How to unlock free goldmine on Internet

LEGAL TECHNOLOGY: John Gelagin looks at do's and don'ts of Web research

Has s.4 of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1994 been amended? This is a common query.

Checking to see if legislation has been updated or replaced often means wading through the alphabetical list in Halsbury's Statutes to find the volume, locating the statute in the appropriate volume, reviewing the Cumulative Supplement, then checking the Noter-up.

Surely there's an easier way? Yes and no.

There are now many fee-paying on-line legal services offered by companies such as Butterworths, Sweet & Maxwell and CCH.

But if your organisation does not subscribe to any of the commercial on-line services, there is a substantial amount of excellent and free quality legal information out there.

Some do's and don'ts of free legal research on the Web:l Do find a good links page and use that as your starting point.

A links page is simply a Web site with links to lots of useful sites.

Delia Venables has a good set of legal links at www.venables.co.ukl Do use the Internet for obtaining copies of statues and statutory instruments.

All those since 1997 are published in full by HMSO (www.hmso.gov.uk).l Do use the Internet for finding cases.

All the House of Lords decisions since November 1996 are available in full text.

Access this at www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk as well as High Court and Court of Appeal decisions at www.courtservice.gov.ukl Do use the Internet to keep up with recent developments.l Don't rely on the Web if you need to research a point comprehensively or check whether an Act has been amended.

Information is still too scattered.l Don't 'surf' when you are doing legal research.

You can spend an enormous amount of time simply skimming from site to site.l Don't use generalist search engines (such as Yahoo!) except sparingly.

These search engines index a vast range of material, most of it American and non-legal.

And the answer? The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1994 were replaced by the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, effective 1 October 1999.

Searching on HMSO's (free) site on 'Unfair Terms' brings up a complete copy of the new regulations.

John Gelagin is the chief editor of City firm Simmons & Simmons' on-line legal resourcewww.elexica.com