building better briefs: legal research & citation tools on the internet

Building Better Briefs

Bonnie Shucha

Legal Research & Citation

Tools on the Internet

There is a lot of great legal information on the Internet.

It’s not always easy to find.

And watch out for the bad information.

When brief writing, it’s important that you get it right.

Evaluating Web Sources

Who created the site?

What is the site about?

When was the info last updated?

From where is the info coming?

Why does the site exist?

How accurate is

the information?

The Many Faces of Google

Google

Search Terms in Quotes

Google Scholar

Google Books

Google U.S. Gov’t Search

There is a lot of great legal information on the Internet.

It’s not all on Google.

The Invisible Web

0.03%

What Google Finds

What Google Can’t Find

84%

Search engine spider crawls Web starting with already indexed static pages

Spider encounters link to a new static Web page

Spider follows link

Spider adds new Web page to search engine’s indexContent rendered “visible”

Webmaster registers new static Web page

with search engine

Search Engines & the Visible Web

Search Engine Database

Your search results

Author Title Publication

SearchingSmarter

Wisconsin Lawyer

J. Doe CommonLaw

MarquetteLaw Review

B. Shucha

1. B. Shucha, “Searching Smarter,” Wisconsin Lawyer. J.Q. Public Legal

Tech TipsABAJournal

ShuchaSearch this Database

Go

Spider encounters database

Query is required to access “dynamic” data

Spider incapable of generating query

Spider stops and cannot index data in databaseContent rendered “invisible”

Spider crawls Web starting with already indexed static pages

Search Engines & the Invisible Web

The key is not locating the answer itself as the first step…

…but in locating the right database in which to search for it.

Citation Tools

CheckCiteBatch Shepardizes your doc & verifies quotes

Free to LexisNexis subscribers

StyleCheck

Ensures citations conform to BlueBook style

FullAuthority

Builds a table of authorities from your document

Shepard’s LinkAdds links to Lexis, Web and your other docs

Batch KeyCites your document

CitrusAuto-corrects citations as you type – MS Word

Zotero

Free!

Collect cites while Web searching

SupportsBlueBook

Questions?

Bonnie ShuchaHead of Reference

UW Law Librarybjshucha@wisc.edu