Using FindLaw For Legal Research
The Internet is the best library ever with vast amounts of information available at only a click of the mouse away. While the information on the Internet often can seem unorganized and unwieldy, useful tools and guides are constantly being developed and improved to aid online research. There are a couple of basic approaches for finding information on the Web. Each approach has advantages and disadvantages. The more you use the Web for research, the more efficient you will become at locating information.
Guides and Search Engines
Guides allow you to search in a hierarchical, top-down kind of way -- like an outline or a table of contents. Most guides are organized by topic. You can often determine the general nature of the contents of particular sites listed in a guide by the names of the sites, or by annotations or descriptions of the sites. Yahoo is a great general guide on the Web while FindLaw is focused on law. In addition, FindLaw lists other legal guides, many of which are also good places to begin legal research.
Guides serve as good starting points for research when you have a basic idea of what you are looking for and you feel that there is likely to be a Web site that focuses on it. For example, if you are looking for information on copyright law, you should be able to find a copyright site by using a more general legal guide. Most of the general legal guides have materials divided into particular legal subject categories, such as contracts, criminal law, intellectual property, etc. To find information on copyright law, you would start by going to a legal guide, then find the guide to legal subjects or practice areas, and then go to either the copyright or the intellectual property category. Guides are often searchable, but a local search of a guide should not be confused with a search engine.
Search engines index the words of documents on the Web, enabling you to search a large number of documents with a single search. Most of the useful search engines have indexed millions of documents, and can return the results of a search very quickly. Google is a very complete and fast search engine. Search engines present a good starting point if you feel that you are looking for a needle-in-a-haystack. Say you are looking for information on what a specific expert had to say regarding a certain legal subject. Instead of going to a legal subject guide and weeding through many Web sites hoping that you will stumble across a reference to the particular expert, you could go to a search engine and do a search using the expert's name as a key word.
Different search engines have different rules about forming queries. It is always a good idea to read the instructions about query formation for the search engine you are using in order to maximize efficiency.
Search engines also offer a useful way to finish up if you are not satisfied with your results using a hierarchical guide. Combining the hierarchical and needle-in-the-haystack approaches is the most thorough way to do research on the Web. The two approaches compliment one another. For example, using a guide may be helpful in determining key search terms, or using a search engine may yield sites that are helpful in determining an unexplored hierarchical category.
FindLaw’s Search Engine - LawCrawler
LawCrawler is a search tool designed especially for those interested in finding legal information on the Internet. FindLaw's LawCrawler uses special filters to search FindLaw's content and in select instances combines with the Google search engine and database for other legal code and case law databases, enabling you to focus your search on legal information and on particular domains. Sometimes the all-purpose search engines yield huge numbers of results, many of which are often not relevant to a particular search. For example, if you are searching for information on Canadian copyright law, you wouldn't want to find every site on the Web that contains the terms Canada and copyright. There are many sites with copyright notices and the word Canada in them which would be picked up doing a general search, that do not contain any information on copyright law. Using LawCrawler would allow you to focus your search for Canadian copyright law on sites in Canada with legal information.
There are two basic variables to consider when using the LawCrawler. First you want to choose the domain to search. For example, you could isolate your search to an individual country, to government servers in the United States, to commercial servers, or to government servers in specific states. Second you will want to determine whether to focus your search on legal information, or to include both legal and non-legal information.
The main advantage of LawCrawler is that it saves time and increases efficiency by providing focus to your search. If you do not get enough results when using the LawCrawler for a particular search, then it is a good idea to expand your search to an all-purpose search engine, such as Google, or to use the "World Wide" option to search LawCrawler.
Searching Within A Page
Most Web browsers allow you to search for words within a page. So if you come across a long Web page and are looking for a particular key piece of information, you can search within the page with the "Find" function. In Mozilla's Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer the "Find" function is located in the "Edit" menu.
Finding Specific Kinds of Information Online
Primary Legal Materials: Codes, Case Law, Regulations
To find cases, codes and regulations, go to our Cases & Codes page and select your jurisdiction. Different search techniques are available depending on which jurisdiction and database you use. Some databases allow searching by party name, others by citation, others by keyword and some enable multiple search techniques.
