Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Like everyone else, I suppose, I long ago yielded to the inevitable, and now do the overwhelming majority of my legal research on-line. I hate it, though, because my mind does not work the way Westlaw thinks it should. For example, just now I was reading a statute. I'd like to keep that statute in front of me and look at some cases. In order to look a decisions, however, I have to back out of the statutes database, open the cases database, and conduct my search. There is no simple way to flip back and forth. I could, I suppose, block and copy the statutory section into my word processor, but since I'm drafting as I go along, or at least making notes, that means that I'm flipping between my browser and two or three separate word processing documents. Maybe it's still faster, but whenever I'm involved in something like this I feel like John Henry and his hammer. I'm sure that I could do it better with the books.
There is probably a simple solution to this. Maybe it already exists in Westlaw-- some sort of way to use tabs, for example. If does exist, the fact that I haven't found it means the problem still exists, and while I'm hating on West, when are they going to make it compatible with Firefox?
There is probably a simple solution to this. Maybe it already exists in Westlaw-- some sort of way to use tabs, for example. If does exist, the fact that I haven't found it means the problem still exists, and while I'm hating on West, when are they going to make it compatible with Firefox?
// posted by Bill @ 11:40 AM 
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