Google has just changed an entire industry. By adding legal opinions to Google Scholar, Google has fundamentally altered the power of the law firms by democratizing the access to legal opinions from state and federal courts across the country.
I have no real clue how Google achieved this other than through dogged determination and some amazing logistical operations, however, I am very happy that they've done it.
Read the Google Blog release here.
The implications are still uncertain but I what is certain is that LexisNexis and Westlaw must be furious. Google is giving away a good chunk of their business model. These two services charge a fee for every article retrieved and they both have terrible search engines. Google provides all the articles without charge and it provides the Google search engine allowing infinitely more flexibility in case of misspellings or incomplete initial seed information (e.g., type in Marbury and you get Marbury v. Madison!!). This might seem trivial to non-lawyers but the implications for the legal profession are profound.
If you haven't tried it out, give it a test ride:
scholar.google.com
Try Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, Marbury v. Madison
This is as big as Google Maps if not bigger...
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