CHAPTER 10:
I. Introduction to electronic legal research
A. Three categories of electronic legal research services:
1. Fee-based services—charge a fee every time the service is used
a. Westlaw and LEXIS
i. Full text of a broad range of 1° and 2° authorities
b. Law office information service (LOIS)
i. Full text of a broad range of 1° and 2° authorities
ii. Less comprehensive coverage than Westlaw and LEXIS
iii. Available on the Internet
c. Versus Law
i. Full text of a broad range of 1° and 2° authorities
ii. Less comprehensive coverage than Westlaw and LEXIS
iii. Available on the Internet
2. Subscription services—charge the subscriber for access
a. Congressional Universe—contains much legislative info:
i. Federal statutes
ii. Congressional documents
iii. Administrative regulations
iv. News about activities on Capitol Hill
b. Index to legal periodicals and legaltrac
i. Generate lists of citations to authority
ii. Do not retrieve the full text of the documents
iii. Provide citations to secondary sources
c. Subject-matter services
i. Available electronically (Internet or CD-ROM)
ii. Explained in Chapt. 9
3. Publicly available services—available for free on the Internet
a. Web sites operated by govn’t or private entities
i. Can provide access to local, state, and federal legal information
ii. Useful sites: Thomas (Library of Congress) and GPO Access (Gov’t Printing Office)
b. Legal research sites
i. Useful sites: FindLaw and American Law Sources Online
ii. Many law schools have developed “virtual law library” sites such as: Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute
c. Internet search engines
i. Not likely to be an effective tool for locating individual legal authorities; however, it may help to locate gov’t, educational, legal research, or other sites with useful info.
ii. LawCrawler limits its searches to law-related web sites
iii. MetaCrawler links several search engines together
iv. Others: Excite; AltaVista; and Infoseek
B. Overview of the electronic research process
1. STEP 1: assess whether electronic research is your best option
2. Two primary methods of locating info in an electronic research service:
a. Retrieving by citation
b. Searching for relevant words (“word searching”)
3. Print Resources
a. More economical
b. Easier to read
c. Many 2° sources only available in print
d. Most organized around subjects or concepts
e. Better for searching by subject
4. Electronic Resources
a. Can be more up to date
b. Can give access to documents unavailable in library’s print collection
c. Located based on individual terms
d. Can be effective for locating unique terms
e. Rarely rely on it exclusively to complete a research project
f. Find one or two good “hits”
5. After each electronic query, evaluate its success by asking:
a. Did I find what I was looking for?
b. What better info could still be out there?
c. How can I refine my query to find better info?
6. Four steps of electronic research
a. Selecting a service—use a source likely to contain the info you need and select a cost-effective service
b. Constructing a search
c. Executing the Search—most services divide their contents into categories based on the sources of info they contain (ie. federal cases)
d. Reviewing the search results
II. Selecting an electronic legal research service (STEP 1)—two important considerations:
A. Scope
1. Use a source that contains the type of info you need
2. Limit the scope of the search
B. Cos
ubtract or add wildcard characters
c. Subtract or add field or segment restrictions
IV. Researching effectively in Westlaw and LEXIS
A. Search results in Westlaw:
1. Must select a database in which to search
2. Automatically displays the first page of the first document
3. Highlights search terms within the document
4. Displays a list of citations
5. Term function—another way to browse your search results (moves the cursor to where each search term is found
6. To refine your search:
a. Can use the modify or edit your search button
b. Can use Locate—allows you to search for terms within the documents received
B. Search results in LEXIS:
1. Must select a source in which to search
2. Three options for viewing the results:
a. Full—full text
b. KWIC—displays portions of the document containing your search terms
c. Cite—displays a list of citations, you can then click on them
3. Highlights search terms within the document
4. To refine your search:
a. Can edit the initial search
b. Can use FOCUS (same as Westlaw’s Locate feature)
c. More Like This function—creates a new search using terms within a document you have retrieved
d. More Like Selected Text function—allows you to select terms from a document to use as a search in the same or another source
C. Cost-effective searching in both:
1. Construct searches and plan your research path in advance
a. Write out your searches in advance
