Legal research in the United States
Encyclopedia
What is legal research?
"Legal research is the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a problem and concludes with the application and communication of the results of the investigation."From: J. Myron Jacobstein and Roy M. Mersky, Fundamentals of Legal Research, 8th ed. (Foundation Press, 2002) p. 1.
This article focuses on the process of finding legal documents issued by courts, legislatures and other government entities in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Finding legal information in the United States can be challenging. Many lawyers use electronic databases such as LexisNexis
LexisNexis
LexisNexis Group is a company providing computer-assisted legal research services. In 2006 it had the world's largest electronic database for legal and public-records related information...
or Westlaw
Westlaw
Westlaw is one of the primary online legal research services for lawyers and legal professionals in the United States and is a part of West. In addition, it provides proprietary database services...
to access legal information. However, these resources may not be accessible to all. Special focus is given in this article to finding free legal materials on the Internet. As this article discusses a process, it is somewhat informal in tone.
The next section of this article provides necessary background for understanding the process of legal research. Concepts such as law, legal authority and jurisdiction are taught to law students during their first year in Law School
Law school
A law school is an institution specializing in legal education.- Law degrees :- Canada :...
. The process of legal research is then discussed, followed by discussion of the primary sources of law (cases, statutes, and regulations).
What is the law?
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law defines the law as "A rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authorityAuthority
The word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...
." In particular, it is the concept of authority that drives much of legal research. Whether searching in print or online, the challenges of legal research are usually
- selecting appropriate legal authorities,
- selecting appropriate search terms to find the legal rules in the resource that is being searched.
The concept of authority
There are many types of legal authority. However, the main distinction is between primary authorityPrimary authority
A primary authority is a document that establishes the law on a particular issue, such as a case decision or legislative act. The search for applicable primary authority is an important part of the process of legal research....
and secondary authority
Secondary authority
In law, a secondary authority is an authority purporting to explain the meaning or applicability of the actual verbatim texts of primary authorities .Some secondary authority materials are written and published by governments to explain the laws in simple,...
. Primary authority generally consists of case law
Case law
In law, case law is the set of reported judicial decisions of selected appellate courts and other courts of first instance which make new interpretations of the law and, therefore, can be cited as precedents in a process known as stare decisis...
, statute
Statute
A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs a state, city, or county. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. The word is often used to distinguish law made by legislative bodies from case law, decided by courts, and regulations...
s, and regulations which are cited in legal documents. A secondary authority leads to and explains the primary authorities.
Because it is hard get an overview of how an area of law works by reading the cases, statutes, and regulations alone, a common research strategy is to use secondary sources to get a general overview, and then use the footnote references to cases, statutes, and regulations.
Another major distinction is between mandatory authority
Binding precedent
In law, a binding precedent is a precedent which must be followed by all lower courts under common law legal systems. In English law it is usually created by the decision of a higher court, such as the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which took over the judicial functions of the House of...
and persuasive authority
Persuasive precedent
Persuasive precedent is precedent or other legal writing that is related to the case at hand but is not a binding precedent on the court under common law legal systems such as English law. However, persuasive authority may guide the judge in making the decision in the instant case...
. Mandatory authority is an authority that the court must follow. Persuasive authority is one which the court may optionally follow. Just because something is a primary authority (such as a case) does not mean that the court has to follow it. For example, a Pennsylvania court does not necessarily have to follow an Alabama decision. In this instance, the primary authority is a persuasive authority in the eyes of the Pennsylvania court. This is due to the concept of jurisdiction.
The concept of jurisdiction
JurisdictionJurisdiction
Jurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility...
is the area in which a court
Court
A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...
or other government body is empowered to act. Jurisdiction is most commonly geographical but can be by subject. There is a jurisdiction for the United States federal government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
as well as for each of the fifty states
State governments of the United States
State governments in the United States are those republics formed by citizens in the jurisdiction thereof as provided by the United States Constitution; with the original 13 States forming the first Articles of Confederation, and later the aforementioned Constitution. Within the U.S...
. Within each of these jurisdictions, there are organs of the Judicial
Courts of the United States
Courts of the United States include both the United States federal courts, comprising the judicial branch of the federal government of the United States and state and territorial courts of the individual U.S...
