BriefBank, a collection of legal briefs in
Law, Technology, and Public Policy

Statement of the need for BriefBank

The growing legal field of technology and public policy now contains a vast array of legal documents. Researchers preparing cases or academic studies are faced with wide-ranging searches. The techlaw field is largely ignored by large information services, except in the instance that a decision goes to the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition to a marked lack of relevance, current competing systems are expensive, too large, disparate, and require a lot of support.

Legal researchers already possess finely honed searching talents and usually have costly accounts with information services. BriefBank seeks to specialize in smaller fields of law, and therefore increase efficiency and relevance in targeted results. BriefBank provides a single interface with robust search and retrieval not presently available in disparate competing systems, and within the field of technology and public policy, seeks to be an inexpensive supplement or substitute for competing systems.

We do not sell documents or access to the system, yet our clients demand information be provided freely to users of the system. For this reason, BriefBank must be inexpensive to deploy and easy to maintain. Article contributors to BriefBank are rewarded with recognition in the legal community and the ability to put forth seminal ideas that form future legal works.

Spring 2002 Team Members

John Fritch
Tom Selsley
Kaichi Sung
Mary Trombley
email whole group