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Colin Fong and Terry Hutchinson[1]
AustLII is the largest Australian legal Internet site. In fact, AustLII has been billed as one of the largest sources of legal materials on the Internet, “with over six gigabytes of raw text materials and over a million searchable documents”.[2] But what about the plethora of other Australian legal sites on the net? What sites are available? What purpose do they serve? What criteria should we use to judge them?
The prime focus of this paper is those “other” Australian legal research guides. Some of these originated as internal documents for students and staff at universities. Ironically, once these internal documents were placed on the Internet, they ceased to be internal and became public documents. This is an important point in any evaluation, because the primary objectives of each site will determine its focus and scope. For example, the creator’s primary updating obligation may be to the sites’ main users and not necessarily to the wider public. Therefore, updating may be linked to the ebbs and flows of the academic year. This is where standard indicators such as currency dates become essential. Some of the guides have original content, whereas many of the others are merely bookmark links to other sites. The links pages do serve a useful purpose, especially for those bewildered by the net and needing a place to start. However, in this paper, emphasis will be given to discussion about the various examples of sites with original content. Many of these also provide links to other sites.
The purpose of this paper is to establish criteria for lawyers to use to critique the sites they come across. It also aims to categorise and list the sites available, because it is important to differentiate sites, so that you do not attempt to compare chalk and cheese. The publishers’ sites, for example, have extensive financial input. It seems unfair to “stack them up” against an individual enthusiast’s efforts – or, indeed, the product of a funded university effort.
So, what are the various categories of sites we can identify? Firstly there are the university law schools. Practically every law school has a faculty web address (32 at last count), and many of these have Legal Links attached. Generally, they provide bookmarks for their students and other materials relevant to their courses, such as course outlines and study guides. Some faculties are attempting to provide their courses in a flexible delivery mode via the Internet, for example, the Queensland University of Technology’s postgraduate law courses. The links provided on the pages are to materials useful for student assignments and coursework. There are also at least a dozen Australian law student sites available, including the Australian Women Law Students’ site. Some, like the Queensland University of Technology Law Students’ site (QUTLA), include Legal Links.[3]
Next come the 10 or so professional association sites, including the Law Council of Australia, Bar Association and Law Society sites. LawNow is a little different. It was formed as the result of a merger of Themis (established by the Queensland Law Foundation) and Desktop Law Pty Ltd (New South Wales), and is a high security extranet, which provides access to court lists and a variety of legal publications.[4] All of these types of sites are primarily directed to the practising profession, and aim to provide additional access, especially for those in remote areas and sole practitioners.
LawNow is not alone in recognising that electronic publishing is the way of the future. The Australian legal publishers are not only using their sites to advertise their products, but also as a gateway to their electronic materials. All the publishers are experimenting with the new methods – after all this is their core business. The commercial publishing sites thus provide another category of research information, with Butterworths, CCH and LBC Information Services, competing against the smaller providers such as Time Base (formerly Aunty Abha’s)[5], LawNow (Queensland, NSW and Australian legislation), and Anstat (Victorian and Australian legislation). These, along with the government sites, tend to be the most reliable sources of information.
The government has an obligation to provide access to public information. Many of the government sites include legislation, full text of speeches and discussion documents aimed not only at providing information, but also opening two-way channels of communication between government and the public. In this way, they attempt to elicit responses from a wider spectrum of people than the departments may have been able to communicate with previously. There is clear recognition that government needs to be open and flexible in its policy formulation. Thus, the Internet can provide another effective method of community consultation regarding changes to the law.[6]
Finally, there are the private sites built by enthusiasts in their own time. This category of site is often the most useful for the neophyte. These sites provide the fulsome bookmarks and candid commentary for lawyers wanting an easy map for Australian legal materials on the net.
The Legal Information Standards Council (Law Foundation of New South Wales), consists of representatives from the government, publishers, libraries, professional bodies, and legal aid. They have been working on Best Practice Guidelines for Legal Web Sites. These suggest the following criteria for consideration for those establishing and evaluating web sites:
- The person(s) or organisations(s) responsible for the information on a site is clearly indicated.
- Legal content should be checked by a lawyer with expertise in the area.
- From any point on the site the authorship should be apparent or easily ascertained.
- The currency of the information is clear.
- The jurisdiction to which any information relates is clear.
- The content makes a clear distinction between legal information and legal advice.
