Abstract

The case of Bush v. Gore stands out as the seminal decision that
decided the disputed presidential election of 2000. For legal researchers, it was a herald of a different sort. With the citation in the per curiam opinion to an online newspaper article, Bush v. Gore fired the first salvo in the death of twentieth-century authority. While courts in the past relied on a select group of print resources, legal researchers today are moving towards a more internet-based research platform.

This Article will focus on the shift from traditional print-based authority to a more online and democratic way of using authority to create law. There are still pitfalls in this new world, but the death of traditional authority can be seen with some cautious optimism, because it allows practitioners to choose from a much larger base of authority than what used to be available.