Robert Ambrogi Blog
Last September, I wrote here about the private beta launch of BriefMine, a database of legal briefs that lawyers can mine for arguments and legal theories they can use in their own legal briefs. As I wrote then, the site uses intuitive, natural-language search to allow users to explore a database of legal briefs collected from around the country.
Today, BriefMine is coming out of private beta and launching its paid version, with subscriptions available either for $34 a month or $297 a year. A 14-day free trial is also available.
In the months since I first wrote about BriefMine, the site has made improvements both to its content and its user interface, founder Harry Zeitlin tells me.
On the content side, BriefMine has secured a content partnership with the Law Library Microform Consortium, Zeitlin says. The LLMC has been working with the LA Law Library to digitize the library’s collection of California briefs and BriefMine has partnered with the LLMC to gain access to this content. This brings BriefMine’s total brief count to over 150,000. Many of these are from California, but many are from other jurisdictions as well, Zeitlin says.
The site’s search menu currently shows that it has state-court briefs from California, Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin, Washington and West Virginia. For federal courts, it has briefs from the Supreme Court, all 9th Circuit courts, and the District of Tennessee.
With regard to design and features, the search form has been enhanced to assist in automating Boolean searches and to allow searches by specific courts and jurisdictions.
Also, the site has added an in-page viewer so that users can view briefs within their browsers. Before, users had to download the PDF to view the full brief. When you view a brief in your browser, search terms are highlighted.
Another change is that search results now display both an excerpt from the brief and also a “BriefView” excerpt. This latter excerpt is extracted from the “issues presented” section of the brief.
Finally, the MyMine section — which lets you save research results — has been modified to give users the ability to create custom folders.