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Comment by igurari | Hacker News Reader

This is a huge deal. Having worked in this space for 1.5 years, I can say definitively that Google's ranking algorithm works extremely well. Their UI is solid, though it has room for improvement. They tackled a number of other huge problems relating to document formats (pdf's, footnotes, etc.), and citation formats. In any event, this is most definitely a game changer, and I am sure Lexis and Westlaw will see an immediate hit to revenue in 2010.

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Honest question:

I don't know what exactly you do, but do you think you could do it without keycite?

I am a lawyer and programmer. I put together a site - www.tracelaw.com - which I launched last week. Almost every innovation that I came up with, Google has put into Google Scholar. There is one key technical aspect where what I have done is better, but aside from that, I would say Google Scholar largely does everything extremely well.

I was not saying in my above comment that Google will replace Lexis/Westlaw. What I am suggesting is that they will change how lawyers perform legal research. What this does is separate case search from case hosting. And case search is the really expensive part. Basically, as I see it, lawyers will start their searches on Google, and eventually migrate to Lexis/Westlaw when they've narrowed their focus, or run into a dead end. And if that happens, all those searches that migrated to Google, are searches that are no longer run on Lexis or Westlaw (and for which they can no longer charge a fee).

I guess I didn't think of the "per search" charges.

That said, Using West's Digest and their case histories is a neccessary step in legal research for me. I can see this for general searches on a topic, but for the real nitty gritty you need to get into West/Lexis. To summarize, I think West will do just fine. It might mean one less leather portfolio for law librarians every year.

When I worked at a biglaw firm a few years back, we were told that the shelf-price of one of these wide searches was upwards of $800 for the firm and we were encouraged to narrow down the search as much as possible. The cost for recovering a single case: $6. They didn't actually pay these fees and had an umbrella agreement, but the cost of this umbrella agreement was determined by how widely the firm searched.

However you look at this, this is a big blow to Lexis/Westlaw and their monopoly position has taken quite a hit. I agree that they add a ton of value and will still be around, but its hard to overstate how big of a deal this is.

Its especially big for non-profit legal clinics and independent lawyers practicing on their own, which had difficulty doing any sort of legal research without coming to an agreement with one of these duopoly actors.

I agree that West/Lexis will still be very lucrative and continue to rule the legal research space for many years to come. I also agree that they add much value (despite competing with them, I have come to appreciate a lot of the things they do to add value). However, their operating profit margins will likely drop from the 25-30% where they now stand.

Almost every innovation that I came up with, Google has put into Google Scholar.

You're remarkably sanguine about it! Too bad, as I do like yyour site and think you did an excellent job (and the direct NL/Westlaw link doesn't hurt).

I agree we're seeing a major shift in ho law firms employ IT. Mrs Browl works at an electronic discovery firm and it's a very competitive space now. they wound down most of their paper copy/printing operations a few months ago because demand for hard copy has gone through the floor, exacerbated by the recession. The old cinema cliche of digging through boxes of documents or dusty law libraries in the dead of night is being replaced with browser-hosted searches at Starbucks.

IANAL and just enjoy reading legal opinions for fun, but I too am very impressed at the consistency and accessibility of Google's offering.

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