By Brian Malcom 

Let me begin by giving credit where credit is due.  iPhone J.D. has a terrific post about the new features of Google Scholar.  I would definitely recommend checking out the post.  I will try to hit the high points here.

On November 17, 2009, Westlaw and Lexis lost a little piece of their stranglehold on legal research.  "Google announced that it expanded its Google Scholar service to include free, full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state courts."  The federal opinions include tax and bankruptcy opinions and date back to 1924.  State opinions date back to 1950.  Apparently, "the Google employee who worked on this project as a part of the "do something interesting with 20% of your time here" policy that Google encourages for all of its employees."  If he developed this with 20% of his time, I cannot imagine what this programmer could do with 50% or 100% of his time.

Some of the benefits of searchable legal resources through Google Scholar are:

  - It's fast.
  - It's free.
  - It's Google.
  - It's streamlined. This is great for a quick search from your PDA or
    laptop using a wireless card.
  - It's very familiar.  If you haven't done a Google search in the past decade,
    you may want to check your pulse.
  - No login required.  This kind of informs "it's fast", but I think it's important enough
    to mention again.  Logging in can be annoying when you're in a hurry.
  - It highlights search terms, but you can turn them off if you follow iPhone J.D.'s tips.

iPhone J.D. writes, "When you find a legal opinion that is relevant to you, you can use the helpful "How Cited" tab to find other decisions that have cited your found opinion.  This is somewhat similar to Shepards on Lexis or KeyCite on Westlaw, although Google does not currently characterize the citing authority to tell you if, for example, another case overturns or distinguishes your case."  iPhone J.D. also points out that "[t]his is not the first free caselaw service on the Internet (even though it may quickly become the best), and Westlaw and Lexis/Nexis currently offer a lot that Google is not offering including summaries and headnotes, case histories, formatted downloads suitable for printing, etc."

As of today, the service does not include statutes.  But, let's give Google some time and some traffic.  I bet if this takes off, Google will devote more the 20% of one programmer's time to beefing up the resources available.

What will this do to overhead of law firms?  Well, I have a feeling that major law firms are going to keep their subscriptions with Lexis and Westlaw for now.  Google is too new and unfamiliar to trust with the important task of legal research.  That being said, I am betting that law firms and clients will begin to pay attention to the Google Scholar page as a low-cost resource for legal research.  Clients may even require their attorneys to use Google Scholar or another free resource, in lieu of paying for legal research sources.  Small law firms, non-profits and pro bono organizations will likely be the first to take advantage of Google Scholar.

Questions for another day: Is Google Scholar secure?  Will Google Scholar store or save your searches?  Are there ethical and confidentiality issues with using Google Scholar?  If you know the answers, feel free to answer in the comments.

By Robert Chapski 

I wish everyone could see some of the firm-wide emails I get on a daily basis.  They range from someone looking for advice on where to buy an appliance (to be fair, I have to confess I have sent one or two looking for a good painter or landscaper on occasion) to someone selling lingerie (yes, underwear for sale at the office).  I'm not kidding.   

True, I could remove myself from the firm-wide email list (the so-called "general" list) but part of me feels like I would be missing out on some of the more memorable emails (e.g., "lingerie for sale").  The topics of these emails know no bounds:  free stuff, selling stuff, looking for stuff, the "farewell, I'm leaving the firm" emails, etc. 

Recently, someone sent an email around the office regarding a recent promotion at KFC where KFC was giving away a free chicken dinner if you downloaded a coupon.  Apparently, Oprah triggered this deal.  Immediately following that email, we received another email saying that to get the coupon, you had to download a special printing program and that the firm tech department should not be used to assist with such a download on an office computer.  Then, we got another firm-wide email cautioning us not to download the coupon at all because the printing program may have spyware associated with it.  Finally, I later received another email saying that not all people have been able to redeem these coupons at KFC because of a mad rush for the chicken in some cities.  (This report has been confirmed in a number of news outlets.)  

I lost track of the exact number of emails I received about free chicken yesterday. 

Anyway, I'm all about free stuff (including free food - who isn't?), and there is no way to stop the flow of the emails.  As a young lawyer, however, you can do yourself a favor and maintain your professional image by making sure you are not one of the repeat offenders.  As with any email you send, give some thought to what a firm-wide email says about you, particularly to people who may not know you all that well.  

(P.S.  The lesson learned here can also be applied to the use of "reply all".   I like to think about the concept of "need to know" when I use "reply all."  If the whole firm doesn't "need to know" the content of your email, resist the urge to press "reply all."  As a former law partner once wrote in a firm-wide email (tongue in cheek, of course), "You'll have to pry the 'reply-all' button from the fingers of my cold, dead body."  Don't be that guy (or gal). 

By Robert Chapski 

For those of you who become unhinged when you get on an airplane and lose wireless contact with the world for a couple hours, you can now take comfort in the fact that Wi-Fi service onboard aircrafts is expanding.  No longer will the liberating excuse, "I am about to get on a plane and won't have email access for a few hours" be viable.  Several airlines including Southwest, American and Delta, have been testing onboard Wi-Fi for several months.  AA just announced that it will expand in-flight Wi-Fi service to roughly 300 planes over the next couple of years. 

Whoopee?!

Don't get me wrong, I think advances in wireless technology are great, and I am the first one to jump on the bandwagon.  However, I think occasionally we need to be reminded of a couple of things with respect to mobile devices: 

1. It's inconsiderate to keep constantly checking your device (a) at a meeting or presentation with clients or colleagues, (b) at dinner with family or friends, (c) on vacation with your spouse and kids. 
2. There is such a thing as being "too connected."  (It's been a while, but this calls to mind the movie, The Lawnmower Man.) 

Try to set some reasonable boundaries, which serve to respect the needs of your clients, your employer, your family and yourself.  On vacation, for instance, you might limit email-checking to once or twice a day and tell your assistant to call you if it is a true emergency. 

Not learning how to balance your work, family and play time is the best way to put yourself as a younger lawyer on the fast track to burnout. 

By Brian Malcom  

If this hasn't happened to you yet, it most likely will. You are on the road, away from your desk, away from a computer, and you need to research an issue or pull a case.  What do you do?   

One solution might be to call a friend or your assistant, ask them to pull a case and send you an email so that you can read it on your PDA.  This may be a good solution if you are just looking for a case and have the citation readily available.  However, if you are researching a specific issue or are not quite sure of the case you are looking for, this may not be a practical solution.   

Westlaw Wireless is a very useful tool in this situation.  All lawyers should be aware of this tool, but young lawyers will likely use the resource more often.  While not perfect or pretty, Westlaw Wireless is fast.  At times, this may be its most important feature.  Westlaw has streamlined their site in an effort to make it more compatible with PDAs.  The site prompts you to enter your login information and the client ID.  Then, you are taken to a text menu with the following options:

• Find a Document - allows yo to search for a document by citation or party name

• Find&Print - allows you to find a document by citation and deliver the ful text or KeyCite information for the eocument to an email address or Westlaw printer

• KeyCite a Citation - allows you to enter a citation and immediately retrieve KeyCite information and citing references

• Search Westlaw - perhaps the most versatile tool on Westlaw Wireless.  It allows you to select a popular database from a drop down menu or enter a database name and search for the database.  Then, you can search within the selected database using a terms and connectors search or a natural language search.  Westlaw Wireless will then display twenty (20) results per page.