, requesting the actual info in advance, and sitting down and reading.