Star Trek provided a view into what the writers thought was the
future. In some things, they were
remarkably accurate. Today, we have
personal communication devices we always carry. We have weapons which stun but don’t kill or
even expose a victim to permanent damage.
Today, there are far more machines which examine patients and which show
remotely what the docs in the past had to cut a patient open to see.
The one thing the writers got ever so wrong are their view of
computers. We got beyond portable discs
with limited information 20 years ago.
We already talk to some computers.
Some computers talk back. Some convert
one language to another.
Star Trek was noted for the main characters being able to outthink a
computer. They could set up a paradox which not only froze the computer, but
would cause the computer to self-destruct (in frustration?)
So let me introduce Samuel T. Cogley.
Captain Kirk was on trial and needed a lawyer. Somehow, he came by Samuel T. Cogley. One thing was surprising: While in that 24th Century world,
all legal research was done by computers.
Cogley didn’t trust computers. He
trusted books, the printed and bound kind.
He was pictured with hundreds of books he moved into Captain Kirk’s
quarters. (The actual books used were
regional reporters by West Company, the publisher of all the federal courts and
the state supreme courts.)
It’s been a touch more than 50 years since I first started doing legal
research. And I have done the book thing.
I was not known at the law school as a library-infester. One time, some classmates who were in the
library studying stood up and broke into applause when I cracked the library door. What they did not know, my buddies and I used
the law library in Marion County, not the school library. OK, when we needed to go to the books, which
to be fair to my classmates was less often than them. I also worked during law school for a law
firm with a decent library, where I established myself. I learned law and law school; I learned
lawyering from those guys.
If you are only interested in West Virginia cases, there are still
about 150 books with those. When you do
legal research, there is seldom a simple answer. Some courts rule on an issue one way and some
another. From time to time, a Supreme Court will change its collective
mind.
To do manual legal research takes a lot of books, piled across a wide,
long table, 3 or 4 books deep. You have
to go from one to another to get an inkling of what the law is on a subject, and
to find support for your client’s position.
(I well remember the late Al Lemley coming in the library and hassling
me about how many books I spread around.
I miss Al.)
That’s what Captain Kirk had to put up with books, books and more books.
Sadly, it did not take until the 24th Century to escape the
clutches of Samuel T. Cogley. By say
2010, the switch to computer/internet legal research was in full – and growing –
blossom. Since then, I may have touched one law book a month, but some months I
forgot. (That doesn’t count my criminal
code, which is my constant companion, to keep straight what the Legislature in
its collective ignorance. I have pending
a post on the moronic modifications to the state drug laws.)
The West Virginia State Bar provides us a free research service. It’s a little hard to use, but which part of “free”
do you not understand? And then there is
Google, which has . . . well, a hell of lot more information that I know. There’s also FastCase, Justicia, FindLaw,
WestLaw, and LexisNexus.
Now – sadly for me – law books are mainly decorations in a law office,
stuff which clients expect to see.
So carry on, Samuel T. Cogley, right along with your buggy whips,
button hooks and fireplaces. But stay
under the porch, you no longer belong to the big dogs.
Mizpah!
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