Automating the Archives

Automation came to the law last week. A computer is now ready to take over the lawyer's plodding and tedious search through vast and ever-expanding archives to track down rulings that apply to the case at hand.

New York Lawyer Ellias Hoppenfeld was tired of cracking the books, and besides, automation promised to pay. Why not get every lawyer's mechanical research done once and for all and store the results in the sturdy, unfailing memories of computers? Assured by electronics experts that the concept was technically feasible, Hoppenfeld raised enough capital to found Law Research Service, Inc., hired colleagues to sort out, classify and index a million rulings that New York state courts had handed down over the decades. The work took three years and 50 lawyers.

Now a lawyer who wants to find out what New York state courts have ruled on a particular point will no longer have to plow through shelfloads of books --he can simply ask Sperry Rand's Univac III. A Law Research Service law yer translates the inquiry into a few index words or phrases, puts the information on a punched card and feeds it into the computer. Univac III then scans reels of magnetic tape at the rate of 120,000 cases a minute, swiftly types out the titles of the applicable rulings.

That information, in turn, is put into a high-speed printing machine that calls up from the tapes in its innards the full texts of the decisions. Within 24 hours after Law Research Service re ceives a question, says Hoppenfeld, the inquiring lawyer will get the answer. Fee: $20 per inquiry.

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