Here are a couple of more reactions to case law on Google and the potential impact on legal research.
Thoughts on Google & Legal Research
Rob Richards on the Legal Informatics Blog
"... Google probably won’t need very long to build a good quality automatic legal citator and subject indexing system, if it has a mind to. If Google takes those further steps, then I think it could take a big share of the high-end CALR market. At the very least, its efforts, coupled with Bloomberg’s, should result in increased competition, lower prices, and more innovation yielding better retrieval tools for users in the U.S. CALR sector."
Bridging the DiGital Divide: A New Vendor in Town? Google Scholar Now Includes Case Law
John J. DiGilio over at LLRX
"So is Google Scholar a replacement for the more expensive case law providers on the market. No, not really. The Westlaws and Lexises of the world charge a premium for enhanced content and functionality that Google simply does not offer. You cannot Shepardize or KeyCite a case, for example (and all good researchers know that this is an imperative in most situations). You also cannot access or link to major secondary sources such as legal encyclopedias, digests, and practice guides - tools necessary for well-rounded and thorough legal research. But what Google Scholar does offer is an amazing place to start case research in a manner that will cost clients no more than your time, if you bill for it. Consider it cost prevention at the early stage of your research and cost prevention, at any stage, is exactly what today’s economy and most clients now demand.