Free & Low-Cost Legal
ˆ(or, “Life
Research
after
Rewards
Points”)
Research Refresher / Molly Brownfield/
March 24, 2010
Lexis and Westlaw, post-J.D.

After graduation (and over the summers), Lexis
and Westlaw cut off free student access.
May request summer extensions in special cases (RA
work, moot court, journal, non-profit)
 Will receive email from representatives soon
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Research charges will begin to add up – quickly.
Sample charges
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Retrieving a document with citation: $6.00
Searching for a case in “all federal cases”
database (incl. by party name): ~$75-$175
Shepardizing or KeyCiting a single citation:
$4.25-$6.00
Your firm may have a “flat rate”, but an overall
increase in use will affect the rate when it’s time
to renegotiate!
Today’s Agenda
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Getting Started - Strategies for Cost-Effective
Research
Low-cost research services
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Loislaw
Versuslaw
Casemaker
FastCase
Free research sources
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Cases & Briefs
Statutes, Regulations, Legislative History
Forms & Other Practice Material
Consult a Research Guide
http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/research_guide
Duke’s Legal Research on the Web
http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/researchguides/intresearch
Georgetown’s Guide to Free & Low Cost
Legal Research
http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/guides/freelowcost.cfm
Cost-Effective Research Strategies
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Avoid searching on Lexis/Westlaw! (It is always
cheaper to retrieve known citations than to
search.)
Begin with a print resource (such as AmJur/CJS)
to locate leading cases, statutes and key numbers
for further research.
If you must begin online, test your search terms
on a free case law website or low-cost legal
research service.
Low-Cost Research Services
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In recent years, a number of smaller competitors
to Lexis/Westlaw have emerged.
These sources vary widely in their contents and
costs.
Take advantage of the online tutorials and any
student access you may receive during your time
at Duke Law.
Loislaw
http://www.loislawschool.com
 Contains: federal and state case law, codes and
session laws, selected treatises and bar
publications.
 Students can register for a free account which
lasts until 6 months after graduation (see librarian
for access code).
 Username generated by Loislaw will be e-mailed,
along with a password that you choose during
registration.
Primary law includes opinions from all
circuits and all 50 states. Some
unpublished opinions are available.
Secondary law includes many full-text
subject treatises as well as CLE publications
from selected states.
New cases are posted within 24-48
hours of publication.
Student accounts have only a limited
preview of the treatises and bar publications.
In Loislaw,
you may
search across
several
different
jurisdictions.
Some other
free & lowcost services
do not allow
you to search
both federal
and state
cases at once.
GlobalCite
works similarly
to Shepard’s
and KeyCite,
retrieving cases
and secondary
sources which
cite the
document.
It’s not as
comprehensive
as Shepard’s or
KeyCite,
though.
Loislaw
includes
“Acts”
(session
laws) as
well as
“Statutes”
(codes).
Within a single
database, you can
search across
multiple
jurisdictions by
using the check
boxes and clicking
“Continue”.
Folders indicate
that you can
browse as well as
search.
For search
commands
and other tips,
view “Online
Help”, linked
from the
bottom of
every page.
Casemaker
http://www.casemaker.us
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Contains: Federal case law from U.S. Supreme
Court and Courts of Appeals; U.S. Code; C.F.R.
“State Libraries” provide case law and
statutes/regs for consortium members.
State bar associations must purchase access;
service is then “free and unlimited” to current
members of the bar.
Currently, 28 state bar associations have
subscribed to Casemaker.
Casemaker
Casemaker Consortium members include:
 North Carolina
 Georgia
 Texas
Notable exclusions:
 California
 Florida
 New York
Casemaker through NC Bar
http://www.ncbar.org/join
 Membership is free to currently-enrolled
law students; includes access to Casemaker.
 2-3 business days to process membership;
member # and password will be sent by email.
 Questions? Contact Whitney von Haam
(whitney@ncbar.org).
CasemakerX
http://www.casemakerx.com
 Casemaker meets social networking
 Full access to the Casemaker research
resources
 Can create a MySpace-like profile for
networking (professional and personal)
 May register with your Duke e-mail address.
Versuslaw
http://www.versuslaw.com
 Students can register for free access to the
case law databases (“Standard Plan”); trial
accounts must be reactivated each year
(possibly with some difficulty).
 Password generated by Versuslaw will be emailed, along with the username you select
during the registration process.
More search
commands are
available on the
“Search tips”
link.
The commands
are very similar
on all of these
services, but not
quite the same–
always check
before you
search!
Premium
subscribers have
access to a citation
service called
V.Cite.
Trial subscribers
must check their
citations with a fulltext search across
all Federal Circuits
for the official U.S.
Reports citation.
Remember that
District Courts are
not included in that
search. (Separate
database.)
Versuslaw
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Student trials can access CASE databases only.
Versuslaw also contains statutes, regulations and
court rules for most jurisdictions as part of the
“Premium” and “Professional” plans.
Forms are also available as separate database.
Help page includes a “Research Manual”, with
tips and tricks for database searching. The
various commands for field searching are
published there.
FastCase
http://www.fastcase.com
 24-hour trial available through site; interactive
online demo.
 Includes cases from federal district and U.S.
Bankruptcy courts; as well as state appellate
and supreme courts.
 Free front end (Public Library of Law:
http://www.plol.org).
These non-case law
resources link to
free, publicly
available web sites
like government
publishers and
Findlaw.com.
Newspaper search
goes to a version of
the Duke database
“America’s
Newspapers”.
Fastcase’s main advantages are natural
language searching and Authority Check, which
searches for cases that cite to your case (but is
NOT intended as a full replacement for
Shepard’s/KeyCite).
