Something for everybody: Internet offers plenty for criminal lawyers.

Criminal litigators have not exactly been the champions of computer technology in law firms. Unlike their civil, family and administrative law colleagues with document-intensive practices, criminal lawyers have never been in a hurry to buy word-processing equipment to fill out a few subpoenas and accounting software to calculate the G.S.T. on a block fee. For a long time in fact, outside of legal research, there wasn't a heck of a lot of use a criminal lawyer could get out of a computer.

Now it's 1996. The world is moving to digital document transmission, on-line communications and virtual storefronts. So why, when I asked a criminal practitioner if he had tried out the Internet, would he reply that there's no need for criminal lawyers to use it. "Our clients don't use e-mail," he explained, "and there's no reason to be on it today. Maybe in a few years' time."

"But how can you know that there's no benefit for you if you haven't explored it yet?" I protested. My argument seemed unconvincing. Notwithstanding that he had never seen a webpage or read a newsgroup, this practitioner was sure that there was no need for him to be on the Internet today. He put the question to me point blank: "Exactly what is on the Internet that you think I need?"

2,000,000,000 Books

It's tough for me to answer that question, and I get asked it all the time. To my mind the Internet is a two billion book library, ever-growing. I have no idea which of those two billion books is of value to you as an individual, but I can't believe that not one of them is. I find myself growing deeply sympathetic to the librarians of the world, who are constantly asked, "Which book do I need?"

I retreated to my computer screen to think up a clever retort, and a horrible thought crossed my mind. Maybe he was right. Maybe there isn't anything for criminal lawyers in Canada on the Internet. I had better take a look.

I decided to circumvent such excellent legal indices as Peter Sim's Canadian Legal Resources on the World Wide Web and Alan M. Gahtan's Master Index in favour of a generic search site.

For the broadest possible search, my first choice is generally Alta Vista, a high-speed text-based engine housed at Digital Equipment Corporation.

Typing in only the three words Canada Criminal Law, I asked the elves in the Alta Vista computer if they knew of anything on the Internet on that topic. In a few seconds, the first 10 hits were displayed, among them pointers to the following resources:

• Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
• Canadian Criminal Code
• Canadian Firearms Statistics
• Canadian Charter of Rights: The Prosecution And Defence Of Criminal And Other Statutory Offences, by McLeod et al.

An accompanying message noted that these ten ranked highest of the 30,000 relevant items it found. 30,000! So much for the claim that the Internet has nothing for criminal lawyers. I asked for the next group of ten hits. These included:

• Canada. Federal Government. Canadian Foreign Policy. Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
• Deborah McIntosh's Canadian Obscenity Law Page
• A Century of Criminal Justice, by Friedland

And on it went. Forgive me if I didn't check through all 30,000. I decided, instead, that my search had been much too broad, and I needed to refine it. After all, some of its findings were on-line resources while others were merely pointers to resources. I needed to try a different index.

I made my way toWebCrawler and searched for the phrase Canadian Criminal Law. The database reported 137 documents and returned a short list of the top 25, including:

• UBC Law - Home Page
• Canadian Law Resources on the Internet
• Cyber-Rights And Criminal Justice: Legal Resources On The Web
• Judith Bowers' Law List
• Bill's Law Library
• Calgary Free-Net: Criminal Justice Title
• The Law Bookstore On Internet

Now, I don't mean to pick on criminal lawyers, or suggest that they are unique in their reticence. Lawyers in many other areas of practice have said the same thing, that they will wait until someone pinpoints exactly what the Internet has that they need before they investigate further.

I could argue that even if exactly what you want isn't out there today, it might be there tomorrow. But all that misses the point. To make best of the Internet--as with any technology--the key is to look past the obvious and the visible to try to see the untapped potential of the medium. In this respect, I assure you that there's something there for everyone.

Look me up sometime.

The Directory of Canadian Lawyers and Law Firms has moved from its spawning ground at io.org to Carswell's website. Started by Alan M. Gahtan, the Directory lists all lawyers and law firms in Canada that have e-mail addresses and websites. With easy to follow graphics, the site is a handy index for finding your colleagues on the Internet.

To add yourself or your firm to the Directory, go to http://www.carswell.com/lawdir/ and click on Add Entry.

© 1996 Lewis S. Eisen

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