, Legislative, and Executive branch of government. These political divisions
Political divisions of the United States
The political units and divisions of the United States include:*The 50 states are subdivided into counties . The counties may be further subdivided into townships, or towns in New York and New England...
of government further subdivide. From a law librarian's view, each of these branches of government are the sources of law
Sources of law
Sources of law means the origin from which rules of human conduct come into existence and derive legal force or binding characters.It also refers to the sovereign or the state from which the law derives its force or validity....
in the U.S. They produce books (or databases) where one can find the primary authorities associated with each of these entities.
Common law versus civil law
Much of United States law comes from the common lawCommon law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
, or courts. This is in addition to any statutes and regulations which apply to a legal problem. While legislatures can pass statutes, it is up to the courts to interpret their meaning. Many countries operate under a civil law system
Civil law (legal system)
Civil law is a legal system inspired by Roman law and whose primary feature is that laws are codified into collections, as compared to common law systems that gives great precedential weight to common law on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different...
, where statutes are the primary source of law.
How attorneys think about the common law differs from how they think about statutes. In the common law system, the basic assumption is if there is a case from the past which has facts and legal issues which are similar to the case currently before the court, the outcome of the past case should control the outcome of the present case. This concept is often referred to as stare decisis
Stare decisis
Stare decisis is a legal principle by which judges are obliged to respect the precedents established by prior decisions...
. A lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
is often engaged in the task of finding precedent
Precedent
In common law legal systems, a precedent or authority is a principle or rule established in a legal case that a court or other judicial body may apply when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts...
, for example, a case that is "on point," or as close to his or her fact situation as possible.
This means that it is often quite difficult to determine what "the rule" is for any given legal issue. In many instances figuring out what the law is consists of comparing many different cases to the fact situation at hand. Rather than an absolute yes/no or true/false answer, the resolution may have to be considered on a strong/weak scale. How similar/dissimilar is one case (or fact situation) from another? One court may decide an issue one way, while another might go the other way. Does the precedent need to be abandoned altogether because of public policy reasons? Depending upon the issue involved, the case may eventually need to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. If the Supreme court declines to hear the case, then the highest court of the jurisdiction in which the case arose gets the last word.
The process of legal research
Although this is a process oriented article, there is no one right way to do legal research. There are however practices that have proven to be more efficient and cost effective. There is an overall "game plan" that is taught in the first year of Law schoolLaw school
A law school is an institution specializing in legal education.- Law degrees :- Canada :...
. The details vary according to the textbook, but a general search strategy might be:
- frame the Issue (try to figure out what the case is about/ what legal issue or issues you will need to research)
- brainstorm search terms (think up synonyms - assisted suicide? right to die? euthanasia?
- determine jurisdiction and time frame (do you have a lot of time to research this? Usually not. You may have to make do with a quick and dirty resource instead of an in-depth, ever so scholarly one)
- decide which format to use (print or electronic- this often just depends on what you have access to)
- locate, read, and update secondary sources
- locate read and update primary authority (cases, statutes, and regulations)
- look up rules of procedure, ethics, non-legal and other materials if needed
- repeat the above steps, as needed, depending on your search results.
Adapted from The Process of Legal Research by Christina L. Kunz et al.
The legal research textbooks below are good resources for finding out more about legal research and research strategies):
- Robert C. Berring and Elizabeth A. Edinger. Finding the Law. (12th Ed., West Group Publishing, 2005).
- Roy M. Mersky and Donald J. Dunn. Fundamentals of Legal Research. (Foundation Press, 2002).
- Morris L. CohenMorris L. CohenMorris Leo Cohen was an American attorney who left the practice of law to become a law librarian and professor of law at the University of Buffalo, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard Law School and Yale Law School...
and Kent C. Olson. Legal Research in a Nutshell. (9th Ed., Thomson West, 2007). - Morris L. Cohen, Robert C. Berring, and Kent C. Olson. How to Find the Law. (West Publishing Company, 1989).
- Stephen Elias and Susan Levinkind. Legal Research: How to Find and Understand the Law. (14th Ed., Nolo Press, 2007).
- Christina L. Kunz et al. The Process of Legal Research. (7th Ed., Aspen Publishers, 2007).
- Mark K. Osbeck. Impeccable Research: a Concise Guide to Mastering Legal Research Skills. (Thomson West 2010).
