Long gone is the time when attorneys enter a dusty room with staggering bookcases to find the latest version of a statute or the that will wow the judge. Decades ago, legal work was a time-consuming process that required long days and nights buried within a Indian law library library. With the Internet and digitization of books came significant advances and changes in legal resources. Now, the that provides these modern tools truly big, if not bigger, than a fraction of the largest law firms in the globe.

Attorneys in modern day age have regarding comprehensive indexes of cases and statutes with a simple click of a button. These databases and research hubs are operated by a handful of companies that staff hundreds or 1000’s of employees to appear at latest cases which can be published, usually your state or federal court. The employees then provide summaries of the cases, which highlight the best themes or rulings. In addition, these digital databases offer numerous resources beyond cases and statutes. They also contain secondary sources such as law review articles that analyze certain topics in the law or treatises, that respected summaries of certain areas of law.

One of the primary aspects of persuasive legal writing will be the citation of cases that are current and still good law. That means there cannot be subsequent cases that overturn or negatively affect the holding reached in since case. This task used to be accomplished by the time-consuming process of cross-referencing and reading extra cases. However, with these modern digital databases, do the job gets done by the legal resource business.

These advances in legal research tools have dramatically changed the size and existence of legal libraries all a fair distance. In the past, every respectable law firm, courthouse, legal aid center, and law school had large levels of their buildings dedicated in storing books. Now, many of these institutions have dramatically cut down across the size of physical legal books and case books. Some may retain a small portion of their previous collection as ornaments rather than practical resources.

One realm which has not been dramatically impacted by these modern innovations will be the research of legislative history, such as looking at the prior versions of legislation or determining the intent of brand new in drafting the law. Much of this information is unavailable digitally or online, likely because for this sheer volume of the work and the relatively low demand by attorneys. For any resources, legal researchers must turn for the old fashion approach of going any state or federal library, requesting data in advance, and sitting down and reading.