nbi seminar 2015 finding free legal research sites
TRANSCRIPT
Finding Free Legal Research Sites and Free Case Law
Elizabeth Geesey HolmesMSLIS, MA
April 15, 2015
Legal Portals & Meta-sites
Evaluate Your Sources
“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”
Evaluation Criteria for Legal Portals
• Include a subject or practice area directory• Include a keyword search• Are user friendly • Link directly to many relevant websites• Include “added-value” that is easy to find• Are reliable• Credible• Up-to-date• Objective
Justia = Reliable Legal Portal• Justia meets these criteria• Has a practice area and jurisdictional directory • Offers keyword searching• Has a user-friendly, easy-to-navigate home page• Links directly to many relevant sites• Offers easily findable “added value” content• “Editor” of the site ” -- Tim Stanley -- is well-known in the
Internet legal research field• You can contact them with commends and questions
Top Legal Portals/Meta-sites• Justia• Findlaw• Nolo.com• Law.com• HG.org• LLRX• USA.gov• Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute
Full Text Search
Search by Practice Area
Search by Jurisdiction or Document Type
Find a Lawyer, Legal Answers, Law and More Drop-Down Menu
Click here to browse by State Jurisdiction
Search using the Advanced Search
Search in All Fields or just Court Name
Browse by one or more fields
Browse by Jurisdiction, Type or State
Breadcrumb trail / subject browse hierarchy
Subscribe to the RSS feed for updates to this subject
Get the law
Wex: Legal Encyclopedia
Search the site and its databases
Search Box
Filters
Finding & Using Free, Full-text Case Law Sites
Google ScholarCourt Coverage
All U.S. State Appellate and Supreme Courts 1950 - present
U.S. Federal District, Appellate, Tax & Bankruptcy Courts 1950 - present
Court of Claims 1929 – 1982
Court of Customs and Patent Appeals 1929 – 1980
Court of International Trade 1980 - present
Board of Tax Appeals 1924 - 1942
Tax Court 1943 - present
U.S. Supreme Court 1791 - present
Click on Select Courts to open a box to choose which courts to search
First select Case law and then the Court Options will appear
Click the drop down arrow to bring up the menu and select Advanced Search
and cases
Or anywhere in the case
Or cases decided by
Click on the down arrow to bring up this drop down box from which you can select Advanced Search
Options to filter/narrow or sort your search results. Red shows which options you have selected.
Create an alert for your search
Select Case Law tab
Search all jurisdictions or select Advanced Options to limit by date or court
Select any of these resources to get more information about searching and the PLoL
Click here to sign up for RSS feeds
Public Library of the Law
Justia
Enter keywords here but search cannot be limited to cases only
physician malpractice
Click here to browse cases by court
FindLawClick here to do a keyword search
Click here for Advanced Search
THE FREE (POOR MAN’S) SHEPARDS
Casemaker / CaseCheck+• Available free to Rhode Island Bar Association Members• Logon from the Bar Association homepage• Use it to find cases and to cite check them• Tutorials available from the Casemaker Learning Center• Casemaker chapter in Levitt and Davis’s Internet Legal
Research on a Budget• Most Bar Associations provide either Casemaker or a similar
product, such as Fastcase, to their members.
Google Scholar
Click here to go to the How Cited information
Visual symbol indicates the extent of the discussion of this case, McGuckin v. Smith
Click here for the entire list of citing documents sorted by extent of discussion of this case
Check this box to do a keyword search of just these results
Click here to create an alert
Filters to narrow these results
Party Name as Keyword Search• Do a keyword search for the party names for the case• Example: McGuckin v Smith
• Limit results to dates after the case you are cite checking• Read citing cases to determine if they overruled, reversed or
affirmed your case• Only really works for more recent cases• Older cases return too many results to read through for negative
treatment
Contact me:Elizabeth Geesey HolmesNaval War College [email protected]://www.elizabethgeeseyholmes.com