The History of Legal Research Technologies: From Research to Search
In 1964, lawyers with the Ohio State Bar Association (OSBA) decided to harness emerging computing technology to better the work of Ohio lawyers and make legal services more affordable. Despite initial skepticism, daunting and escalating expenses, and countless software and hardware failures, they managed to launch a working service by 1970. By then, control over the Ohio Bar Automated Research (OBAR) service migrated from Ohio to NYC, from local lawyers to corporate executives and consulting firms, who worked to develop the service into a national product. In 1973, the service was relaunched as Lexis, a commercial legal information service that still dominates the American legal information services market, with a trailing second platform in Westlaw. My book project tells the story of how lawyers and technologists crafted a system that challenged long-entrenched ideals and practices of legal research and how that system took over American law firms and law schools.
You can read my dissertation in full here.