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4 COMPUTERS IN LAW


Library Guides Using the Internet for law studies


The Internet holds a huge store of information that is useful for lawyers and law students. This information comes from a wide variety of sources such as the government, the courts, legal organizations, special interest groups, the media and individuals. However, to avoid wasting a huge amount of time on fruitlessly searching irrelevant domains, you need to know how to choose the best and most appropriate websites. When doing research, you will need to go to what are known as primary sources – original texts such as Acts of Parliament and verbatim, or word-for-word, reports of judgments in the Court of Appeal or the House of Lords or Supreme Court. You will also need to read secondary sources, such as legal text books, law journals and authoritative newspapers.


Primary sources


In the UK, legislation from all jurisdictions (England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) passed after 1988 is now freely available. Judgments after 1996 from the House of Lords (Supreme Court from 2009) and the Court of Appeal are also available without subscription. In addition, there is free access to many official UK government sources. These sites contain policy statements, consultation papers and other useful documents. At a European level, the European Parliament has gone further and made all European Community legislation available. European Case law is also freely available from the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights.


The British and Irish Legal Information Institution (BAILII) is building a site to provide free access to important and useful cases. This includes cases not only from England and Wales and Ireland but from other jurisdictions such as Hong Kong and Australia. Unfortunately, this site is taking time to develop so the reports on some of the cases listed are not yet accessible. In the meantime, Hadford University Library pays a subscription to the Westlaw UK site which has law reports dating back to 1865.


Secondary sources


Some law text books and journals are available free online. These include mostly older text books and, for example, The Lawyer journal. Most publishers also have websites to support their text books which provide regular updates and useful links. However, the most authoritative journals (e.g., the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies and The Cambridge Law Journal) are usually subscription only. Newspapers can also provide an excellent source of up-to-date information on recent cases and changes to the law. The Times and The Guardian have special legal sections. Many professional organizations, such as The Law Society and The Bar Council in the UK and The American Society of International Law, have their own websites.


There are also a number of sites for special interest groups, as well as individually written blogs. Remember, though, that material such as this on the Internet is not checked and is often written in a subjective way. There is no control over what people can write so be very cautious about the websites you select and the information you read.


Use the URL to help you decide if the sites located by the search engine are likely to be useful. Remember to look at the domain or organizational code as well as the country the site originated from. Many URLs, though, especially from the United States (.us), do not include the country code.


Citation


Since January 2001, as a result of cases being made available on the Internet, the way cases are cited has changed. There is now a system known as medium- neutral citation. Cases are cited by the names of the parties (e.g., Smith v Jones) and the medium-neutral citation which must include the year [2001], the jurisdiction (e.g., EW = England and Wales), the court, such as the Court of Appeal (CA), the division of the court (civ = civil; crim = criminal; ch = chancery), and the official reference number. For example: Grobbelaar v News Group Ltd [2001] EWCA Civ 1213


Cases heard in the House of Lords are not cited with a reference number but with the number of the case heard. So Johnson (A.P.) v Unisys Ltd [2001] UKHL 13 was the thirteenth case to be heard in the House of Lords since the introduction of the system.


Medium-neutral citation does not use page numbers to locate a reference. This is now done through numbered paragraphs. Lawyers will say ‘at paragraph 17’ rather than ‘on page 3’ when they want to highlight a particular point made in a case.


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