ROLE OF COMPUTERS IN THE FIELDS OF LEGAL

EDUCA TION AND RESEARCH

Gurjeet Singh"

I. Introduction

FEW TECHNOLOGICAL developments are formidable enough to mark

turning points in the history of civilization. The invention of computers
is one such development. Today computers affect everyone of us in
more ways than we can even imagine. Computer revolution has influenced
all walks of life. These little machines have substantially changed the life
style of most individuals and especially of the professionals throughout
the world. Now the "computers make out many of the bills we receive,
and the bank cheques as well. Computers help to regulate the flow of
traffic on a busy city street, tell a supermarket manager when his stock
of detergents is running low, and help a doctor make his diagnosis." 1
Computers are creating a lot of jobs. They are also eliminating a lot of
jobs and changing the nature of many others. As a matter of fact,
computers are affecting "the way in which we think about the world,
and the way in which we think about ourselves.'?
An American scholar Robert Bigelow, well known for his works on
'Computers in Law', observes:
The computer captures the imagination of many researchers. It
offers an opportunity to store vast quantities of data in a
comparatively small space, the ability to search this data very
rapidly and make selections therefrom and the ability to
manipulate or "massage" the data to produce a result in a
format particularly useful to the individual researcher. One of
the advantages frequently touted for computerized legal research
is the possibility of placing into the computer's storage area or

• Reader and Head, Department of Laws, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar
(Punjab).
I. Michael J. Xavier, "Are You Computer Literate?", The Hindustan Times 8 (31
January, 1997).
2./bid.
716 LEGAL RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY

memory banks the full text of whatever document is someday

to be retrieved.'
It is appropriate to mention here that whereas the use of computers
and other electronic devices in the legal profession has been advocated
in the West for the last forty years or so," hardly any worthwhile
attention seems to have been paid in India until recent past towards
highlighting their use and significance in this area except for some
occasional writings here and there." Among others, one of the reasons
for this indifference appears to be the nearly complete ignorance about
the utility and efficacy of such devices which in turn has perhaps been
due to their exorbitant costs as well as their non-availability. This fact
is coupled with the inability not only of the individual lawyers, law
teachers, researchers and other professionals but even of the law firms
and the institutions of higher learning to afford such devices for their use
by the persons working therein. Notwithstanding all this, the consensus
that is emerging now in India is that in view' of increasing globalization
of the legal profession, the use of computers in this profession too has
become need of the day.
The object of this paper is to highlight the significance and use of
computers in the present day legal profession and to demonstrate as to
how important is the use of computers for lawyers, law teachers. legal
researchers and law courts. Need has been expressed for immediate
exposing of the legal fraternity in India in general and the law teachers
and researchers in particular to the modem computerised technology so

3. Robert P. Bigelow, "The Use of Computers in the Law." 24 The Hastings Law
Journal 707-31 at 714-15 (1973). Also see Robert P. Bigelow, (Ed.): Computers and
the Law: An Introductory Handbook. (Second Edition. Washington DC: Commerce
Clearing House. 1969).
4. In the United States, for instance, members of the bar and academics started
giving serious consideration to the practical application of the computer in the practice
of law from the mid 19505. For details. see "Comment: Scientific Aids for Legal
Research 31 Chicago-Kent Law Review 236-54, (1953); Lawrence Perry and Smith
Biunno, "Implications of Automation for Lawyers." 49 Law Library Journal, 399-410
(1956); Larry Mehl, "Automation in the Legal World." Proceedings ofa Symposium
on Mchanisation ofThought Processes. 33-39 (New York. National Physical Laboratory,
1958); John W. Asher and Michael Kurfeest, The High Speed Electronic Computer as
a Research and Operations Device in Law School, (Pittsburg, 1963); and John Freed,
"Computer Printouts as Evidence". American Journal of Proof of Facts, 245-62
( 1965).
5. See for example. Deepak Gupta and Virendra Gupta, "Courts and Computers,"
17 JIL/469-73 (1975); A.Y. Asundi.· ..Computerised Legal Information Services:
Images. Reflections and Diversities". and N.R. Madhava Menon, "Computers and the
Law: Can We Afford to Wait?", in Proceedings ofthe Seminar on Computer and La ...:
1-5 and 17 (National Law School of India University, Bangalore, 1989).
 ROLE OF COMPUTERS IN THE FIELDS 717

