LAW AND HIGHER ED ON THE INTERNET:
A BASIC GUIDE
This is a basic guide to finding, and using, legal sources on the Internet, including a list of selected web sites
you might find helpful, and some information about networking by e-mail. For more detailed information on
how to use the Internet, written in a simplified way, you might want to visit www2.famvid.com/il0l, for the
"Internet 101" guide.
Why use the Internet for legal research?
 It provides low cost access to tons of information.
 It's often the best place to find factual information, or to find new laws or cases; you might be able to find
the laws currently in effect for your jurisdiction (statutes and/or administrative regulations).
 It's often the only place you might find some information, such as the laws and cases of other countries, or
municipal ordinances.
 Because most web sites link to other sites on related subjects, sometimes just finding one good site can lead
you to many others (e.g., the web site of a law firm specializing in tort law might have links to other torts
sites, including one you find very interesting).
 Last - and certainly not least! - the Internet is great for networking, for finding other people who share your
interests or who can help you find the information you need.
Okay then, if it's so great. why would I ever need to use anything else?
 Although the Internet can be a good source for current law, it lacks the archival material that you would need
to do a thorough job of research, such as older cases decided more than two or three years ago (and for some
jurisdictions, you won't even find all of the current cases on the web!)
 Internet sites can be unreliable - addresses (URLs) can change without warning, and sites can go "down for
maintenance".
 Some web sites could possibly edit the information (this is one reason you should rely ideally on
government web sites that end with '.gov', or educational sites that end with '.edu'.)
 While factual information can often be found easily, some things, such as specific analysis of a case or law,
might be found more easily in a treatise or by using WESTLAW or LEXIS.
How can I get started on finding legal sources on the web?
 There are several comprehensive legal sites that you can. use to find legal information. For example, if
you go to www.findlaw.com (an excellent site, and one that's very easy to remember), you'll see a
directory of legal information arranged by category (this type of arrangement would be familiar to
anyone who's used Yahoo!) By clicking on a category such as 'cases and codes', you’ll find another
directory; by clicking on a jurisdiction within that directory, you'll find a listing of the information
available, and links to the web sites where it can be found. Another good comprehensive site is at
www.law.com; still others can be found at Stetson's legal resources page.
One quick way to get started on finding specific legal information is to
go to Stetson's home page, at
www.law-stetson.edu ; click on 'legal
sources', which will take you to a grid for all different types of
sources, each box containing links to sites for those areas of law.
 And, for most any kind of information you want to find - not just legal - you can use a search engine, a
web utility that lets you type in words you want it to search for; you'll then receive a list of links to sites
containing those words.
What should I know about search engines? And what are some good ones?
 Search engines can be wonderfully helpful, and can also be extremely frustrating to use. The basic
problem with them is that they vary both in the way that they search (e.g., some use Boolean connectors
such as 'and', 'or',
 and the like,, while others might have you use symbols such as '+' instead), and the amount of web sites
that they search.
No one search engine covers the entire Internet! For that reason, you probably want to have more than one that
you use regularly. For example, if you do a search using Alta Vista and think there still might be other sites to
find, try doing the search in another search engine like Excite.
 All search engines will have some kind of help screen showing you how to phrase a search there.
 There are dozens of search engines. You can find lists of many, and links to them, at several places on
the Internet, such as 800go.com , www.gte.net/search , and the above-mentioned Stetson resource page.
Some web sites among my personal favorites (and feel free to disagree!):
• Metacrawler (www.metacrawler.com), which sends a search through several different search engines
at once - a. similar one is Inference Find (www.inference.com/infind)
• Yahoo! (www.yahooxom), a directory, arranged by categories, which is easy to navigate; similar to
this is LookSmart (www.looksmart.com)
• Alta Vista (altavista.digitalxom) and HotBot,(www.hotbot-com) can also be very good for
searching (and if you use Alta Vista, be sure to check out the "AV Translation Service" listed on that
page, which lets you type in one language and translate it to, or from, English!)
E-MAIL: How to Find, and Use, Mailing- Lists
E-mail is terrific for networking, for finding other people in your same area of interest and communicating with
them on that topic, The best way to do this is to find a mailing list related to that interest. Once you have located
a mailing list of interest, and subscribed to it (by sending out a message to the computer which handles the list's
mail), you will automatically receive e-mail messages which the other subscribers have sent to the list.
•
The list works this way: one person sends a message to the list, on a certain topic; that message then
goes to all other members of the list; responses will then follow, again, going to all members of the list.
• The mail will only go out to the people subscribed to the list. (Your email program might feature a 'respond
to sender' option as well as 'respond to all' - be sure to check your 'to' line when you start responding to a list
message, to make sure that the message is indeed going to whom you intend to get it!
• The volume of mail might run from a few messages a month to a hundred or more per day, depending on
how active the list is.
• You might see that your list offers a "digest mode" option, which means that you will receive only one long
posting per day, containing all of that day's messages; you can send a message to the computer requesting to
receive mail in digest mode, if you wish.
• Mailing lists are wonderful for becoming part of an online community related to one specific area: you can
meet others of similar interest throughout the world, without having to leave your computer workspace.
There are several ways that you can locate a mailing list on a particular area.
