Internet Legal Research
Legal Resources on the Web and Subscription Services Beyond Lexis and Westlaw
- Introduction: Search Engines and Scholar
- Secondary Sources: Legal Mega Sites; Law Journals
- Primary Sources: Case Law; Statutes, Codes, Regulations
- Other Commercial Alternatives
Introduction: Search Engines and Scholar
Start by acknowledging that "everything is not on the Internet," and you will be pleasantly surprised by how much legal material actually awaits you, particularly current primary source materials, and increasingly, finding aids, resource guides, law related informational sites, and other secondary resources. Ever evolving search engines make it possible to retrieve resources with near Westlaw and Lexis-like specificity.
For an introduction to searching the web in general, see:
Web Searching; this guide highlights web searching strategies and evaluation criteria, compares major search engines and meta search engines, and provides keys to the Invisible Web.
See Evaluating the Quality of Information on the Internet for more insight into choosing reliable web sites and verifying electronic information resources. This interactive guide shows how to determine objectivity, find and evaluate site documentation, ascertain author or publisher credentials, and find citation data as well as provides examples of questionable web sites.
The Law Library's home page provides links to numerous law related web sites. On the right navigation menu, connect to Reference & Research resources, then Web Resources, where you will find relevant links, including the Federal Legal Resources page, which will lead you to publications of the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive branches and other U.S. Government agencies.
Many web based resources, including electronic versions of primary source legal documents, are accessible through the library catalog. For example, search SCHOLAR for the title Code of Federal Regulations or USA Patriot Act to link to them online.
Legal Information Search Engines
| FindLaw LawCrawler | LawGuru |
| LLRX.com | Justia |
| Open Directory Project: Society: Law: Legal Information | Law.com |
| MegaLaw.com | Cornell University Legal Research Engine -search legal web, blawgs, legal research guides or all 3 |
| LexisWeb | Westlaw WebPlus - only for WL subscribers |
Secondary Sources
Legal Mega Sites
The highly selective list of websites below represents varied approaches to aggregating links to primary and secondary legal materials. Some also provide original content in the form of news and commentary.
Legal Information Institute (Cornell University)
Cornell's Legal Information Institute's "Wex", a public access legal dictionary and encyclopedia, provides brief summaries of law topics with links to key primary source material, other Internet resources, and useful offnet references. Cornell's Legal Research Encyclopedia - topical and jurisdictional arrangement of all available formats of legal information resources, with citations to research tools and direct links.
FindLaw: Free federal and state case law, legal web directory, forms, legal news, as well as per transaction fee access to Westlaw
LexisONE: Free federal and state case law from the last ten years (US Supreme Court, 1790 to date), forms, legal news, legal web site directory, state resources center, and as well as daily, weekly, monthly and other subscription plans
Internet Legal Research Group: A categorized index of more than 4000 select web sites, thousands of locally stored web pages, legal forms, and down loadable files, this site was established in 1995 to serve as a comprehensive resource of the information available on the Internet concerning law and the legal profession, with an emphasis on the United States of America.
Virtual Chase: Research strategies for finding the law on the internet aimed at legal professionals. The Virtual Chase's Legal Research Guide organizes links to web sites and resources by subject
American Law Sources Online (ALSO): Comprehensive compilation of links to freely accessible on-line sources of US, Canadian, and Mexican law. Includes links to Legal Monographs
Zimmerman's Research Guide: Online encyclopedia for legal researchers provides brief explanations for diverse legal, factual and business topics, reference to print resources and links to online materials
HG.org: Comprehensive legal links and information center, especially noted for foreign and international law coverage
ABA's LawLink: The Legal Research Jumpstation: Links to ABA and other resources as maintained by the American Bar Association Legal technology Resource Center
Global Legal Information Network: Maintained by the US Library of Congress, the GLIN is a database of laws, regulations and other complementary legal sources submitted by member countries and organizations
USA.gov: The U.S. Government's Official Web Portal: Gateway to federal information sources, including federal legal sites and links to state, local and tribal information pages
Law Journals
Law review content on the Internet ranges from contents pages to full text of the most recent issue, to significant full text archives. Some journals are now published exclusively on the web.
University Law Review Project
Law Library of Congress: Law Reviews Online
Washburn University: WashLaw Law Journals
Internet Legal Research Group: Law Journals and Publications
Tarlton Law Library Contents Pages from Law Reviews and Other Scholarly Journals
American Law Sources Online United States - Law Reviews and Periodicals
Heinonline (subscription database available to Cleveland-Marshall College of Law students on campus): Image based, full-text law review collection
Primary Sources
Case Law
United States Supreme Court Opinions
All decisions on:
Where to obtain US Supreme Court Opinions - a document of all the published print and electronic sources for the court's opinions. Opinions from the 2000 term to date are published on the Supreme Court's web site
Other sources include:
Cornell's Legal Information Institute Supreme Court Collection for decisions released from 1990 to date, and the LII Collection of Historic Decisions of over 600 historic US Supreme Court opinions. These Historic Decisions are searchable by topic as well as party name and opinion author.
FedWorld FLITE database of opinions from 1937 - 1975.
FindLaw's Supreme Court Opinions free searchable database of opinions dating back to 1893.
