Electronic Legal Research1

Atty. Maria Theresa G. Libunao Vice-President CD Technologies Asia, Inc.

The process of electronic legal research was discussed and brought to the forefront last year in the Supreme Court case of In the Matter of the Charges of Plagiarism, etc., Against Associate Justice Mariano C. Del Castillo.2 The Supreme Court observed:
xxx In the old days, the common practice was that after a Justice would have assigned a case for study and report, the researcher would source his materials mostly from available law books and published articles on print. When he found a relevant item in a book, whether for one side of the issue or for the other, he would place a strip of paper marker on the appropriate page, pencil mark the item, and place the book on his desk where other relevant books would have piled up. He would later paraphrase or copy the marked out passages from some of these books as he typed his manuscript on a manual typewriter. This occasion would give him a clear opportunity to attribute the materials used to their authors or sources. With the advent of computers, however, as Justice Del Castillo's researcher also explained, most legal references, including the collection of decisions of the Court, are found in electronic 3 diskettes or in internet websites that offer virtual libraries of books and articles. xxx

Indeed, the legal profession has come a long way in coming to terms with the idea that most of the law books can be contained in a couple of CD-ROMs. Words like World Wide Web, Google and hyperlinking, which were as foreign sounding as dura lex sed lex to the nonlawyers, are now as common to most lawyers as are property rights and citizenship issues. Before the advent of technology, research was a tedious process. Nobody gets excited about the research aspect of the law,4 in a way that they would get excited about a murder case or a succession squabble among the heirs. Technology, however, has transformed the way legal research is done. Now, legal databases containing thousands of primary and secondary source materials may be accessed by the mere click of a computer mouse. The electronic medium is now used widely in legal practice, from the drafting of new laws to its application. As one author observed, It is no longer cutting-edge to be proficient in using [electronic legal research] databases; it is mandatory.5 This presentation is by no means an exhaustive study of all the electronic legal resources available, for this is constantly evolving and changing. It will, however, attempt to show some of the popular electronic or computer-aided resources available to the legal researcher, with a special highlight on the development and current state of electronic legal resources in the Philippine setting.
1

Lecture delivered during the Career Enhancement Program for the Clerks of Court of Region IX, Top Plaza Hotel, Dipolog City, July 5, 2011. 2 A.M. No. 10-7-17-SC, October 12, 2010. 3 In re Del Castillo, ibid. 4 In his Foreword, the Hon. Reynato S. Puno, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, said Legal Research has always been the unsung hero in the study and practice of law., Milagros Santos -Ong, Philippine Legal Research, Central Book Supply, Inc. (2007). 5 Peter P. Ng, Philipp U. Po, Pepito G. Po, Computer Aided Legal Research (CALR), Chapter 10, in Legal Research and Bibliography, 2007.

I.

Why Electronic Legal Research?

Electronic legal research, or oftentimes called computer-assisted legal research, is defined as Technology that allows lawyers and judges to bypass the traditional law library and locate statutes, court cases, and other legal references in minutes using a personal computer, research software, and a modem. 6 Technology has made possible the shift from manual to computer-aided legal research. Faster and cheaper seems to be the two common answers for the popular shift from traditional to electronic legal research. Search results can appear quickly on the computer screen with electronic libraries easier and less cost-intensive to maintain.7 Some advantages of electronic legal research are: 1. Electronic media can store a large amount of information. A CD-ROM can store hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. An online research facility can give access to millions of pages through links. 2. Electronic legal research tools are portable and can therefore be easily transported from one place to another. With a laptop computer, one can access legal information from an optical media anywhere. The World Wide Web can be accessed from any computer with Internet connection (e.g., Internet cafes) or PDAs with web browsers. 3. Electronic media take up very little space. Optical media like CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMS may be stored in boxes or cases and take only as much space as one law book. 4. Research is so much faster. The integration of powerful search engines facilitates searches in seconds. This translates to considerable savings in time and effort. 5. Information is flexible and more easily manipulated. Information in electronic format can be easily copied from one medium to another. 6. Information is easier to update and is therefore more current. Many online research services update their data daily. 7. Electronic media are long lasting. With proper care and use, they can last many years. II. Different Electronic Media for Legal Research A. The Internet and the World Wide Web Many people use the terms Internet and World Wide Web (a.k.a. the Web) interchangeably, but in fact the two terms are not synonymous. The Internet and the Web are two separate but related things. The Internet is a massive network of networks, a networking infrastructure. It connects millions of computers together globally, forming a network in which any computer can communicate with any other computer as long as they are both connected to the Internet. Information that travels over the Internet does so via a variety of languages known as protocols, the most basic being the Internet Protocol (IP) and transmission control protocol (TCP), and the services supplied by those networks.

