Page 11 - Delaware Lawyer -Spring 2021

they have not been overturned or up- dated. And yes, this likely means no longer billing the client for completing those tasks. But automating them frees up attorney time to conduct a more thorough review of the search results that are returned. Or provides more time to spend on drafting and polish- ing a document than on searching for industry-standard clauses to include in it. What the machines can’t do is incor- porate that data about expected length of trial or likelihood of success before a particular judge into case strategy. At- torneys will still be connecting the dots between information, considering their clients’ individual situations and de- sires, and representing them in the best possible way.
The legal researcher of the (near) future will incorporate these tools into their practice, enhancing their ability to provide well-researched, customized
legal representation. The attorney will weigh different sources of information and pick the free resource when it’s appropriate, rely on natural language searching in a paid resource when it seems to be getting the job done, and go back to using Boolean search terms and connectors when it does not. The attorney will sort through search en- gine results focusing not just on the titles of the pages, but on who authored those pages (and when). Tomorrow’s researcher must focus on spending less time hunting for information and more time sifting through results; reviewing and analyzing what is found; and pick- ing out sources not because they were on the first page of hits, but because they are the best for the task at hand. So throw away the hound’s-tooth deerstalker cap but, by all means, keep the magnifying glass. You’re going to need it.
NOTES
Nevelow Mart’s The a Human Artifact: Implications for Legal [Re]Search in 109 L. Library J. 387 (2018) for a look at the variations among systems: https:/ www.aallnet.org/wp-content/uploads/ 2018/01/Vol-109-No-3-The-Algorithm-
as-a-Human-Artifact.pdf.
2. Law Commons: https://network.bepress. com/law.
3. See R ichard A. Danner, Contempo- rary and Future Directions in American Legal Research: Responding to the Threat of the Available, 31 Int’l J. Legal Info. 179 (2003).
4. See Digital Synopsis: https://digital synopsis.com/tools/google-serp-design and in 2020, Search Engine Journal reported that over 28% of people click on the very first link in a Google result, limiting their exposure to other sources even more: https://www.search enginejournal.com/google-first-page- clicks/374516/#close.
5.For tips on selecting the best free le- gal resources, see Villanova’s Free Sites for Legal Research Libguide: https:// libguides.law.villanova.edu/FreeLegalRe- search.
1. See Susan
Algorithm as
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