as to enable them to produce the legal outputs of high standard and

quality.
II. Utility of Computers in Legal Education
and Legal Research
Computers have a very important role to play in the modern legal
education and research. For instance, law schools have to generate a
variety of written materials for students as well as for other academic
purposes, such as, for conferences, meetings, moot-courts, seminars
and workshops. Almost every law faculty has to supply to the students,
the summaries of case law which are normally printed every year by the
university press and the cost of printing is sometimes enormous. Every
time the faculty has to pay the printing and composing charges a fresh.
However, if the text is once typed and stored in the memory of a
computer, the required materials can be printed out any time. This is
likely to be relatively much less time consuming as well as much less
expensive exercise in comparison to the printing business. With the
computer facilities available in a law school or a law faculty, all other
types of expenses, say for example, expenses on cyclostyling can also
be saved. Once we have a master print of the required document, it can
be easily photocopied and distributed amongst the students. Similarly,
students can also type and prepare their project reports and other
academic assignments on computer, provided the facility is available to
them, too. Nowadays, computers are also being considered as valuable
aids in the law teaching. As a matter of fact, there are so many ways in
which computers can be of a great help and utility in the modern legal
education."
Computers have an equally significant role to play in legal research.
For instance, every researcher working for a post-graduate essay, an
M.Phil. or an LL.M. dissertation, or for a Ph.D. thesis has to prepare a
working bibliography. In the normal practice, slbe writes down the
names of the references and bibliographical sources on plain pages or on
reference cards. Later on at the time of final report writing, the researcher
has to arrange those cards in bibliographical order and hand it over to the
typist. If a single card is wrongly arranged, it is likely to be wrongly
typed. Moreover, if a researcher is engaged in research on a topic on
which literature appears quite frequently in journals, articles and
newspapers etc., slbe may have to update the text from time to time and

6. For further details, see: Thomas Burris, Teaching Law With Computers: A
Collection of Essays (New York; West View Press (1979); Mary Ann Mason, An
Introduction to Using Computers in the Law, (Minnesota: West Publishing Co., 1984);
and N.R. Madhava Menon, Clinical Legal Education, (Lucknow, Eastern Book Co.,
1998).
718 LEGAL RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY

very obviously the entries in the bibliography shall also change. The
major problem arises when the dissertation or the thesis is at the typing
stage and some significant case is decided by the higher judiciary or
some relevant literature appears which a researcher finds absolutely
important to incorporate in his study. If the researcher is working on a
computer, s/he need not prepare any bibliographic cards. Once
bibliographical entries are put into computer's memory, they stay there
for ever. One can add, remove or make any type of modification in them
without re-writing anything. In case, any entry needs to be dropped at
the last moment, one can remove them easily. Similarly, if any entry in
case list or even in the text of the dissertation / thesis is to be made at
the last stage, it can be made without any hassle. In this process, the
computer will automatically adjust the new entry and the page sequence
shall not be disturbed at all.
Another great advantage of data processing through computers is
that a researcher can make use of bibliographical sources even after
s/he has.submitted the dissertation/thesis etc. If s/he wants to list some
of the references for some article or research paper there is no need
for re-typing them at all. The required references can be selected and
very easily copied on another computer file opened by the researcher
and the original bibliography stays there without any modification
whatsoever. The same is applicable to the entries in the list of cases,
list of statutes and glossary of acronyms and abbreviations and even to
the chapters.
One of the important benefits of computer-assisted legal research is
that the text of anything typed in the computer can be stored there for
ever. It can be changed, modified and/or remodified by the researcher
up until even the last day before the text is finally printed. Very obviously.
there does not arise any need for re-writing of the entire text. Moreover,
if some paragraph is to be omitted and another paragraph is to be
inserted, there is no need to write the entire page. The computer adjusts
this change automatically. Similarly, the page numbers also change
automatically. •
In almost all the cases, a post-graduate student working on an
LL.M. dissertation or a doctoral scholar working on a Ph.D. thesis
has to periodically hand over the written chapter drafts to his/her
supervisor/research guide for their comments, corrections and
suggestions. A research scholar has to write the entire draft and
submit to his/her guide. If the guide suggests substantial modifications
and asks for the revised draft, the scholar has to submit the same.
too. This is obviously quite taxing as well as time-consuming for a
researcher. Further, some supervisors insist on accepting only the
typed versions of the drafts which often prove quite expensive for the
scholar. However, if a researcher has an access to computer facilities
 ROLE OF COMPUTERS IN THE FIELDS 719