http://www.answers.com/topic/computer-assisted-legal-research (November 2, 2010). Also in http://lawbrain.com/wiki/Computer-Assisted_Legal_Research (November 2, 2010). 7 Barbara Bintliff, Context and Legal Research, Law Library Journal (2007), http://www.aallnet.org/products/ pub_llj_v99n02/ 2007-15.pdf. 2

The World Wide Web, or simply Web, is a way of accessing information over the medium of the Internet. It is an information-sharing model that is built on top of the Internet. The Web uses the HTTP protocol, only one of the languages spoken over the Internet, to transmit data. Web services, which use HTTP to allow applications to communicate in order to exchange business logic, use the Web to share information. The Web also utilizes browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Netscape, to access Web documents called Web pages that are linked to each other via hyperlinks. Web documents also contain graphics, sounds, text and video. The Web is just one of the ways that information can be disseminated over the Internet. The Internet, not the Web, is also used for e-mail, which relies on SMTP, Usenet news groups, instant messaging and FTP. So the Web is just a portion of the Internet, albeit a large portion, but the two terms are not synonymous and should not be confused. 1. Accessing Legal Information through the Internet There are several ways of accessing legal information through the Internet and these are: a. Browsing Once you have chosen your browser and opened it, you will find that the home page contains directories, search features and links. A directory is a topical list of resources. A browser either has its own search engine or is linked to one of the powerful search engines available. A search engine allows for searching within the resources linked to the browser. Hyperlinks are usually words, phrases, images, or regions of an image that are often highlighted or colored differently and that can be selected as part of a WWW page. Each hyperlink represents another Web page, a location in the current Web page, an image, audio, video, or multimedia file; or some other resource on the World Wide Web. When the hyperlink is selected, it activates the resource that it represents. Examples of browsers are Internet Explorer, Google and Yahoo. b. Through a specific URL Address The researcher is sometimes armed with a specific address the he or she wants to visit. This is called the Uniform Resource Locator or URL address. The URL is a way of describing the location of an item (document, service, or resource) on the Internet and specifying the means by which to access that item. The web address would normally be written in the following manner: http:\\www.cdasia.com. HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the standard protocol that World Wide Web servers and clients use to communicate. Once inside the website corresponding to the address, the user can again browse through the site by following the active links found therein. c. Search Engines A search engine is a tool that gathers information from all over the Web, indexes it and creates a searchable database. A search engine sends a web crawler or spider The engine takes the key words or phrases entered, searches the database for words that match the search expression, and returns a list of matches with the respective URLs to the user. The search results are hyperlinks that contain descriptions and titles matching the search expression.
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Widely-acknowledged as the most powerful search engine today is Google. It claims to link over 2 billion pages of materials. It is so powerful that search results return to the user in a fraction of a second. The phrase google it or google has been added to the Oxford Dictionary.8 Another popular search engine is Yahoo. d. Through Bookmarks A Bookmark is a hyperlink that is saved in the bookmark list which is a file in your browser. You can use bookmarks to keep track of favorite or important sites and to return there whenever you are on the World Wide Web. A bookmark list is simple a list of hyperlinks to items on the World Wide Web. 2. On-line Libraries Legal Research on the Internet can be very unwieldy due to the amount of information contained therein. There are on-line applications that specifically address varying research needs and requirements. The different 2.1. Commercial or Subscription Sites: These sites require payment for access. A user password is supplied to the subscriber to facilitate entry into the system. Access to these sites is prohibitive for most lawyers in developing countries due to their high costs. Moreover, since these sites are based in the United States, the materials are heavily biased in favor of materials from developed countries. a. LEXIS-NEXIS (http:\\www.lexis-nexis.com)

