Google Scholar provides legal research functions

Updated: Google has announced it is adding a new search function that will find full-text legal opinions from federal and state courts.

Users can go to the Google Scholar online search engine and type in case names, topics or key words to find the relevant cases. “We think this addition to Google Scholar will empower the average citizen by helping everyone learn more about the laws that govern us all,” Google says in an announcement posted at TaxProf Blog.

Researchers can try an “advanced scholar” search link that narrows searches to opinions in specific states, according to the Supreme Court of Texas Blog. Users can also specify whether they want to search for “all of the words,” an exact phrase, or at least one of the words. They can also add date and author restrictions.

Case law goes back about 80 years for federal cases and more than 50 years for state cases, according to Information Today Inc. The opinions will have “cited by” and “related articles” links that take readers to other opinions and articles that will help them understand the information. But there is no citator service that flags when an opinion is overruled or called into question.

The Supreme Court of Texas Blog says the new search option is “quite polished and looks like it might be usable for serious legal work.”

Josh Blackman’s Blog is also impressed with the results. “Extremely quick, efficient, and free,” the blog says. “And it doesn’t just link to FindLaw or Cornell. It actually has an original, full text version. I just entered in a few key Supreme Court cases, and a few prominent circuit cases, and they were all in Google. Pretty cool.”

There are some shortcomings, however, according to the story by Information Today Inc.

“This product is not going to put Lexis or Westlaw out of business,” Carol Ebbinghouse, law library director at the California 2nd District Court of Appeals, writes for the blog. “These files do not cover the time dating from the beginning of our country, nor to the beginnings of the individual states.”

Ebbinghouse notes that although there are hyperlinks within cases to other opinions, hyperlinks to other materials are not there.

“There are no hyperlinks to statutes, codes, regulations, administrative opinions, or anything else quoted or referred to in the text of the opinions,” she says. “Finally, there is no citator service to verify that a particular opinion has not been overruled or vacated, distinguished, or otherwise declared of dubious value.”

See the article here:
http://www.abajournal.com/news/google_offers_legal_research_for_the_average_citizenand_lawyers_too

AT&T hit with 8 million dollar verdict.

Last week the Ingham County Circuit Court in Michigan entered a judgment ordering AT&T Michigan to pay ACD Telecom $7,994,590 in damages for breach of contract.

Under the contract, ACD and AT&T had mutually agreed to let their customers under long-term contracts switch their services to the other company without having to pay the early termination fees in their contracts. Most commercial telecommunication services are purchased on term contracts with substantial termination penalties, much like a consumer cell phone contract. This makes it difficult and expensive to switch phone companies when new technology, lower prices or better services become available.

ACD says AT&T refused to honor the agreement and charged two of the customers that switched from AT&T to ACD early termination penalties in excess of $40,000 each.

AT&T then sued these two companies to collect early termination penalties. One of the two companies, Lansing-based ARQ Internet, went out of business in the face of the termination charges AT&T assessed in breach of the contract.

Read the whole story here.

Supreme Court to hear arguments over UA dorm construction records

LITTLE ROCK – A case before the state Supreme Court seeking records from a construction company that built a $35 million dormitory at the University of Arkansas is part of a contractor advocacy group’s effort to change state law concerning contracts for high-dollar building projects, the group’s president said Tuesday.

The high court is scheduled to hear oral arguments Thursday in Conway-based Nabholz Construction Co.’s appeal of a Pulaski County circuit judge’s order to turn over to the Contractors for Public Protection Association some of company records related to the construction of the Northwest Quadrant Housing Project on the Fayetteville campus.

Nabholz attorney Jeff Miller said Tuesday he would argue that the privately owned company should not have to make its records public.

Nabholz, which got the state contract without going through a competitive bidding process under a 2001 law, earned about $1.3 million and received another $2.5 million in overhead expenses on the project.

David Gatzke, president of Contractors for Public Protection Association, said Tuesday the organization’s lawsuit centers on the $2.5 million in overhead expenses Nabholz received. The association took the company to court after it refused to release records of the expenses under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

Ron Hope, attorney for the association, said the records are public under a provision of the FOIA that has been interpreted by the courts to extend to private companies that perform public functions.

Read entire story here.