Internet Legal Research for
Professor Mika’s Legal Writing
Class
Feb. 24, 2010
Outline
Internet v. Lexis, Westlaw
 Legal Portals and Search Engines
 Free Case Law/Primary Sources
 Forms
 Evaluating Web Sites
 Current Awareness
 Low Cost Lexis/WL Alternatives

Internet v. Lexis/Westlaw
Internet is Free. No charges to clients
 Some info exclusive to Internet

Municipal Ordinances
 Some Court Filings
 New case/regulation (within one day)
 New topics/issues

Internet v. Lexis/WL
Benefits of Lexis, WL:
 Coverage. Internet, Ohio cases back to
1950
 Better Search Mechanisms
 Editorial features – headnotes, annotations
 Secondary sources – treatises, practice
books
 Aggregate Info
 Trustworthiness
What’s on the Free Web
All US Supreme Court Cases
 Reported Federal Appellate 1882-, Fed
District 1932 Some Unreported Fed
 State cases: Reported cases from 1950-,
unreported varies (1990s on)
 Statutes & Regulations- federal and
states
 LOTS more!

Internet Portals
Library Home Page – Legal Research on
the Web
 Public Records & People Finders
 Cornell Legal Information Institute (LII)
 FindLaw
 Other Portals

Use LEGAL Search Engines
• Cornell University Legal
Research Engine
• LexisWeb
• FindLaw LawCrawler
• Justia
• List of Search Legal Engines
Search Engines

Clustering search engines: Clusty
, Ask.com
 Metasearch engines: Dogpile,
Clusty
 Internet Wayback Machine
 Learn search syntax See Web
Searching Guide - Search Engines
Case law
Legal Research Workstation - Case Law
 Google Scholar – state reported 1950-, fed
circuit/ district 1923 Ohio Supreme Court
 LexisOne – Last 10 yrs, Lexis searching
 Public Library of Law - boolean
 Open Jurist – fed reported appellate 1882
• Demo Ohio Supreme Court case search
Finding Dockets, Pleadings, Motions
LLRX or Resources for Online Court
Dockets to find dockets
 Some dockets have full text documents
ex. Ohio – Montgomery & Summit
Counties, federal courts
 PACER – Federal Court dockets
 On Westlaw/Lexis – more search
capability

Forms

Forms and Practice Materials
Resource Guide
Evaluating Web Sites
Credibility: author; possible bias,
accuracy.
 Currency / Updating, Coverage
 Writing Quality
 Ease of use – Design, navigation,
searchability, help
 Stability

Forms and Sample Contracts
Who publishes the site? A legal
publisher? bar association?
 Does the site sell forms?
 Who wrote the form?
 Use with caution, tailor to your facts

The Invisible Web
Search Engines not index entire web
 Search engines cannot type or think.
 “Invisible Web” includes information stored
in databases and password restricted
information
 The Invisible or Deep Web by U.C.
Berkeley

Accessing Invisible Web





Find databases via directories or search
engines (search for a subject term and the
word “database”), or ask a librarian.
The Librarian’s Internet Index and Complete
Planet .
Bookmark databases you find
See Web Searching Guide
Example – Traffic tickets. Try a search on
Google and pipl.com
Current Awareness Tools
Blog Search Engines and Directories
 RSS Readers - What are they? Ex.
Bloglines
 Ohio Supreme Court cases – new
opinions, case activity notification
 Current Awareness Resources for Ohio
Law

Web Sites to Know
Thomas.gov – Federal Legislative
History
 GPO Access – Fed’l Govt. will be FDSys
 Martindale Hubbell Law Digest
 Ohio Supreme Court
 Municipal Ordinances

Stripped down versions of Lexis/WL
Casemaker –Free w/ free
student OSBA membership
 Fastcase – Free w/ Cleve bar
membership
 LoisLaw– C-M has Instructions to get password
 Versus Law – Free to Law
students

Low Cost Alternatives to
Lexis/Westlaw

Advantages over the free Internet:
One stop shopping
 Better coverage of cases, other sources
 Sometimes more current
 Often better search mechanisms
 Shepard’s-like features – but now Google
Scholar has

Comparison of the Low Cost
Databases
See Comparison Chart of Low Cost
Databases.
 Fastcase, Versus Law have natural
language, Casemaker, Loislaw do not.
 Casemaker and Loislaw have more field
searching capability

Comparison, cont’d
Casemaker, Loislaw have better
coverage of Ohio cases than VersusLaw,
Fastcase
 Fastcase just links to Internet sites for
statutes for 11 states
 Versuslaw is the cheapest

Conclusion
Use Free Web, but be aware limitations
in coverage, currency, searching ability,
reliability
 Go beyond Google: Use free legal
databases, legal search engines and
portals
 Be aware of low cost alternatives to
Lexis and WL
