Long gone are the days when attorneys walk into a dusty room with staggering bookcases to find the latest version of a statute or situation that will win over the judge. Decades ago, legal work was a time-consuming process that required long days and nights buried within a law library. When using the Internet and digitization of books came significant advances and changes in legal resources. Now, the that provides these modern tools may be as big, if not bigger, than some of the largest law firms in the america.

Attorneys in present day age have use of comprehensive indexes of cases and statutes with a simple click of a button. These databases and research hubs are operated by its big companies that staff hundreds or thousands of employees to read the latest cases are usually published, usually through state or federal court. The employees then provide summaries of the cases, which highlight the most important themes or rulings. In addition, these digital databases offer numerous resources beyond cases and regulations. They also contain secondary sources such as common law library review articles that analyze certain topics in the law or treatises, which are respected summaries of certain areas of law.

One of the most important aspects of persuasive legal writing may be the citation of cases that are current and still good law. That means there cannot be subsequent cases that overturn or negatively affect the holding reached in did not have case. This task used to be accomplished by the time-consuming process of cross-referencing and reading extra cases. However, with these modern digital databases, activity gets done via the legal resource firm.

These advances in legal research tools have dramatically changed the size and existence of legal libraries all around the globe. In the past, every respectable law firm, courthouse, legal aid center, and law school had large amounts of their buildings focused on storing books. Now, many of these institutions have dramatically cut down in regards to the size of physical legal books an incident books. Some may retain a small portion of their previous collection as ornaments rather than practical resources.

One realm that has not been dramatically impacted by these modern innovations will be the research of legislative history, such as looking at the prior versions of a law or determining the intent of federal government in drafting regulation. Much of this information is unavailable digitally or online, likely because for this sheer volume of the work and the relatively low demand by attorneys. For those resources, legal researchers must turn to your old fashion approach of going to a state or federal library, requesting the information in advance, and sitting down and reading.