- Where appropriate, users are directed to other quality sites and sources that contain related information.
- Links are not made to other sites by framing them within the original site, unless permission has been obtained.
- Where appropriate, users are provided with information on how and where to obtain further advice.
- [Consideration be given to] providing links to relevant legislation and case law.
- [For sites] where links to primary legislation and case law are considered useful, use the correct form of citation.[7]
Therefore, the LISC guidelines are looking at ideals. This paper, of course, is looking at what is actually available on the web, so not surprisingly, there is some overlap. In addition, commercial reality means that the best practice guidelines, while being the ideal, may not always be feasible in the circumstances. The guidelines originated from a committee that is primarily focusing on community access to law, whereas this paper is examining sites with law students, academics, librarians and practising lawyers in mind. In addition, there are many sites that consider mistakes in web design on a more general basis. One example is Jakob Nielsen’s Top 10,[8] but there are many more.[9]
Therefore, in the following 14 criteria we are in a way critiquing what exists and in doing so we include some disclaimers. We have not covered all the possible sites, but merely chosen a few representative research sources for comment. Secondly, although every effort has been made to examine the sites thoroughly, it is possible that all aspects or features are not highlighted.
ACCURACY
Accuracy is always important when you are dealing with the law. So it is important that the material presented is not misleading. There are a few provisos here. A site may include superseded legislation, for example, as long as it is clearly noted that this represents the law at a particular point of time. Some sites tell you material is available on the Internet, but do not give you the year range.[10] Such added information saves users accessing and downloading information only to find out the required year is not available. Australian sites should obviously give preference to directing users to Australian materials. If comparative material is included it should be tagged as such. Many of the links provided for citation sources, for example, tended to be to US materials. Bibliographic details need to be updated regularly. At one site visited, for example, mention was made of Australian and New Zealand Citator to the UK Reports 1996, even though 1997 and 1998 editions were available.
CURRENCY
In the past, lawyers used to wait for cases to be reported in the law reports and the time for this process varied from a matter of weeks to over a year. In the present publishing environment, lawyers not only want decisions handed down hours ago, they also want to anticipate when a judgment will be handed down. Take, for example, NRMA v Morgan [1999] NSWSC 407, where there was a discussion regarding the necessity for legal advisers to note the possible implications from an impending High Court decision.[11]
Up-to-date information is regarded as paramount; however, some legal research sites lack a statement regarding the latest update. Where pages are compiled for internal purposes, then a note on the page, alerting the user to the fact that updating is seasonal is necessary. It may simply consist of a sentence stating that the academics involved only update this page at the beginning of every year or semester and deal with further changes by e-mailing their students and user groups via discussion lists. Sometimes segments on the website may seem incomplete if this is not made clear. Notification of recent papers may have been given in class or elsewhere, but may not yet have made it to the website list.
UPDATED LINKS
Of course, within the site it is important that the links work. In a posting to INT-LAW on 10 May 1999, for example,[12] some surprise was expressed at not being able to access the International Trade Law Project/Monitor website at the University of Tromso, Norway for the previous few weeks. The sender had tried the following URLs:
On 24 May 1999, the Link was still faulty. Then on 31 May 1999, it was reported that the International Trade Law Monitor was back, and renamed Lex Mercatoria: International Trade Law/Commercial Law Monitor and available from:
In situations such as this, perhaps there should be an onus on the site creators to keep users abreast of their work. This may mean creating a message to say that they are changing a web address or doing maintenance on the site. A similar example has occurred locally with an Australian tax service changing its URL apparently without adequate notification to all users.[13]
There are various software packages that automatically update web links. In a posting to the Australian and New Zealand Law Librarians List, 21 October 1998, one piece of software was mentioned: URL-mind.[14] It may be that the HTML software may have an easy solution, and therefore the systems technicians can suggest solutions depending on the type of web server software being used.[15]
EASE OF USE
The issue of ease in use is many faceted. Whether or not a site is easy to use can relate to the screen colours, type fonts, graphics, internal links, organisation, downloading facilities, contact information for site manager – and much more. Is the site user friendly in regard to its choice of screen colours? Dark colours can be difficult to read and print. It is frustrating not being able to read a screen because your computer has lower hardware specifications than the provider’s.
