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GENERAL SEARCH TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE LEGALRESEARCH IN ELECTRONIC DATABASES

These materials were prepared by Peta Bates, of the Law Society of Saskatchewan Libraries Saskatoon,Saskatchewan for the Saskatchewan Legal Education Society Inc. seminar, Electronic Databases andResearch Methods; September 2000.

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) How do you obtain the best possible search results in the most efficient manner for the

most reasonable cost? Here are some suggestions.

1. Don't go online unless you have to.

Don't use a computer source when a print one will do.

Secondary sources such as legal textbooks, law review articles, case annotations, legal

encyclopedias or bar admission course material can provide an overview of your topic,

identify concepts, suggest other resources and point to leading cases.

Procedural issues are often better answered by using a print source. One reason is that

procedural terms are used in most cases without a procedural issue being discussed.

Your search terms will pull up non-relevant cases.

For the same reason, definitions are difficult to search online. Consulting a legal

dictionary or a print Words and Phrases is often the best way to find your answer.

A topical CD-ROM product allows unlimited searching with no cost constraints.

Official, reliable and current sites on the Internet (such as court or government web sites)

can provide judgments and legislation at no cost.

Online databases are best suited to searching:

• An unpublished case

• A unique search term, phrase or quotation

• A unique fact situation

• The name of a party, counsel, judge, witness or law firm

• To note-up a case

• For current infonnation)/

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Print sources are best suited to searching:

• A complex concept or legal theory

• A procedural issue

• An issue which can only be expressed in common words

• An issue which requires too many synonyms to retrieve relevant cases

• An issue which contains a time element

2. Prepare your search before you turn on the computer.

Formulate the legal issues to be researched.

Write down your search terms before you go online:

• anticipate the words which will be used in the case headnote or digest

• find a case on point and look at the words used in the headnote

• use a legal thesaurus to find alternate search terms to express your issue

• search for acronyms in both their abbreviated and their full version

Plan your search strategy:

• determine the jurisdiction you need to search (provincial or federal,

regulatory, legislative)

• decide the databases you want to search and rank them in order of use

• start with the most specific databases and then move to the more general ones

• decide whether you need an exhaustive search or just an overview of the issue

• decide whether you need the full judgment or just a digest of the case

Use the vendor toll-free help lines for advice on how to formulate your search query.

(Westlaw Reference Attorneys will design the query for you, run the search on their

computers and then tell you which database to search to duplicate their results.)

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Have a backup search strategy ready in case your first search doesn't work.

3. Search in the most efficient way.

Know the coverage for each database (general or topical, the jurisdiction, the years

covered, fulltext or digest).

Read the free current awareness pages when you sign on to a database provider. New

specialized databases are always being added.

Run your search in the most specific database you can. If you only want family law cases

don't start your search in a general case law database. If you only want cases from

Western Canada don't search a Canada-wide database.

Limit your search terms to the appropriate fields (headnote, digest) to make your search

more precise. Use the "format" or "segment" command to view the fields for a particular

database.

If the database publisher uses a keynumber system to classify the cases in its databases,

take advantage of this extra level of indexing to search for your topic by keynumber.

Consult the print keynumber scheme before you go online.

Use exclusion connectors (NOT) with caution. They often eliminate relevant cases from

your search.

Natural language searching (entering your search as a question) is usually not as effective

as searching for keywords.

Use the "dictionary" feature to see if your teml exists in a database. If the search ternl

isn't in the database, then you may not need to run the search.

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If there is one key case on point, use a citation search to find other cases which have

considered it.

Search online periodical indexes of law review articles to see if someone else has already

done the research.

Download only the part of the case you need. Highlight the relevant paragraph or use

the Print Screen button to print just the page you are currently viewing.

Save your searches to a file. Do not print them from a live online connection. It is

quicker to download to a file than to print real time.

Learn how to "pause" your search to stop temporarily the online search charges while

you regroup. In QL, type "tot" see how much your search has cost to date. This stops the

billing clock until you type a new database code.

Some electronic vendors allow you store your search terms for future use. In six months

time you can retrieve your stored search and run it again to find cases since the date of

your previous search.

