Life After Rewards Points
ˆ(or, Free & Cheap
Legal Research)
Duke Law Library
April 8, 2008
Jennifer L. Behrens
© Karen Watts
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 reps soon


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

Low-cost research services
Loislaw
 Versuslaw
 Casemaker
 FastCase


Free research sources & strategies
Cases & Briefs
 Statutes, Regulations, Legislative History
 Forms & Other Practice Material

Low-Cost Research Services

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In recent years, a number of smaller
Lexis/Westlaw competitors 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
 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unpublished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.
New cases are
posted within
24-48 hours of
publication.
Secondary law
includes many fulltext subject
treatises as well as
CLE publications
from selected
states (including
NY).
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 a
bridge
between
federal and
state.
GlobalCite
works
similarly to
Shepard’s
and KeyCite,
retrieving
cases and
secondary
sources
which cite
the
document in
question.
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.
Versuslaw
http://www.versuslaw.com
 Students can register for trial access to the case
law databases; 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 full-text 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, cont.

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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.
Casemaker
http://www.casemaker.us
 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; is then
“free and unlimited” to current members of the bar.
 Currently, 28 state bar associations have subscribed to
Casemaker, including North Carolina.
Casemaker, cont.
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 e-mail.
 Questions? Contact Whitney von Haam
(whitney@ncbar.org).
Casemaker, cont.
Consortium members include:
 North Carolina
 Georgia
 Texas
Notable exclusions:
 California
 Florida
 New York
One For The Road
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).
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).
Free Research Online

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

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?
Free Mega-Sites

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FindLaw (http://www.findlaw.com)
Legal Information Institute
(http://www.law.cornell.edu/)
AltLaw (beta) [federal case law only]
(http://www.altlaw.org/)
Public Library of Law
(http://www.plol.org/Pages/Search.aspx)
Free: Cases & Briefs


Opinions and court documents are usually
posted on the web site of the court which issued
the opinion.
Briefs and opinions (at least at federal appellate
level) are also often posted on legal research
mega-sites like Findlaw and LII.
Supreme Court
actually includes
bound U.S.
Reports volumes
in PDF (1991- ).
Most courts only
provide opinions
in HTML or .txt.
After selecting “Briefs”, you will
choose your term (1999- ) and view an
alphabetical list of cases.
Presentation of
available resources
is clean and easy to
read.
(almost) Free: 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).
Check the PACER recycling box
(http://pacer.resource.org/) for recycled
documents.
(almost) Free: 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.
 Look for a library research guide from a law
school within the state.

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 1995-present via GPO
Access, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/ .
State: Consult links on National Conference of
State Legislature site:
http://www.ncsl.org/public/leglinks.cfm.
Laws are arranged
chronologically (Pub.
L. No.) and are
available in .txt and
PDF.
Bound volumes of the
compiled Statutes at
Large are currently
only available for the
108th Congress through
this site.
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/Resources/OnlineLibra
ry.asp
 http://municipalcodes.lexisnexis.com/
 http://www.generalcode.com/webcode2.html
 http://www.codepublishing.com/elibrary.html

Free: Legislative History


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/fedleg.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- ).
Better search capability than GPO Access.
Links lead to the full text
of the bill(s), report(s),
debate(s), etc., which are
available via GPO Access.
GPO Access
http://www.gpoaccess.gov
 Full-text congressional committee reports,
committee prints, selected hearings, Congressional
Record, and much more through the Legislative
Resources.
 Also includes executive branch materials (more
on that later).
 Many sources available in PDF.
You can search
across multiple
congresses, but it is
much easier to
retrieve documents by
citation.
Just enter the cite in
quotes into the search
box.
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

Federal regulations are available:

Federal Register (1994- ) through GPO Access,
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html
 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)
GPO Access works best
as a source for
document retrieval– the
search engine is not as
powerful or sophisticated
as other databases.
For best results, know
your citation and
browse to it, rather than
search.
Sections are available in .txt or
PDF.
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
(http://www.nass.org/acr/html/internet.html).
University of Michigan maintains a good directory
of links to State Legal Sources on the Web,
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/statelaw.html
Free: Forms


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).
Links to
other free
form
resources
are also
available
here.
Remember
to evaluate
their
authority
before
using…
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


Public records about people (births, deaths,
marriages, incarcerations, real estate
transactions) are usually maintained at the
county government level.
http://www.searchsystems.net
Provides a directory of free and pay public
records resources.
Although the site won’t
link you directly into
these “free” sites without
a paid account, you now
have enough information
about the database (i.e.,
who maintains it) to
find it quickly through a
Web search.
Free: Public Records


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


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

Final Two Research Refreshers
Thursday 4/10: Putting it All Together (taking a
research assignment from start to finish)
Friday 4/11: Business Law Boot Camp
(*a special 2-part, 3-hour refresher; students can
opt to attend the first or both parts)
Good luck this summer!