Links to the home page on the bottom of each page can be most useful – especially when you have landed in a site as a result of a web search and want to broaden your search, or simply read about the information provider. A rule of thumb seems to be that the content of the site should be no more than three clicks away from the home page. So the information should be easy to access and exit after use.[16]
Graphics are great and simple graphics may serve to infuse some humour into the site. But too many graphics can result in the pages being slow to download. A busy page, with too many frames and graphics, can distract the user from the main message. As Newman has commented, “Overreliance on purposeless graphics is particularly distracting in legal sites because the law is a highly text-oriented discipline and legal publishing has historically made limited use of graphics”, apart that is, from the ubiquitous West key.[17]
ORIGINAL CONTENT
Some legal research guides are simply links to other Internet web pages, but that does not necessarily mean that the site has no original content. The links may be annotated and categorised in a way that makes them very accessible. Hot links may have been added to original study material, so that cases are easy to access. Lists can also be useful. A good example is Lyonette Louis Jacques’ list of law-related email discussion lists.
There are no culling editors policing publication on the Internet, but any evaluation criteria must include examining whether site providers are doing something that others have not done before, or providing information in a different way. Some sites include information that is otherwise unavailable. Grey material such as presentations and formal speeches, or discussion papers, are prime examples. Providers need to build on what others have done and add value, rather than simply replicate links.
EQUITY CONSIDERATIONS
Can disabled users access the information on the site with ease? Are the fonts clear? Does the site use “alt text” attributes? There is a plethora of technical considerations in order to ensure web pages are accessible for users with sight impairments. Blind Industries and Services of Maryland opened a fully accessible site including graphics, which contains information for both blind and sighted people.[18] These issues are dealt with by Jakob Nielsen’s “Disabled Accessibility: The Pragmatic Approach” [19] Nielsen includes a link to the W3 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, the W3’s prioritised list of design rules, and a very useful checklist for web page designers.[20] The Legal Information Standards Council has also examined these issues, and has suggested sources of information.[21]
DOES THIS SITE INCLUDE SEARCH ENGINES?
Some sites, like AustLII, provide customised search engines to access information on the site. Others suggest the use of general search engines to do the same job. Still others provide easy access to a range of useful search engines customised to the subject. Farislaw is an example of the latter. Instead of simply providing a link to the Telstra Springboard site, Farislaw has a series of search templates set for a variety of search engines and arranged under the subjects – General (which unfortunately does not include Anzwers), Books and Music, Law, Literature and Language and Currency.[22] The University of Queensland Law Library site seemed to have one of the most complete lists.
HAS THE SITE PRIMARILY AN INTERNAL FOCUS?
Although many legal research guides started off as internal documents some law librarians and others have definitely gone out of their way to market what is on their site. This is evident from some of the postings to ANZ-Law-Librarians List.[23] It may be advisable to limit access to sites not yet ready for use by outsiders.
IS THERE ACCESS TO FULL TEXT MATERIAL?
Most of the Australian sites refer users back to AustLII for the full text of cases and legislation. Some have extra full text material. An example is the High Court’s home page, which includes the full text of recent speeches by the High Court judges. This “grey” material has always been difficult to locate but it often contains timely and valuable information for the researcher.
ARE THERE USEFUL TIPS ON ACCESSING LEGAL, NON LEGAL, PRINT AND NON-PRINT MATERAILS?
Are users left to their own devices or are there useful tips for finding relevant information on the site or elsewhere? Sometimes this may be a suggestion to refer to print materials rather than electronic sources for specific information. In some legal research sites there are references to further reading, which can be most helpful. The library-based pathfinders provide the best example of this approach.
ARE THERE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQs) AND ANSWERS?
The FAQs can be a useful addition to a site. Often these emanate from a discussion list run in conjunction with a law unit or professional e-mail group. This provides an opportunity for new members to find answers to questions that are posed on a regular basis, or that someone has already spent time and energy in answering.
INFORMATIVE RATHER THAN PROMOTIONAL
Is the site more a promotional exercise for marketing a product, rather than a general legal information site? Many of the smaller publishers’ pages have assumed this role. The larger ones have realised the value in offering a unique product or free current awareness service to lure users to the site. Of course, commercial sites are not the only ones who are pursuing an agenda. Many non-profit organisational sites exist to promote a view. Take, for example, the various euthanasia or abortion lobbies, or some religious sites. Providing the site derivation is clear, and the labelling evident, few users will complain. Misinformation by stealth is always to be discouraged, but fortunately there are very few examples of legal sites in this category.