LEXIS-NEXIS is a comprehensive compilation of legal, business and news information. Through LEXIS, subscribers will have access to an enormous collection of legal information, which includes materials from Australia, Canada, France, Hongkong, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, New Mexico, Northern Ireland, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States. The information is organized into libraries according to jurisdiction and comprises literally millions of pages of law reports, unreported cases, and statutory texts. LEXIS is complemented by NEXIS, a vast and up-to-date library of international news and business data. Altogether, the information in NEXIS enables the subscriber to develop a global perspective of companies, people, issues and events, using current information from authoritative news-gathering organizations. Among the features of LEXIS-NEXIS are services like Auto-Cite, Shepards, LEXSEE and LEXSTAT, among others, which allows the user to update and verify the usefulness of their search results. b. WestLaw (http:\\www.westlaw.com)

Google is Officially An English Word, http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/07/google-is-officially-englishword.html 4

WestLaw provides subscribers with immediate access to over 13,000 databases on the Internet. It offers an array of powerful research tools like the KeyCite, which allows the researcher to keep up-to-date on both statutes and case law research. WestLaw also has a Pending Legislation feature; KeyCite for Statutes that integrates notes of decisions within search results; and KeyCite Alert that can deliver citation updates as they occur. Other features are WestCheck, an automated citation-checking software and WestCiteLink, which allows for hypertext links between legal citations in research documents and the full text for those citations, using westlaw.com or WestDoc. Westlaw Public Records gives access to more than one billion public records. WestClip is an electronic clipping service will deliver information from legal sources, major wire services, local and national newspapers, trade journals, and other sources. 2.2. Free On-line Legal Research Websites a. Legal Information Institutes: World Legal Information Institute (http:\\www.worldlii.org) Worldlii is a free, independent and non-profit global research facility developed collaboratively by a number of legal information institutes and other organizations such as AustLII, BAILII, CanLII, HKLII, PacLII, and Wits Law School. WorldLII provides a single search facility for databases located in the foregoing Legal Information Institutes. It includes over 270 databases from 20 countries on case law, legislation, treaties, law reform, law journals and other legal materials. b. FindLaw : (http:\\www.findlaw.com) FindLaw was launched in 1996 and offers cases, statutes, lawyers directory, and other legal news. The complete list of materials found on this site may be viewed at http://company.findlaw.com/company_info.html. Findlaw was first published by Thomson Reuters in 1995. It is now part of the West Group Corporation. c. LexisOne (http://law.lexisnexis.com/webcenters/lexisone/) LexisOne is Lexis Publishing free service on the Internet. It features selected state and federal case law, links to law-related web sites organized according to categories and free legal forms alphabetized by topic. d. Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School (www.law.cornell.edu). This site provides a range of primary and secondary source materials, as well as directories to locate additional information on the Web. B. Optical Media Section 3, paragraph i of Republic Act No. 9239 defines optical media as a storage medium or device in which information, including sounds and/or images, or software code, has been stored, either by mastering and/or replication, which may be accessed and read using a lens scanning mechanism employing a high intensity light source such as a laser or any such other means as may be developed in the future. The term shall include, but not be limited to, devices
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which shall be listed in the IRR [Implementing Rules and Regulations] of this Act, or as prescribed by the OMB.9 The different types of optical media are CD (compact disc), CD-A (compact disc digital audio), CD-I (compact disc - interactive), CD-P (compact disc - photo), CDR (compact disc recordable), CD-ROM (compact disc read-only memory, CD-RW (compact disc rewritable), CD-WO (compact disc write once), CVD (China video disc), DVD (digital versatile disc), DVD-RAM (digital versatile disc random access memory), DVD-ROM (digital versatile disc read-only memory), EVD (enhanced versatile disc), LD (laser disc), MD (mini disc), SACD (super audio compact disc), SVCD (super video compact disc), VCD (video compact disc), or any future variation thereof.10 The most commonly used forms of optical media for data storage are the CD-ROM and DVD-ROM. A CD-ROM is a compact disc that is used with a computer (versus an audio system). It can store a large amount of digital information, up to 650MB of data. They are very durable and can be read by CD-ROM drives. The two types commonly used for recording text information are: 1. CD Recordable: Once data has been written, it cannot be altered. Digital information is written to the disc by burning (forming) pits in the recording layer on the CD. Information is permanently stamped into the aluminum reflecting layer. 2. CD Rewritable: Data can be written an unlimited number of times. CD-WR discs have a phase-change recording layer and an additional silver (aluminum) reflecting layer. A laser beam can melt crystals in the recording layer into a non-crystalline amorphous phase or anneal them slowly at a lower temperature back to the crystalline state. The CD Recordable is considered a better technology for archival purposes as the data cannot be accidentally modified or tampered with. It also encourages better archival practices data can only be stored once so they must be properly arranged or programmed before being written into the disc. Lexis-Nexis has a variety of works on CD-ROM, some of which are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Halsburys Laws of England 4th Edition Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents 5th Edition Halsburys Laws of Hong Kong Hong Kong Case Law Library Butterworths Corporate Law Service