- Amy E. Sloan. Basic Legal Research: Tools and Strategies. (3rd Ed., Aspen Publishers, 2006).
A very good search strategy is to find a legal research guide with a search engine such as Google before you leap. Your local library will probably have research guides on a wide variety of topics.
Judicial branch sources (Cases)
The Judicial branch is the court system. Each jurisdiction in the U.S. judiciaryJudiciary
The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...
(federal and the fifty states) has any number of courts, usually one of three types:
- a trial courtTrial courtA trial court or court of first instance is a court in which trials take place. Such courts are said to have original jurisdiction.- In the United States :...
, - an appeals court,
- a "court of last resort," often (but not always) known as a Supreme Court.
On the federal level, there is a Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
, United States court of appeals
United States court of appeals
The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal court system...
, and a trial court, which is known as the United States district court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
. The federal appellate courts are subdivided into numbered "circuits." Pennsylvania, for example, is in the jurisdiction of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
In general, the decisions of a higher court in a court system may be considered "binding" on the lower courts in that court system. The decisions of the Supreme court of a particular state are binding on the courts within that state. However, the decisions of a Pennsylvania state court may or may not be followed by a federal court in the Third Circuit, which includes Pennsylvania. The status of United States Supreme court opinions is complex. Many consider these cases to be binding on all US courts as a practical matter. However, Cohen, Berring, and Olsen, in their book "Finding the Law," state:
"The Supreme Court is the court of last resort in any federal dispute and has the final word on federal issues raised in state courts. In most situation, however, it has discretion to decline to review lower court decisions and disposes of most matters by denying petitions for certiorare or dismissing appeals. Only a small percentage of the cases appealed to the Supreme Court are accepted for consideration."
From: Morris L. Cohen, Robert C. Berring, and Kent C. Olson, How to find the law. (West Publishing, 1989) p. 26.
Only a small percentage of court decisions are officially published in a print court reporter. The most published decisions are issued by the United States Supreme court. State trial courts produce the lowest percentage of published cases. Some courts provide copies of their decisions free on the web while others do not. Even if they are on the web they seldom go back before 1994, when the web first became popular. The only exception is with U.S. Supreme Court opinions.
Cases on the web can often be found via the website of the individual court. The Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
, for example, provides the text of recent opinions on its website. It is one of the best places to obtain new opinions. The United States court of appeals
United States court of appeals
The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal court system...
and State courts can also be a source of free legal information.
In print, to find the cases, legal researchers use indexes of various types. Classification systems provide index terms. For example, there may be a category of law, torts (non-crime injuries to people). There are many types of torts, or causes of Action
Cause of action
In the law, a cause of action is a set of facts sufficient to justify a right to sue to obtain money, property, or the enforcement of a right against another party. The term also refers to the legal theory upon which a plaintiff brings suit...
, such as slander. These causes of actions have various elements which must be proved to establish a claim (there may also be various defenses). The general category, the cause of action and the various elements of the cause of action and defenses may all be index terms. The major classification for finding law cases is the West American Digest System
West American Digest System
The West American Digest System is a system of identifying points of law from reported cases and organizing them by topic and key number. The system was developed by West Publishing to organize the entire body of American law...
.
Matching your thinking to the mind of the person who wrote the index can be a trying task, particularly to those not generally familiar with the basic legal subject areas. The key to using legal indexes is to identify not only the key facts but the legal issues which are central to the case. Keyword searches in databases may also be a challenge, because people may describe legal concepts in varying ways. "Issue spotting" is a skill that lawyers hone in law school and throughout their careers as they gain experience. For the layperson, reading secondary sources, such as books and journal articles, can help.
Once a case has been found, legal researchers must make sure that it has not been overturned by a higher court. Lawyers use citator
Citator
In legal research, a citator is a citation index of legal resources, one of the best-known of which in the United States is Shepard's Citations. Given a reference of a legal decision, a citator allows the researcher to find newer documents which cite the original document and thus to reconstruct...
s such as Shepard's Citations
Shepard's Citations
In legal research, Shepard's Citations is a citator, a list of all the authorities citing a particular case, statute, or other legal authority. The verb Shepardizing refers to the process of consulting Shepard's to see if a case has been overturned, reaffirmed, questioned, or cited by later cases...
to make sure that their case is still "good law." This process is often known as Shepardizing after the name of the service. Citators track resources, written at a later point in time, which cite back to a particular case. Because cases cite to related cases, citators can be used to find cases which are on the same topic. A common research strategy is to use "one good case" to find related cases.
