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John Spencer MA(Oxon), LLM, BSc

Chief Reporter, Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales
Email: [email protected]

Penelope Kent LLB, LLM

Principal Lecturer in Law, Middlesex University Business School
Email: [email protected]

Copyright © 2002, Maureen Spencer, John Spencer and Penelope Kent
First published in the Web Journal of Current legal Issues

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A small survey of solicitors, barristers, law centre managers, academics and students reveals the extent of their use of on-line law reports. Although a majority of practitioners are using these reports, only a minority of students are. The survey explored respondents’ attitudes to on-line and traditional paper law reports. The responses suggest that electronic sources, including transcripts, are used for a variety of reasons and for a large body of users the absence of pre-selection by law reporters is not a major consideration. For some purposes, however, paper reports are preferred, particularly because they are regarded as more acceptable to judges and magistrates. Cost is a significant deterrent to take-up of subscription sources. The survey results raise issues for legal education, particularly the extent to which students need to be taught to analyse and discriminate in investigating sources of law. Otherwise the electronic information explosion may not be accompanied by an increase in legal knowledge and skills.

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It is a commonplace that new technology is transforming legal practice. One example of this transformation is the proliferating production of law reports, traditionally a paper-based activity but now increasingly penetrated by electronic media, including online and CD-Rom reports and databases. This article reports the results of an empirical survey conducted at Middlesex University Business School into the use of online reports by legal practitioners, academics and students.

The object of the survey was to investigate how far these groups were using online reports, and to what extent they were preferred to paper reports. Questions were designed to find out whether online reports were being used in the same way as traditional ones or whether they opened up new possibilities for use. However the survey aimed not just at finding out what was happening but also at drawing out the implications of the findings for legal education. It seemed sensible to gain evidence on the pattern of use of electronically transmitted sources in order to assess how best to prepare university students for work in the professions.

The survey was inspired by a conference hosted by Cambridge University Law Faculty entitled "Law Reporting, Legal Information and Electronic Media in the new Millennium", held in March 2000 and sponsored by the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales. The theme of the Conference was as follows:

The Internet and other forms of electronic publishing have made more legal information available at greater speed than at any previous time in history. Is there too much to manage? Is it all useful? What are the real needs of the profession? It is time to consider the means by which law is made available.

One preliminary problem encountered in the survey is there is no agreement on terminology. Here the term "law report" is used somewhat promiscuously to describe any account of a case produced by a law reporter and to differentiate accounts of cases from other legal media such as statutes and subordinate legislation. It is acknowledged that some would find this use of the term too wide and seek to confine it to established series of law reports.

The survey was sent in January 2001 to solicitors and barristers randomly selected from the current Solicitors' and Barristers' Directory. London and provincial practitioners were included. Replies came from 87 of the 304 solicitors surveyed (29% response rate) and 36 of the 117 barristers (31% response rate).⁽²⁾ With the kind assistance of the Law Centres Federation we surveyed all law centre managers and had 19 replies out of 55 questionnaires sent out (35% response rate). In February we also surveyed 58 University law lecturers, selecting one post-1992 university and one pre-1992 university. We obtained a staff list for each of the two institutions and sent questionnaires to all on the lists.⁽³⁾ As with the students, we decided not to differentiate in our analysis between 'old' and 'new' universities. We had replies from 18 academics (31% response rate). We did not send a second mailing to those who had not replied. Finally we distributed questionnaires to two cohorts of second year law students, one at a new and one at an old university. Though they differed in minor details to take account of group characteristics the questionnaires sent to each group were essentially the same.

Obviously the survey is small and therefore does not justify advanced analysis. We acknowledge, too, that the low response rate, particularly from practitioners, may have introduced bias, whether by geography or by type of firm^.(4) However we submit it as giving an impression at least of the use and expectations of use of electronic law reports and as suggesting further fruitful lines of inquiry. We are particularly grateful to the many respondents who took the trouble to comment beyond the survey questions on their own use of electronic media, giving our survey an unexpected extra dimension. The results for practitioners, that is solicitors, barristers and law centre workers, are analysed below separately from those for undergraduate law students and academics.