COMMENTS ON THAT SITE AND EXTERNAL RATINGS
What do others say about the site and has the site won any awards? This can provide some indication of worth. There are many local and overseas awards that are given to Internet sites. Note for example the AUSSI Web Indexing Competition. This was announced in Incite in 1998 and it depends on self-nomination of sites. There are also several rating systems in operation, mainly in the US, and of course the annual Australian Financial Review/Telstra Australian Internet Awards. AustLII has been a finalist at various awards including the AFR/Telstra Australian Internet Awards.
LINK RATE
If a site is well regarded, it will often be linked to other sites. One way of finding out if your site has been linked is by going to a search engine. For example in Alta Vista, you might key in the following as a query: link:http://www.atax.unsw.edu.au and you can find references to where the Australian Taxation Studies Program at the University of New South Wales has been linked from other sites. This can be done on other search engines as well.
Monash University Law Library
Murdoch University Library
Queensland University of Technology
University of Melbourne Law Library
University of NSW Law Library
University of Queensland Law Library
University of Sydney Law Libraryhttp://www.law.monash.edu.au/law
http://www.lib.murdoch.edu.au/ecolln/subj/law/legale.html
http://www.qut.edu.au/law/lawlib.html
http://www.law.unimelb.edu.au/lawlib
http://www.library.unsw.edu.au/~law/
http://www.library.uq.edu.au/law/lawsites.html
http://www.law.usyd.edu.au/~library
In evaluating the university law library sites, attention is focussed on their various legal research guides, rather than the whole sites. In some universities, there are extensive links and services provided by both the law library (or through the university library) and the law school, or individual academics within the university. Sometimes there are no clear links between these.
The University of Queensland’s “Find Its” are quick guides to information sources in various subjects. The pathfinders are reasonably informative, and consist of references to both hard-copy and Internet resources. These were initially compiled as hard-copy flyers and have been revised to go onto the web. They are explained on the site:
They list relevant encyclopaedias and dictionaries, tell you which classification numbers you should look at on the shelves, list useful databases on the Library’s network, and give links to some important Internet sites.[24]
The University of Queensland Law Library also has extensive links on its home page including the following categories:
General: Search Engines, Legal Search Tools, “Lectric Law Lexicon, Window on the Law
Australian Law: Australian Links, Government Sites, Legislation & Hansard, Courts, Law Firms, Law Schools, Legal Publishers
Subjects: Contract, Criminal, Criminology, Cyberlaw, Human Rights, Indigenous Law, International, Labour Law, Law & Medicine, Tax Law
Overseas Law: World Links, Country Links, Law Firms, Law Schools, Publishers
The currency date is noted at the bottom of each page. This is quite a concise Bookmarks site.
QUT and Griffith University have cooperated in a joint project called InfoQuest.[25] This resource is still under development and like some of the University of Queensland resources the project takes a generalist rather than a purely “legal” approach to subject areas. A search under law or legal subjects will result in an alphabetical list of sources rather than a ranked list. However, the ROADS gateway that is being developed is immensely useful as a way of tapping in to other sites.[26] The searches conducted tended to turn up UK sites which is a nice change from the usual experience of being swamped in US sources. This site is not complete, but the whole idea of providing searchable subject gateways, which contain descriptive abstracts of high quality sites with full text material, definitely has potential. In a sense the sites are referred because professional librarians have pre-tested them. The criteria that are being used may still need to be refined but this surely is one avenue to the future management of legal resources on the Internet.
The University of Sydney Law Library has 10 pathfinders. It is a very attractive page with light grey illustrations as background, and darker lettering. These guides average around 12-15 pages each and provide references to both print and electronic resources. They are akin to annotated bibliographies for the topic. Many of these have been linked to from both local and overseas sites. It is not surprising that the pathfinders received an honourable mention from the AUSSI Web Indexing Competition.
Both the University of New South Wales Law Library and Monash University Law Library have similar subject guides, though they tend to be shorter, averaging around four to seven pages. The UNSW site is very easy on the eyes, and clear, without being cluttered. Sir Samuel Griffith’s portrait provides the backdrop. The research guides include the following:
Comparative Law, Intellectual Property, Human Rights, International Law, Environmental Law, Treaties and International Conventions, Women and the Law, European Communities Law, Indigenous Legal Issues, Medicine and the Law.
