JustCite: exploiting legal metadata

In this article from the Spring 2004 issue of Directions Justin Needle, Brand Manager at Context, describes JustCite, a legal reference search engine which can be used as a research tool in the academic environment.

The benefits offered by Internet technologies are allowing legal information to be put to new uses. The inter-relationships between legal documents can now be exploited in useful ways which printed volumes simply do not permit. A fashionable buzz concept – ‘metadata’ – underpins one such development.

A number of publishers now produce online legal citators, effectively sophisticated, dynamic indexes of legal information. One of these services, JustCite, recently released by Context, is a legal reference search engine bringing together a wide range of legal metadata from numerous authoritative sources and allowing them to be searched through a single interface. One aim of the service is thus to save users time by removing the need for them to log on to many different websites or run various desktop applications to check, for example, where a case has been reported or whether it is still good law.

Users may enter a case reference or part of a case name into a search box and are then presented with a plethora of useful information. This includes parallel citations, summary and subject matter, other cases, statutes and statutory instruments judicially considered, and subsequent case reports and transcripts, informing the user whether any subsequent judgment has overruled the current case.

Similarly, entering a reference to a section of an Act tells the user whether it is currently in force and lists subsequent cases that have interpreted it, any amending and amended legislation, and other information.

As a result of a unique collaboration between Context and other legal information providers, JustCite now also offers users the ability to link directly to the full text of cited documents on a variety of leading online services, including BAILII, Casetrack, Justis, LexisNexis and Westlaw. Users are therefore given the choice, depending which services they or their organisation subscribe to, of which version of a document to view. Thus a user might choose to display the full text of a case in The Weekly Law Reports on Justis, Criminal Appeal Reports on Westlaw or All England Law Reports on LexisNexis; or the text of a statute on the HMSO website, Justis UK Statutes or Butterworths Legislation Direct.

JustCite is a continually expanding resource, and new material is added on a daily basis. The information available on JustCite currently includes all primary case law series indexed in the Red Book, for example The Law Reports, The Weekly Law Reports, All England Law Reports, Lloyd’s Law Reports, Criminal Appeal Reports and Sentencing; transcripts from the Courts of Appeal, Administrative Court and London’s High Court (from Smith Bernal Reporting); UK Statutes and Statutory Instruments (from HMSO); and CELEX, the official legal database of the European Union (from EUR-OP).

It is planned to index more data and include links to additional full text services in the near future, such as content from the Practical Law Company (PLC) and First Law (Irish cases and legislation). Other plans include the inclusion of additional key case law series, background and current awareness materials, articles from newspapers and legal journals and UK parliamentary information.

JustCite is intended not only as an information resource for practising solicitors and barristers, but also as a legal research tool for students and academics (the service is available free of charge to members of UK and Irish academic institutions).

In an academic environment it is possible to integrate JustCite within teaching materials and other documents, enabling students to link from legal references directly to the appropriate citation record – together with links to full text documents on various online services.

In the case of Context’s full text legal databases, this is already happening. For example, Middlesex University Business School has integrated Justis case law databases and Context’s automatic linking technology into the course materials for its online CPE/Postgraduate Diploma in Law Programme. This allows students not only to access information from home, but also to link from legal references appearing within any electronic resource, such as a wordprocessed document, e-mail message or webpage, directly to full text case law and legislation, simply by highlighting a reference and clicking on a button.

It is also possible to use Context’s customisable Windows application, Link Studio, to automatically convert references within course materials and other documents into hypertext links, not only to Justis and JustCite, but also to other external and internal information resources, such as departmental intranets and legal databases.

JustCite represents an important contribution to Context’s strategy of positioning itself as a legal information intermediary. Recognising that users of legal information will continue to rely upon a wide range of services – both free and commercial, print and electronic – from a variety of suppliers, its strategy is to act as a bridge between the ever expanding body of online legal content and its users by providing a single point of entry to these increasingly disparate information sources. This fits well with the company’s primary aim, which has always been to add value to legal information, and make it more widely and easily accessible, by means of the imaginative application of technology.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010