even in an institution, it can make a lot of difference. For example,

once the text of the chapter is typed in the computer, it is stored there
in its memory. One may make any number of modifications in the text
of that chapter and it stays there. One can print the text as many
times as one desires. The corrections can be carried out very easily
and, of course, very frequently.
Another point which deserves mention here is that where the
researcher and research supervisor work on the same computer in the
institution or even on their own personal computers respectively, as
most academics do in the countries like the United Kingdom and the
United States of America, a researcher need not even print out the entire
chapter draft. The draft can easily be transferred on a small computer
disk/floppy and handed over to the supervisor who would in tum insert
the same floppy in his/her computer, carry out the necessary corrections
and return the floppy to the researcher. On inserting the floppy in the
computer, the researcher can note down the comments made by the
supervisor and carry out the necessary corrections in the text. This
saves time, energy, effort and money.
There is another benefit of computer-assisted legal research and that
is, a researcher can exchange the floppies with his/her counterparts and
contemporaries, too. That way it facilitates the flow of information
amongst the researchers working in the same field or on related topics
of research. This also leads to the division of labour. One research
scholar can work on one topic and another can work on another and they
can then exchange the information collected by them respectively. This
applies to the preparation of bibliographies also. Such exercises save half
the time and serve double the purpose.
It goes without saying that a research scholar, atleast a Ph.D.
student, desires that once s/he is awarded the degree his/her work
should be published. And it is also very clear that the format, writing
style and contents of a Ph.D. thesis are bound to differ substantially
from the manuscript of a book. In the normal practice, when a Ph.D.
scholar is awarded a degree, s/he has to make substantial modifications
in the text, mostly on the lines suggested by the examiners and later on
the lines suggested by the publishers. Once again. this is a very time
consuming and taxing problem for the {scholars who are apparently too
much exhausted after three-four years of intensive work for their
thesis. Therefore, most of the scholars are no more interested in
undertaking such an exercise. And as a result thereof, sometimes a
work of an exceptionally good quality and high standard which could
have easily been published as well as accepted and appreciated by the
academic world and the later researchers continues to gather dust in
the libraries. On the other hand, if the text of the work is already there
on the computer, no such problem arises. A file containing the text of
720 LEGAL RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY

the thesis can be copied on a plane file and then the researcher can
modify the text on the lines chosen by him/her. This way the original
text of the dissertation also stays there and a new manuscript gets
ready almost simultaneously. And if the publisher also accepts, the
entire manuscript can be copied on a pocket sized thin floppy and
handed over to the publisher. This saves the publisher's labour, time
and money on composing and typesetting the entire manuscript.
Obviously, the book can be published in a much less time than it would
have been published otherwise.
Last but not the least, the information and data stored in the
computer by the researcher can be re-utilised for the purposes of
publication of the research papers also. For instance, there are six or
seven chapters of a thesis and these are contained in six or seven
files. If the researcher so desires s/he can modify certain things and
each chapter of the dissertation or thesis can turn into a full-fledged
research paper. The researcher does not need to re-type the paper.
The chapter is already typed one and a copy can be made separately.
This way the original chapter also stays there in the computer memory
and the new folder containing the article is also stored. All new
developments can be inserted in the paper to make it absolutely upto
date. Contrary to what we have in India, in the western countries, a
Ph.D. scholar is normally required to show and discuss some part of
his/her thesis even to one's external examiners. They are also permitted
and rather encouraged to get some part of his/her research work
published in the form of articles and research papers in journals even
before the final submission of an essay/dissertation/thesis. This goes
to the credit of the scholar and he/she is appreciated on this account
at the time of his/her viva-voce (oral examination). This encourages
a scholar to work more and more as one gets immense pleasure and
satisfaction to see one's own work in print even before a research
degree is finally conferred upon him/her. Thus, computers play a
very important role in legal education and research."