West Law also has several titles on CD-ROM, like the American Law Reports (ALR) series and American Jurisprudence Legal Forms. CD-ROM titles available in local libraries are Wilsondisc for foreign legal articles,11 United States Supreme Court (USSC) for American cases12, TIARA (treaties entered into by the United
9

Republic Act No. 9239, An Act Regulating Optical Media, Reorganizing for this Purpose the Videogram Regulatory Board, Providing Penalties Therefor, and for Other Purposes, February 10, 2004, Philippine Law Encyclopedia, Philippine Legal Encyclopedia Series published by CD Asia (2010). 10 Schedule C, Implementing Rules and Regulations of RA 9239, February 1, 2005, ibid. 11 Available at the Ateneo Law Library, http://ateneolaw.ateneo.edu/index.php?p=22. 12 Ibid. 6

States)13, UNBIS CD-ROM (bibliographic output to UN Publications),14 and World Development Sources,15 among others. III. Electronic Legal Research: The Philippine Setting A. Historical Background Electronic legal research in the Philippines can be traced to the late 1980s with the establishment of Juris et Legis by a group headed by the late Justice Federico Moreno. The company converted decisions of the Supreme Court, from 1901 up to 1991, into electronic format by means of manual encoding, and stored the database into a mini computer. Juris et Legis then acted as a research service for legal professionals. A client would submit a query and the researchers of JeL would provide research to support the client's position. The company ceased operations in 1995 when the database of JeL was bought by CD Technologies Asia, Inc. In 1992, Gigabytes Research Systems, Inc. (GRSI) released volume one of PhilJuris, a two-CD compilation of the full text of Supreme Court decisions. It uses the Amicus software (actually the Microsoft Viewer) as its main search engine and uses key words and phrases for finding specific decisions. Other features are pop-up menus and icons, multiple windows, copy and paste, and file print. The second volume was released in 1993, and the CD-ROMs eventually carried selected legislative issuances covering materials up to 1996. However, GRSI was not able to develop other legal research titles. The company was sold to a private developer who changed the companys name to PhilJuris, Inc. but its management eventually turned-over the database to an educational institution for its use. During this time, another entity attempted to present legal materials in a different format and media. The Iris Databank Legal Research System used diskettes to store the information, which was eventually transferred on the users hard disk. The system used the indexing m ethod for legal research. It presents the general topics (i.e., issues or principles of law and jurisprudence) of a particular subject arranged in alphabetical order. Through this topical index and with the use of links, the user can then have access to provisions of laws and digests of cases with citations. It had modules on Labor Law, Taxation, Corporation Law and Civil Procedure. Although Iris Databank eventually transferred its information on to a CD-ROM, the company eventually stopped the development of its database. Another short-lived database developed in diskettes were the PhilJa Updates, which was a joint project of the Philippine Judicial Academy and CD Asia to provide judges with current legal information necessary for the proper and efficient performance of their administrative and adjudicatory functions. The Updates contain select Laws, Supreme Court Administrative Cases against Judges and Court Personnel, Supreme Court Administrative Circulars and Orders and selected PhilJA lectures. These were eventually discontinued. B. Current Electronic Legal Research Resources 1. On Optical Media
13 14

