I can't speak for Australia, but in the U.S. legal scholarship has shifted away from traditional legal debate. The debate has become much more abstract, yet at the same time scholars purport to apply more scientific methods backed by empirical data. This is especially true in areas like anti-trust and intellectual property, but it's happening across the board in all domains. Many top law schools are literally turning into research schools. It's an odd phenomenon.

Often times this "research" is no more substantive than literary criticism, as often the only materials available to study are court materials. Professors have and will use software and statistics to try to support various political and social claims. Improved access to Supreme Court filings will prove extremely attractive.

Now, I'm not saying that it's impossible to do meaningful research with this material. My contention is merely that most of the research is crap, and that the legal academy is not well equipped for this kind of work. Making it easier to acquire will have a similar effect to a shipment of morphine bound for a hospital falling off the truck in a red light district.