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
When you need legal research advice, turn to the legal research experts, professional law librarians, most of whom are able to share their expertise freely, or low-costly (so to speak), which is good value indeed when you need accurate, timely, and comprehensive information.
Great law librarians keep up with the vast world of legal research resources: dozens, hundreds, and even thousands of journals and websites and lawyer and law librarian listserves, networks, and professional associations (e.g. AALL). A Law Librarian’s Continuing Education also includes reading local, state, and national judicial, legislative, and regulatory news, and related news in the foreign and international legal world.
So, make sure the librarian you consult for legal research advice is Keeping Up With the Legal Research Joneses or, more to the point, Keeping Up With Opposing Counsel, whose access to legal research resources might be funded a whole lot better than yours:
LoisLaw is dead; long live Fastcase/Loislaw.
Research Tip: Good word searches won’t get you very far if you don’t update your research.
(And all good legal researchers know how to “update the law.”)
LoisLaw’s e-doors are closing and Fastcase has stepped up to the plate. Read all about it:
1) Transition
2) FAQ for LoisLaw subscribers (about those treatises …)
From the Gallagher Law Library Blog: Alternative Legal Research Databases
“When you think of online legal research, LexisAdvance, WestlawNext, or BloombergLaw probably spring to mind. With summer fast approaching, it may be worthwhile to explore some alternative legal research databases….” [Link to Gallagher Law Library blog post.]
When The Google isn’t good enough and you need Good Value (i.e. not full-service & not expensive) for full-text, all-cases or statutes (or almost all) legal research database searching:
1) Law Library of Congress: How to Locate Free Case Law on the Internet
2) Georgetown Law Library’s Free and Low Cost Legal Research Guide
Publicly accessible free and low-cost legal research services are being added to the web every week, or so it seems. No, it’s not really happening that frequently, but there are more options available now than a year ago and more are expected in the next year. For the latest exciting news, see the announcement from Public Resource dot org about the some extremely public spirited lawyers and companies and look for a “grand opening” in early 2008.
From the Announcement:
WASHINGTON, D.C. / SEBASTOPOL, CA—November 14, 2007—Public.Resource.Org and Fastcase, Inc. announced today that they will release a large and free archive of federal case law, including all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 to the present and all Supreme Court decisions since 1754. The archive will be public domain and usable by anyone for any purpose.
Oregon Legal Research Blog