(106)  Scots law online: Greens (Westlaw) and Butterworths

In April 2001 W. Green launched Westlaw UK Scots Law. In addition to the Scots Law Times, Westlaw UK Scots Law includes legislation from Holyrood and Westminster – including the content of the Parliament House Book, journal articles from the Scottish Legal Journals Index, and a current awareness service providing daily updates on legal developments by 9am and throughout the day. Hypertext links allow users to click directly between legislation, case references and case reports.

At the same time Butterworths Scotland launched Scottish Case Digests Online, an electronic case digesting service. The service monitors decisions of the House of Lords, Privy Council, Court of Session, High Court of Justiciary and sheriff courts, and consists of short case summaries hypertext linked to the full opinion which is accessed from the digest by the click of a button. Cases are fully searchable by category, catchwords, citation etc. Additional information is provided on digested cases when it becomes available, such as where a full report can be found and the history of the case on appeal. Subscribers to Laws of Scotland Online will also benefit from hypertext links, enabling the user to jump directly from Stair Memorial Encyclopaedia references in the digest to the relevant paragraphs in the encyclopaedia. Hypertext links also allow subscribers to All ER Direct and The Law Reports to jump directly to relevant cases.