Cost Effective Legal Research: Bridging the Gap - From Backpacks to Briefcases

BENEFITS OF LOW COST DATABASES VS. FREE RESOURCES?

Often Better Search Mechanisms

Often Better Coverage

May Be More Current

Trustworthiness

Aggregated - One Stop Shopping

Examples of Lower Cost Resources

FASTCASE & CASEMAKER (Great For Federal Or State Case Law, Statutes, Regulations, Opinions & Orders 

(if you are an Illinois State Bar Assn (ISBA) you will have access with your membership) (article on merger of both)

• LOISLAW (included in Fastcase)
• VERSUSLAW (included in Fastcase)

FREE LEGAL RESEARCH RESOURCES

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RESOURCES

WWW.GOVINFO.GOV (FEDERAL LEGAL MATERIALS)  

WWW.CONGRESS.GOV (FEDERAL LEGISLATION)

WWW.SUPREMECOURT.GOV (US SUPREME CT)

WWW.CA7.USCOURTS.GOV (7TH CIRCUIT CT APPS)

WWW.ILND.USCOURTS.GOV (N. DIST. OF ILLINOIS)

FREE ILLINOIS GOVERNMENT RESOURCES

WWW.ILGA.GOV

WWW.ILLINOISCOURTS.GOV

SEARCH ENGINES

GOOGLE & GOOGLE SCHOLAR

Google and Google Scholar can help find cursory information when doing Legal Research.

Google's Strengths (some of):

1.  Finding basic background information about legal concepts and topics

2.  Finding Related Terms

3.  Locating Online Legal Research Guides (example search: "Intellectual Property" "research guide") You will need to evaluate these "Research Guides: yourself for:  Timeliness (currency), Ease of Use (orgn...etc.), Accuracy and Authoritativeness (of institution or author), Comprehensiveness (breadth, depth, purpose...etc.) & Handiness (printable...etc.)

Google's Weaknesses (some of) :

1.  Results are either limited to cases and articles (via Google Scholar) or not limited at all (Google)

2.  There is no guarantee of currency 

3.  Google lacks consistent annotations