All practitioner respondents were asked whether they made any use of electronic law reports. The overall results showed that just over 65% of these respondents personally made use of electronic law reports. Seventy per cent of women respondents did, compared with 66% of the men. Sixty per cent of solicitors who replied said they personally made use of electronic reports, whereas 87% of barrister respondents did so. Only 58% of law centre workers answered this question in the affirmative - no doubt a reflection of their less lavish resources.

Those who did indicate that they used electronic law reports were asked a series of further questions. They were asked how often on average they used those reports. Taking barristers and solicitors together, of those who do use electronic law reports 64% used them on average at least once a week. Again barristers’ use exceeded that of solicitors, 42% using them on average daily, compared to 15% of solicitors. Thus fewer than half of the Bar appear to be using electronic law reports on a daily basis. The numbers in the survey were too small to make any meaningful analysis of use of electronic law reports by other variables including length of time in practice and numbers of partners or type of work. With regard to number of partners in practice 14 out of 26 (i.e. 54%) who were in partnerships of five or less used electronic law reports. This compared with 32 out of 53 (60%) in partnerships of more than five.

All solicitors, barristers and law centre workers who used electronic law reports (94 in total) were asked to choose from two checklists, one of named subscription reports, the other of non-subscription services. While neither list was exhaustive, respondents did have an opportunity to write in the names of any other services they used. Only ten respondents made no use of any paid-for service. For those who did, Lawtel was by far the most frequently cited service, used by 40 respondents (43%). Other popular services were Current Legal Information (23 respondents), and Lexis and Casetrack (19 apiece). Nineteen used the All England Law Reports, nine the Law Reports, eight Context, and nineteen the Law Reports CD-Rom version. Other services (EUinteractive, EuroLaw, Celex, LocallawUK) appeared to be used by a small number of respondents. Most of these serve niche markets, whereas the more popular services cover general law. Other specialist services mentioned by respondents included New Law on-line, Butterworth Family Law BOS, Kemp & Kemp on CD-Rom, Electronic Industrial Relations Law Reports, Famlex, Garant, Forrest CD-Rom, Electronic Immigration Network, Archbold Crime Desktop and Estates Gazette.

The most used non-subscription law reports were those relating to the European Court of Human Rights (27 respondents (29%)). The British and Irish Legal Information (BAILII) and the European Court of Justice website were each accessed by 16 respondents. Casebase was used by eight and the Incorporated Council's website by six respondents. Other non-subscription sources which were mentioned were House of Lords transcripts, Times Law Reports on-line, Law Alert, the Courts Service, Beagle, Supreme Court of Canada, South African Constitutional Court and EAT. We were told that Casetrack is free to law centres.

The respondents were asked to specify the purpose for which they made use of electronic law reports. Again they were given a checklist, and could select any or all of the possible responses. The most frequently cited use was for research and updating (80 respondents (86%)), whereas only about half that number used the electronic media for citing in court or in written opinions, though electronic reports were used for preparing advices or opinions by 61 respondents. Other uses mentioned were for preparing seminars and training courses, citing in correspondence, for assessing quantum and preparing for the New York Bar Examinations!

The place where electronic law reports were most often accessed was in the office, hardly a great surprise. But eleven said they used the electronic facilities of specialist law libraries, while only three used the public library. Thirty-seven said they had facilities on their personal computer. One used a laptop at court.

One question in the survey concerned the users' requirements from electronic law reports. Whereas services such as the Electronic Law Reports, Law Reports CD-Rom, All England Reports and Lexis provide the full text of judgments, some of the reports, such as the popular Lawtel and Current Legal Information, are summary only. The respondents were given a checklist designed to differentiate these requirements. The replies are clearly not mutually exclusive, since the same person might require full transcripts, daily summaries and literature about decided cases. Full transcripts were required by 73 of the 94 respondents who used electronic resources, case summaries by 66 and daily summaries by 35. Twenty-five wanted references for printed law report series and 23 wanted literature about decided cases. Eighteen ticked a box to indicate that they were interested in cases decided in other jurisdictions. Famlex was mentioned by one respondent, who described it as “very full though not complete” but said: "if you subsequently want to rely on the case in court you have to get a hard copy of the Family Law Report because the page references, &c are not the same."

