SAN FRANCISCO – I’m a personal injury attorney. And like most other personal injury attorneys, I spend a lot of time doing what attorneys do – reading cases and arguing with other attorneys about what those cases mean and how the issues they address impact a particular brain or head injury, trucking accident, or product liability case.

Well, Google just made my job easier, less expensive, and made me more efficient. Google just added the ability to search and read state and federal case law in its Scholar service. That’s right – state and federal case law; the clear territory and domain of West and Lexis.

I have been using Google Scholar to do some research this afternoon and here is what I can tell you.  Google Scholar rocks! I mean seriously. I was able to locate the exact case on a particular legal issue that I was searching for with one search. It was quick, easy to use, and free.  I am very impressed so far.

West and Lexis offer a lot of services. They are very specialized and highly effective at what they do.  But to be honest, I have never much cared for West’s user interface or the manner in which you are forced to navigate their site in general.  Lexis is much more user friendly and their Shepard’s function is terrific but they certainly aren’t free.

I am not sure if Google’s new service will truly compete with either West or Lexis just yet because it isn’t clear that a firm could give up all the other services which they provide that Google doesn’t.  But if Google’s goal was to take a big first step in that direction, I’d say mission accomplished.

Here is the link to Google’s Memo on this product.