7. For further details, see W.G. Harrington "Computers and Legal Research" 56
American Bar Association Journal 1145-53 (1970); John Hamilton "Computer Assisted
Legal Research", 51 Oregon Law Review 666-75 (1972); John Sprowl, A Manual for
Computer-Assisted Legal Research (Chicago: American Bar Foundation (1976); Miles
O. Price, Effective Legal Research (Fourth Edition, Boston: Little Brown & Co.
(1979); Michael Losipescu and John Yogis, A Comparison ojAutomated and Manual
Legal Research: A Comprehensive Study (Ottawa, Canadian Law Information Council,
1981); W.G. Hanington, "A Brief History of Computer-Assisted Legal Research" 77
Law Library Journal (3) 543-56 (1984-85); Gillian Bull "Computer-Assisted Legal
Research" in R.G. Logan (Ed.), In/ormation Sources ill Law 337-49 (London.
Butterworths, 1986); Nancy Shephardson, "Computers and the Law: The Desk Top
Revolution," American Bar Association Journal (August) 77-93 (1988); and N.R.
Madhaval Menon, supra note 6.
 ROLE OF COMPUTERS IN THE FIELDS 721

III. Utility of Computers for Lawyers

When one walks into a lawyer's office, one is greeted with hundreds
of books which contain enormous amount of information. These books
contain the facts and judgments of cases decided by all the high courts
and the Supreme Court of India. It is too much to expect that anybody
could, or rather would, try to read all these books. This is perhaps out
of question. As a matter of fact, these books are reference material.
When faced with a particular type of proposition, lawyers hunt through
these books trying to find some case that had similar facts and was
decided by some court. One can well imagine the effort and energy
required for such an exercise ... sifting through those mountains of
information in search of something that one hopes it exists.
In the West, the published material on how lawyers can use computers
in their day to day routine is now enormous." As a matter of fact,
lawyers in the advanced countries have since long been making use of
computers in their day to day chamber work. However, it appears that
their use was primarily confined to the word processing or at the most
storage and retrieval of information relating to their clients' cases. Most
recently, the computer manufacturers in the United States have come out
with powerful computer systems that enable law firms to even use the

8. See for example Perry and Biunno, John Dickerson, "Some Jurisprudential
Implications of Electronic Data Processing", 28 Law and Contemporary Problems,
53-68 (1963); David Johnston (Ed.). Proceedings of the Computers and the Law
Conference, Ontario: Faculty of Law, Queen's University (1968); Robert McCoy and
Dennis Chatterton, "Computer-Assisted Legal Services", Law and Computer
Technology 2-24 (1968); John Brice, "Data Processing for Law Office Management",
9 Jurimetrics Journa1202-17 ( 1969); Smith Horty, "Use of Computers for Law Office
Research", in Robert P. Bigelow (ed.), Computers and the Law, An Introductory
Handbook, 44-53 (New York, American Bar Association, 1969); John Brice, "The
Computer and the Law Office Administration", II Jurimetrics Jouma135-54 (1070);
Mitchel, "Document Preparation With A Large Computer", 10 Law Office Economics
and Management, 425-56 (1970); Smith Stroger, "The Use of Electronic Data Processing
Equipment in Law Office Management and Fiscal Control", Rutgers Journal 0/
Computers and Law (Spring), 87-103 (1970); Robert P. Bigelow, "How Lawyers Can
Use Computers to Practice Law Now?, Rhode Island Bar Journal, 8-14 (1971); S.
Boyd, "Law in Computers md Computers in Law: A Lawyer's View of the State of
the Art", 14 Arizona Law Review 267-81 (1972); Smith Shuman and David Bagley,
"Electronic Data Processing As An Aid To Trial Lawyers", 3 COli/pilfer Law Service
Reporter, 72-86 (1972); Robert P. Bigelow, supra note 3; S. Eidelman, "M icro
Computers in the Law Office". Small Business Computers (September-October), 7-
12 (1982); Smith Berkow and David Baer, "Law Firms and Word Processors: Current
Status and Future Directions", Law Office Economics and Management. 23 (Spring),
72-88 (1982); Issac Asimov, "The Next 70 Years for Law and Lawyers", American
Bar Association Journal, 69 '(December), 65-67 (1985); and Ian F.G. Baxter, "The
Computer and the Lawyer", 13 Canadian Business Law Journal, 444-67 (1987-88).
722 LEGAL RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY

Internet for everything from legal research to international communication.?

