Although the Internet has existed for decades, until very recently it has been a relatively meaningless term to the vast majority of legal academics. Within the space of two years, the Internet has been transformed from an esoteric technology to an increasingly essential asset for teaching and research in law, for access to business information and for entertainment. Since that time many law schools have set up their own Web sites to provide information to users and there are an increasing number of legal information resources that provide information to UK academics and law students. There are considerable primary legal resources available for law overseas - e.g. the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University, and its Australian equivalent. Such initiatives are likely to increase in number, size and sophistication over time and provide a free service to those who wish to use it.
Electronic journals is also a new phenomenon in law, as indeed they are in other disciplines.
The Electronic Law Journals project is another interesting project. Many law schools themselves had established their own Web sites for institutional promotion. However, perhaps a more worthwhile and fruitful avenue for development might be the use of Web pages to provide information likely to be of direct assistance to law students and researchers. This committee believes Intranets might also be usefully employed in the law school context. Thus, we feel confident in predicting that the Internet will prove to be one of the most useful information resources to both legal academics and law students in years to come.