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Bar News - January 4, 2002 Prospect of Low-Cost Legal Research Embraced By: Brenda J. Thomas Survey response overwhelming THANK YOU TO all the members of the Bar Association who responded to the recent survey regarding the Bar’s joining the Casemaker legal research consortium. At press time, we had received 343 surveys via the e-bulletin, Bar News and section e-mail. There were a resounding 297 "yes" votes for Casemaker. The Bar is conducting discussions with Casemaker, originally developed by the Ohio Bar Association. Casemaker is offered exclusively through bar associations that pay an annual association subscription to finance the development and operation of state-specific online law libraries, which are then made available to members for a modest annual fee. Please attend the Mid-Year Meeting on Jan. 24, which will feature a demonstration of how NH lawyers can use the unique search features of this service. Brad Lagusch, Ohio State Bar Association marketing director, will offer a substantive demonstration of the Casemaker software. Thank you again for taking the time to respond to this survey. Your opinion is very important to us. Casemaker’s origins The Ohio State Bar Association was the first state to offer Casemaker as a member benefit in February 1999. The Nebraska Bar Association followed a year later at the urging of its president, Robert Mullin, who said Casemaker was "the best thing I could do for Nebraska lawyers, many of whom do not have ready access to a law library." Mullin said he was able to cancel a $10,000 contract with a commercial law library after Casemaker became available. Many law firms do, however, maintain their subscriptions to large national providers, but now spend much less for per-minute or per-hour charges because they can use Casemaker first. North Carolina and Connecticut were the next states to join the consortium. "Being from a small firm, I immediately saw that if this product was what it was cracked up to be, it would give tremendous benefits to small firms and government lawyers in particular," said Henry Van Hoy, the 2000-2001 president of the North Carolina Bar Association Typically, it takes up to nine months for Casemaker to come online for a state after it has been added to the consortium. During this time, Casemaker builds the library of supreme court decisions, federal district and appellate cases, court rules, and other information as specified by the particular state. For example, in New Hampshire it would be possible to add the First Circuit decisions and the opinions of the NHBA Ethics Committee, depending on members’ preferences. Casemaker is available online through the Web sites of participating bar associations, and can be purchased in a CD-ROM version. Brenda J. Thomas is the Bar’s Member Services/Sections coordinator.
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