Freebies!
Considerations
What kind of document am I looking for?
 Who would normally be responsible for
maintaining those documents in print?
 Where does the document “live” online (i.e.,
official government vs. free site)?
 When was the document posted and/or the
site last updated?
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Free Mega-Sites
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FindLaw (http://www.findlaw.com)
Justia (http://www.justia.com)
Legal Information Institute
(http://www.law.cornell.edu/)
PreCYdent (http://www.precydent.com)
Public Library of Law (http://www.plol.org/)
Public.Resource.Org
(http://public.resource.org/index.html)
AltLaw (beta) (http://www.altlaw.org/) (federal
appellate cases only)
Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/)
Free: Cases & Briefs
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Opinions and court filings are frequently
posted on the website of the court which issued
the opinion. Research mega-sites also have
extensive archives of case law, at least at the
federal level.
Briefs and opinions (at least at the federal
appellate level) are also often posted on these
sites.
Google Scholar – Legal Content
http://www.netforlawyers.com/content/googlemakes-free-caselaw-search-available-scholar
Low-Cost: Court docs
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Court documents at the lower federal court
level (e.g., complaints and replies in district
court) are usually available through PACER
(Public Access to Court Electronic Records).
PACER charges a per-page fee for document
retrieval (currently $0.08).
Low-Cost: Court docs
Court documents at the state court level may
be posted on the court’s web site.
 You may also have to contact the court clerk
or court library directly, and pay a fee for
copying services.
 Check out the library’s research guide at

http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/researchguides/
records_briefs
Free: Statutes
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Session laws and codes are usually available on
the web site of the jurisdiction’s legislature.
Amount of years available will vary.
Federal : Available via FDsys,
http://fdsys.gpo.gov .
State: Consult links on National Conference of
State Legislature site:
http://www.ncsl.org/public/leglinks.cfm.
FDSys will replace GPOAccess this summer. Not all
content has migrated, although bills and public laws are
here. Use “Search on GPO Access” link at left to get to
U.S. Code and Statutes at Large.
Statutes at Large is available (1789-2004) in PDF through
HeinOnline, a low-cost database.
Free: Statutes
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Local (municipal) codes are sometimes posted
on the county or city’s web site.
Private publishers also make them available
online:
http://www.municode.com/Library/Library.aspx
 http://municipalcodes.lexisnexis.com/
 http://www.generalcode.com/webcode2.html
 http://www.codepublishing.com/elibrary.html
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Free: Legislative History
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Federal legislative history material is widely
available online through the Government
Printing Office (GPO) and the Library of
Congress.
The Law Library maintains a research guide to
these and other federal legislative history
resources on our web site:
http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/researchguides/fe
dleg.html
THOMAS
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http://thomas.loc.gov
Full-text bills and bill summaries (1973- )
Includes links to available committee reports
and Congressional Record debates (usually 1994- ).
Links lead to the full text
of the bill(s), report(s),
debate(s), etc., which are
available via GPO Access.
GPO Access (soon to be FDsys)
http://www.gpoaccess.gov
 Full-text congressional committee reports,
committee prints, selected hearings,
Congressional Record, and much more through
the Legislative Resources. Many sources
available in PDF.
 This summer, should be replaced by FDsys
(http://fdsys.gpo.gov).
Free: Legislative History
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State materials will vary widely in terms of
online availability.
Generally, online resources will be somewhere
on the state legislature’s web site.
Look for a library research guide from an instate law school, or consult a state-specific
research guide for more info.
Free: Regulations
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Federal regulations are available:
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Federal Register (1994- ) through FDsys,
http://fdsys.gpo.gov
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Code of Federal Regulations (1996- ), through
GPO Access,
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/index.html
 Regulations.gov, http://www.regulations.gov
 Individual agency sites (coverage varies)
Free: Regulations
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State regulations are usually available through
individual agency web sites; some administrative
codes are also published online by the secretary of
state’s office.
University of Michigan maintains a good directory of
links to State Legal Sources on the Web,
http://wwwpersonal.umich.edu/~graceyor/doctemp/statelaw.html
Free: Forms
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Forms required in a specific court are often
available through the court’s own web site.
Findlaw (http://forms.lp.findlaw.com/)
provides forms for specific jurisdictions, as well
as sample contracts and “forms dealing with
specific issues” (i.e., fill-in-the-blank forms).
Public Library of Law (http://www.plol.org)
also maintains a forms collection.
Free: Forms
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LexisONE (http://www.lexisone.com) is a
mini-LexisNexis, designed for small firms.
Portions of the site are free, but require
registration.
Selected forms from Lexis’ library of Matthew
Bender publications are available for free
download.
Pay forms are automated (can
be filled in online); free forms
must be downloaded and
printed.
Only selected forms are
available on the free list.
Free: Public Records
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Public records about people (births, deaths,
marriages, incarcerations, real estate
transactions, property taxes) are usually
maintained at the county government level.
Don’t know the county? Check the map at
http://quickfacts.census.gov/cgibin/qfd/lookup.
Free: Public Records
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Public records about corporations are usually
maintained at the state level (with the exception
of publicly-traded companies’ securities filings,
available through the SEC).
Information about registered corporations can
be found through the secretary of state where
the business is incorporated.
Putting It All Together
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How do you know when it’s better (or safe) to
use a free source instead of Lexis/Westlaw?
Consider these factors:
 Currency of the source
 Authority of the source’s creator
 Ease of retrieving free vs. paid source
 Proximity of project deadline
Upcoming Research Sessions
http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/workshops/
Thanks!
Molly Brownfield
Head of Reference Services
brownfield@law.duke.edu