Many web sites on particular topics will include references to related
mailing lists. Some web sites let you search for them by topic or keyword;
these also will give you instructions on how to subscribe to the mailing list
and send mail to it. (You can find many of these listed on Stetson's Legal
Resources page.) Among them are:
•
Law Lists (www.lib.uchicago.edu/-Ilou/lawlists/l~nfo-.html), which has a great number of mailing
lists available for searching; a search, e.g., for 'education' brings up several mailing lists, like
edlaw@ukcc.uky.edu , and tells how to subscribe to those
• Findlaw has a listing - much smaller than Law Lists, but a bit easier to use - at legalminds.findlaw.com
• You can also find thousands of mailing lists on non-legal topics, listed at such web sites as www.liszt.com
and www.tile.net, both of which will let you do a keyword search for mailing lists on your topic
Once you've subscribed to a mailing list, the smartest thing you can do is
set up a mailbox on your e-mail program to hold the initial messages you
get from the list. You'll usually receive, within minutes of subscribing, mail
saying that you have been subscribed, along with a message telling you how
to use the list - how to unsubscribe, get the mail in digest mode, send mail
to the list, and perhaps even get a listing of the other members. It may also
tell you if there's an FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions - for the list; the
FAQ will tell you more about the topics covered by the list, and whether
certain rules of 'netiquette' are particularly important when posting to the
list.
•
When you first join a mailing list, try to hold off posting a message to the list long enough to get a feel
for the group. See what topics are discussed, what the general tone is, who the unofficial leaders of the group or
frequent posters are, and whose opinions are most respected.
• When replying to a message, don't include the entire message again if it was a long one - just enough to
show to what you're responding.
• Don't use ALL CAPITALS when typing a message; you almost look like you're shouting (and your message
will be harder to read).
• Remember that the Internet is international. You might see some differences in the use of language, syntax,
etc. - bear with it, and realize that you're making contacts and meeting people all over the world.
Some suggested sites for legal information:
These are among the best sites we've found for legal information - however, there may be others that contain the
same information (the Web is constantly changing, with new sites being added and older ones being altered
every day, so you might very well find some sites on your own that do the same as these!)
• Federal law:
•
Thomas (thomas-loc.gov), the Congressional web site, a real gold mine for researching new or pending
federal legislation
• The House of Representatives Law Library (law.house.94), good for federal laws and regulations, as
well as state and foreign law
• United States Supreme Court cases go back to about 1890, and the new opinions are added online
almost immediately. You can find them at www.flndlaw-com.
• ---State laws: Laws of other states might be found on the Internet at www.findlaw.com and law.house.gov.
Remember, however, that at present not all states have their statutes on the Net, and while some may
also have their administrative regulations online, not all do ... yet.
Administrative law: Many state and federal agencies have gone online and now have their own websites;
these usually can be located in a directory such as findlaw . Often, the official agency websites will
contain such things as administrative decisions and regulations that you might not find elsewhere
(e.g., the Veterans Administration website - www.va.gov - has Board of Veterans Appeals cases that
are very hard to find in print form).
Other legal web sites: There are several good web sites for finding out the latest in legal news, such as
www.Ijextra.com , and (of course!) www.flndlaw.com - These sites - particularly findlaw, which,
again, is arranged by categories - can also be used to find other sites for legal information. Many
other sites are listed on the Stetson legal resources page, including sites for municipal ordinances,
patent searching, and international law.
Some other suggested web sites to visit:
Following is a list of web sites that you might find helpful, some for
finding the latest information, some for finding information. specifically on
education, and some just for finding factual information.
•
enn.com, CNN's web page, is constantly updated and provides the very latest in news. For finding the
latest news in a particular city or area of the world, you might try going to newo.com/news, which has links to
the broadcast stations and newspapers of areas you specify.
• www.pointcast.com is another news site, but one that provides a newsfeed directly to your computer
screen, free, visible even when you aren't using the Internet. Pointcast features several 'channels' for more
specifically tailored news stories; one of these is U-Wire, for news stories about colleges and universities.
• The Internet is wonderful for finding directory information, including telephone numbers and addresses.
Among the sites you might try for phone numbers are www.switchboard.com and www.infospace.com
(These also let you search for e-mail addresses.) For 'yellow pages' information, you could try these or go to
www.bigbook.com . (Note that most phone directory sites will also give you a map showing where the
person or business is located!)
• www.dejanews.com is an archive of postings to newsgroups, which are like bulletin boards on the Internet,,
on thousands of subjects. You can use Deja News to search for a particular topic and see if it has been
discussed on a newsgroup; you can also search using a person's name or e-mail address, to see what that
person has posted.
• Medical information can be found in abundance on the Internet, and some of it is very good. The Mayo
Clinic web site -www.mayohealth.org - not only gives the latest medical news, but also provides
information about prescription drugs, such as interactions and side effects, in layman's terms. Another site,
www.healthgate.com , provides freeaccess to Medline, one of the largest medical databases.
• Urban legends and e-mail hoaxes are proliferating on the Internet like mad, and often scaring people
needlessly or testing their gullibility. You can find out more about currently circulating stories, and their
veracity (or, more likely, lack of) at www.snope?.com, which has an excellent search engine for locating
legends and discussions of them, and urbanlegends.miningco.com
The Mining Company also has a site for college students, showing many of their concerns and providing links to
lots of information on colleges and universities, at collegelife.miningco.com Directories of colleges and
universities, giving links to their official web sites, can be found at www.globalcomputing.com/universy.html
and www.ecola.com/college. A wide variety of links on higher education, including areas of administration and
professional organizations, can be- found at the Galaxy web site (galaxy.einet.net); you can access this by
clicking on the link to 'social sciences - education', or going directly to
galaxy.einet.net/galaxy/Social-Sciences/Education.html The -Chronicle of Higher Education can be found
online - updated daily -at chronicle.com . Just how widespread can plagiarism get? A simple search on any
search engine for 'term paper' will bring up loads of sites willing to sell a student a paper on a topic. One site www.plagiarism.org - purports to help find plagiarism by letting professors register their papers, which are
then checked against other sources. The Plagiarism site also provides information, and articles, detailing the
problems that might arise on the Information Superhighway for those students looking for a shortcut.