Life After Rewards Points ˆ(or, Free & Cheap Legal Research) Karen Watts Duke Law Library April 8, 2008 Jennifer L. Behrens
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 Retrieving a document with citation: $6.00 Searching for a case in all federal cases database (incl. by party name): ~$75-$175 $175 Shepardizing or KeyCiting a single citation: $4.25-$6.00 $6.00 Your firm may have a flat rate,, but an overall increase in use will affect the rate when it s s time to renegotiate!
Today s 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 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, e 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 Some unpublished opinions are available.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 e-e mailed, 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. 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 enrolled law students; includes access to Casemaker. 2-33 business days to process membership; member # and password will be sent by e-mail. e 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 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 FindLaw (http://www.findlaw.com) Legal Information Institute (http://www.law.cornell.edu/ http://www.law.cornell.edu/) AltLaw (beta) [federal case law only] (http:// http://www.altlaw.org/) Public Library of Law (http:// 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 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 page fee for document retrieval (currently $0.08). Check the PACER recycling box (http:// 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 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 Session laws and codes are usually available on the web site of the jurisdiction s 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 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 108 th Congress through this site. Statutes at Large is available (1789-2004) in PDF through HeinOnline, a low-cost database.
Free: Statutes Local (municipal) codes are sometimes posted on the county or city s s web site. Private publishers also make them available online: http://www.municode.com/resources/onlinelibra ry.asp http://municipalcodes.lexisnexis.com 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 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 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 in- state law school, or consult a state-specific 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 State regulations are usually available through individual agency web sites; ; some administrative codes are also published online by the secretary of state s s office (http:// 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 s own web site. Findlaw (http://forms.lp.findlaw.com/ 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 in-the-blank forms).
Links to other free form resources are also available here. Remember to evaluate their authority before using
Free: Forms 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 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 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, 2 3-hour 3 refresher; students can opt to attend the first or both parts) Good luck this summer!