In India too, computers are now beginning to have a discernible
impact on the management of a lawyer's office. As a matter of fact, a
computer offers direct benefits to a legal practitioner. Computer
technology is being used for legal storage and retrieval, legal analysis and
prediction. 10 Many lawyers have accepted the computer in its role as an
accounting and book-keeping aid. In essence, there are still many more
unexplored uses of the computer and electronic data processing as an aid
to the lawyer in his office management activities. I I
The data base that a lawyer must research in order to determine the
answer to his client's problem is expanding rapidly. Not only are the
legislatures enacting new laws, but new fields of law are coming into
prominence. These, inter alia, include Broadcasting Law, Consumer
Protection Law, Drugs and Narcotics Law, Education Law, Election
Law, Environmental Law, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law,
Information Technology Law, Intellectual Property Law, Media Law,
Service Law and Victimology. Broadly speaking, all these fields have
developed during the 1980s and early 1990s. Each field brings with it
new statutes, new cases, new treatises and even new case reporters.'?
Therefore, a lawyer has to do a lot of research to find out the most upto
date and most relevant case on his subject.
Computers can help free lawyers from the drudgery of legal research
which can consume great block of a lawyer's time. Computerised legal
searching can in seconds, minutes or hours, perform case research that
previously would have taken weeks or months. Computerised research
frees lawyers from the clerical procedure of thumbing through indices
and reference texts as well as eliminating the possibility of overlooking
an important precedent because of lack of a computer library, or simply
by human error because of boredom, frustration or fatigue. Computerised

9. See: Doug Levy, "Lawyers Learn to Get Technology on Their Side", The Times
of India 13 (29 April, 1997).
10 For a detailed study on the role of computers in prediction and legal analysis,
see Gerald Fleischmann and Philip Scaletta, "Use of Computer Technology in Legal
Analysis and Prediction", American Business Law Journal, Vol. II, No. I (Spring),
251-69 (1973).
II. For details, see Aamod Gupte, "The Impact of Computers on the Legal
Profession", The Lawyers Collective (February), 21-22 (1999).
12. In India, for example, even though the Consumer Protection Law has developed
in the early 1990s, there are now at least ten Consumer Law Reporters which
exclusively publish the case law on consumer protection in India. Out of these, four
prominent reporters are: Consumer Protection Cases. Consumer Protection Judgements.
Consumer Protection Reporter, and Consumer Protection and Trade Practices Journal.
This shows the growing amount of case law and of case law reporters in one particular
field.
 ROLE OF COMPUTERS IN THE FIELDS 723

research lets the lawyer spend the bulk of his time concentrating on the
law which the computer gives him instead of spending that time in a
thick of books looking for it. 13 David Moody explains the entire scenario
in the following words:
[T]he potential impact of computer science upon the law is
great. The speed of computers makes the bulk of the law
relatively insignificant. The potential flexibility of indexing by
computers may render present indexing systems obsolete. The
lawyer of tomorrow may notice a significant reduction in his'
research time, thus increasing his ability to provide services to
his clients. With the removal of the human element from the
actual researching and considering the thoroughness of
computers, the quality of the lawyer's services, as well as the
quantity, may increase. If opposing lawyers have "all" the law,
the possibility of ill-founded court decisions would more than
likely decrease, and the possibility ofcompromise between parties
would increase, thereby relieving some of the case load burden
upon the congested court dockets.!"
In India, a Lucknow-based law publishing company - Messrs Eastern
Book Company Ltd. has now successfully ventured in this field. They
have introduced, what they call an "extremely user friendly and a
revolutionary research tool for the legal community - a computerised
law information database." The said company has come out with a
unique Case Finder-SCC Online. The software package is in the form of
a Compact Disc-Read Only Memory (CD-ROM)IS that contains case law
on all topics right from the year 1950 with a regular update service. It

