Download - C OST E FFECTIVE R ESEARCH AKA, FREE S OURCES ON THE W EB Ron Jones UC Law Library [email protected]
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
• Everything is available freely on the Internet.
• Confident that sources are trustworthy.
• Google’s complex search algorithm provides the best possible results.
• Wikipedia is trustworthy/authoritative.
HERE IN THE REAL WORLD• A great deal of primary source material (federal &
state) IS freely available online.
• Secondary Sources, while not as prevalent, are available.
• You can manipulate Google’s search engine to focus your results.
• Wikipedia, while not authoritative, should not be dismissed as irrelevant.
HERE IN THE REAL WORLD• Time is money!
• While tempting, Google shouldn’t always be your “go to” resource.
• The Dark Web.
• There are certain aspects of legal research that simply cannot be duplicated by any “free” resource. So don’t bother trying.
SO WHAT MATERIAL IS ONLINE?
• Case Law
• Codes/Statutes
• Regulations
• Court Rules
• Forms
• Secondary Sources
WHERE TO FIND CASE LAW• Court’s Website
– e.g., U.S. Supreme Court, Ohio Supreme Court
• Legal Information Institute
• FindLaw
• Justia
• Public Library of Law
WHERE TO FIND CODES/STATUTES
• Federal– GPO Access
– GPO’s Federal Digital System
– Legal Information Institute
– FindLaw
WHERE TO FIND CODES/STATUTES
• State– State’s website
– Legal Information Institute
• Municipal– Minicode
– American Legal Publishing
– Municipalities website (via Google)
WHERE TO FIND REGULATIONS
• Federal– GPO (CFR, E-CFR, Federal Digital
System, Federal Register)
– Regulations.gov
– Legal Information Institute
• State– State Administrative websites
WHERE TO FIND COURT RULES
• Federal & State– Federal Judiciary
– Court website
WHERE TO FIND FORMS
• Court’s Website
• FindLaw
“ALMOST FREE” LOW COST LEGAL
DATABASES• Casemaker
• VersusLaw
• Fastcase
• Loislaw
SEARCHING (MUCH) SMARTER ONLINE
GOOGLE’S MARKET SHARE
HOW GOOGLE WORKS
WHY GOOGLE WORKS
• Unlike other search engines which only search certain fields of a site, Google performs a “Full Text” search of the entire site.
HERE’S AN EXAMPLE
• Quote: "Now, is intelligence always going to be 100 percent right in the future? It can't be.”
SEARCHING SMARTER
• Use advanced search features– Limit by domain
– Limit by wording or exact phrase
– Limit by file type
– Limit by topic-specific search engines• Google Book Search, Google Scholar, ect.