My Dirty Little Research Secret

Here is my dirty little secret.  I do not like to talk about it because my colleagues would think I am lame.  But, I start out all my legal research projects (whether preparing a pleading or a legal brief) with Wikipedia  Google and YouTube.  Another of my favorites is Dogpile because this search engine searches all of the other search engines to bring you the top finds of each on whatever you input.  All I can ask is that, shhhhhh, please do not tell anyone.  Oh, the utter shame of it all!

One, these services are FREE.  They are extensive.  Two, they all provide a great survey of the legal landscape that you are researching.  If I want to know who I am about to sue, if I want to know if a company has had any other similar complaints, if I want to know if the government or anybody else is after a potential defendant, if I want to generally look at a legal issue or a particular case sited, if I want to determine the exact definition of a term or concept, or any number other things, I start with these sites.

I am not saying that I conclude my research here.  I am not saying that I do not expand upon what I learn or gather.  I am just saying that nine out of ten times this is where I start.

It has gotten so that if another attorney calls me to discuss a matter and refers to a case, I do not get on my legal research or case law website.  I will punch it into one of these sources, and I will generally find the case or the reference.

It was not long ago that I asked when Google was going to bring us true FREE legal research capability.  After all, the cases are open and free to the public.  Google is already scanning the World.  It just needs some more defined search tools specific to this area.  After all, why should we all be paying West, Lexis, LoisLaw or anybody else all of the money we do for access?

What brings this up is a post on the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog asking whether Judges should use Wikipedia in their research and in their opinions?  Well, of course they should.  I seriously doubt that judges approach their material any differently than we do.   

As stated by the WSJ, in 2004 more than 100 opinion have cited Wikipedia, including 13 from federal appeals courts.  Some find this objectionable because they say it is an "unstable source", meaning that it lacks some types of quality control.  Well, I find this not so much inaccurate, but confusing.  Because as a reader of many judicial opinions I can tell you that many of these cases represent "unstable sources".  That is the reason that we have multiple levels of appeal.  I might not like what some judge says, how he reasons out an issue, or performs his legal research, but say that these decisions have any more quality control, or that they are more stable than Wikipedia just is not accurate.

Law review articles are often cited in legal decisions.  Attorney general decisions are cited in legal opinions.  In fact, out Attorney General had the unmitigated gall to get up in front of Congress and defend his opinion that the right to habeas corpus was statutory rather than constitutional because  the Constitution only defines when the government can suspend habeas corpus and does not say that it grants habeas corpus.  It was his what-the-meaning-of-"is"-is moment.  To say that decision of his, which has also been presented in Court, is stable or has undergone some type of quality control (other than spell check) is a ludicrous position to take.

I would have a problem if a judge or a lawyer started with and stopped with Wikipedia, Google or the rest, but what is the problem in looking at all available sources and mentioning those that stand for reason.

Seventh Circuit Judge Posner, who has cited Wikipedia in a decision said it best: “Wikipedia is a terrific resource . . . Partly because it so convenient, it often has been updated recently and is very accurate.” He added: “It wouldn’t be right to use it in a critical issue. If the safety of a product is at issue, you wouldn’t look it up in Wikipedia.”