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How to do legal research in 3 steps

Knowing where to start a difficult legal research project can be a challenge. But if you already understand the basics of legal research, the process can be significantly easier — not to mention quicker.

Solid research skills are crucial to crafting a winning argument. So, whether you are a law school student or a seasoned attorney with years of experience, knowing how to perform legal research is important — including where to start and the steps to follow.

What is legal research, and where do I start? 

Black's Law Dictionary defines legal research as “[t]he finding and assembling of authorities that bear on a question of law." But what does that actually mean? It means that legal research is the process you use to identify and find the laws — including statutes, regulations, and court opinions — that apply to the facts of your case.

In most instances, the purpose of legal research is to find support for a specific legal issue or decision. For example, attorneys must conduct legal research if they need court opinions — that is, case law — to back up a legal argument they are making in a motion or brief filed with the court.

Alternatively, lawyers may need legal research to provide clients with accurate legal guidance . In the case of law students, they often use legal research to complete memos and briefs for class. But these are just a few situations in which legal research is necessary.

Why is legal research hard?

Each step — from defining research questions to synthesizing findings — demands critical thinking and rigorous analysis.

1. Identifying the legal issue is not so straightforward. Legal research involves interpreting many legal precedents and theories to justify your questions. Finding the right issue takes time and patience.

2. There's too much to research. Attorneys now face a great deal of case law and statutory material. The sheer volume forces the researcher to be efficient by following a methodology based on a solid foundation of legal knowledge and principles.

3. The law is a fluid doctrine. It changes with time, and staying updated with the latest legal codes, precedents, and statutes means the most resourceful lawyer needs to assess the relevance and importance of new decisions.

Legal research can pose quite a challenge, but professionals can improve it at every stage of the process . 

Step 1: Key questions to ask yourself when starting legal research

Before you begin looking for laws and court opinions, you first need to define the scope of your legal research project. There are several key questions you can use to help do this.

What are the facts?

Always gather the essential facts so you know the “who, what, why, when, where, and how” of your case. Take the time to write everything down, especially since you will likely need to include a statement of facts in an eventual filing or brief anyway. Even if you don't think a fact may be relevant now, write it down because it may be relevant later. These facts will also be helpful when identifying your legal issue.

What is the actual legal issue?

You will never know what to research if you don't know what your legal issue is. Does your client need help collecting money from an insurance company following a car accident involving a negligent driver? How about a criminal case involving excluding evidence found during an alleged illegal stop?

No matter the legal research project, you must identify the relevant legal problem and the outcome or relief sought. This information will guide your research so you can stay focused and on topic.

What is the relevant jurisdiction?

Don't cast your net too wide regarding legal research; you should focus on the relevant jurisdiction. For example, does your case deal with federal or state law? If it is state law, which state? You may find a case in California state court that is precisely on point, but it won't be beneficial if your legal project involves New York law.

Where to start legal research: The library, online, or even AI?

In years past, future attorneys were trained in law school to perform research in the library. But now, you can find almost everything from the library — and more — online. While you can certainly still use the library if you want, you will probably be costing yourself valuable time if you do.

When it comes to online research, some people start with free legal research options , including search engines like Google or Bing. But to ensure your legal research is comprehensive, you will want to use an online research service designed specifically for the law, such as Westlaw . Not only do online solutions like Westlaw have all the legal sources you need, but they also include artificial intelligence research features that help make quick work of your research

Step 2: How to find relevant case law and other primary sources of law

Now that you have gathered the facts and know your legal issue, the next step is knowing what to look for. After all, you will need the law to support your legal argument, whether providing guidance to a client or writing an internal memo, brief, or some other legal document.

But what type of law do you need? The answer: primary sources of law. Some of the more important types of primary law include:

• Case law, which are court opinions or decisions issued by federal or state courts
• Statutes, including legislation passed by both the U.S. Congress and state lawmakers
• Regulations, including those issued by either federal or state agencies
• Constitutions, both federal and state

Searching for primary sources of law

So, if it's primary law you want, it makes sense to begin searching there first, right? Not so fast. While you will need primary sources of law to support your case, in many instances, it is much easier — and a more efficient use of your time — to begin your search with secondary sources such as practice guides, treatises, and legal articles.

