AnyLaw.com

Guest post by: Amber Cain, Technology and Research Services Librarian & Assistant Professor, Seton Hall Law

AnyLaw.com is a free legal research database that provides public access to U.S. case law (archival, present, and newly released slip opinions) both at the state and federal level. While other free resources and databases also do this, what makes AnyLaw interesting is that it includes proximity operators in its search engine. Users can also run filtered searches for case law narrowed by topic and/or jurisdiction, save their searches, and download cases. AnyLaw’s post-search features include a search within results function, date range and court filters, and a sort option to sort by relevance, citation count, and date. When accessing cases, users can see hyperlinked cases that are cited by the case they are examining, as well as hyperlinked cases that the case they are examining is cited by.

AnyLaw also includes features such as topic pages (which include topics such as Intellectual Property and Cannabis) and case summaries, and it aggregates news articles and blog posts from various sources. Additionally, it hosts its Law Thoughts, which publishes articles such as: 4 Services Your Law Firm Should Outsource and An 11-Step Guide To Writing A Will At An Early Age.

For more information, visit: https://www.anylaw.com . Additionally, an interview with Steven Tover, the CEO of AnyLaw can be found in Forbes.

In Canada, Artificial Intelligence is coming… for your legal research fees?

Some information vendors have been touting the value and benefit – specifically the apparent efficiency in legal research – of AI for a few years now, and it seems that the Honourable Mr. Justice A.C.R. Whitten of the Ontario Supreme Court of Justice is a believer.

In a recent decision [Cass v. 1410088 Ontario Inc., 2018 ONSC 6959], the Justice denies a $900.00 “legal research” disbursement for a number of reasons, and mentions – albeit in what would likely be considered dicta – that “[i]f artificial intelligence sources were employed, no doubt counsel’s preparation time would have been significantly reduced.” [¶ 34]

Also interesting, however, was that the Justice declined to adopt the simple suggestion of the plaintiff to strike the disbursement based on the query – “why is there a legal research fee for case precedents which are available for free through CanLII or publically accessible websites?”

h/t – Law Librarian Blog