Available at the UP College of Law Library, http://law.upd.edu.ph Ibid. 15 Ibid. 7

A. CD Technologies Asia, Incorporated (CD Asia) Today, one cannot mention electronic legal research without mentioning CD Technologies Asia, Inc. (CD Asia), the publisher of the popular Lex Libris titles on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM. Lex Libris is considered as the most comprehensive and up-to-date source of legal research on optical media.16 CD Asia released its first Lex Libris title, Laws Philippine Edition, in November 2004, six months from the date the company was incorporated. This was followed in quick succession by Taxation Philippine Edition, Jurisprudence (Philippine Supreme Court Decisions), Department of Justice (Opinions of the Secretary), Local Autonomy and Local Government, Environment and Natural Resources, Labor and Social Legislation, Elections, Trade, Commerce and Industry, Securities and Exchange Commission and Family Law (now renamed as Persons and Family Relations). All Lex Libris titles are updated with the latest information. The series is engineered with Folio Views software and customized with the creation of query templates. These templates simplify searches for infobase-specific information. For instance, the Jurisprudence query template allows searching for the G.R. No., names of parties, ponente, year, key words and phrases, as well as searching through the entire infobase or just through the syllabi. The Laws query template allows searching by title, number of issuance, date, words and phrases. Aside from the Lex Libris series, CD has produced other titles in coordination with various governmental and non-governmental institutions. These are the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Bureau of Internal Revenue Legal Information System, Compendium of Philippine Customs Laws and Regulations, and Department of Agrarian Reform Legal Information System. Together with the UP Law Center, CD Asia has published the Proceedings of the Constitutional Commission and the Impeachment Proceedings Against President Joseph Estrada. It also publishes the National Administrative Register. CD Asia has expanded its product line. Aside from the Philippine Law Library, which include the Lex Libris series, Student Edition, Bench Companion and the companys special titles, CD Asia also developed the following product lines: authored titles under the Legal Knowledge series (Education Law and the Private Schools; Philippine Legal and Judicial Forms; Philippine Legal Ethics (featuring the book The Good Lawyer; Indigenous Peoples and Law; Government Procurement Policy Board and Lexicon of Philippine Legal Terms); and Customized Databasing. CD Asia recently partnered up with Accesslaw to create the first ever electronic Philippine Legal Encyclopedia Series. CD Asias extensive databases were combined with the annotations of Accesslaw, Inc.. The two initial volumes are: a. Philippine Laws Encyclopedia The title is the most comprehensive compilation of Philippine laws and statutes on DVD-ROM, with up-to-date analyses and annotations of over 5,000 laws and statutes. It includes a subject index, case doctrines, and the original and living version of the laws and statutes, with hyperlinking of related issuances for greater ease of use.

