Internet Legal Research on a Budget
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It never ceases to amaze us that our own U.S. Supreme Court does not post its briefs at their site, AND also fails to provide information on where to find Supreme Court briefs for free. Instead, the Court’s site tells you to obtain briefs from pay sites such as Lexis and Westlaw, and from Document Retrieval Services. The only free site it does note is one that hasn’t posted any new...
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The preview we posted last month of our "The Unofficial User Guide to New Casemaker Features" has proven to be very popular with readers. As we explained in the preview, while the folks at Casemaker have been extremely busy adding new features and content to their database, and extending date coverage further back in time, their online User Guide has not kept pace, and is no longer up to date...
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For those who like to conduct a quick Google Scholar search for case law or articles, you can add a Scholar Button to the Firefox and/or Chrome browsers’ bar. This allows you to launch the Google Scholar search box right from your browser bar without typing the URL. After the Google Scholar button is installed, click the button that is now located on your browser bar (see next image). The...
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The folks at Casemaker have been extremely busy adding new features and content to their database, and extending date coverage further back in time. With so many new additions, their online User Guide is now out of date. This is a preview of our upcoming White paper where we will explain many of the new additions and add screen shots to illustrate many of the features. Subsequent Case History...
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blockquote { display: block; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 40px; margin-right: 40px; } Recently, Internet For Lawyers principals Carole Levitt and Mark Rosch shared some of their favorite secret Google search tips and ways to access expensive research databases for free with Sam Glover over at the Lawyerist Podcast. In his introduction to the interview...
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by Carole Levitt President, Internet For Lawyers In July 2014, at the American Association of Law Libraries annual meeting, I got a sneak preview of Fastcase 7 but was sworn to secrecy. Then, in August 2014, I visited Fastcase’s headquarters in Washington, DC where CEO Ed Walters demonstrated some additional new features…still sworn to secrecy. This was its first re-design since...
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The American Bar Association's (ABA's) Legal Technology Resource Center (LTRC) has released the results of its 2014 Legal Technology Survey. The full set of results are available for purchase. Free summaries, in which "legal technology experts explore key developments from the 2014 Legal Technology Survey Report," are also available online For more than a decade, the LTRC has surveyed practicing...
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USA.gov no longer features an Advanced Search page. Unfortunately, this does not come as a surprise as USA.gov is "powered by" Bing - and Bing shed its Advanced Search page awhile ago. Previously, USA.gov's Advanced Search page provided a "fill-in-the-box"-type interface (similar to Google's Advanced Search page) that allowed you to create sophisticated, targeted searches through the USA.gov...
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The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) has restored the majority of the documents removed from PACER in August 2014. Dockets for the following courts (previously removed) have been restored to the PACER system. U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit...
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Today I noticed something I've never seen before on the PACER Case Locator search results page - a Filter Results button. Clicking the Filter Results button opens a pop-up box that allows you to further filter your results by numerous criteria (e.g., Court Type, Court, Year Filed in the screenshot above). Clicking the plus sign next to any of the listed filters expands that filter to show...
