Thursday, December 08, 2005

Wex, everyone's resource for law learning

One of our favorite free websites for legal research is Cornell's Legal Information Institute (LII). In fact, it was one of our September Research Tips.

LII has recently undertaken a major updating and revamping of its topical section. Building on the topical material that was originally developed for its "Law about..." pages, LII has launched Wex, a collaboratively-created, freely available, public-access legal dictionary and encyclopedia.

drawing of a wheelbarrow stacked high with booksHow does Wex differ from the "Law about..." section? Wex will continue to provide reliable, accessible legal resources at no charge. By adopting a collaborative approach, LII plans to involve a larger pool of experts and bring together more limited efforts into a "unified, rich, community-based resource." See the Wex:FAQ for further information.

Wex is an example of a wiki, of which Wikipedia is probably the most well-known example. However, in the interest of generating higher-quality material in the short term, LII will keep the authoring pool selective for now. If you would like to volunteer, see Editorial contributions. You can subscribe to be notified of new pages via RSS or Atom feed.

Yesterday Evan Schaeffer posted some information about Wikilaw at The Illinois Trial Practice Weblog. Wikilaw does not currently require screening or registration to contribute. You can subscribe to new pages via RSS or Atom feed.

Sources: BoleyBlogs!; Between Lawyers; Jim Calloway's Law Practice Tips Blog.

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