This question often comes up, especially amongst first time users who are familiar with using other services The most simple answer is that JADE has smarter and more powerful engine than other services. This lesson will breifly explain the engine and also explain a few of the features, you know like cupholders.
The Engine
( A picture of the engine matching one paragraph of a case to a paragraph of another case. The paragraph on the right is a case that cites the paragraph on the left)
When a case arrives on the database JADE is able to automatically extract a heap of useful information. Most importantly, JADE is able to zoom in at the paragraph level of a case. It takes a case and then sees paragraphs.
Similarly, it will take a piece of legislation, zoom in and see a section and then zoom in again and see a subsection. It can even see a subsubub section.
The effect of this zooming is that a database of 200,000 documents is transformed into a database with millions of tiny little pieces of information. The magic happens when one tiny piece of information is matched with another tiny piece of information.
The end result is that when you look at a case on JADE you can for example that para 24 from a case in 2008 has been cited by 8 other paragraphs since it was handed down.
That is the JADE engine. It spends it’s days matchmaking for lawyers and librarians. It is fundamentally different from other services that do not zoom in on cases, instead they further removed and only give you information such as this case refers to this case.
(A picture of the engine matching a section of legislation with a paragraph of a case)
The features – Alerts
(A picture of the engine creating an alert)
You get the idea? The JADE engine is a jet engine. On top of it are some nice features which makes your trip more comfortable. One of these is Alerts. You tell JADE that you are interested in a particular court, case, section, paragraph, topic or search query. Whenever something arrives that matches what you like JADE will send you an email. For more information on Alerts see the lesson here [link to lesson]
The features – JADE Marks
JADE wants to be your friend. It wants you to tell it what paragraphs you find useful. It will store away these snippets in your own central library and let bring them back to you whenever you want. More information about JADE Marks can be found here.
The keys
You can watch the engine at work without the keys. However if you want to drive and make use of all features such as Alerts and JADEMarks you will need the keys. Get your key by creating an account – it’s free. For more information on how to create an account click here. If you think you already have an account but can’t remember your password click here [*link*]. If you want to know more about the access levels of JADE click here [*insert link*]
Jade Legal Research Blog 