One barrister listed an additional requirement: "Good search mechanism like Current Legal Information. Good digest - like New Law On-line. Hotlink to most up-to-date cases which cite the authority and hotlink to the reported version of the authority."

One objective of the survey was to find out which features of electronic law reports were viewed in a positive light and which negatively. Two separate questions aimed at eliciting this were asked of all respondents, both those who said they used electronic law reports and those who did not. In particular the survey aimed at subjecting to empirical investigation the proposition that electronic case transcripts are of limited use because they are not pre-selected by a trained reporter who identifies the principle of the case. There were quite large numbers of neutral/”don't know” responses to these two questions, perhaps suggesting that they were not clearly enough phrased. The responses to question eight, which put a series of propositions about electronic law reports, are given in Table 5. Positive features of electronic reports in the view of the practitioners included scope for research: 68% agreed or strongly agreed that they offered more scope for research than printed sources. Speed of delivery was also approved of: 78% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that transcripts are helpful because they are produced quickly. On the other hand 68% agreed or strongly agreed with the proposition that subscription rates to electronic law reports were expensive.

It does not appear to be a drawback if electronic reports do not include older cases: 69% of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the proposition that transcripts were of limited use to them because of this. Over half, 58%, disagreed or strongly disagreed that "transcripts are of limited use because they do not sufficiently identify the principles of cases".

The responses to these and other questions in the survey indicate that practitioners are using electronic reports for a variety of purposes, including research and alerting them to cases similar to the ones they working on. They thus perhaps form part of a wider pattern of use of all types of reports and the lack of a clearly identified ratio is not a significant drawback.

Question ten put a series of propositions about printed law reports which also elicited large numbers of neutral or don't know responses (see Table 6 below). Again the purpose of the questions was to find out practitioners' responses to suggested positive and negative features of these reports. Just under half (46%) agreed or strongly agreed with the proposition that other practitioners prefer references to printed rather than electronic reports. A similar number (47%) agreed or strongly agreed that "judges, magistrates, tribunal chairs prefer citations of printed rather than electronic reports". However 42% were neutral or did not know. Nearly half (47%) found paper sources easier to use, just under a third (32%) were in agreement that printed sources were more readily available and 41% agreed or strongly agreed that they preferred printed reports because they were more familiar with them. A slightly larger proportion, 49%, disagreed or strongly disagreed with this proposition.

The survey aimed at investigating whether respondents preferred printed reports for any or all of three specific reasons, namely they had not been trained to use electronic reports; they did not have facilities to use electronic sources or that printed reports were preferable because only those cases which added to existing law were reported. However well over half disagreed or strongly disagreed with these suggested reasons for a preference for printed reports. Sixty-three per cent did not accept the suggestion that they preferred printed reports because they had not been trained to use electronic sources. An even higher %age, 73%, rejected the suggestion that a reason for preferring printed reports was lack of facilities for electronic ones. Just over half (56%) did not accept a preference for printed reports "because only those cases which add to existing law are reported". It does not appear therefore that unease with new technology or lack of facilities are seen as significant factors in choice of law reports. Neither did respondents seem to be preferring printed series because of reliance on pre-selection of cases.

Whatever the existing pattern of use 57% of practitioner respondents answered yes to the question as to whether they expected to make more use of electronic law reports over the next two years.

About a fifth of these respondents took advantage of the opportunity in the questionnaire to add general comments and some of these are included below.