Legal forms can be some of the hardest documents to find because one person may call a form by one name while another person knows it by an entirely different name (neither of which may be the actual, official name of the form). The same form may be known by a different name in a different jurisdiction. Law libraries often have many sets of formbooks to search.
Legal researchers may also need the briefs and other background materials connected with a case, which are included in docket
Docket
Docket may refer to:*Docket , the official schedule of proceedings in lawsuits pending in a court of law. Term also includes a case identification number and reference point and case history for all case work involving a particular case....
records. Other types of documents may exist in databases which cannot be searched with search engines such as Google. These 'invisible web'
Deep web
The Deep Web refers to World Wide Web content that is not part of the Surface Web, which is indexed by standard search engines....
sources may take time to ferret out.
Legislative branch sources (Statutes)
Some jurisdictions provide copies of their statutes online while others do not. You can often find new, or "slip laws" on the web (arranged in chronological order), as well as the subject arrangement of the statutes, known as the codified version, or code. The official code for federal statutes, the United States Code is usually one to two years out of date both in print and on the web. Legal Researchers often use the more timely, commercially published United States Code Annotated (USCA) or the United States Code Service (USCS). The USCA is available on WestlawWestlaw
Westlaw is one of the primary online legal research services for lawyers and legal professionals in the United States and is a part of West. In addition, it provides proprietary database services...
while the USCS is available on Lexis
Lexis
Lexis may refer to:*Lexis , the total bank of words and phrases of a particular language, the artifact of which is known as a lexicon*Lexis *Lexis.com, part of the LexisNexis online information database-People with the name:...
. They are called 'annotated codes' because they include summaries of cases which interpret the meaning of the statute. They may also include references to journal articles, legal encyclopedias and other research materials so it is good to look in an annotated code either in print or online as soon as you know there is a statute involved in your research problem.
In addition to the text of the current law itself, legal researchers may also have to research the background documents connected with the statute, which is known as Legislative history
Legislative history
Legislative history includes any of various materials generated in the course of creating legislation, such as committee reports, analysis by legislative counsel, committee hearings, floor debates, and histories of actions taken...
. Legislative history is used to find what is known as the "legislative intent," or purpose behind statutory language. Again, legislative history documents may be found both in print in law libraries and government documents libraries, as well as in online formats such as Lexis
Lexis
Lexis may refer to:*Lexis , the total bank of words and phrases of a particular language, the artifact of which is known as a lexicon*Lexis *Lexis.com, part of the LexisNexis online information database-People with the name:...
and Westlaw
Westlaw
Westlaw is one of the primary online legal research services for lawyers and legal professionals in the United States and is a part of West. In addition, it provides proprietary database services...
.
THOMAS
THOMAS
THOMAS is the database of United States Congress legislative information. It is operated by the Library of Congress and was launched in January 1995 at the inception of the 104th Congress...
the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
legislative information service, provides the fulltext of proposed bills, bill status information (did it become a public law? who sponsored it? what committee was it referred to?), the text of debates from the Congressional Record, the full text of committee reports and other legislative information. The Library of Congress provides access to legislative documents from 1774 through 1875 as part of its American Memory
American Memory
American Memory is an Internet-based archive for public domain image resources, as well as audio, video, and archived Web content. It is published by the Library of Congress...
Project Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation digital library.
Executive branch sources (Regulations)
A legislature usually has neither the time nor the expertise to administer all of the details of a particular statute. It may, for example, pass a statute mandating clean water. However, it delegates the authority to actually implement the statute to a Government agencyGovernment agency
A government or state agency is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an intelligence agency. There is a notable variety of agency types...
, such as the United States Environmental Protection Agency
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...
. Agencies issue administrative Regulations to implement the details of the "enabling legislation" that gave the agency authority to act.
The challenge with the executive branch is to track down the rules and regulations of federal and state administrative agencies. Luckily administrative regulations have a "life cycle" that is very similar to that of statutes. Regulations start out as an agency document, which many agencies now post on the web. Similar to statutes, regulations are often published in chronological order in registers, and finally are published in subject order in codes.