United States Supreme Court Records and Briefs Beta site for : The Curiae Project at the Yale Law Library provides Supreme Court records and briefs and other relevant materials free of charge on the Internet. Cases are selected for addition to the site based on a ranking developed from citation data in historical and constitutional texts.
Open Jurist (1810-)
Federal Cases
U.S. Courts: The Federal Judiciary: The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts provides links to all federal courts web sites, PACER service center, and other federal court information
PACER. Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) is an electronic public access service that allows users to obtain case and docket information from Federal Appellate, District and Bankruptcy courts, and the U.S. Party/Case Index. Note: PACER requires registration and results are not free (currently $.07 page). A PACER login and password allows access to Federal case and docket information in all approved Federal Judiciary electronic public access programs including PACER, RACER, CM/ECF, and the U.S. Party/Case Index.
Appellate Decisions on:
Open Jurist . - 1882-
Google Scholar (1923-)
The Public Library of Law 1950-
Justia 1950-
Altlaw - site will go away in early 2010
PreCYdent - Boolean search capability.
District Court Opinions:
Google Scholar (1923-)
Justia Search for U.S. District Court Opinions - 2004-2008
LexisONE provides access to federal case law since 1998; FindLaw provides links to searchable databases of federal appellate court opinions by circuit ( Sixth Circuit, 1995 to date ) and web sites of the district courts.
Ohio is in the Sixth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals.
The federal trial court serving Northeast Ohio is the United States District Court, Northern District, for the State of Ohio; its web site contains forms and some notable cases. Bankruptcy case information, forms and publications of the United States Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of Ohio appear on its web site.
Findlaw - Searchable database of the Supreme Court decisions since 1893. Court of Appeals decision coverage varies by circuit, with nothing older than 1992. Each circuit must be searched individually - there is no way to search multiple circuits at once.
LII - Cornell University's Legal Information Institute provides a searchable database of Federal appellate court opinions over all jurisdictions. Coverage varies by circuit, but nothing is older than 1992. This site also contains recent US Supreme Court opinions and landmark Supreme Court opinions.
Opinions and regulatory actions of federal administrative agencies, such as National Labor Relations Board (v. 1 to date) and Federal Trade Commission (1996-date), appear increasingly on agency websites.
Ohio Cases
Ohio Supreme Court: Opinions issued since 1992 appear at the Court's web site and are full text searchable. Reporter of Decisions.
Ohio Rules of Court (html and pdf versions). Provided at the Ohio Supreme Court's site; can search across the rules by keyword
Decisions of the Ohio District Court of Appeals serving Cuyahoga County can also be searched at the Supreme Court's web site from 2000 to date, or through the Eighth District Court of Appeals web site. The decisions of Ohio's other Courts of Appeal as well as the Court of Claims are also searchable from the Supreme Court's Reporter of Decisions page.
Google Scholar (1950-) Supreme Court and appellate court cases. Ohio unreported coverage appears to start in 2004.
The Public Library of Law has Ohio appellate and Supreme Court cases from 1997.
The Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas provides access to its Civil Case Docket and Criminal Case Docket. The Cuyahoga County Probate Court provides online access to its docket.
Other Ohio judicial and executive agency opinions, such as Ohio Attorney General Opinions (1994 to date), Board of Tax Appeals (1997 to date) and Ohio Elections Commission Advisory Opinions are published on the agency's individual web sites.
Statutes, Codes, Regulations
Federal
The United States Code is provided in an unannotated form by the US Government Printing Office via GPO Access. It is also accessible from Cornell's Legal Information Institute (arranged by section with links to updated legislation), Findlaw , and the U.S. House of Representatives site. The Public Library of Law has the official version of the U.S. Code, published every six years, dating back to 1988.
Thomas, sponsored by the Library of Congress, provides legislative information from the 93d Congress to date, the Congressional Record ( 101st Congress to date), Committee Reports (104th Congress to date), as well as links to other resources and historical documents.
The Code of Federal Regulations and the Federal Register are also searchable via GPO Access, as well as Findlaw - Code of Federal Regulations; Federal Register.
Ohio
The Ohio Revised Code (unannotated) and Ohio Administrative Code appear online. The Oho General Assembly Web site also provides a searchable Ohio Constitution, as well as Laws, Acts, and Legislation passed by the Ohio General Assembly. Proposed regulations appear in the online Register of Ohio.
Municipal Codes
Major Ohio cities:
Akron Municipal Code
Cincinnati Municipal Code
Cleveland Charter and Codified Ordinances
Columbus City Codes
Toledo Municipal Code
Other Northeast Ohio Cities: Bay Village , Bedford Heights , Chagrin Falls, Euclid, Highland Heights , Lakewood , Lorain , Mayfield Heights , Mayfield Village , Medina , North Olmsted , Orange , Pepper Pike , Rocky River , Shaker Heights , Solon , Valley View , Westlake , Wickliffe , Wooster
Other Commercial Alternatives
Casemaker: Offers Ohio primary legal resources, as well as forms and practice aids to members of the Ohio State Bar Association (including student members).
Fastcase: Federal and state case law, most 1950 to date, statutes and regulations for the fifty states . Free to members of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association.
Loislaw: Federal and state case law, statutory law, constitutions, administrative law, court rules and other authority.
Versuslaw: State and federal case and statutory law offered in a variety of low cost plans.
Revised 9/09 KG