The UNSW Law Library home page also has a useful guide to legal abbreviations of materials held in that library.
The Monash page has a useful lengthy separate guide for international law. The Monash site has also received an innovation award recently. The general backdrop is more intrusive and it is does not appear as easy to navigate. The subject guides are more extensive, however many of them are less than a page, including:
Alternative Dispute Resolution, Art and Law, Air and Space Law, Banking Law, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Cyberlaw, Discrimination, Electronic Commerce, Environmental Law, European Union, Family Law, Feminist Jurisprudence, Foreign and International Law, Human Rights, Intellectual Property, International Criminal Law, International Trade and Finance Law, Law and Economics, Law and Medicine, Legal History, Maritime Law, Middle East Peace Process, Native Title, Pacific Islands Law, Taxation Law.
The Guide includes automatic results of searches on general search engines such as Yahoo, lists of pertinent e-mail discussion lists and a select annotated guide to the main Internet sites.
Murdoch University School of Law page lists both Law Web Links and Library resources. The site is organised under headings of Primary Materials, Secondary Materials and Extrinsic Materials, and includes a long list of full-text linked treaty material. The Law Library has a small collection of Legal Research Guides. The Environmental Law Guide is very much focussed on the resources available at Murdoch, but appears quite complete.
Butterworths
CCH
LawNet
LBC Information
Services
Prospecthttp://www.butterworths.com.au
http://www.cch.com.au/scripts/nc.dll?filename=cch/cch/index.html
http://www.lawnet.com.au
http://www.lbc.com.au
http://www.prospectmedia.com.au
The law publishers have such contrasting styles in presenting material on the Internet! However, the sites of the “big two” are well worth bookmarking.
LBC Information Services has recently launched its commercial subscription service, LBC Online, after what appears to some onlookers as a long gestation period. LBC has some useful free publications on its site such as the ALTA Directory, Weekly Judgment Summaries from LBC, Australian Law Reports, and Catalogue. Having said that, there is room for improvement. The ALTA Directory is current to 29 November 1996 whereas there is a print version 1998/99 edition also published by LBC. The Weekly Judgment Summaries from LBC provide about four to five summaries per week. Contrast this to Butterworths which provides notice, with keywords, of about 40 cases per week. The Australian Law Reports is a useful guide to the published law report series. However, it omits the Northern Territory Law Reports one of LBC’s own publications. There are no links from the reports though this could be likely in future for subscribers. Butterworths on the other hand has a very busy looking homepage—almost like a Middle Eastern market bazaar. Of particular interest are:
Legal Research in Australia and New Zealand previously existed as a print product and it is interesting to see this available gratis. This useful publication tells readers about current and forthcoming publications plus other academic news. Academic New Books informs readers of new and forthcoming titles. Legal Directories contains the electronic versions of the NSW, NT, Qld and WA Barristers Directory. Table of contents of Butterworths journals put up in the past few months contains the contents pages of Butterworths journals. Latest cases provides the keywords to a number of current cases. Legal News gives news summaries of daily legal news. Unfortunately the full text of these is only available to subscribers. The Looseleaf filing checklist service is a boon to libraries wishing to see if they are missing any looseleaf pages.
Other publishers’ sites are also worth a visit. For about a year or so, LawNet provided the full text of AAP legal news, however these are no longer on their site. LawNet does provide current High Court and Federal Court cases, with links to AustLII and SCALEPlus for older cases. The Prospect site is primarily a catalogue of Prospect’s publications and a site for its Legal Books bookstore. There are no links to the full text of their publications, merely publisher’s blurb information. Some of its articles are available full text via the AustLII site, including Privacy Law & Policy Reporter and the Australian Journal of Human Rights. They have some legal links.
The CCH site is similar to the Prospect site and appears to be primarily promotional rather than informative, though it does have daily news updates for those who register. Much of the site is still under construction.
Australian Parliament House http://www.aph.gov.au
Australian Taxation Office http://www.ato.gov.au
SCALEPlus http://scaleplus.law.gov.au
The Australian Parliament House site has BillsNet, which contains explanatory memoranda http://www.aph.gov.au/parlinfo/billsnet/em.htm. The problem here is that once the bill is enacted the explanatory memoranda are deleted. Secondly, not all explanatory memoranda tabled are at that site. If BillsNet cannot access the explanatory memoranda electronically, then they cannot be included on that site. So ironically, some researchers may need to find the paper copy! Some legal research sites have links to the above, however a better link would be to SCALEPlus which started to store explanatory memoranda from 1998 and hopes to put on previous years in the near future.[27] SCALEPlus is the provider of much original federal material to AustLII. At the first Law via the Internet Conference held in 1997, Graham Greenleaf expressed his enormous gratitude to SCALE for providing material to AustLII back in 1995.
