The Information and Telecommunication Technology Center and the School of Law at the University of Kansas have developed a powerful online search tool for legal researchers. MetaJuris, a metasearch engine, simultaneously searches various legal databases for cases, statutes and literature citations. The free service, metajuris.ittc.ku.edu, is open to the public.

Subscription-based databases dominate online legal research. In addition to their prohibitive costs, Michael Hoeflich, the John H. and John M. Kane Distinguished Professor of Law, notes the software requires special training. Hoeflich envisioned a user-friendly “one-stop shop” for legal research and approached ITTC because of its expertise in software development.

“My purpose was to provide a fast, free search capability which would permit not only lawyers, but everyone access to crucial legal documents,” Hoeflich said. “Metajuris, I believe, does that.”

“Professor Hoeflich had a great idea, and with ITTC expertise, the technology was developed into a working prototype. As the technology matures, we hope to find a commercial partner to further develop its utility,” said Keith Braman, director of technology commercialization for ITTC. ITTC Lead Software Engineer Danico Lee designed and developed MetaJuris.

Users enter search words from which MetaJuris creates and submits queries to targeted legal databases. Version 2.0 searches six databases: PreCYdent, which contains U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Court of Appeals cases; PLoL (Public Library of Law), which includes cases from all 50 states since 1997 and other law, codes and regulations; kscourts, which searches state cases; Legalbitstream, for its capacity to search both tax cases and Internal Revenue Service rulings; and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings Web site. MetaJuris then parses and integrates the hits, sorting them in reverse chronological order. For each result, the case name, its date, a synopsis and a link to the relevant citation are given.

Source: Kansas University

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