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77 Law. Libr. J. 543 (1984-1985)
A Brief History of Computer-Assisted Legal Research

handle is hein.journals/llj77 and id is 553 raw text is: A Brief History of Computer-Assisted Legal Research* William G. Harrington** Legal research by computer was unknown twenty years ago. It is now commonplace, even a necessity. This brief personal history of computer- assisted legal research, written by one of its founding fathers, traces the development of the approach from its beginnings in the OBAR project of the Ohio State Bar Association. Introduction First, a matter of terminology. The correct term is computer-assisted legal research, not computerized legal research. Does it make any difference? The lawyers who conceived of and developed the first practical computer- assisted legal research service thought it did. Because they considered themselves the creators of something new and important that might effect a revolution in the practice of law and the administration of justice, they thought it their responsibility to create the right terminology to go with it. The term com- puterized implied that the computer would take over the whole function, do it all; whereas computer-assisted suggested what they believed was true: that the computer would be a handy helper for the lawyer's intellect, not a substitute for it. Looking back at the original technology, it now seems primitive, something from a distant past. Remembering the way many lawyers and librarians first reacted to the advent of computer-assisted legal research, it is hard to iden- tify such Luddites with the twentieth century, much less with the past ten or fifteen years. Today a LEXIS or WESTLAW terminal, or both, can be found in nearly every major law office and law library. Still, computer-assisted legal research is less than twenty years old. The history is short in terms of time, but long in terms of achievement. How It All Began It is not fanciful to say that the history of computer-assisted legal research began with the invention of cuneiform writing. Computerized information management, after all, is simply a late development in the ancient process * © William G. Harrington, 1985. ** Mr. Harrington is an attorney in Cos Cob, Connecticut.

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