Cost is clearly a key factor in inhibiting the use of online subscription reports. Since this was not a market research exercise we did not ask respondents their views on cost and quality of specific subscription series. A future survey could investigate in more detail how the use of electronic sources is conditioned by their quality, their availability or their cost, and how far this is influenced by the practitioner’s specific area of work. Nonetheless it is clear from additional comments added by respondents that for some cost is an issue. For example, one commented: "The only reason why our firm has not got electronic law reports etc, is the cost". Another said:

There were calls for more extensive free services:

We have not explored how far this criticism is now met by the availability of reports of CA and HL decisions on the Court Service and HoL web site

One solicitor pointed out on-line services did offer value for money.

There was praise from users for the advantages of online sources. One solicitor said: "The Internet is an ideal medium for legal research. I would be happy if 95% of my law library could be replaced by electronic data!"

Another said:

At least one solicitor was sceptical of the value of encouraging Legal Practice Course (LPC) students to concentrate on electronic media which are often not available in small practices. He said:

One local university was, perhaps unknowingly, facilitating a local practice:

And in some other practices resources were pooled: "We do very occasionally use electronic reports through an informal arrangement with a neighbouring firm - this suits our needs at present."

Use of computer printouts was not always appreciated in court: "I once had a High Court Judge who refused to accept a copy of a case report printed from Justis on the grounds ‘It is not an approved report and how did I know that the communications link hadn't slipped resulting in words being lost'!"

Barristers, too, were cautious about taking computer-generated printouts into court. One commented: "I tend to use electronic law reports as a research tool but will photocopy from ‘hard copy' if I need to take authorities with me to court."

Another analysed the available electronic reports into three groups:

Electronic media allowed more flexible working. One barrister commented: "I find an electronic law library (consisting of 2 CD subscriptions and LCD) crucial to working from home and staying up-to-date." And there was praise for the recently introduced neutral citation system:

The most detailed responses were from law centre managers, who clearly realise the potential of online materials, but in the main are frustrated by lack of funds from being able to make full use of them. One Law Centre Manager commented in full:

Another was more outspoken still:

One law centre manager wrote:

Another gave an even more detailed breakdown:

The survey of practitioners demonstrates a strong tendency by the legal profession to embrace new technology, which now seems to be an indispensable part of the working lives of the majority of practitioners. However, a substantial number still appear to be wedded to traditional paper-based information sources to keep up with developments and research their fields of law. It seems that electronic resources are embraced as being up-to-date and quick in use but costs are still an obstacle to more extensive adoption, particularly in the voluntary sector. Further research might break down the costs issue to see whether the subscription costs, hardware costs or training expense are the main obstacle. It appears that some respondents formed prejudices at an early stage and their criticisms do not reflect the greater ease of use and citation of electronic case reports now that paragraph rather than page numbers can be cited.

Those involved in legal education must of course prepare future practitioners to use electronic resources. This is recognised in the Joint Statement issued by the Law Society and the Bar Council on the completion of the initial or academic stage of professional training. Schedule 1 of this document, which came into effect in September 2001 (after our survey was complete) states that students should have acquired “the intellectual and practical skills needed to research and analyse the law from primary sources”. It lists two particularly relevant general transferable skills, namely the use of “standard paper and electronic resources to produce up-to-date information” and an ability to “conduct efficient services websites to locate relevant information.” (Bar Council and Law Society 2001). Clearly then the use of electronic resources must form a part of training in legal research skills. Our survey therefore also set out to investigate how well prepared are students and legal academics in these specific skills.

The use of on-line law reports was surveyed in February 2001 in a study of students on the second year of the LLB (Honours) programmes at two universities, one old and one new (or modern) university : Kings College London and Middlesex University Business School. We selected the second year of the degree programme in each institution, on the basis that second year students would have had time to adjust to the range of learning resources available and because the curriculum is relatively standardised at that stage, due to the need to cover compulsory modules for professional exemption.

No attempt was made to differentiate between the responses of students from the two universities. The purpose of the survey was to gain information about the views of a reasonably typical, but small, sample of students, rather than to compare the responses of students from an old and a new university.