Federal regulations, for example, are first printed in the Federal Register
Federal Register
The Federal Register , abbreviated FR, or sometimes Fed. Reg.) is the official journal of the federal government of the United States that contains most routine publications and public notices of government agencies...
, before they are published in subject order in the Code of Federal Regulations
Code of Federal Regulations
The Code of Federal Regulations is the codification of the general and permanent rules and regulations published in the Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government of the United States.The CFR is published by the Office of the Federal Register, an agency...
.
Because of this "publication pattern" in order to find out if there has been a change with respect to a particular regulation a print CFR user has to go through a two step process of checking 1) the List of Sections Affected (LSA) and 2) the latest issue of the Federal Register for the current month. The United States Government Printing Office
United States Government Printing Office
The United States Government Printing Office is an agency of the legislative branch of the United States federal government. The office prints documents produced by and for the federal government, including the Supreme Court, the Congress, the Executive Office of the President, executive...
has an e-CFR pilot project is underway to provide a version of the CFR without having to refer to a separate publication for updates.
The foremost executive branch entity is, of course, the Office of President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
. The White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
has its own website. Presidential documents are published in the Federal Register and in Title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Presidential documents can also be accessed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents and the Public Papers of the Presidents available in print and at the United States Government Printing Office
United States Government Printing Office
The United States Government Printing Office is an agency of the legislative branch of the United States federal government. The office prints documents produced by and for the federal government, including the Supreme Court, the Congress, the Executive Office of the President, executive...
website.
The relationship between statutes and regulations means that one can usually never consider just a regulation alone. This intertwined grouping of regulations, statutes, and cases is often best deciphered using secondary sources such as books and journal articles.
Secondary sources
Books and journal articles are available at your school or public library. See the "Getting Help" section, below, for information on finding libraries. In law libraries books are known as "legal treatises." You can also find legal encyclopedias, such as Corpus Juris SecundumCorpus Juris Secundum
Corpus Juris Secundum is an encyclopedia of U.S. law . Its full title is Corpus Juris Secundum: Complete Restatement Of The Entire American Law As Developed By All Reported Cases It contains an alphabetical arrangement of legal topics as developed by U.S...
or American Jurisprudence
American Jurisprudence
American Jurisprudence is an encyclopedia of United States law, published by West. It was originated by Lawyers Cooperative Publishing, which was subsequently acquired by the Thomson Corporation. The series is now in its second edition, launched in 1962...
and resources such as American Law Reports
American Law Reports
In American law, the American Law Reports are a resource used by American lawyers to find a variety of sources relating to specific legal rules, doctrines, or principles. It has been published since 1919 and remains an important tool for legal research....
in a law library. Many major legal treatises may be found online on Lexis and Westlaw. Google Books
Google Book Search
Google Books is a service from Google that searches the full text of books that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition, and stored in its digital database. The service was formerly known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October...
may also be useful resource.
Although it is suggested to look first to secondary sources for general background explanation, free authoritative secondary sources are even scarcer on the web than the primary sources listed above. Law dictionaries
Law dictionary
A law dictionary is a dictionary that is designed and compiled to give information about terms used in the field of law.Nielsen 1994 discusses different types of law dictionaries. A distinction is made between different types of law dictionaries. A monolingual law dictionary covers one language, a...
can be found in many libraries, on Lexis and Westlaw, and free on the web. All law libraries and many general libraries have a copy of Black's Law Dictionary
Black's Law Dictionary
Black's Law Dictionary is the most widely used law dictionary in the United States. It was founded by Henry Campbell Black. It is the reference of choice for definitions in legal briefs and court opinions and has been cited as a secondary legal authority in many U.S...
.
Many law review
Law review
A law review is a scholarly journal focusing on legal issues, normally published by an organization of students at a law school or through a bar association...
s, other legal journals and magazines, and legal newspapers place content on the web. Not all law journals provide their text on the web, however. You may need to search Lexis or Westlaw, HeinOnline
HeinOnline
HeinOnline, sometimes spelled Hein Online, is an internet service launched in 2000 that is a source of legal information, much like Westlaw and LexisNexis. Like those services, use of HeinOnline requires a subscription, although most law schools provide access to students for free. It is published...
