From Part II: A Review of PreCYdent.com: A “Google-Styled” Search Engine for Lawyers and Laymen (Res Ipsa Blog)

While users do not have to register to use PreCYdent, there are a number of unique features that are available only to registered users. For instance, registered users can rate cases on a five-star system, mark cases as relevant, add keyword “tags” to cases, as well as upload opinions, and statutes. There are also discussion pages where registered users can post comments or questions about cases or statutes. Additionally, PreCYdent has a professional networking feature that allows registered users to connect with other attorneys.

Benson at Res Ipsa Blog has a nice writeup about PreCYdent. While I’ve heard the above before when distinguishing PreCYdent, I have yet to read anyone tell me why those features are useful.

For instance, Netflix allows users to rate individual movies, so that Netflix can later guess how much I will like a particular movie and make me recommendations based on that. The main reason for this is because films in the abstract lack any networking structure. Metacritic, on the one hand, takes advantage of the existing network of critics who rate films. Netflix, on the other hand, makes use of its user base to rate films and come up with recommendations.

But case law already has a network structure ripe for exploitation. The main question on my mind, then, is why would I want some random user’s rating of a case when judges, arbiters of what the law is, have already “rated” a case by citing or not citing it in an opinion?

Movie preferences are inherently subjective. In other words, I may care more about whether Joe in Idaho likes WALL-E than if Ebert likes WALL-E because Joe and I share more similar taste in movies. However, as an attorney, I don’t care what Joe in Idaho thinks about New York Times v. Sullivan, I care about what a judge thinks. And judges have already indicated their thoughts through the network citation structure of law.

In this situation, there exist two types of networks that can be exploited: social networks and the network structure of law. However, the latter is essentially a social network where judges like Learned Hand and Richard Posner are friends who share citations and post viral videos on each other’s wall. The former is a social network with people like me. Would you prefer my take on Law & Economics or Judge Posner’s? Just sayin’.