At FindLaw, we also have links to federal laws relevant to particular practice areas in our legal subject pages. For example, we link the Federal Tax Code from our Tax Law page.
More and more primary materials are being put online. For instance, FindLaw currently carries U.S. Supreme Court decisions back to 1893, California Supreme and Appellate Court decisions back to 1934 with internal page numbers and citations, recent decisions for most states as well as recent decisions for the federal circuits. In many cases, fee-based services provide more comprehensive case law coverage. If you can't find what you are looking for in a case law or code database, it's a good idea to round out your research with a search engine that indexes the Web, especially for historically significant case law or commonly referenced code sections. Many times, people will put an individual case or code section online if they feel it is especially important.
Secondary Legal Materials: Law Journals, Treatises, Commentary
The Web provides a rich source of secondary legal materials. Many law journals have sites on the Web and some of these contain abstracts or full text articles.
Checking FindLaw’s legal subject pages is another good way to find commentary and news on particular legal subject areas. The secondary materials on the legal subject pages range from databases to online versions of printed treatises and books to newsletters, general background information, specialty guides, blogs, and FAQs.
FindLaw’s Law Firm Article section is a good place to check for concise primers on various legal topics, and the FindLaw Library contains thousands of articles hundreds of categories.
Tertiary Legal Materials: Legal News & Newsletters
Legal News
There are several great sources of fresh legal news online. FindLaw provides legal news selected by FindLaw editors in our Legal News section. One of the most popular news features is our collection of filings from high-profile legal cases.
Newsletters
FindLaw also provides legal news updates and case summary notifications via E-mail. Currently, there are over 50 different newsletters, including daily opinion summaries, topical newsletters and daily legal news.
Continuing Legal Education
FindLaw in conjunction with the West LegalEdcenter offers online continuing legal education courses for Paralegals. Courses are updated regularly and the service provide an easy solution for keeping up-to-date with topics in your area of expertise.
People, Agencies, Organizations
There are many directories for finding attorneys and experts online.
Thomson Legal Record
The Thomson Legal Record is found at FindLaw and contains over one million listings. The Thomson Legal Record is a unique research tool, combining an attorney's litigation history on Westlaw with the attorney's profile on FindLaw. It provides a simple, efficient, fully documented resource for legal and corporate professionals seeking experienced litigators and a verifiable basis for decision-making. For example, a user can search for attorneys who have appeared before specific judges, or in specific courts, by using the "Search by Experience" function.
Thomson Legal Record goes beyond traditional directories and referral networks in many ways. It lists an attorney’s recent reported cases and federal docket filings – linked to full-text documents on Westlaw – alongside a detailed professional profile.
The profile contains biographical information, background on litigation experience and areas of practice, links to the attorney’s Web site and published works, and much more.
FindLaw Marketcenter
The FindLaw Marketcenter is found at FindLaw Marketcenter and contains thousands of expert witness, court reporter, process server, and legal technology provider listings.
The FindLaw Marketcenter has an easy to use topic navigation and is searchable by keyword.
Bar Associations
Bar Associations are another good way to find lawyers. State bars often have attorney referral services. We have a list of Bar Associations at FindLaw.
Government Agencies
Government agencies often provide useful information on particular subjects. FindLaw's U.S. Federal Government Resource page has links to many federal agencies. We also have links to relevant government agencies on our legal subject pages. Our State Government Resources section is a great place to start when searching for state agencies online.
Legal Associations and Organizations are listed on our Legal Associations and Organizations page. If you can't find who you're looking for with an index, then it's a good idea to try a search engine.
Off-line Research
You may not always find everything you are looking for online. In which case you will need to make a trip to an off-line library. Even if you find what you are looking for online, it is a good idea to supplement this research with verification via printed resources. FindLaw is a starting point for legal research.
Conclusion
Hands on experience is the best way to get good at finding resources online. Whether you are surfing with a purpose or just for fun, your time online should prove useful for future searches.
