
Casetext Survey Finds ‘Shocking’ Level of Missing Relevant Cases in US Courts - raleighm
https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2018/06/08/casetext-survey-finds-shocking-level-of-missing-relevant-cases-in-us-courts/
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pseingatl
Interesting, but there are a few things you need to know:

1) in federal court there is no right to a hearing on a particular motion.
Because federal courts are, stastically at least, criminal drug courts and
criminal cases are heard first, civil cases go to the back of the line. But
there is no guarantee at all of a hearing on a criminal motion, either.

2) "Relevancy" is in the eye of the beholder. A lawyer may leave a case out
because he has a different view of the facts.

3) "Precedent" means that portions of cases get repeated in other cases. In
the old days, say, pre-1975, it was easy to miss cases because case law,
though computerized, was not widely available in electronic format.

4) Time and money are issues. Many lawyers are sole practitioners. Federal
judges have full-time clerks and free access to electronic caselaw. That is
certainly not the case for all lawyers. I personally know of situations where
a judge has ordered at 7:00 pm that a matter be briefed for 8:00 am the next
day. With these kind of time constraints, it's not surprising that some
caselaw is missed.

5) None of this is "shocking." On the other hand, if you work in a restaurant,
you know what goes on in the kitchen.

