Swensen, Greg --- "Review of 'Laying Down the Law: Computer Assisted Legal Research'" [1996] MurdochUeJlLaw 33; (1996) 3(4) Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law

Review of "LDL Online: Laying Down the Law: Computer Assisted Legal Research"

Author:	Greg Swensen LLB
Issue:	Volume 3, Number 4 (December 1996)

Review of Surendra Dayal "LDL Online: Laying Down the Law: Computer Assisted Legal Research". Sydney: Butterworths, 1996 (174 p).

1. This book is designed to fill a gap in knowledge of how to use a number of different PC-based tools and services that enable searches and retrieval of legislation and case materials. As IT systems are characterised by a relentless quest for improved technological capabilities of computer systems and their operating systems, students and practitioners alike need to access low cost and contemporary introductory materials. This book goes a long way to meeting such a need.
2. A nice touch in this regard was the inclusion of email addresses in the preface of the book for the reader to contact the author or the editors of the series Laying down the law. The email address of a discussion group was also added for those readers who may wish to subscribe to a discussion group devoted to computer-based legal research tools.
3. One of the nice features about the book is that it is well structured and has a very comprehensive table of contents. While there is also a detailed index if you may need to locate a specific matter, in this reader’s experience the table of contents was more than adequate as throughout the book maintained a tight step-by-step approach to each specific service.
4. A consistent format is followed (i.e. what is it, how it works, and examples) in Chapters 3-9, which deal seriatim with each full text service. Preceding these chapters, which make up the bulk of the report, are two introductory chapters, while Chapter 10 outlines the Internet and Chapter 11 deals with AustLII.
5. As may be expected Chapter 1 sets out the objectives of the book, defines key terms and refers to some of the concepts behind PC-based information systems. Chapter 2 provides a succinct overview of full text searching with an explanation of fundamental searching commands, strategies in data searching and a brief description of linking of data and terms by hypertext. As these introductory chapters dealt superficially with only a few terms and concepts, a bibliography would have been a useful addition to satisfy readers who wanted to develop a more comprehensive understanding of some of this material.
6. It would have been helpful if there had been a section in these introductory chapters about the principles of PC networks. It is the opinion of the reviewer that an additional such a level of detail would assist users to better understand the performance of the services covered in subsequent chapters, as for many it is likely these databases and services will be accessed through a network rather than as stand alone PCs.
7. A number of the text-based systems discussed, Info-One (Chapter 4), LawPac (Chapter 5) and Lexis/Nexis (Chapter 6) are online data systems and accordingly have a potential advantage over CD-ROM services of providing the user which current legal materials. As there are some variations in the breadth of material that can be found in the these major online data services, users may need to be familiar with the strengths and limitations of each. Two of the services, Info-One and LawPac, are confined to Australian materials, with Info-One providing access to case materials and legislation for most jurisdictions (except Queensland), whereas LawPac largely contains case law for all jurisdictions except Western Australia.
8. As the Lexis/Nexis system is based in the United States, as may be expected this service provides a very broad coverage of American federal and state case law, statutes, regulations and public records. Lexis/Nexis also provides access to legal services from Canada, a number of other European jurisdictions, Australia and New Zealand and enables the user to access a broader spectrum of business and other relevant information from these jurisdictions.
9. The book provides a sense of the capabilities of each service by outlining details of the special features of each system. This is supplemented by examples of data searches and short exercises for the reader to undertake as a form of review at the end of each chapter. A strength of each chapter was the frequent inclusion of screen shots to assist the reader visualise the different steps involved in considering a topic, refining a search by use of keywords and parameters and steps in downloading or printing results.
10. At the time the book was being written a number of CD-ROM services were in the final stages of development with release planned during 1996. These services are Butterworths Research library, and LBC’s The complete legal research system. As both of these services utilise the same software application, FolioViews, the author provides a separate step-by-step overview of the use of this software in Chapter 7, before discussing each service separately in Chapters 8 and 9.
11. Many of the services provided through these two CD-ROM services will already be familiar to many. The Butterworths CD-ROM contains Halsbury’s laws of Australia, Australian current law, Australian legal words and phrases, as well as some additional services containing annotated Federal legislation, with planned additional annotations for a number of jurisdictions in the near future. LBC’s CD-ROM contains the laws of Australia, Australian digest, Australian legal monthly digest and Australian case citator.
12. There are important differences in the nature of the material contained on these CD-ROMs compared to the earlier online case materials. The implications of this difference is thoroughly dealt with by the author through a helpful discussion in the book about the way information is searched and indexed by the FolioViews application.
13. As in these CD-ROMs each paragraph within the selected database is treated as a record, a paragraph can be understood as being equivalent to an individual document. This means that results of a search will be a function of the matches made within each individual document. This may be contrasted with the full text system that underpins Info-one, LawPac and Lexis/Nexis. In these systems an individual document is understood as a case or a statute and accordingly a match against your search criteria will be satisfied if the words appear anywhere in the entire case.
14. A useful technique with using FolioViews is to create a shadow file, as this is used as the basis for building up bookmarks and for making annotations and notes in relation to a particular search. This means that in subsequent searches the user can return to this particular portion of a marked text to either continue the earlier search, or review material that had been identified before. I felt that the author could have dealt in more detail with this aspect of FolioViews, as well as provided additional comprehensive descriptive examples about tagging and downloading records.
15. The coverage of the Internet in Chapter 10 is a very good example of the difficulty in being able to keep up-to-date with areas undergoing rapid change. For instance, whereas version 1.22 of Netscape Navigator is discussed by the author in the book, within the space of a year we now have Netscape Navigator Gold (version 3) on the market. (Navigator also now has a potent competitor in Microsoft’s Explorer web browser). There are also a number of useful HTML tools, such as Microsoft Internet Assistant, an add on to Word 6, to enable a user to overcome the problems caused by loss of formatting previously experienced when downloading HTML files as plain text. Future editions of the book would need to deal more thoroughly with these areas.
16. I thought there was insufficient coverage of the AustLII (Australasian Legal Information Institute), an Internet service operated by the University of Technology Sydney. This shortcoming is understandable as it appears the details of the transfer of the SCALE system (Attorney General's Department Database) had not been fully worked out when the book was being written. It is also possible that AustLII is given a lesser emphasis as a system that may be more extensively used by students, than by some of the proprietary systems dealt with earlier in the book.
17. A good feature of this book is the extensive use of screen shots of different menus, icons, toolbar buttons and query screens to illustrate steps in undertaking a search. The book was also easy to read through the use of an attractive layout, a moderate size font and the frequent use of emphases and highlights through the text. An irritating feature was the summary contained at the end of each chapter - this seemed unnecessary given most chapters were short and the table of contents was very detailed.
18. The index could have been more helpful. For instance, there was not an entry for shadow text, nor for Netscape. The text had been proof read very carefully, which was important in a book such as this which contained many terms and symbols. An exception to this high standard occurred at page 152, where the Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS), was referred to as the Attorney General’s Publishing Service.
19. I recommend this book as a key text and ideal tool for law and legal studies students. It should adequately equip students, as well as possibly practitioners, to confidently use the key services and software applications detailed in the book.