16

Santos-Ong, Philippine Legal Research, p. 145. 8

b. Philippine Taxation Encyclopedia It is the complete collection of taxation-related jurisprudence, statutes, laws, and administrative issuances, with a section-by-section cross-referencing, analysis and annotation of the National Internal Revenue Code. It contains the widest coverage of issuances of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, local and international tax-related materials, a subject index and case digests. B. Accesslaw, Inc. Laws Annotated is a two-disc set published by Accesslaw, Inc. It covers significant laws on specific topics such as investments, taxation, corporations, immigration and utilities. It aims to present reconciled versions of the law with annotations. These annotations contain statutory history, amendments, analysis, comments and hyperlinks. Disc 1 of Laws Annotated covers Private Law while Disc 2 covers Public Law. Accesslaw also published Computerized Access to the Tax System (C.A.T.S.). Accesslaw is now a partner of CD Asia in the publication of the Philippine Legal Encyclopedia Series. C. Other Titles on CD-ROM 1. e-Library: A Century (and 9 years) of Philippine Supreme Court Decisions - published and released by a group based in Agoo, La Union, it makes use of the Super E-Books Viewer, developed by Mr. Sony Valdez. 2. i-law: Instant Access to Supreme Court Decisions first demonstrated during the 11th IBP National Convention in Baguio City, it is no longer visibly in the market. 3. The Supreme Court e-Library (on CD-ROM) complementary to the Supreme Court eLibrary project 4. E-Juris a publication of EMSAVVIL Law Office 2. On the World Wide Web A. CD Asia Online CD Asia Online has the only complete database of Philippine laws and jurisprudence. The materials found in the website are classified and sorted by a unique search engine that organizes the search results according to the researchers needs and specifications. Design of the search template makes it easy for the end-users to type in their search queries. The back-end is a superior application that can group and sort the search results by relevance, date, issuance number, G.R. number, ponente, and year. It can also automatically crossreference and link related documents. The end-user has different type of searches to choose from: simple searches, Boolean queries, fuzzy searches and others. The online interface makes browsing through laws and Supreme Court decisions convenient and easy. The reader-friendly text format, including footnotes, tables, and images, are presented in a full-page view. B. Supreme Court (http:\\www.sc.judiciary.gov.ph) The latest Supreme Court decisions may be read and downloaded directly from a link on the Supreme Court webpage. The website itself has a search engine which makes use of Google Custom Search. However, the search engine is not limited to the decisions alone, and can search over non-legal items in the Supreme Court website.
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The Supreme Court also has an E-Library which is envisioned to be the primary research tool in the speedy delivery of justice. 17 Launched on November 19, 2009, it is unfortunately not being updated since December 1, 2008 (the last material posted on the website is November 2008). C. The Official Government Portal of the Republic of the Philippines (http:\\www.gov.ph) It has a directory of the different government offices, with links to these offices websites. The different categories are as follows:18 1. Agriculture 2. Defense 3. Economy (Department of Finance, BIR, NEDA, Bureau of Investments, Department of Budget and Management, SEC, Bureau of Treasury, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) 4. Education 5. Energy 6. Environment 7. Foreign Affairs 8. Health 9. Housing 10. Justice 11. Labor and Social Welfare 12. Local Government 13. Public Safety 14. Science and Technology 15. Transportation 16. Travel and Tourism Unfortunately, most of these websites do not offer much in the way of legal information. Some sites merely cite or include the enabling law or act which provides for their charter. Some are even sourced from the Lex Libris titles on cd-roms and copies on to the sites. D. Chan Robles Virtual Law Library (http:\\www.chanrobles.com) First uploaded in 1998, the site contains links to the Philippine Supreme Court website for the SC Decisions from 1901 to 2006. You can search by case title or G.R. number for site specific searching. It also contains some laws indexed according to subject matter. E. Philippine Laws and Jurisprudence Databank The LawPhil Project (http:\\www.lawphil.net) Published by the Arellano Law Foundation through its Information Technology Center, it contains Supreme Court Decisions and some Philippine laws. It makes use of the Google search engine. F. List of Philippine Directives and Issuances (http://www.ops.gov.ph/records/)

17 18

Homepage, http://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/index.php?pageid Homepage, http://www.gov.ph/default.asp 10