Sign off if your search strategy is not locating anything relevant. Ask for help from the

vendor's toll-free help line, from a colleague who has more experience in online legal

research or from a law librarian.

4. Know how to modify and transfer your search.

Learn how to modify your search tenns. Use the modify feature to recall your existing

search terms so that you can change connectors or terms.

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If your search pulls up too many cases, limit your search:

• add a date range

• restrict your search terms to particular fields such as headnotes only

• add more terms

• change your AND connectors to a proximity connector such as

WITHIN 5 WORDS

If your search finds too few cases, broaden your search:

• remove search terms

• remove date ranges

• search in a more general database

Learn how to transfer a search from one database to another. Do not retype your search

terms in each new database.

5. Know how you are being charged.

Understand the pricing structure of your online service:

• Hourly rate - you are charged for each minute you are connected to the service.

Run your search in the smallest relevant database, print a list of citations and sign

off as soon as you can. Use the printed list of citations to locate and read the

printed law reports in your local law library. Take advantage of any "stop the

billing clock" features.

• Fixed rate - you are charged an annual fee for unlimited searching.

Rates for the first year are based on anticipated use. Rates in subsequent years are

based on past use. Fixed rate searching is not "free" and efficient searching

techniques are equally as important here as in hourly rate pricing since next year's

pricing is based on this year's usage.

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• Transactional pricing - you are charged for each search function.

Know what the charges are each time you enter a new search, transfer a search to

a new database, view the search results, note-up a case, print or download cases.

The best strategy is to start with broad searches and then narrow them.

6. Keep track of what you have searched.

Keep track of which databases you have searched and what search terms you used.

Keep track of the date of your search.

Write down the citations as you go.

Some database services have a "search history" feature which will print out a list of the

databases you have searched and the search terms you used in the current session.

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SOURCES CONSULTED

"Cost-effective research", "Effective online searching" and "Online or books?"

Edward Bennett Williams Law Library, Georgetown University Law Center, 1998.

(http://www.11.georgetown.edu/lib/guides/cost.htm)

"Electronic legal research for beginners" and "Legal research strategies"

Borlase, Rod. O'Quinn Law Library, University of Houston Law Center, 1999.

(http://www.law.uh.edu/guides)

"Guide to legal research"

Bora Laskin Law Library, University ofToronto, 1999.

(http://www.1aw-lib.utoronto.ca/resguide/toc.html)

"Sally's rules of research"

Stetson University College of Law, Florida

(http://www.1aw.stetson.edu/faculty/sally/mles.htm)

"Tips for cost-effective legal research"

John J. Ross - William C. Blakley Law Library, College of Law, Arizona State

University, 2000.

(http://www.lawlib.asu.edu/Publications/Pathfinder/ResearchGuides/before.html)

Peta's Favorite Sites

1. Babel Fish - language translation softwarehttp://babelfish.altavista.com/ragingltranslate.dyn

A "quick and dirty" translation program which will allow you to pick up the gist of adocument in a language other than English. Useful for translating fulltext Frenchjudgments from QL. Cut and paste the text ofthe French judgment into the Babel Fishtranslator, select "French to English translation" and view the results. Or enter the URLof a foreign web site and Babel Fish will translate the contents of the web site intoEnglish. Translation is available in for French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian andSpanish.

2. Supreme Court of Canada Reasons for Judgmenthttp://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/csc-scc/enlindex.html

The first and still the best online source for judicial decisions. Judgments are loadedwithin minutes of being handed down from the Supreme Court. Judgments are availablein several formats and are keyword searchable. Coverage is from 1986 to date.

3. Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII)http://www.austlii.edu.au/

An enormous collection ofprimary and secondary legal material from Australia, NewZealand and the South Pacific.

4. British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII)http://www.bailii.orgl

A similar service for British and Irish legal information which was developed inconjunction with the AustLII.

5. Cornell Law Institutehttp://www.law.comell.edu/

One of the best sources for American legal material. According to the web site it is "themost linked to web resource in the field oflaw".