By: Martin Merritt, esq.
Past President, Texas Health Lawyers Association
Past Chair, DBA Health Law Section
martin@martinmerritt.com
“Please Tell Me you Didn’t. . . How to Keep Clients Out of the Jailhouse, Poorhouse and Lawyers Out of the Nuthouse” -Blog
As you can tell, I love talking about health law & litigation issues, and general wellbeing, if you have any health law questions or better yet, need to refer a case, just call or drop me an email and I will happily talk.
I have enough “organic stupidity” frustrating my every turn, I don’t need artificial robots inventing more. Two days ago, I wrote a blog with the Question:
“Where did the Texas Administrative Code Go? I was happily enjoying my favorite Sunday activity, preparing to answer a Texas Medical Board Complaint, when I discovered I can’t Google Texas Administrative Code Rules anymore.”
I am thinking of putting the disappearance on a milk carton. Google uses some kind of AI algorithm to produce a short answer to any question (which is what my doctors sometimes tell me they do when a patient shows up with a set of symptoms they have never seen before, they Google, “what the hell is this?”)
As I admitted two days ago, I do have Westlaw, I just don’t put it on my phone, because Google is easier when I am driving to court with a cup of coffee in one hand, a donut in the other, and the steering wheel between my knees. (Okay, that’s a “me” problem.)
Google used to be perfect for pulling up the text of a medical board rule. But since this weekend, when it comes to administrative rules, such as Texas Medical Board Rules, they have disappeared from any result you get when you Google it. The answer is “artificially stupid.”
When you Google a rule (either by rule number, “22 TAC 165.1”) or by the language in the rule “MEDICAL RECORDS” which is Rule §165.1) the results don’t link to the rule anymore. You get a notice that you will be redirected to a page that you can search, but the results say there “are no results” for a rule I know exists.
It gets worse, though. It used to be that after the short Google AI answer and paperclip link to the Texas Administrative code (which doesn’t work anymore), Google would list links to the text of the actual rule, from services such as West Case Text. But now, the Westlaw links say:
“This service is no longer available, but we appreciate you being a part of it. For legal research, please visit Westlaw, and if you’re curious about legal AI, check out CoCounsel. Thanks for stopping by!”
I have found a work around! Cornell Law School still works. If you add “Cornell” to the search “22 TAC 165.1”, you get the same old reliable answer as always and the text of the rule pops up without buying Westlaw.
Strangely, if you search Statutes, the old way still works. Just Google “Tex. Occ. Code 157” and the statute pops right up, just like the rules used to do. You can hit CTL + F and find the exact word you are looking for. But not with the Texas Administrative Code.