This website, published by the Office of the Press Secretary, enumerates and gives the full text of all the directives and issuances emanating from the Office of the President. Specifically, the collection consists of Presidential Administrative orders, Executive orders, Proclamations, Memorandum orders, Memorandum circulars and Republic acts covering the period from year 2003 to the present. It gives the results in PDF format and has no search engine. V. Conclusion The following was observed with respect to the influence of electronic legal research: The growing popularity of computer-assisted legal research (CALR) has generated debate among law librarians and other legal professionals on how it is influencing legal research and the law. Some commentators claim that CALR makes legal research more efficient and thorough than ever before, while others go further and argue that it reshapes the law itself by releasing attorneys and courts from the rigid organization of print sources. Other commentators, however, claim that CALR is no more effective than traditional methods of legal research and that its effects on legal thinking are exaggerated.19 There is undoubtedly a lot of legal information available electronically. However, the information on free sites on the internet usually consists of primary sources which are unanalyzed, nonvalue-added materials. Further, when the researcher finds a website or an electronic database containing legal information, it lacks either of two important things: (a) a search engine; or (b) a comprehensive compilation of data. Internet-wide search engines based on web spider technology do provide an ability to search at word-occurrence level for documents located across the Internet. However, their coverage of legal materials is not comprehensive. Using Internet-wide search engines for legal research is difficult (particularly for inexperienced searchers) due to the formulation of searches that are specific enough to remove the noise of non-legal usages of search terms. Users risk not being able to find relevant items because of the bulk irrelevant items retrieved. Website maintenance, including updating the legal information contained therein, is also a concern. Links may become non-functional due to changes in the URL address, removal of the data or just improper or poor maintenance of site Lastly, with the use of electronic legal research is that there is a shift from one of the basic steps in traditional legal research knowing the area of law first to the use of search words. The researcher could get search results that are not in line with their research needs. This can be both an advantage and disadvantage. Advantage in that it might open a new line of thought for the research being done; disadvantage if one is pressed for time and desperate to prove a legal argument. This shotgun approach is due to the fact that there is still almost non-existent indexing of Philippine legal materials on the internet. In doing legal research using electronic or computer-aided materials, it might be helpful to take note of the following checklist as published in the University of Washington Law School website:20
19

Paul Hellyer, Assessing the Influence of Computer-Assisted Legal Research: A Study of California Supreme Court Opinions, http://www.aallnet.org/products/pub-llj-v97n02/2005-16.pdf, (2005), November 3, 2010. 20 Nancy McMurrer, Introduction to Computer-Assisted Legal Research, http://lib.law.wshington.edu/ref 11

1. Remember, the research process is the same whether you use manual or electronic resources. Develop an exhaustive list of search terms and decide which part of the research should be tackled electronically, which manually. 2. Choose the best electronic source for your research. a. What electronic choices do you have (commercial services, Internet)? b. Where is the information likely to be found? c. Which electronic source can you use most effectively to keep costs to a minimum? 3. Choose a database or file. a. Choose the most specific (commercial) database that will meet your research needs. b. Determine what reliable, authoritative (free) site(s) will have the information you need. c. Devise a strategy for finding the online database or file that has the documents you need. 4. Using the search terms gathered during your preliminary analysis to construct a query. a. Take spelling variations into account (dr*nk to find drink or drank or drunk). b. Establish what form must be used so the search engine will recognize a phrase. c. Create relationships among search terms using Boolean and/or proximity connectors. d. If needed (and if possible), put terms in parentheses to control processing order. e. Use searches in fields or segments of the documents. f. Limit by date to eliminate extraneous materials. g. Use natural language or concept searching if appropriate. h. Look in online help for search tips; each online system is a bit different. 5. Consider backup strategies if your first search is unproductive. a. Are there other electronic sources, databases, or Web sites you should search? b. What are other searches or other terms you should try? 6. Decide the format and destination of the search results. a. Do you need the full text, kwic, or will a list of citations be satisfactory? b. Should you print, download, email, or read the results online? 7. Update by using the most current electronic resource to which you have access It is undeniable that technology has opened endless electronic libraries for use by the researcher. Research work that used to take days or even weeks of searching and locating repositories of legal information may now be done in minutes. However, it is precisely this reason why a researcher must take more care in crafting and drafting their research query, and in selecting electronic libraries to visit. The researcher must also remember that search engines are not yet able to locate information in context. Thus, it is still necessary to read through the material before using the same in ones research work. Lastly, no matter how many electronic legal resources the researcher cites, it will be ineffective if not used together with effective legal writing.

calrbls.html, (2008), November 2, 2010. 12