The Australian Taxation Office site was revamped with a “bells and whistles” launch in February 1999. Surprisingly, as at 29 May 1999, not one High Court or Federal Court judgement or Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) decision for 1999 could be found at the site under ATO’s legal database: Browse Legal and Policy material: Case judgements. So where would ATO employees go for current tax cases for High Court, Federal Court and AAT? To AustLII or SCALEPlus, or perhaps their own internal databases!
Tasmania and Queensland legislation now appears on AustLII. However, the Tasmanian Government developed its own site using sgml, in contrast to most Internet sites that use html.[28] Some regard sgml as far superior. Queensland, too, has its own site, OQPC (being the Office of the Queensland Parliamentary Counsel) but in the last few months this legislation has also been available on AustLII.[29] The OQPC provides legislation, regulations, bills and other information in pdf format through Adobe Acrobat. Many users prefer this to html because it provides the look and feel of the paper copy. There is also a seamless entry provided for Hansard and the Votes and Proceedings on the Queensland Parliament site.[30]
Law Foundation of New South Wales
Law Institute of Victoria
Law Society of New South Wales
Ron Huttner's Internet Sites
for Lawyers
Tony Morris QC’s site
Peter Jones “Commerc & Law Internet
Bookmarks” bookmarks
Dan’s Australian Law Index
Alan Davidson’s Virtual Legal Resources
Archie Zariski’s Legal Resource Links
Jurist Australia
FarisLawhttp://www.lawfoundation.net.au/index.htm
http://www.liv.asn.au
http://www.lawsocnsw.asn.au
http://www.viclf.asn.au/research.html
http://www.thehub.com.au/-morrisqc
http://www.law.unimelb.edu.au/pjones/
http://www.spirit.net.au/~dan/law/
http://www.uq.edu.au/~laadavid/
http://www.staff.murdoch.edu.au~zariski/
http://law.anu.edu.au/jurist/
http://www.farislaw.com/
Both the Law Society of New South Wales and the Law Foundation of New South Wales provide useful guides on law for the layperson. The Law Foundation site is primarily a clearing house and it has some information regarding the work and proposals of the Legal Standards Information Council. The Law Society of New South Wales has its journal online, plus other Law Society publications, and comprehensive links to Australian and overseas professional associations, and legal publishers. By contrast there is little for non-members of the Law Institute of Victoria to enthuse about. There is an index to the Law Institute Journal but not the full text, like its NSW counterpart.
Jurist Australia is the local edition of The Law Professors’ Network, hosted by the Faculty of Law at ANU. It contains links to recent judgements on AustLII and Attorney General’s News Releases. It has an interesting array of materials linked including Today’s Business in the House of Representatives and the latest news from the ABC. Special features are very topical, the latest being the Legal Guide to the Kosovo Conflict. Generally, the emphasis is on current material with an international flavour. There is also the option of receiving a free weekly e-mail newsletter listing recent additions to the service.
Ron Huttner’s site Internet Sites for Lawyers, sponsored by the Victorian Law Foundation, is primarily links to other sites. It is a useful place to start and it is popular judging from the number of visitors (indicated on the site). This site has its own search engine to use within the site – Picosearch.com. According to the currency note, it is updated very often, and the fact that the Heather Hill case was on the site before 9pm that same evening proves this.[31] The links headings include:
There is also a number of subject specific links categories. In all, this is a useful site, though the link lists have lost clarity as they have become longer. Possibly more indexing is becoming necessary as the site grows. In addition, the new-style screen background seems harder on the eyes.
Working on the legal web page is obviously a favourite pastime for Tony Morris. Although well organised with a plethora of links, the page is rather cluttered with such features as “Music whilst you browse”. The site includes links to legal search engines and legal dictionaries. It also has Queensland specific legal classified ads and a Bulletin Board, as well as e-mail addresses of barristers, solicitors and courts. This is a useful site for Queensland practitioners.