13. Gerald Fleischmann and Philip Sealetta, supra note 10, 2S 1-69 at 254. Also see
Igor Kavass and H.A. Hood, "Computerised Legal Databases: An International Survey"
and H.A. Hood, "Disk and DAT: Recent Developments in Legal Database and
Emerging Information Technology", 3-4 lnternational Journal of Legal Information
77-90 (1987).
14. David Thomas Moody, "Legal Research - Computer Retrieval of Statutory Law
and Decisional Law", 19 Vanderbilt Law Review 2 (March), 905·18 at 917-18 (1966);
James P. Chandler, "Computers and the Case Law", 3 Rutzers Journal of Computer
and Law Information (2) 202-18 and F.G. Baxter, supra note 8.
IS. For further details on the various types and utility of optical disks which can
be used by the lawyers for storage of the relevant data, e.g. Compact Disk: Read Only
Memory (CD-ROM); Write Once Read Many Times (WORM); Compact Disk
Interactive (CD-/); Erasable Disk; and Hybrid Disks etc., see F.G. Baxter, supra note
8 at 444-67. Bairstow, "CD-ROM: Mass Storage for the Mass Market", High
Technology (October), 44-51. However, for a detailed glossary of the most frequently
used computer jargon. see Kanwal Puri, "Copyright in Software," I National Law
School Journal, 31-53 (1989).
724 LEGAL RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY

can be installed on one's personal desktop or portable computer. According

to the publishers, the installation procedure for the Case Finder Software
Programme is extremely simple. Lawyers who are having computers in
their offices say that the Case Finder Software Programme is extremely
useful. The only requirement is an availability of a PC in one's office/
chamber.
Obviously, this kind of package is likely to be much useful, not only
for the lawyers, but even for people in allied fields like those working in
corporate or government legal cells. Law students too could derive
immense benefit from such a package. If one looks at the price of the
entire package, obviously it is beyond the reach of any common person
with a passing interest in law. However, according to the users of this
package, when compared to the cost of procuring all those case law
reporters, digests and manuals, "this seems peanuts.I"? Doug Levy aptly
sums up the entire scenario in the following words:
Over time, experts are expecting the chasm within the legal
profession between the computer-literate and computer-challenged
to narrow. Lawyers are going to be working with clients who
are continually working with technology. Iflawyers are intelligent
about these developments, they can keep up with the clients. 17
Thus computers can be of immense use and utility for the modem
lawyers and law firms.

IV. Utility of Computers in Law Courts

Computers are also expected to play an important role in the

administration of justice in the law courts. Speaking of the use of
modem technology in the public administration of justice, the former
Chief Justice of India, R.S. Pathak had observed that while the customary
mechanisms and the tools adopted by the judicial process as well as by
the legal profession were old and relatively slow to change, their clientele
operated in a rapidly changing technology-dependent environment.
According to him, business enterprises and the organisations of society
had grown even more complex. This had resulted in breaking down the
required balance between the inputs (i.e. the number of cases and
controversies brought before the judicial process) and the outputs (i.e.
the number of cases and controversies resolved through the judicial
process) resulting in a corresponding accretion in the stress and burden
of backlogs and arrears of cases. Therefore, it was apparent that there

16. See Harpreet Singh Giani, "Lawyer's Best Friend", The Indian Express 13 (19
November, 1996).
17. Supra note 15.
 ROLE OF COMPUTERS IN THE FIELDS 725

was an urgent need to adopt the new technology in court management

if the judicial process had to keep pace with the dynamic changes in the
modem society.P
According to Chief Justice Pathak, the most critical application of
computers in the administration of justice lies in the court management
and the maintenance ofrecords. Judicial resources like any other resources
are limited and should be employed effectively and efficiently. The
present system of listing and constituting Benches relies largely on the
skill employed in assessing the probable time of hearing in individual
cases and the ability to adjust rapidly to the changing and sometimes
competing demands of the judges, counsel and parties for priority
allocation and deferment. These difficulties multiply in quantity as well
as in complexity as the quantum and the nature of the court's work
expands. The computer is well suited to take care of these demands on
the judicial process, and particularly on the Chief Justices and key
officials of the Registry of courts. The memory of the computer will
record details of the availability of particular-judges, the changing state
of lists and the composition of various Benches, and the requirements of
counsel and the parties.
. The computer's rapid processing ability can be
,

used to re-schedule a list at short notice so as to take into account all

these problematic factors. Orders and judgments are part of the public
record. Unfortunately, considering the volume of work handled by our
courts, it is not possible to trace unreported judgements easily. Feeding
them into a central computer and allowing access to these data banks
would be of considerable assistance to litigants and lawyers. 19
In the western countries, computers are now being effectively used
in the law courts. For instance, Dog Levy explains the scenario in the
U.S. in the following words:

Courtroom experts say lawyers can no longer ignore technology

such as the Internet if they want to succeed. In fact, many
judges welcome computer-generated exhibits because it's faster
to change image on a computer than to juggle large boards, and
clear graphics make it easier for jurors to understand complex
issues.I?

