Through a dense jungle of cables and a labyrinth of computer terminals in an office perched at the top of an ivy-covered law school, the Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell University uses the World Wide Web to spread legal knowledge to county planners in rural Montana, high school teachers in Michigan, budding writers in North Carolina, attorneys at the American Indian Law Alliance in New York City and countless others around the globe.

But the institute, which has been praised by the American Bar Association Journal and is featured in The Lawyer's Guide to the Internet, isn't merely a repository for legal information. It also develops software and teaching materials and provides research and educational opportunities for faculty and students.

Historically, the legal community suffered from anxiety attacks when it came to technology. The common photo opportunity featuring an attorney or judge before a well-stocked legal library stack was an accurate depiction of where and how most legal research was conducted. But legal information today has jumped from leather-bound texts to disks and the electronic superhighway.

Cornell's Legal Information Institute (LII) is one of those superhighway destinations that is developing a new platform for legal research and information dissemination. The LII was established in the spring of 1992 with funding from the Law School and the National Center for Automated Information Research (NCAIR), as an experiment in electronic publishing and research. A year later, the institute's Web page became the first site to offer legal information via the Web. In the five years since its creation, the institute has developed numerous Web sites and two electronic bulletins that transmit key information on significant court cases directly to attorneys around the world.

LII's most popular attraction is its U.S. Supreme Court Web site. Even the White House Web page links visitors to the Cornell site. More than 80,000 users visit the site daily. Here one can find the most up-to-date information on Supreme Court decisions.

Cornell is one of only two universities in the country (the other being Case Western Reserve) that is able to post an official unedited electronic version of the Court's decision within seconds after it's been handed down from the bench. Before the Internet, such immediate access to the Court's rulings was available only to the news media and commercial on-line information systems, but Cornell's recent subscription to the U.S. Supreme Court's electronic transmission service, offered by STN Inc. of Reston, Va., assures that such information is accessible to the general public for free.

In addition to the instant access to U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the institute offers a free e-mail service -- the "liibulletin" -- that distributes the syllabi of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in bulletin format within hours after their release. The syllabi are summaries of the decisions written by the court's Reporter of Decisions.

The LII's U.S. Supreme Court Web site offers a court calendar with days highlighted as argument days, conference days, non-argument sessions and court holidays. Users can click on the argument schedule and find out when particular cases will be heard. There also is a glossary of common U.S. Supreme Court terms, and biographies of U.S. Supreme Court justices with links to their important opinions.

The institute's directors also have selected 325 of the most significant from the full two century history of the Court. They are referenced by party name, subject and opinion author. These landmark decisions are not only available on-line but also on CD-ROM, which includes features that cannot be supported on the Web site.

"The disk has been a huge hit with teachers and librarians who are discussing the Supreme Court in their classes or helping students with research," said Peter Martin, co-director of the institute and the Jane M.G. Foster Professor of Law. "It enables them to easily print and copy decisions and create their own menus of decisions in whatever depth and focus is appropriate to a particular class."

Other key LII resources are:

-- an up-to-date information of New York State Court of Appeals rulings with synopses and analyses by Cornell law students. Entries for key decisions contain a case summary; the issue to be decided by the court; and its ultimate disposition. The electronic case notes written by Cornell law students come complete with a listing of some key questions left unanswered by the court's ruling. The on-line bulletin provides the legal community with the fastest analysis for Court of Appeals' rulings currently available. The student-authored notes are usually available to subscribers within five days of the court's decision. Most print journals and newsletters do not offer reviews of cases until three and sometimes six months after these have been handed down. The information is available on the Web site or via an e-mail bulletin -- liibulletin-ny -- which is sent to more than 1,375 subscribers, among them educational institutions, law firms, judges, corporations and media outlets.

-- an electronic version of the voluminous U.S. Code. This compilation of all laws passed by Congress is in need of frequent updates, which often don't get to library shelves for months after a new law is written. And the code is complicated enough that simply attaching a search engine fails to provide effective access.

Raves about LII have come from all circles. A staff attorney for the Mississippi Department of Human Services said the institute enables a rural county to have a complete law library; similar sentiments were offered by planners in a rural Montana county. A retired colonel and officer of the National Guard Association no longer has to contend with trying to explain provisions of a federal law to colleagues; he simply refers them to the U.S. Code site offered by Cornell.

In a week's time, more people connect to Cornell Law School electronically for one of the services of the LII than have been students of the institution in its 110-year history.