On the Twilight of the West Paradigm for Case Reporting

I think most law librarians will agree with William Mills' (New York Law School) propositions that (1) the foundation of trust that underpins case law reporting has been undermined because Internet case law sources, other than Lexis or Westlaw, appear with no strong guarantee of accuracy or authenticity, and (2) rebuilding a foundation of trust in our case law reporting system will not succeed by utilizing the technology of printed books. Those days are over; the dominant paradigm is no longer.

In The Decline and Fall of the Dominant Paradigm: Trustworthiness of Case Reports in the Digital Age, 53 New York Law School Law Review 917 (2008/09), Mills "chronicles the twilight of West’s paradigm [as a universally accepted framework for working with American case law]. It asserts that the West system has ceased to exert a dominant influence on case law research, and on the way that lawyers think about the law. ... The demise of the West paradigm can be attributed, in large measure, to factors that flow directly from the computerization of American law and the rise of the Internet. This essay identifies these factors, and explains how they have contributed to the demise of the paradigm." Highly recommended. [JH]