, or obtain the item in print from a library. You might also try Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes most peer-reviewed online journals of Europe and America's largest...
, which searches general scholarly articles.
Citing to Legal Documents
Another challenge is figuring out how to cite to items, or how to decipher a legal citationLegal citation
Legal citation is the practice of crediting and referring to authoritative documents and sources. The most common sources of authority cited are court decisions , statutes, regulations, government documents, treaties, and scholarly writing....
once you have encountered one in a primary or secondary source. The main problem with online cases is that they may or may not have the official print pagination required by the major legal citation systems. The vendor neutral citation movement has made some inroads here, so there are provisions for citing to "web sources." However, it is by far easier to work with the official cites.
Major Free Online Legal Research Portals
- Findlaw and LexisOne are two of the best free/low cost legal research portals. Findlaw is sponsored by Thomson West (the owner of the WestlawWestlawWestlaw is one of the primary online legal research services for lawyers and legal professionals in the United States and is a part of West. In addition, it provides proprietary database services...
database) while Lexisone is sponsored by the owner of the LexisNexisLexisNexisLexisNexis Group is a company providing computer-assisted legal research services. In 2006 it had the world's largest electronic database for legal and public-records related information...
service. Each site has a free registration option (although only Lexis' is mandatory). LexisNexis has another free research and legal information offering for those interested in research and topical legal insights related to specific areas of law. Registration is not mandatory, but is free and advised in order to receive updates and information about new decisions. - Bankruptcy Law Community
- Copyright & Trademark Law Community
- Corporate & Securities Law Community
- Estate & Elder Law Community
- Emerging Issues Law Community
- Environmental & Climate Change Law Community
- Insurance Law Community
- International & Foreign Law Community
- Career Resources for New Attorneys, Associates and Law Students (Lexs Hub)
- Litigation Resource Center
- Patent Law Community
- Real Estate Law Community
- UCC & Commercial Law Community
- Workers Compensation Law Community
- Web Communities Portal
- Business Law Community
- Martindale-Hubbell Connected
There are several other portals and information sources you may want to try, such as Jurist, and the Cornell Legal Information Institute. Legal Research in a Nutshell Is one of many good guidebooks to legal research. The website for the book provides many links to free legal research sources on the web. The Zimmerman Guide provides a handful of good places to start in both print and electronic format for a wide variety of legal topics.
Supreme court opinions can also be found at the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute, Findlaw, LexisOne. The websites for the federal courts can be found at the Federal Court Locator, and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Lexisone and the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute allows searching all of the federal courts at the same time. However, Lexisone only allows free searching of state and federal opinions for the last ten years and the court sites accessible via Cornell typically go back to the mid nineties.
There are several websites which provide links to state court websites, such as Findlaw and LexisOne. The Cornell Law School Legal information institute is also a good resource for finding US state court websites. Some courts provide court rules and forms free on the web while others do not. One of the largest collections of links to court rules and forms on the web can be found at LLRX.com.
Getting Help
County law libraries are usually open to the public. Law school libraries may or may not be open to the public so call ahead for their access policies. The Library of CongressLibrary of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
has an ask the librarian service http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ for many subject areas, including law. The Internet Public Library
Internet Public Library
The Internet Public Library is a non-profit, largely student-run website at Drexel University. Visitors can ask a reference question. Volunteer librarians and graduate students in library and information science form collections and answer questions. The IPL opened on March 17, 1995.- History...
has a general "ask the librarian" service. The Government Information Online website allows you to get live chat help from a government reference librarian. For those who are more phone-oriented, the Consumer Information Center's National Contact Center at (800) 333-4636 will refer you to someone at a government agency who can answer your question about Federal programs, benefits or services. A layperson may also want to seek a legal referral service http://www.findlaw.com/14firms/legalaid.html to find legal assistance or Legal aid
Legal aid
Legal aid is the provision of assistance to people otherwise unable to afford legal representation and access to the court system. Legal aid is regarded as central in providing access to justice by ensuring equality before the law, the right to counsel and the right to a fair trial.A number of...
organizations. The American Bar Association
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
provides a lawyer locator and legal referral information http://www.abanet.org/public.html as well as legal information for the general public.