The Crimson Editorial Board, The Harvard Crimson; In Favor of the Caselaw Access Project
"We hope that researchers will use these court opinions to further
advance academic scholarship in this area. In particular, we hope that
computer programmers are able to take full advantage of this repository
of information. As Ziegler noted, no lawyer will be able to take full
advantage of the millions of pages in the database, but computers have
an advantage in this regard. Like Ziegler, we are hopeful that
researchers using the database will be able to learn more about less
understood aspects of the legal system — such as how courts influence
each other and deal with disagreements. Those big-picture questions
could not have been answered as well without the information provided by
this new database.
This project is a resounding success for the Harvard Library, which happens also to be looking
for a new leader. We hope that the person hired for the job will be
similarly committed to projects that increase access to information — a
key value that all who work in higher education should hold near and
dear. In addition to maintaining the vast amounts of histories and stories
already in the system, Harvard’s libraries should seek to illuminate
content that may have been erased or obscured. There is always more to
learn."
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