Peter Jones’ Bookmarks are extensive and well organised. The site includes a method of updating and adding links, and also has the extra Legend feature. This is a key to the symbols used on the site such as new additions, “hot” sites, or Australian content. This is a law and commerce site so there are additional management and accounting bookmarks. There are links to several guides to legal research on the Internet, and even to a statistics primer for lawyers.
FarisLaw is a particularly noteworthy site because of the extent and presentation of the links. It includes over 450 links with websearch templates, full text case law and legislation courtesy of AustLII. Many of the links are non-legal and centre on the personal interests of the creator. However, the International Criminal Law pages deserve special mention for their inclusions of catchwords for selected criminal law cases from all Australian and overseas jurisdictions.
Archie Zariski is an academic at Murdoch University School of Law. He has had Legal Research Links available for some time and his photo and brief profile or biography appear on his homepage – a nice touch in this increasingly impersonal electronic world. It harks back to the great photo Lyonette Louis-Jacques had on her page at one time! Zariski’s page at http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~zariski/bookmark/leglbook.htm has a wide coverage but the list only appears in alphabetical order by title or topic. The site appears to have changed this year, with the base or home page having been moved to http://carmen.murdoch.edu.au:80/~zariski . The revised homepage does not seem to be an improvement on the previous one, with a greater emphasis being placed on internal Murdoch related references, and on-line student materials. One feature is the clear currency check date at the top of the page. One of the best aspects would have to be the links obtained on the Human Rights page which emanates from the International Commission of Jurists WA Branch. Other links include:
Overall, the arrangement is very linear, but the links themselves seem very complete for the subject areas they cover.
Allan Davidson claims links to over 1000 resources. Like Zariski, Davidson identifies himself and gives a few biographical notes (but no photo!). He is a lecturer in the Law School at the University of Queensland, and boasts a computing science degree. He includes extensive links to courts, law firms, law schools, law journals, government services, law societies and various miscellaneous sites (Australian and international lists in alphabetical order). The law schools cover Australian and international (mainly US, UK and Canadian) sites, and the law firms’ list contains links to lawyers with pages on the web. The list is annotated to some extent. Many of the law journals only include contents pages rather than full text – but once again the annotations alert users to these limitations. The page also includes a shorter list of favourite links. The remaining material is focussed on course material, and electronic publication of specific conference papers. The Accountant’s page seems quite complete, but this paper has made no thorough comparison with other similar subject sites. This site would have been improved with the addition of a search engine on site, and maybe more qualitative assessment of the various links.
In the past, Dan’s Australian Legal Information Index has been one of the mainstays of legal searching. Dan Austin is now working for AustLII and in a recent open letter to users has conceded that events have overtaken him in regard to the time he has available to update the site. The letter stated that he was looking for expressions of interest from people who would be interested in working collaboratively to update and keep the site going:
Handing over editorial control to the index users would, at the very least, be an interesting experiment. It would allow web site developers to add their sites immediately, without waiting for me to do it for them. Users could make desired changes to what they see straight away, and share such enhancements with others instantly. The index would switch from being a simple page of legal links and expand to become a tool for collaborative legal research. Users of NetJustice know that that site employs a similar scheme already.[32]
This statement of Dan’s predicament best sums up what is happening with legal databases in Australia. There are many people spending inordinate amounts of time organising their own links pages. Perhaps it is worth asking questions about the point of some of these sites. What is the point in setting up a legal links site when so many other people have already done it? Surely innovation in content remains of paramount importance, even in the brave new world of the Internet? Uniqueness is the key to a good site.[33]
Along with innovation and originality, the future in the area of provision of legal sources on the Internet must include co-ordination and collaboration. To some extent various university law libraries have realised this. Witness the collaboration between Griffith University and QUT on the Info-Quest project. Several university and court law librarians have joined forces in the Weblaw Project, which involves an agreement on subject responsibilities in relation to pathfinders or subject guides for legal materials on the web. This ensures that good legal research web directories are available and also reduces the likelihood of duplication of effort. The links would focus on free full text resources and be compiled with legal researchers in mind rather than the general public. This type of project would benefit from collaboration within institutions, that is, between the law library and the law academics and the law student groups, in provision of general resources for their audiences.