Fifty students from Kings College London and fifty five from Middlesex University Business School responded. The questionnaires were distributed and collected at the end of a lecture by the tutor. We are grateful to the students and staff of both universities who assisted with this task, particularly those who added individual comments which, like those of the practitioners, were enlightening.

As with the practitioner survey, the results must be regarded as impressionistic rather than conclusive. Nevertheless, some useful indicators may be obtained from a preliminary analysis. All students were asked whether they made personal use of electronic law reports. . The response to this first question was telling: 61 respondents (58 %) answered that they did not use electronic law reports; 44 (42 %) answered that they did use them. Unfortunately we cannot analyse these results by gender because very few respondents told us their sex.

Of those respondents who answered that they used electronic law reports, 13 (30 %) were aged 17-19 years, 26 (59%) aged 21-30 and 4 (9%) were 31-45 years. One student did not complete age details. There were no respondents over 46 years. Of students answering that they did not use electronic law reports, 16 (26 %) were aged 17-19 years, 42 (69%) aged 21-30 and 1 (2 %) aged 31-45. Two students of these did not complete their age details. Again, there were no respondents over 46 years.

Of the students who did use electronic law reports, 30% used them at least once a week, thirty two % used them monthly and twenty five per cent less than once a month.

All students who used electronic law reports (44 in number) were asked to choose from two checklists, one of named subscription reports, the other of non-subscription services. While neither list was exhaustive, respondents were able to add the names of any other services they used. All but two respondents using electronic law reports made some use of subscription services. Of these, the most frequently cited was the All England Law Reports , used by 22 respondents (50 %), followed by the Law Reports (14), LEXIS (13), LAWTEL (13), Eurolaw (9), the Law Reports CD Rom (5) , Current Legal Information (4), CELEX (3), EU Interactive (3), Westlaw (1), OJCD (1). As far as further subscriptions added by the respondent, one mention was made of the Times Law Reports on-line and one of Butterworths (unspecified).

As far as non-subscription services were concerned, the majority of respondents (twenty three, or 52 %) failed to indicate any use at all. Sixteen used the European Court of Justice reports (36 %), ten used the European Court of Human Rights and four used the British and Irish Legal Information (BAILII).

The respondents were asked to specify the purpose for which they made use of electronic law reports. Again, they were given a checklist from which they could select possible responses. The most frequently cited use was for seminar preparation (thirty nine respondents, 89 %%), followed by research (twenty respondents, 45 %). Seven respondents (9 %) indicated that they used electronic law reports in order to prepare for mooting.

When asked where they used electronic law reports, the overwhelming answer from student respondents was ‘in the university library' (thirty six respondents, 82 %). Twenty seven respondents (61 %) access the reports from their personal computer. It is clear that the majority of respondents are using both the university library and their own pc to access reports.

When asked to identify their requirements as users from a checklist of electronic law reports, results indicated overlapping needs. The most extensively used service was case summaries (34 respondents, or 77.3 %). Full transcripts were required by 25 (58 %). Literature about decided cases was next in demand, being required by 13 respondents (29.5 %). In descending order, the other categories were cases in other jurisdictions (5 respondents or 11.4 %), references for printed law reports (5 responses or 11.4 %) and summaries of out of court settlements (3 respondents or 6.8 %).

Taking purpose and use of law reports together, it would appear that the heaviest use of electronic law reports is made by students in order to prepare for seminars. To this end, more extensive use is made of summaries than of full transcripts.

Question eight was asked of all students, both users and non-users of electronic law reports. We wanted to discover which features students found positive and which negative. A clear preference for printed sources over electronic reports may be detected from the responses - not surprising in the light of the fact that fifty eight % of the respondents are non-users. 69 respondents (66.3 %) either agreed or strongly agreed that paper sources are easier than electronic ones. 54 respondents (52.9 %) agreed or strongly agreed that printed sources are more readily available. 56 respondents (54.4 %) agreed or strongly agreed that they were more familiar with printed reports. 55 (53.4 %) agreed or strongly agreed that they were not trained in electronic sources. 64 (53.8 %) disagreed that they lack facilities to use electronic sources.