Why? Because secondary sources provide a thorough overview of legal topics, meaning you don't have to start your research from scratch. After secondary sources, you can move on to primary sources of law.

For example, while no two legal research projects are the same, the order in which you will want to search different types of sources may look something like this:

• Secondary sources . If you are researching a new legal principle or an unfamiliar area of the law, the best place to start is secondary sources, including law journals, practice guides , legal encyclopedias, and treatises. They are a good jumping-off point for legal research since they've already done the work for you. As an added bonus, they can save you additional time since they often identify and cite important statutes and seminal cases.
• Case law . If you have already found some case law in secondary sources, great, you have something to work with. But if not, don't fret. You can still search for relevant case law in a variety of ways, including running a search in a case law research tool.

Once you find a helpful case, you can use it to find others. For example, in Westlaw, most cases contain headnotes that summarize each of the case's important legal issues. These headnotes are also assigned a Key Number based on the topic associated with that legal issue. So, once you find a good case, you can use the headnotes and Key Numbers within it to quickly find more relevant case law.

• Statutes and regulations . In many instances, secondary sources and case law list the statutes and regulations relevant to your legal issue. But if you haven't found anything yet, you can still search for statutes and regs online like you do with cases.

Once you know which statute or reg is pertinent to your case, pull up the annotated version on Westlaw. Why the annotated version? Because the annotations will include vital information, such as a list of important cases that cite your statute or reg. Sometimes, these cases are even organized by topic — just one more way to find the case law you need to support your legal argument.

Keep in mind, though, that legal research isn't always a linear process. You may start out going from source to source as outlined above and then find yourself needing to go back to secondary sources once you have a better grasp of the legal issue. In other instances, you may even find the answer you are looking for in a source not listed above, like a sample brief filed with the court by another attorney. Ultimately, you need to go where the information takes you.

Step 3: Make sure you are using ‘good’ law

One of the most important steps with every legal research project is to verify that you are using “good" law — meaning a court hasn't invalidated it or struck it down in some way. After all, it probably won't look good to a judge if you cite a case that has been overruled or use a statute deemed unconstitutional. It doesn't necessarily mean you can never cite these sources; you just need to take a closer look before you do.

The simplest way to find out if something is still good law is to use a legal tool known as a citator, which will show you subsequent cases that have cited your source as well as any negative history, including if it has been overruled, reversed, questioned, or merely differentiated.

For instance, if a case, statute, or regulation has any negative history — and therefore may no longer be good law — KeyCite, the citator on Westlaw, will warn you. Specifically, KeyCite will show a flag or icon at the top of the document, along with a little blurb about the negative history. This alert system allows you to quickly know if there may be anything you need to worry about.

Some examples of these flags and icons include:

• A red flag on a case warns you it is no longer good for at least one point of law, meaning it may have been overruled or reversed on appeal.
• A yellow flag on a case warns that it has some negative history but is not expressly overruled or reversed, meaning another court may have criticized it or pointed out the holding was limited to a specific fact pattern.
• A blue-striped flag on a case warns you that it has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court or the U.S. Court of Appeals.
• The KeyCite Overruling Risk icon on a case warns you that the case may be implicitly undermined because it relies on another case that has been overruled.

Another bonus of using a citator like KeyCite is that it also provides a list of other cases that merely cite your source — it can lead to additional sources you previously didn't know about.

Perseverance is vital when it comes to legal research

Given that legal research is a complex process, it will likely come as no surprise that this guide cannot provide everything you need to know.

There is a reason why there are entire law school courses and countless books focused solely on legal research methodology. In fact, many attorneys will spend their entire careers honing their research skills — and even then, they may not have perfected the process.

So, if you are just beginning, don't get discouraged if you find legal research difficult — almost everyone does at first. With enough time, patience, and dedication, you can master the art of legal research.

Thomson Reuters originally published this article on November 10, 2020.