Overall, the Australian legal profession seems well served by the current sites, although the landscape would be very different without AustLII. From this point of view, it is understandable that there have been voices calling for more certain funding for this major provider of electronic legal material. AustLII’s success can also lead to a “Let George do it” mentality.[34] With the existence of one such large and successful provider, there can be a lack of incentive for others to try to compete. In fact, the Australian legal fraternity cannot leave it all to AustLII. AustLII stands as a useful databank of original primary material with caselaw and legislation. However, there is still much room for improvement, value-adding and additional offerings.
Certainly, too, there does seem to be a need for better standards to be applied to providers, including clear identification of commercial and non-commercial organisations that have contributed funding to the site.[35] Notes on the sites, including the extent of funding coming from advertising, what material is gratis, and clear statements of costs of any downloaded materials are also warranted. The big issue is Internet management. This includes the indexed gateways connecting to large relevant databases. It also includes the necessity for preservation of historical and older technology datasets. And most importantly, it includes standards. Those standards currently published and being further developed will certainly be of some help in ensuring quality control for Australian legal material on the web.
[1] Colin Fong is the Librarian with the Australian Taxation Studies Program, University of New South Wales. Terry Hutchinson is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at QUT (Queensland University of Technology), and co-ordinates the postgraduate unit Advanced Legal Research. Colin Fong was involved in creating the various pathfinders for the University of Sydney Law Library and the Butterworths Legal research guide.
[2]Parliament of Victoria Law Reform Committee Technology & the Law, Melbourne: Government Printer, May 1999, p.202.
[3] http://www.qut.edu.au/law/qutla/research.html—site presently being modified.
[4] http://www.lawnow.com.au
[5] Anstat http://www.anstat.com.au and TimeBase http://www.timebase.com.au
[6] See for example the Qld Taskforce on Women and the Criminal Code http://www.qldwoman.qld.gov.au/owp/whatsnew/taskforce.html
[7] LISC, Best practice Guidelines for Australian Legal Web Sites; Law Foundation of New South Wales http://www.lawfoundation.net.au/lisc/recommend/bpguide.html
[8] http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990530.html (30/5/99) and http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990502.html
[9] Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria and Tools http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/webeval.html (24/11/99).
[10] At one stage a difficulty was noted with the International Court of Justice cases which were only available from 1996: http://www.law.cornell.edu/icj and the ICJ has its own home page at http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/icj002.htm
[11] After the High Court ruled in the Gambotto case, the NRMA float could not proceed. http://www.austlii.edu.au/do/disp.pl/au/cases/nsw/supreme_ct/1999/407.html at 99.
[12] INT-Law Discussion List posting, 10/5/99 <int-law@listhost.ciesin.org>
[13] See discussion 10 June 1999 on the ANZ-Law-Librarians List.
[14] http://www.netmind.com/html/url-minder.html
[15] Ibid.
[16] M.S. Newman, “Evaluation Criteria and Quality Qontrol for Legal Knowledge Systems on the Internet: A Case Study” (1999) 91 (1) Law Library Journal p.9 at 16.
[17] Ibid. p.15
[18] http://www.bism.com/
[19] The Alertbox, June 13, 1999 issue.
[20] The article is available at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990613.html
[21] LISC, Best Practice Guidelines for Australian Legal Web Sites; Law Foundation of New South Wales http://www.lawfoundation.net.au/lisc/recommend/bpguide.html
[22] http://www.farislaw.com/search_web.html
[23] anz-law-librarians-one@uow.edu.au
[24] http://www.library.uq.edu.au/law/index.html#lawsites
[25] http://roads.itc.gu.edu.au:8880/home.htm
[26] http://www.net.lut.ac.uk/xdomain/cgi-bin/search.pl
[27] See http://scaleplus.law.gov.au/html/ems/browse/TOC.htm
[28] http://www.thelaw.tas.gov.au/
[29] http://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/OQPChome.htm
[30] http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/hansard/index.htm
[31] Decision of the High Court of Australia on the Entitlement of Senator-Elect Heather Hill to Sit as a Senator, 23 June 1999, Sue v Hill [1999] HCA 30.
[32] http://www.spirit.net.au/~dan/law/services/newsletter199805.html (1/6/99)
[33] Newman, op cit, 14
[34] T.Bruce, “Public Legal Information: Focus and Future” AustLII Law via the Internet 1999. 3.6.
[35]See http://www.hon.ch/HONcode/Conduct.html
[1] Compiled by Terry Hutchinson and Mark Thomas (Faculty of Law, QUT)
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