Legal research

ICLR.4 and the genie in the bottle

Some years ago the editor of this Newsletter complained of the over-use of the description “artificial intelligence” in legal products: “hyping AI is unhelpful”, he said. “AI is just what computers do.” And he’s not alone in expressing scepticism about the often extravagant claims of AI. Much of the mystique around it stems from simple […]

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What’s new at vLex?

Two years on from Justis Since Justis was acquired by vLex two years ago, the teams have now fully integrated. With centralised development and editorial operations, the vLex and Justis teams now work together to increase the volume of legal information available on the service. However, the formerly Justis sales, accounts and marketing teams continue […]

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Recent developments at Justis

At the end of March 2019 Justis was acquired by vLex, a legal technology company founded in Barcelona with offices across the world. While we are at the beginning stages of planning what this means for both JustisOne and the vLex platform, we are able to speculate as to how Justis, a vLex company, might […]

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Major cost savings through more intelligent legal research

Legal research is regarded as one of the necessary expenses of the legal profession. It’s a task that needs to be done to ensure that arguments are robust, and to build the most comprehensive case possible, but it is a time-consuming task. This is why legal research is often delegated to trainees and newly qualified […]

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Bringing order to chaos – the importance of unreported judgments

“Every decision is binding no matter whether it is reported in the regular series of Law Reports, or is unreported. Once you have the transcript, you can cite it as of equal authority to a reported decision. It behoves every counsel or solicitor to find, if he can, a case – reported or unreported – […]

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Middle Temple Library in the internet age

Middle Temple is one of the four Inns of Court responsible for calling students to the Bar. It is a modern institution with ancient foundations, and this can be handily demonstrated by how the Library has grappled with new technology over the centuries, leading us into the internet Age. A library has existed at Middle […]

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Adapted from Binary by Michael Coghlan

Are you (digitally) competent?

With Natasha Choolhun The Solicitors Regulation Authority is undergoing a programme of education and training reform, “Training for Tomorrow”, following the Legal and Education Training Review (LETR). As part of the reforms the SRA are developing a competence statement for solicitors to inform consumers, assist legal education providers in developing courses and allow solicitors to […]

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Law Society Library Online

The idea of a joint project with one of the major legal publishers had been under consideration by the Law Society Library team for some time before the actual project kicked off in January 2007. Over the following 12 months the joint project team of Law Society Library staff and LexisNexis met on a weekly […]

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Legal research in England and the USA compared

I first need to tell you a bit about my own experience. I have worked in law firm libraries for 16 years, first with Nabarro (commercial work with an emphasis on property), then with Winckworth Sherwood (parliamentary, police, housing, ecclesiastical) and now with Sidley Austin (US, with the London office specialising in international finance). I […]

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