Related insights

Westlaw tip of the week: Checking cases with KeyCite

Why legislative history matters when crafting a winning argument

Case law research tools: The most useful free and paid offerings

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US Case Law

The United States Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. Lower courts on the federal level include the US Courts of Appeals, US District Courts, the US Court of Claims, and the US Court of International Trade and US Bankruptcy Courts. Federal courts hear cases involving matters related to the United States Constitution, other federal laws and regulations, and certain matters that involve parties from different states or countries and large sums of money in dispute.

Each state has its own judicial system that includes trial and appellate courts. The highest court in each state is often referred to as the “supreme” court, although there are some exceptions to this rule, for example, the New York Court of Appeals or the Maryland Court of Appeals. State courts generally hear cases involving state constitutional matters, state law and regulations, although state courts may also generally hear cases involving federal laws. States also usually have courts that handle only a specific subset of legal matters, such as family law and probate.

Case law, also known as precedent or common law, is the body of prior judicial decisions that guide judges deciding issues before them. Depending on the relationship between the deciding court and the precedent, case law may be binding or merely persuasive. For example, a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is binding on all federal district courts within the Fifth Circuit, but a court sitting in California (whether a federal or state court) is not strictly bound to follow the Fifth Circuit’s prior decision. Similarly, a decision by one district court in New York is not binding on another district court, but the original court’s reasoning might help guide the second court in reaching its decision.

Decisions by the US Supreme Court are binding on all federal and state courts.

US Federal Courts

Reported opinions from the us federal courts of appeals.

• Federal Reporter, 2nd Series (F.2d) (1924-1993)
• Federal Reporter, 3rd Series (F.3d) (1993-present)

Opinions From the US Federal Courts of Appeals

• US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
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• US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
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• US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
• US Court of International Trade
• US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review
• Bankruptcy Reporter (B.R.) (1980-present)
• Federal Reporter, 2nd Series (F.2d) (1924-1932)
• Federal Supplement (F. Supp.) (1933-1998)
• Federal Supplement, 2nd Series (F. Supp. 2d) (1998-present)
• Connecticut
• District of Columbia
• Massachusetts
• Mississippi
• New Hampshire
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• West Virginia
• US District Court for the District of Guam
• US District Court for the District of Puerto Rico
• US District Court for the District of the Northern Mariana Islands
• US District Court for the District of the US Virgin Islands
• Emergency Court of Appeals (1942-1974)
• US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims
• US Court of Claims (1855-1982)
• US Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (1909-1982)
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Legal Research Fundamentals

• Research Strategy Tips
• Secondary Sources

The Different Types of Case Law Research

Popular case law databases, using secondary sources, any good case, from an annotated statute, ai and smart searching.

• Statutory Research
• Legislative History
• Administrative
• People, Firms, Witnesses, and other Analytics
• Transactional
• Non-Legal Resources
• Business Resources
• Foreign and International Law Resources This link opens in a new window

Generally, there are two types of case law research:

• Determining the case law that is binding or persuasive regarding a particular issue. Gathering and analyzing the relevant case law. 
• Searching for a specific case that applies the law to a set of facts in a particular way. 

These are two slightly different tasks. However, you can use many of the same case law search techniques for both of these types of questions. 

This guide outlines several different ways to locate case law. It is up to you to determine which methods are most suitable for your problem. 

When selecting a case law database, don't forget to choose the jurisdiction, time period, and level of court that is most appropriate for your purposes.

Note: Listed above are the databases that law students are most likely to use. It's possible that, once you leave law school, you will not have access to the same databases. Resources such as Fastcase  or Casetext may be your go-to. For any database, take the time to familiarize yourself with the basic and advanced search functions. 

Check out the Secondary Sources tab for information about how to locate a useful secondary source. 

Remember: secondary sources take the primary source law and analyze it so that you don't have to. Take advantage of the work the author has already done!

What do we mean by 'any good case'? 

A case that addresses the issue you care about. We can use the citing relationships and annotations found in case law databases to connect cases together based on their subject matter. You may find such a case from a secondary source, case law database search, or from a colleague.

How can we use one good case? 

1. Court opinions typically cited to  other cases to support their legal conclusions. Often these cited cases include important and authoritative decisions on the issue, because such decisions are precedential. 

2. Commercial legal research databases, including Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg, supplement cases with  headnotes . Headnotes allow you to quickly locate subsequent cases that cite the case you are looking at with respect to the specific language/discussion you care about. 