The respondents indicating ‘don't know' represent a substantial proportion in some areas. For example, 49 (48 %) stated that they are neutral or don't know whether they prefer printed reports because they are the only cases which add value to the law reported.

As in the case of practitioners, all respondents were asked their views on a series of propositions about printed law reports (although the propositions were different from those put to practitioners). The results are shown in Table Nine (below).

Individual comments by students who stated that they did not use electronic reports were, unsurprisingly, negative in tone, many indicating a lack of confidence due to a (perceived) absence of training, as follows :

Health and safety factors associated with prolonged use of computer screens was recorded by one student:

Some students are put off by technical difficulties or by cost :

Of the students who did use electronic reports, some were enthusiastic in their comments on the advantages of such reports :

Another, comment, points to some of advantages and disadvantages of electronic law reports pragmatically, for the purpose of study :

Out of the 18 academics who replied one third did not use electronic law reports at all. Two gave reasons for this. One, a professor wrote: Electronic law reports have a hyped reputation. They are OK for University Departments that train rather than educate. [They are] most useful to those in practice trying to prepare a last minute brief". The other said: "My answers are not much use to you since I am a historian of legal and political thought and only rarely refer to law reports and then it is for cases prior to 1830.

Eleven of the 18 respondents acknowledged using electronic law reports and this number is obviously too small for detailed analysis. However a number who returned questionnaires wrote some illuminating comments, in particular giving vivid accounts of overcrowded library facilities. One for example wrote:

Another said:

One outcome of our survey was an indication that practitioners felt that adjudicators preferred traditional reports. The views of the judiciary would merit further investigation but this unfortunately was beyond the scope of our survey.

There is evidence that the increased number of law reports series, both electronic and hard copy, has caused some alarm among sections of the judiciary. Blanket reporting of High Court and Court of Appeal decisions leads to citation of some cases whichin the past would never have been put before a court. There seems to be a preference for the traditional reports amongst the judiciary. Lord Bingham told the Cambridge conference:

In principle, in the higher courts, leave is required to cite transcripts of unreported cases (though in these days when virtually every case is reported in some form or another what is an unreported case?). Nearly 20 years ago, in Roberts Petroleum Ltd. v Bernard Kenny Ltd. [1983] 2 AC 192, 202 Lord Diplock, with the support of the other Law Lords, laid down that unreported Court of Appeal authority ought not to be cited without leave. Practice Direction (Court of Appeal: Authorities) [1996] 1 WLR 894 even states that

In Hamblin v Field (Lawtel, 11 April 2000) the Court of Appeal deplored the citation in argument of a number of Lawtel case summaries. This was not a satisfactory way to put judicial decisions before the court. The object of the Lawtel summary was to give practitioners notice that a particular case dealing with particular points had been decided in a particular way.

The issue was more extensively dealt with by Laddie J in Michaels v Taylor Woodrow Developments Ltd. [2001] 2 WLR 224. He added a postscript occupying four pages of the report deploring the unthinking use of databases of unreported decisions:

As Laddie J points out, the leave requirement is not a remedy, because it is usually easier to let counsel cite a case rather than argue over whether it should be cited. In addition, while the approach might work in the House of Lords, "it is difficult to see how either a court of first instance or the Court of Appeal itself could refuse to allow citation of, say, a unanimous decision of the Court of Appeal since, on current principles of stare decisis, both would be bound by it whether they liked the decision or not." (p 251)

Laddie J advances the possibility that the courts should adopt a procedure where all extempore judgments of any court and any judgments of courts of first instance are not to be cited unless the court, at the time of giving judgment or shortly thereafter, indicated to the contrary. All judgments would be available to the public, but only the selected ones could be used for citation.