Courtrooms in at least 29 American States now have computer

systems that enable court stenographers to type directly into the computer
and display trial transcripts in real time."!

18. See Lalit Bhasin. "Prospects for Computer Application for Law", I National
Law School Journal 77-80 at 78 (1989).
19. Id. at 78-79.
20. Supra note 9.
21. Ibid.
726 LEGAL RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY

According to some experts, computers make it possible. to easily

show animated explanations of complex procedures or simply to retrieve
text from massive depositions. The new systems make it possible for
lawyers not only to bring entire case files on indexed and annotated CD-
ROMS but also to leave the files in the office and retrieve them from
court via mordem.
The electronics experts are using 'Computer Animation' and 'Computer
Aided Design' Software to make images of auto crashes and crime
scenes. Their creations try to answer questions like, what was the
driver's view on the foggy night of the accident, where were the blood
splotches located and what the witnesses could and couldn't see from
the third-story window. The goal of forensic animation is to "show"
eyewitness or expert testimony to the jury. It is in this connection that
the PC Animation helps the legal system. 22
For example, in 1993, a basket-ball player in the United States was
crushed to death by a truck. The truck driver admitted that he was'
driving at 55 miles per hour (mph), 10 mph over the speed limit. Now
the main issues involved in this 14-million dollar lawsuit filed by the
player's family against the truck driver and his employer were: whether
the driver was at fault? and whether he was negligent by driving at 55
mph in a 45 mph zone?23
A computer expert helped the defence present its case. Since
'Computer Animation' is an 'illustrative tool', he started by looking at
the reports from the police. At the same time, an accident investigator
also helped him reconstruct the accident. From the data that included the
truck's actual braking distance, the computer expert created two images
of the accident. One showed the truck moving at 10 mph over the speed
limit. The second one showed with the truck travelling at the speed limit
of 45 mph. Thus it turned out that even if the truck had been driving
within the speed limit, it would also have hit the player's car. The
defence argued that although the impact was not quite as direct at the
speed limit, it would still have been fatal, and thus negligence did not
contribute to the accident. The jury agreed that the accident was caused
by the player's failure to look a~affic before climbing onto the roadway."
Notwithstanding all this, computer experts acknowledge that the
'Computer Animation' certainly run the risk of "creating reality" rather
than "illustrating" it. That is perhaps the reason as to why these experts
are asked to testify during frame-by-frame interrogation thereby explaining
, for the animation. As a matter of fact, animations are
the factual basis

22. B. Basu, "Animated Evidence - Taking Computers to Courts", The Tribune

14 (2 January. I 997Y.:
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
 ROLE OF COMPUTERS IN THE FIELDS 727

one form of forensic reconstruction - the attempt to mimic conditions

before a crime took place. In fact, forensic experts have been doing
reconstructions for years to try to figure out what a disappeared person
would look like after 10 years or what cause death in a badly degraded
body.2s
Experts are of the view that the introduction of the computer into
the animation field has opened a whole new world of ideas, as well as
making some older techniques easier to accomplish. Computer animation
and computer graphics are used today to make anything from television
logos to architectural layouts. But when animation is used to •frame'
or 'exonerate' an accused person, everything is made up of hard
facts. 26
Another way that computers are changing trials is that lawyers can
show a videotaped excerpt from a witness deposition very quickly. To
challenge a witness's live testimony in court, the lawyer need only wave
a bar code reader pen on his deposition index and the appropriate excerpt
pops onto monitors from a CD-ROM.27
It is primarily due to the recent computerisation facility that the
Supreme Court of India has been able to deal with around 25,000 cases
within a short span of time. 28 The Law Ministry at New Delhi is now
planning to create an Internet site where all the case law relating to the
Supreme Court, high courts and the tribunals will be available.I? In
future, one could also expect computerisation facilities even at the level
of the district courts in the country.