3. Links to topics or Key Numbers. Clicking through to these allows you to locate other cases with headnotes that fall under that topic. Once you select a suitable Key Number, you can also narrow down with keywords. A case may include multiple headnotes that address the same general issue.

4.  Subsequent citing cases.  By reading cases that have cited to the case you've started with, you can confirm that it remains "good law" and that its legal conclusions remain sound. You can also filter the citing references by jurisdiction, treatment, depth of treatment, date, and keyword, allowing you to focus your attention on the most relevant sub-set of cases.

5. Secondary sources! Useful secondary sources are listed in the Citing References. This can be a quick way to locate a good secondary source. 

NOTE: Good cases may come in many forms. For example, a recent lower court decision might lead you to the key case law in that jurisdiction, while a higher court decision from a few years back might be more widely-cited and lead you to a wider range of subsequent interpretive authority (and any key secondary sources). 

What is an annotated statute?

An annotated statute is simply a statute enhanced with editorial content. In Lexis and Westlaw, this editorial content provides the following: 

Historical Notes about amendments to the statute. These are provided below the statutory text (Lexis) or under the History tab (Westlaw). 

Case Notes  provided either at the bottom of the page (Lexis) or under the Notes of Decisions tab (Westlaw). These are cases identified by the publisher as especially important or useful for illustrating the case law interpreting the statute. They are organized by issue and include short summaries pertaining to the holding and relevance are provided for each case.  

Other Citing References  allow you to locate all other material within Lexis and Westlaw that cite to the statute. This includes secondary sources (always useful) and all case law that cites to that specific section. You can narrow down by keywords, jurisdiction, publication status, etc. In Lexis, click the Shepard's link. In Westlaw, click the Citing References tab.

Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg are all actively developing tools to lead you to cases more quickly. These include: 

Westlaw's recommendations and WestSearch Plus. These will show up in the "Suggestions" option that appears when you start typing into the search bar. 

Lexis Ravel View. When you search the case database in Lexis and click on the Ravel icon, you will see an interactive visualization of the citing relationships between the first 75 cases that appear in your results list, ranked by relevance.

Bloomberg's "Points of Law" feature in the Litigation Intelligence Center also allows users to visualize the citing relationships among cases meeting their search criteria.

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• Last Updated: Jun 13, 2024 10:12 AM
• URL: https://law.upenn.libguides.com/researchfundamentals

Free Legal Research Resources - United States

Federal law & gov't docs, secondary sources, data sources, getting help, how to use this guide.

This guide contains selected, free, online United States federal and state legal research materials.

Many lawyers have access to paid databases. Yet, combining paid and free resources, can help them to avoid potentially expensive searches. According to a 2020 Legal Technology Survey Report, nearly 60% of lawyers “say they regularly use free online resources to conduct legal research.”

• Legal Technology - ABA Legal Profile

For researchers without access to paid databases, the following resources may be essential. Legal research is often more effective when using a local law library. To learn more about law libraries throughout the United States, visit:

• Local Law Libraries by AJ Blechner Last Updated Apr 12, 2024 1056 views this year

Range of Materials

The Constitution

Statutes and Legislative Materials

Statutes and legislative materials are becoming available freely online, with increasing frequency. Free resources can be a great starting place for statutory research. However, always make sure you confirm your findings in an authoritative version of the law.

Supreme Court

Case Law and Court Documents

Federal case law and court documents are often available freely online, particularly recently decided cases. Check the website of the deciding court for digital copies of their cases. In addition, the following resources provide free case law.

Case Validation

Case involves ensuring that cases have not been overruled or negatively impacted by later caselaw. Case searching and retrieval through free databases is increasingly achievable. However, paid services are still most often used to validate cases. Tools that facilitate this case validation process are called citators. The best way to access free citators is through state and local public law libraries. To find a state or local law library visit:

Executive Documents

State Statutes and Regulations

Many states and localities publish some or all of their legislative materials on their website. Consider starting with the website of the state or locality in question. Remember, materials on official government websites, may not be the “official copy.” The National Conference of State Legislators provides a list of State Legislative Websites.

