Transcript Internet Legal Research - Cleveland

Internet Legal Research for
Professor Mika’s Legal Drafting
Class
Dec. 2, 2009
Outline
Internet v. Lexis, Westlaw
 Forms
 Evaluating Web Sites
 Legal Portals and Search Engines
 Free Case Law/Primary Sources
 Current Awareness
 Internet Documents in Court
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Internet v. Lexis/Westlaw
Internet is Free. No charges to clients
 Some info exclusive to Internet

Municipal Ordinances
 Some Court Filings
 New case/regulation (within one day)
 New topics/issues
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Internet v. Lexis/WL
Benefits of Lexis, WL, others (Casemaker):
 Coverage. Internet, Ohio cases back to
1950, mid 90s for unreporteds
 Better Search Mechanisms
 Editorial features – headnotes, annotations
 Secondary sources – treatises, practice
books
 Aggregate Info for one stop searching
 Trustworthiness
Forms

Forms and Practice Materials
Resource Guide
Forms and Sample Contracts
Who publishes the site? A legal
publisher? bar association?
 Does the site sell forms?
 Who wrote the form?
 Use with caution, tailor to your facts

Attorney Work Product Sites
• JDSupra Documents are tied
to attorney profiles
• Scribd
• DocStoc
• LawLink
• Legal On-Ramp
TRY IT

Look for a lease form on JD Supra

Find information about the attorney who
submitted the form
Transactional Documents via SEC
EDGAR
• sample SEC filings
• documents attached: management
contracts, executive compensation plans,
articles of incorporation, by-laws, material
contracts, voting trust agreements See
Item 601, Regulation S-K.
SEC Edgar Full Text Search
Features
Fields for company name, SIC code,
date, form type (but not exhibit type)
 Natural language or Boolean
 Phrase (“”), AND, OR, NOT, truncation
(*, communicat* ), proximity operator
(general NEAR1 motors )
 Past 4 years

Try it

Find an executive compensation plan
which provides for a parking space
More sophisticated SEC Filing
databases
Lexis and Westlaw
 Mergentonline – Available via University
Library, Cleveland Public
 SECInfo.com

Transactional Forms – Other Ideas
Search engines – general or legal
 Court dockets
 Cleveland Law Library FAQs – ex. Living
Wills Durable Power of Attorney

Legal Drafting Advice
Cleveland Marshall Law Library’s
Research Guide: Forms and Practice
Materials
 AdamsDrafting Blog

Evaluating Web Sites
Credibility: author; possible bias,
accuracy.
 Currency / Updating, Coverage
 Writing Quality
 Ease of use – Design, navigation,
searchability, help
 Stability

What’s on the Free Web
All US Supreme Court Cases
 Reported Federal Appellate 1882-, Fed
District 1932 Some Unreported Fed App, Fed District
 State cases: Reported cases from 1950-,
unreported varies (1990s on)
 Statutes & Regulations- federal and
states
 LOTS more!

Internet Portals
Library Home Page – Legal Research on
the Web
 Public Records & People Finders
 Cornell Legal Information Institute (LII)
 FindLaw
 Other Portals

Use LEGAL Search Engines
• Cornell University Legal
Research Engine
• LexisWeb
• FindLaw LawCrawler
• Justia
• List of Search Legal Engines
Search Engines
• Clustering search engines: Clusty ,
Ask.com
• Metasearch engines: Dogpile,Clusty
• Internet Wayback Machine
• Learn search syntax of Google and a
few other search engines, See Web
Searching Guide - Search Engines
Web Sites to Know
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Thomas.gov – Federal Legislative History
LexisONE – past 10 yrs cases, Lexis search
capability
Google Scholar – best coverage of cases,
decent search capability, law review articles
GPO Access – Fed’l Govt. will be FDSys
Martindale Hubbell Law Digest
Ohio Supreme Court
PACER – Federal Court dockets
The Invisible Web
Search Engines not index entire web
 Search engines cannot type or think.
 “Invisible Web” includes information stored
in databases and password restricted
information
 The Invisible or Deep Web by U.C.
Berkeley

Accessing Invisible Web

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Find databases via directories or search
engines (search for a subject term and the
word “database”), or ask a librarian.
The Librarian’s Internet Index and Complete
Planet .
Bookmark the databases you find
See Web Searching Guide
Example – A person's traffic tickets. Try a
search on Google, then try a search on
pipl.com
Case law
• Legal Research Workstation - Case Law
• Google Scholar – state reported 1950-, fed
circuit/ district 1923• Ohio Supreme Court
• Public Library of Law – boolean searching,
good coverage
• Open Jurist – fed reported appellate 1882-
• Demo Ohio Supreme Court case search
Current Awareness Tools
• Blog Search Engines and Directories
• RSS Readers - What are they? Ex.
Bloglines
• Ohio Supreme Court cases – new
opinions, case activity notification
• Current Awareness Resources for Ohio
Law
• Watch That Page
Internet Documents in Court
• Law itself (statutes, case law, etc.),
Internet versions are usually not the official
version or an authenticated version. See
blog post: Web Resources: Official or
Authentic
• Articles or other evidence, print off the web
page to show date retrieved
• see 5 Weinstein's Federal Evidence,
LexisNexis, Chapter 900, esp.900.07
Conclusion
Use Free Web, but be aware of its
limitations in coverage, currency,
searching ability, reliability
 Go beyond Google: Use free legal
databases, legal search engines and
portals
