Efficient and Cost Effective Legal Research
This guide is designed for law school students starting their first clerking position, as well as new law school graduates starting as firm associates. In academia, students have the luxury of free access to databases to facilitate their research. In the practicing world, firm economics limit the resources available to clerks and associates. The techniques and tips offered here should help you conduct legal research in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
Bar Associations - Casemaker and Fastcase
General Guidelines
- Find out the research budget for your project. In particular, this will help determine what electronic resources and materials you will use.
- If you’re not familiar with the area of law in question, find one or more secondary sources (i.e., legal encyclopedias, periodical articles, treatises, loose-leaf materials) to get grounded in the language and basics.
- Plan, and physically write out, your search strategy, whether for print or electronic research. Good research planning will help to define your issue(s) and jurisdiction(s), as well as point to the types of documents needed. Write out your search strategy as much as needed; don’t be afraid to use a few sentences. Look at the key words in your sentences; think of synonyms for those keywords. Use your key words to construct one or more search statements. Use Boolean connectors and parentheses to combine keywords, similarly to data combinations in algebra or deductive logic.
- Use your firm’s library, as well as other accessible law libraries. Does your firm belong to the Cleveland Law Library Association? Are you near a law school library (eg, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Library)? Get to know the librarians, and use their expertise to help facilitate your research. Bottom line, don’t pay to read something on a fee-based database (i.e., LexisNexis, Westlaw) if a convenient library has it.
- Use the free databases available from consortia libraries. For example, the University Library and Law Library at Cleveland State University participate in OhioLINK, the Ohio library consortia. OhioLINK provides access to over 100 Research Databases, freely available to anyone that physically walks into an OhioLINK library. Off-site access is limited to faculty, students, and staff.
- Find out what databases (i.e. LexisNexis, Westlaw) your employer provides. Remember, even if you are still enrolled as a student at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, you may not use your student LexisNexis or Westlaw passwords to do work for your employer. Get training and a password under your employer's contract. Find out the terms of the database contract. What files are available? Do you pay by transaction or time? More on this in the LexisNexis / Westlaw section of this guide.
- Use WorldWide Web search services, but be very critical in your review of search results. For a discussion of the issues involved evaluating Web sites and effectively searching the Web, see the Web Searching guide on the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Library Web site.
- Learn what's available on the Web that you can substitute for commercial services. Remember that recent cases, statutes, regulations and administrative decisions are increasingly officially posted on their producer's Web sites. See the Internet Legal Research guide on the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Library Web site for examples of resources you may want to bookmark or note as favorites.
- Keep a research log so you can retrace your steps.
- Know when to stop researching. Are you starting to find the same items and analyses? Do you really need every possible case, statute, regulation, treatise, or periodical article?
- Be judicious when photocopying. Do you really need hard copy of everything? Limit yourself to the most relevant items.
- Update your research at the time you find items, and again when you’re finalizing your memo or brief.
LexisNexis / Westlaw
If your firm subscribes to Lexis/Nexis or Westlaw or both, it is important that you understand the firm’s pricing plans, as well as the firm culture for use of either service. For example, are there alternative databases they would prefer that you use for researching specialized areas? In addition, no matter how much training you’ve had, ask your librarian or vendor representative for additional training.
Pricing plans generally involve these components:
- Transactional – You incur a charge for each search. The price per search depends on the file you select – the larger the file, the higher the fee. Start with the smallest file that you need, then conduct a broad search, using Focus or Locate commands to narrow results within your search results to avoid a new search charge.
- Hourly – The hourly fee for searching each file depends on its size and complexity. Start with the smallest file you need, print off a cite list, and view your results offline.
- Flat rate – The firm may have a fixed rate contract negotiated with the vendor depending on firm past or predicted use. Some of the databases may be outside the contract and incur additional fees for access. Make sure you understand the applicable restrictions and firm policies for searching.
- Printing and Retrieval - Both services assess additional fees for printing and downloading (per document or per line) as well as retrieving using the Get A Document or Find commands, and conducting Shepard’s or KeyCite searches.
Cost-effective tips for searching LexisNexis and Westlaw include:
- Plan a search before connecting to the system!
- Use the most specific file or database available. Why search all federal cases when you only need 6th Circuit cases?
- With transactional pricing, you can run a previously conducted search from your History or Trail at no charge. Really proficient searchers may be able to connect, conduct multiple searches, and disconnect at a lower time cost than transaction cost.
- If you have a citation, use Get a Document or Find instead of searching.
- Use Segment or Field searching to reduce false hits. These limit your search to a particular section of a document.
- Use Focus or Locate to refine or narrow a search at no charge. Consider entering multiple searches as one search statement, then separating them via Focus or Locate.
- Use the Table of Contents or Documents in Sequence functions to browse materials at no charge.
- Browse search results in the KWIC view or Term to Term to determine relevance; if you’re really good, browse in the CITE view.
- In LexisNexis, if a headnote is on point, use More Like This Headnote. In Westlaw, if a Key Number is on point, use KeySearch.
- When using Shepard’s® in LexisNexis, use Custom Restrictions to get as specific as possible.
- Use CheckCite® and WestCheck to check your citations.
- Print with your Web browser for free.
Bar Associations - Casemaker and Fastcase
Bar Associations offer a variety of legal research resources within their membership benefits.
Ohio State Bar Association membership benefits include access to Casemaker, which includes a Federal Library of US Supreme Court and Circuit Court opinions, and other materials, as well as over 20 State Collections, each composed of case law, court rules, statutes, attorney general opinions, and selected municipal codes. OSBA membership is free for law students, as well as for the first year of new admittees to the Ohio Bar.
Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association membership benefits include access to Fastcase, a federal and 50-state case law database, and Ohio Decisions Weekly, which provides summaries of all Supreme Court and Appellate court decisions. CMBA membership is free for law students.
Laura E. Ray, MA, MLS
Educational Programming Librarian
April 2007
JRN rev. 2008