Authority Without Borders: The World Wide Web and the Delegalization of Law

38 Pages Posted: 8 Sep 2010 Last revised: 22 Sep 2011

See all articles by Ellie Margolis

Ellie Margolis

Temple University - James E. Beasley School of Law

Date Written: September 8, 2010

Abstract

We live in an information age, with massive amounts of information available at our fingertips, thanks to the internet. The last few generations of law students and lawyers, as well as the future generations – the digital natives – have shifted almost entirely to conducting legal research online. This shift to online research has led to a blurring of the once clear delineation between legal and nonlegal materials, and contributed to a broadening of the types of sources used as authority in support of legal analysis. This article will show that the traditional ways of defining legal authority are rooted in a print-based system that no longer exists, and that in the world of online research, it is all too easy to lose track of where a source comes from. The combination of accessibility of information and electronic means of retrieval is erasing the once clear line between the distinct domain of law and the broader world of information. This blurring of the line is reinforced by courts, which are increasingly citing to online, nonlegal sources in support of legal reasoning in judicial opinions. The article documents the ways in which traditional means of identifying authority no longer exist, and calls for a new vocabulary for defining authority that reflects the world that exists today.

Keywords: Authority, Jurisprudence, Legal Research, Technology, Electronic, Nonlegal, Legal Writing, Information, Citation

JEL Classification: K10, K40, K49

Suggested Citation

Margolis, Ellie, Authority Without Borders: The World Wide Web and the Delegalization of Law (September 8, 2010). Seton Hall Law Review, Vol. 41, p. 909, 2011, Temple University Legal Studies Research Paper 2010-23, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1673936

Ellie Margolis (Contact Author)

Temple University - James E. Beasley School of Law ( email )

1719 N. Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122
United States

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
274
Abstract Views
2,217
Rank
219,116
PlumX Metrics