Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Legal Research [It Just May Cost You]

Ard Constance. "Legal Research In The Age of Open Law." Online, 34(5), 29. Retrieved from MasterFILE

Laws effect the everyday functions of societies around the globe they govern and shape the way in which we live as an entire human species (financial, market, domestic etc.).  So in this regard why shouldn’t individuals be concerned with the legal research? As I began to conduct legal research I found it quite difficult to find any free and credible documentation on legal issues, cases, and laws. I became completely fluttered and frustrated with this discovery. In my frantic search I came across this article by Ard Constance titled “Legal Research in the Open Age of Law.”In this article Constance contends to explain to his audience the ultimate goal of “open law” and also why it should be an arousing concern for those interested in legal research.
Constance states that the “ultimate goal” of open law is to “make the documents and decisions created within government resources, such as the judiciary and federal agencies, freely available to the public user (29). Why is the important? Think about it research is important to the breakthroughs that have occurred in this world. If research was not conducted, recorded, and analyzed we would have nothing to help us progress forward.  Likewise, we could say the same thing in respect to legal research we would have no precedents or incite on handling cases and making or executing laws without the research and recording of previous courtroom cases and laws. 

Why is this information not readily available?
Constance main purpose in this article is to address the global open law movement that is in effect. Constance asserts that Public legal information is digital common property and should be accessible to all on a nonprofit basis and [where possible] free of charge (30). There is a global initiative to fix these concerns; Members of this community commonly refer to this as  “search” and “retrieval” of legal information (32). Several countries around the globe have designed portals and free online search engines to make legal information readily available to citizens.
·         www.archive.org/details/texts
·         http://search.usa.gov
·         www.doaj.org
·         www.justia.com
·         www.plol.org/Pages/Search.aspx
·          www.glin.gov/search.action

This article certainly answered my question about legal research while also making me aware of its issue. It provided me with fact, resources, and helpful data for future use on this group project.

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