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Internet Legal Research for Professor Mika’s Legal Drafting Class Dec. 2, 2009

Internet Legal Research for Professor Mika’s Legal Drafting Class Dec. 2, 2009

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Internet Legal Research for Professor Mika’s Legal Drafting

Class

Dec. 2, 2009

Outline

Internet v. Lexis, WestlawFormsEvaluating Web SitesLegal Portals and Search EnginesFree Case Law/Primary Sources Current AwarenessInternet Documents in Court

Internet v. Lexis/Westlaw

Internet is Free. No charges to clientsSome info exclusive to Internet

Municipal Ordinances Some Court FilingsNew case/regulation (within one day)New topics/issues

Internet v. Lexis/WL

Benefits of Lexis, WL, others (Casemaker):Coverage. Internet, Ohio cases back to

1950, mid 90s for unreportedsBetter Search MechanismsEditorial features – headnotes, annotationsSecondary sources – treatises, practice

booksAggregate Info for one stop searchingTrustworthiness

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 BooleanPhrase (“”), 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 WestlawMergentonline – Available via University

Library, Cleveland PublicSECInfo.com

Transactional Forms – Other Ideas

Search engines – general or legalCourt docketsCleveland 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, CoverageWriting Quality Ease of use – Design, navigation,

searchability, help Stability

What’s on the Free Web

All US Supreme Court CasesReported 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

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

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 webSearch 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

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