Week 2
Search Engines
Google
Westlaw
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Not a traditional law library
More material—not necessarily reliable
Less material—copyrighted material not
available.
Harder to begin with “reliable” secondary
sources”
But general search engines and free sites
offer substitutes
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Law: Cases, codes, admin. regs.,
constitutions, local ordinances, constitutions
Public Records: Court Docs., Patents,
Corporate Info, Real Estate Ownership;
Personal information;
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Legal News
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Internet: worldwide group of public and
private computers linked together in a
network to share information
World Wide Web (WWW) –collection of
electronically linked files (web pages) stored
on millions of computers
Browser—allows you to access web
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I.E.
Chrome
Firefox
General Features that help with CALR
◦ Favorites and bookmarks
 Folders
◦ History
◦ Print
◦ Edit and Find Feature
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Search Engine—i.e. Google, Bing
◦ Do NOT search the entire Web
◦ Search “Indexes”
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Directories (often Portals)
◦ Creator of Web site limits available documents
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Google
Yahoo!
Bing
Justia.com
USA.gov
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Browser: Explorer, etc.
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Search “Queries”
◦ Need to familiarize yourself with features
◦ Affects research
◦ Important features: “find” “favorites” “history”
“tools”
◦ Natural Language
◦ Boolean (Terms and Connectors) (Varies from site
to site)
◦ Citations
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Goal: Match your search words and phrases with words
and phrases found in the database to be searched.
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Search methods
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Keyword (e.g. negligent)
Phrase (e.g. negligence per se)
Natural language (e.g. What is the definition of negligence?)
Boolean connectors (e.g. and, or, …)
 Allow a search based on relationship of words (i.e. are the words in the
same paragraph, same sentence, within 5 words of each other.)
 Not all search engines use the same connectors
 Not all search engines have the same “default”
e.g. Negligence Intentional (and or or)
As technology improves—we see better keyword/natural
language search results—but Boolean is still more precise
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Key words
Relationship of words
◦ And
◦ Or
◦ Proximity to one another
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Proximity Connectors
 /s /p (or w/s) /n where n is the number of words
separating the key words
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/s /p (or w/s) /n where n is the number of
words separating the key words
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“res ipsa loquitur”
◦ Exact phrase
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Wildcard (*)
◦ Wom*n; Br*an
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Root Extender (!)
◦ Neglig!
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Typing URL (web address) in Address Bar of
browser
Some browsers (e.g. I.E. allow you to use the
Address Bar to search
Using a general search engine (i.e. Google,
Bing, Yahoo)
Using legally specific portals (speciallydesigned Web page at a website which brings
information together from diverse sources in
a uniform way)
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Unique search connectors
◦ https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/13
6861
◦ https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/13
6861?p=adv_operators&hl=en
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http://www.howtogeek.com/106751/howto-use-bings-advanced-search-operators8-tips-for-better-searches/
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Basic search strategies
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Default connector is “and” (no need to type)
Not case sensitive
Excludes “noise” words unless in quotes
Instant returns (suggestions)
Search methods
◦ Search return
◦ I’m Feeling Lucky
◦ Advanced search
(http://www.google.com/advanced_search)
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Home page
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Advanced search
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Apps
Apps
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Type search in basic google search box
Look for symbol to appear –right top—”gear”
Gives drop down menu
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“Boolean type searching”
Link to different Google “apps”
(We will come back to apps in a moment”
For our purposes let’s assume you want to retrieve
all cases in a database that address
Jones held a St. Patrick’s Day party at his house and
invited several friends. One of his friends, Tom,
drank too much green beer before leaving the
party. Unfortunately he drove. On his way home,
Tom hit another vehicle injuring the driver. Even
more unfortunate—Tom had no auto insurance.
Victim wants to sue Jones.
Remember: you want to construct a search that
would match the way a court might discuss similar
cases.
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In general terms, what is the issue here?
(always a good starting point for legal
research)
Generic descriptions for “Jones”
Try a search on Google (basic then advanced
search)
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Terms: Remember synonyms here
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Connectors:
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Put them together:
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Define: [word]
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negligent:
failing to take proper care in doing something.
"directors have been negligent in the performance of
their duties"
synonyms:
neglectful, remiss, careless, lax,
irresponsible, inattentive, heedless, thoughtless,
unmindful, forgetful;
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Scholar
Patents
Images
File Types (Advanced search option)
Groups
Alerts (need to search for it)
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Case law v. patents and articles
Case law:
◦ Police use of deadly force
 Limit by jurisdiction (check and click on case law
 Alerts
 Save to My Library
◦ 471 US 1, 105 S. Ct. 1694, 85 L. Ed. 2d 1
◦ 128 F. 3d 1283 (Calderon)
 Try on Scholar and Google
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Advanced Search
Click on down
Arrow for advanced
search
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Patent Number
Title
Original Assignee
Restrict by filing date
Don’t use Scholar.
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http://www.netforlawyers.com/category/topics/google
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Or
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http://linkon.in/waPq9r