V. Concluding Observations
While the author has strongly advocated the use and utility of
computers, he would also like to add a few words about the possible and
probable misuse ofcomputers. Even computer experts are of the confirmed
view that while their versatility is a great boom, they are also easy
victims to the manipulations of criminals with technical expertise.I?

25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Supra note 15.
28. See "Only I PC of People Pay IT: Minister", The Tribune 2 (18 May, 1997).
29. See, "Major Changes in CPC on the Anvil, says Khalap", The Indian Express
I (18 May, 1997).
30. In the advanced countries, computer criminals have stolen vast sums from
banks; used confidential information available with the public authorities, banks and
hospitals to blackmail and extort money from people; and assisted unscrupulous
business competitors to steal information about processes, formulate know-how,
marketing and manufacturing plans, etc. from rivals. For further details. see S.
Subramanian, "Combating Computer Crime," The Hindustan Times 12' (18 April,
1995).
728 LEGAL RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY

Experts on white collar crime aver that the chances of a computer crime
being detected is one in ten thousand. According to them, it is also easy
for the computer criminal to commit the crime without leaving behind
any sign which makes the investigation and subsequent prosecution
extremely difficult. However, at the same .time experts are of the view
that the majority of computer crimes can be prevented with a minor care
and caution on the one hand as well as with a well structured crime
prevention strategy on the other.U
In the second place, it may also be mentioned that whereas computers
have come to occupy a very significant role in the modern legal research,
they only supplement and can hardly replace library or any other type of
manual research. According to McGuire, there are "no rigid rules governing
the precise combination of the two methods; this will vary according to
the issues involved and the individual lawyer's research habits. "32 He
rightly observes:
The unique contribution ofcomputerised legal information retrieval
would appear to lie in the fact that it offers the lawyer a new and
different method of accessing the law. Its practical time-saving
advantages can provide the busy practitioner with a viable method
to improve general research habits, and this factor alone seems
to promise continued intensive use and development in the
future. 33
Thus, powerful as the computer may seem, the lawyer cannot be
replaced. The lawyer must obtain the facts and characterise the problem.
At this point the computer may perform the research based upon the
lawyer's characterisation. After obtaining the relevant material from the
computer search, the lawyer must analyse and evaluate the material and
apply the law based upon this evaluation.
In summing up, it may be observed that the next generation is the
generation of computers. No serious lawyer, law teacher, and legal
researcher in India can do without the computers in the next decade. If
not highly technical, at least the working knowledge of computers is
must for every person connected with the legal profession in whatsoever
manner. As indicated above, some of the law publishers are now offering
information/data concerning the decided case law on computer floppies.
Like the western countries, most law libraries in India are also likely to

31. Ibid.
32. M. McGuire, "Computer Assisted Legal Research: Some Fundamental
Concepts", 31 University ofNew Brunswick Law Journal 232-41 at 239 (1981). Also
see William L. Blaine, "Computers and Legal Research", 50 California Slate Bar
Journal, 2 (March-April), 100-04 (1975).
33. M. McGuire, Id. at 239.
 ROLE OF COMPUTERS IN TilE FIELDS 729

become fully computerised in future.l" Therefore, the earlier the lawyers,

law teachers and legal researchers are exposed to the use of computer
technology, the better it is. In the case of legal research. in the first
instance. if an institution can afford one computer, it may be advisable
to systematically expose the faculty members, research scholars and the
postgraduate students to the new facility. The use of computers shall
also help facilitate the exchange of information amongst the different law
faculties. There may also be a considerable scope of collaborative
research endeavours in the field of law which in tum shall give fillip to
the generation of quality research works. which are lacking in this field.
Thus, there is an urgent need for computerised and scientific legal
outputs from the legal profession as a whole-"

34. For details see P.K. Patil, "Computerised Library System and the Legal
Profession", I National Law School Journal 101-07 (1989)..
35. See further Lilian Edwards and Charlotte Waelde, Law and the Internet, Regulating
Cyberspace (Ox ford, Hart Publishing Co., 1997).