Legal Research in the Time of Covid-19, Part 1: General Legal Resources

Guest post, from Lee Van Duzer, Washington County Law Librarian, Hillsboro, Oregon:

As we socially distance ourselves and physical spaces are increasingly closed, it is important to revisit online legal research options. The following are free general legal research tools to help you work from home.

Case Law & Statutes

• Fastcase is available to all members of the Oregon State Bar. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the big databases, but it has statutes and case law, and citation analytics. They have also added secondary sources although you may need to pay separately for full access.
• Casetext has announced free access for attorneys during the Covid-19 outbreak.
• Google Scholar offers free access to case law and journals.
• Legal Publishers Roll Out COVID-19 Resources, Toolkits, Alerts, Advice (Some Even Free) – Above the Law; includes Bloomberg Law, Lexis Nexis, PLI, Westlaw, and others.
• New Covid-19 Resources From Fastcase, PacerPro, Tax Notes and PubK Law. Free Covid Resources From Westlaw and Bloomberg Law – Dewey B Strategic Blog

Law Journals & Secondary Sources

• HeinOnline’s collection of legal journals, federal legislative material, and other resources, is available to anyone with a WCCLS library card (Washington County residents can sign up for an online library card if you don’t already have one).
• LegalTrac has law journals and legal newspapers, accessible with a WCCLS or Multnomah public library card.
• Major Consumer Protections re: Covid-19 – National Consumer Law Center; includes free access to Surviving Debt (2020).
• Many news publishers, and some scholarly databases, are offering content related to Covid-19 at no charge.

Law Libraries

• The State of Oregon Law Library currently offers remote service, and online access to Fastcase for non-OSB members, and to NOLO self-help legal books.
• The Washington County Law Library is still offering remote service, including document delivery from their print collection or Lexis and Westlaw, and an updated list of general online resources and Oregon online resources. 
• Other county law libraries may also offer remote assistance.