Young J, commented in the Australian Law Journal:

Paradoxically, citation of unreported cases will be made easier by the introduction of neutral citation and paragraph numbering: see Practice Direction (Citation of Authorities) [2001] 1 WLR 1001.

This torrent of cases has of course been exacerbated by electronic publishing but the flood of law reports is not a new phenomenon as is illustrated by the following three examples taken at fifty year intervals. At the end of the 19th century one commentator said that the proliferation of reported cases had "virtually transformed the profession from a class of lawyers able to practice without books to a class almost entirely dependant on the adjudged cases."(see Leith & Hoey (1999) p 89). It was claimed that the search for principles in law was being replaced by a search for precedents. In fact no-one seemed to know how large the body of existing law was at any point in time. Case law was particularly problematical. The position fifty years on was described by Zander:

Lord Bingham told the Cambridge Conference in 2000:

The mounting tide of law reports in electronic and other forms is part of course of the more general growth in information. Indeed, Prof Henry Arthurs of York University, Canada, has questioned whether the legal profession can survive the knowledge explosion. He writes:

There are intellectual limits to what each of us is able to know and more importantly there are practical limits to what any of us needs to know and can afford to know. Attempts to make us all omni competent are doomed. ... we will implode intellectually. (Arthurs (1995) p. 301)

Acknowledging that lawyers have a considerable stock of technical knowledge he says:

Law lecturers, he points out, are in a vulnerable position. "Inevitably we are going to be asked whether law can indeed produce what society wants and needs at a price it can afford - a question which can only be answered by new and better systemic knowledge." (p 302)

All this does raise difficult issues for legal education and, more specifically, for teaching students to read cases intelligently. When lawyers had to deal only with a smallish subset of the whole corpus of judicial decisions, since only "reportable" cases were actually reported, the information base of legal scholarship was more manageable because every element in it added something to the development of the law. Now wrong decisions are just as accessible as correct decisions, and cases which add nothing to the law stand alongside those which alter its course fundamentally. This puts an ever-greater premium on teaching students how to discriminate, analyse and synthesise, in a word how to combine information management with the application of principles of law. At the Cambridge conference Prof Richard Susskind emphasised that with the mushrooming sources of information available, for example through the internet, the ability to analyse, to categorise, to summarise, was going to be ever more important.

Too often the principles are drowned in the sheer volume of material. It becomes harder to disabuse students of the idea that the search for precedent involves finding previous decisions on similar facts, rather than seeking the principles of law to be applied to the legal nexus facing them.

The indication which this survey gives that the use of electronic law reports is now a key part of legal practice needs to be addressed by university law schools. Students must be prepared with the technical skills to use electronic sources. At Middlesex University we have launched a Postgraduate Diploma in Law/CPE programme which has a heavy emphasis on electronic sources. The teaching team have worked closely with the electronic publishers Context to develop the programme in an effort to prepare students with the techniques their future employers will require.

Tutors were keen to find a way to integrate the use of Justis case law databases into the new teaching materials. The solution was to use Context's automatic linking technology, J-Link, which allows researchers to link from legal references appearing within any electronic resource, such as a word processed document, e-mail message or Web page, to the full text of the case, Act or statutory instrument, simply by highlighting the reference and clicking on a button. In this way Middlesex CPE students should acquire the technical skills required for example in benchmark statements. The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education includes information technology and use of electronic retrieval systems among its key skills for law degreesin England Wales and Northern Ireland. In particular students must demonstrate a basic ability to identify and retrieve up to date legal information, using paper and electronic sources. (QAA (2000) pp 2 and 3). However, students also have to learn to organise and utilise information. Arthurs draws a distinction between craft and technical knowledge and systemic knowledge, the latter based on making connections between increasingly specialised areas of expertise. He suggests that:

Teaching such sophisticated research skills has resource implications: well endowed universities may find this easier than those with restricted budgets and less affluent students. Electronic sources will not necessarily level the playing field. "Soon", says Arthurs (1995), "we may have a two tier profession; those who can afford to log on and those who cannot." (p 308) For many this is too gloomy a prognosis but it is certainly the case that those who believe in a single model of education and training face a big challenge.

