Recently Google announced that its Scholar web-based search service would begin providing access to Federal and State legal opinions. Above the Law correctly notes that this could be the opening shot of a war that ends with the destruction of the Lex-West-Bloom legal search gatekeepers. While Google is a force to be reckoned with in everything from browsers, search engines (and patent search too), operating systems, phone services, e-mail, word processing and a ton of other things, I am not sure that Scholar will cause the total collapse of the big three.....today.
Using Scholar, I searched for Graham v. John Deere Co. to see what sort of results the service provided. Google gives you two options, to read the case (with highlighted keywords, that were part of your search) and to see how the case was cited. This second option is where Google has a bit more work to do. One of the essential features of the big 3 is the key cite, shepherdize, precedence identifies that let you know if you are barking up the wrong (and no longer good) legal tree. Scholar gives dozens of links and text snippets showing where the originating document was cited in subsequent documents, but does not comment on whether or not there was agreement, comment or dissent. Most importantly, it does not tell you if the case is good law.
Until Google gets the ability to show precedence and some legal analysis about the context of the case, I don't think any small law practitioners should be canceling their Lexis / West accounts anytime soon. However, this is Google, so assuming that they are not already working on a smooth integrated solution to this would be folly. Google database engineers are some of the best computer scientist that money can buy, and it would be prudent to bet that world of legal search is about to get a lot more competitive.
[GA]
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