Citation as DNA: Who’s Your Data’s Daddy?

Peter W. Martin


Case law database services are a central and highly competitive segment of the multi-billion dollar legal information market. It’s where Westlaw and Lexis began and where, a decade or so later, they faced competition from LoisLaw and others taking advantage of CD-ROM publication and the Internet. More recently Bloomberg Law stepped into the main ring. Over the past decade, the lower cost, bar-benefit services FastCase and Casemaker have also moved aggressively to claim market share. Innovative start-ups like CourtListener and Ravel Law continue to pop up. As conspicuously as these services compete on price, quantity, quality of their supplementary material (briefs, citators, pertinent commentary), currency, completeness, and user experience, little is said or known about the source and quality of their core content. Do you know where your service of choice gets its case law? I undertook to find out. - 

See more at: http://verdict.justia.com/2014/01/20/citation-dna-whos-datas-daddy#sthash.mNILII4O.dpuf