Should Wexis Fear? Posted By Daniel Kaiser, Esq. on June 17, 2010
Maybe it’s because I’m a legal research fan, maybe it’s because I like a deal, but William Manz’s recent article[1] in the New York State Bar Association Journal is pretty darn cool. The thing is, I’m not quite sure which part is the coolest.
Old, archived legal records and briefs have long been accessible only to lawyers and researchers who are willing to pay. As Manz points out, microfilm or microfiche records of New York Appellate Division cases only go back as far as the early 1970s. If you want to dig back a bit deeper, good luck! Google is working together with the Law Library Microform Consortium (LLMC) to change all that.
LLMC has been at work collecting archived materials in their physical format from law libraries. This is just the start, but it’s no small job. The New York Bar Association library worked for more than half a year, from January to August 2009, just to remove their volumes from basement stacks. From there Google has been arranging the shipment of materials to Googleplex in Mountain View, California, where their own high-speed scanners digitize them and record their size, author and publication date. Ultimately these volumes will be freely accessible via Google Scholar, complete with Google’s user-friendly search engine functionality.
The fun doesn’t end there. Sadly less accessible to people like—me—the original copies of the newly-scanned materials are being sent to Hutchinson, Kansas for permanent storage with Underground Vaults & Storage, Inc. Describing itself as “one of the most secure and elusive underground storage facilities in the world,” this secure facility uses portions of a salt mine 650 feet below the surface. We’re talking about more than 1.7 million square feet of storage space in cool, dry storage, where our legal heritage will live along with Hollywood archives and Cold War era documents. Their website boasts of “biometric scans, video cameras, redundant authorizations, steel vault doors, blind passwords, anonymous storage, restricted personnel access, infrared monitors, and more that we cannot reveal.”[2] As I understand it, access would even be a challenge for James Bond.
So should Wexis fear? Google isn’t exactly brand new to the game—Google Scholar has been gradually developing in content and functionality. But considering all the bells and whistles Westlaw and Lexis bring to the table, they’re not likely to be hurt. Those at risk, perhaps, are the collection of second-tier legal research services that cater to smaller firms and solos.
[1] William H. Manz, Recent Developments: Records and Briefs, N.Y. ST. B.A. J. 82, Feb. 2010, at 47.
[2] http://www.undergroundvaults.com/aboutus/hutchinson.cfm
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