Our survey suggests that practitioners are now making extensive and enthusiastic use of electronic versions of decided cases in various forms, ranging from instant alerter services to full law reports with headnotes and lists of cases cited. The fact that many of these sources are in non-traditional forms, which are unsuitable for citation in court, does not appear, at least for a majority of users, to be a deterrent to their use. More research is needed on the exact manner in which these materials are utilised, but it is clear that they are considered useful. Research is facilitated by easy access to cases, which in the past would neither be reported nor readily available. This does raise an issue relating to the quality of the search engines. If the user relies too heavily on keyword searches, the results can be quite misleading because as Lord Justice Buxton told the Cambridge conference, it is not possible to search effectively legal material simply by word recognition, since judges talk in concept, not just in words. By way of example, Buxton cited Sinclair v Brougham [1914] AC 398 now recognised as lying at the heart of a whole, huge, modern law of restitution, but in which the word “restitution” does not appear at all.

The survey also indicates that the majority of students are making no use of electronic law reports at all. This omission appears to be due to a lack of familiarity with electronic relative to printed sources. The minority of students who do use electronic law reports appear to have a sound awareness of the capacity of such reports to assist with seminar preparation and research. Lack of access to electronic resources does not appear to be a significant problem. Clearly, more has to be done to familiarise students with electronic resources if they are to be equipped to face the demands of a rapidly changing environment of legal information with confidence. A significant increase in training in the use of electronic resources is essential.

Lord Bingham advised participants in the Cambridge conference that it was essential to educate students in handling law reports"It does seem to me very important indeed that law students should be taught and trained how to use and how not to use reported authority. I say this with some emphasis, since there are, I think, a significant number of advocates practising in the courts with a very tenuous grasp of how authority should and should not be used."

Arthurs, H.W (1995) A Lot of Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing: Will the Legal Professions Survive the Knowledge Explosion? Dalhousie Law Journal 18/2 p295.

Arthurs, H.W (1998) The Information Explosion: Power, Knowledge, Law and Libraries.Paper presented at the New Zealand Law Librarians Group Conference, February 1998.

Bar Council and Law Society joint statement. http://www.legaleducation.org.uk/downloads/ja.pdf

Conference on Law Reporting, Legal Information and Electronic Media in the New Millennium (2000). Transcript of proceedings by Smith Bernal International.

Leith P and Hoey A (1999) The Computerised Lawyer. 2nd edition, Springer.

Susskind, R (2000) Transforming the Law. Essays in Technology, Justice and the Legal Market Place. OUP.

Susskind, R (1996) The Future of Law, Facing the Challenges of Information Technology. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Quality Assurance Agency (2000) Law Benchmarks 2000

UK Centre for Legal Education (2001) ‘Directions in Legal Education' issue 3, p 10.

Young J, (2001) 75 Australian Law Journal 71

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⁽¹⁾ This research was financed by a small grant from Middlesex University Business School. The authors wish to thank Prof Brenda Barrett and Deena Maggs who collaborated in the research. Anna Kyprianou and Ian Roper kindly helped with data analysis.

⁽²⁾ No distinction is made in the following between provincial and city responders. Our survey method was to send questionnaires randomly to solicitors in the directory. In this list solicitors are not listed by size of firm. We decided at an early stage that it was not worthwhile distinguishing between London and provincial solicitors, since there are many high street solicitors in London. We considered distinguishing by size of practice but concluded that the sample size was too small. It is something to be borne in mind for a larger future survey.

⁽³⁾ Clearly this was not a random sample, but we were merely seeking a flavour of views from these institutions in a preliminary survey.

⁽⁴⁾ Respondents were asked to specify the size of their practice and whether they worked in mainly civil, mainly criminal or an even mix of both. Although we analysed these categories by frequency of use of e-reports, our consultant statistical analyst considered that the numbers involved were too small to be meaningful.