The sources below provide alternatives for hard-to-find state materials.

State Case Law and Court Documents

Courts are increasingly making their materials freely available online, frequently via the court website. This is particularly true for state Supreme Courts. When looking for state case law, consider starting with the website of the deciding court. The National Center for State Courts provides a list of state court websites.

U.S. Treaties

Several government-sponsored websites provide the full-text of U.S. treaties on the web. Refer to the list below for date ranges for each sources.

Foreign & International Law

For free resources on foreign and international law, see our foreign and international law guide:

• Free Legal Research Resources - Foreign & International by AJ Blechner Last Updated Sep 12, 2023 995 views this year

Journal Search & Legal Opinions - Google Scholar

Google Scholar offers access to many legal documents including patents, legal opinions and journals. Use the search box below and select the appropriate options from the dropdown menu at the top left of your screen.

While many journals are only available through paid databases, high-quality, open access journals are increasingly common. The following sources collect freely available journal articles.

Books, Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Treatises, Dissertations, Etc.

Secondary sources are also increasingly available online for free. 

Federal Data Sources

Many government data sources are made available to the public for free online. Check the websites of relevant agencies or organizations to look for additional data.

• Additional sources are available on the Harvard Law School Library's website.

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This guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License .

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• Last Updated: Apr 12, 2024 4:50 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.harvard.edu/law/free

Harvard University Digital Accessibility Policy

Legal Research

• Statutory Law
• Regulations
• Secondary sources
• Citing Legal Resources

Case Law Resources

• Caselaw Access Project The Caselaw Access Project (CAP), maintained by the Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab, includes "all official, book-published United States case law — every volume designated as an official report of decisions by a court within the United States...[including] all state courts, federal courts, and territorial courts for American Samoa, Dakota Territory, Guam, Native American Courts, Navajo Nation, and the Northern Mariana Islands." As of the publication of this guide, CAP "currently included all volumes published through 2020 with new data releases on a rolling basis at the beginning of each year."
• CourtListener Court Listener is a free and publicly accessible online platform that provides a collection of legal resources and court documents, including court opinions and case law from various jurisdictions in the United States. It includes PACER data (the RECAP Archive), opinions, or oral argument recordings.
• FindLaw Caselaw Summaries Archive FindLaw provides a database of case law from the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, as well as several state supreme courts. It includes U.S. Supreme Court Opinions, U.S. Federal Appellate Court Opinions and U.S. State Supreme, Appellate and Trial Court Opinions. Search for case summaries or by jurisdiction.
• FindLaw Jurisdiction Search FindLaw provides a database of case law from the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, as well as several state supreme courts. It includes U.S. Supreme Court Opinions, U.S. Federal Appellate Court Opinions and U.S. State Supreme, Appellate and Trial Court Opinions. Search for case summaries or by jurisdiction.
• Google Scholar for Case Law Google Scholar offers an extensive database of state and federal cases, including U.S. Supreme Court Opinions, U.S. Federal District, Appellate, Tax, and Bankruptcy Court Opinions, U.S. State Appellate and Supreme Court Opinions, Scholarly articles, papers, and reports. To get started, select the “case law” radio button, and choose your search terms.
• Justia Justia offers cases from the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, and U.S. District Courts. Additionally, you may find links to many state supreme court and intermediate courts of appeal cases. Content includes U.S. Supreme Court Opinions, U.S. Federal Appellate & District Court Opinions, Selected U.S. Federal Appellate & District Court dockets and orders and U.S. State Supreme & Appellate Court Opinions.

An interdisciplinary, international, full-text database of over 18,000 sources including newspapers, journals, wire services, newsletters, company reports and SEC filings, case law, government documents, transcripts of broadcasts, and selected reference works.

• PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) PACER is a nationwide database for accessing federal court documents, including case dockets. It covers U.S. District Courts, Bankruptcy Courts, and the U.S. Court of Appeals. Users can search for and access federal case dockets and documents for a fee.
• Ravel Law Public Case Access "This new Public Case Access site was created as a result of a collaboration between the Harvard Law School Library and Ravel Law. The company supported the library in its work to digitize 40,000 printed volumes of cases, comprised of over forty million pages of court decisions, including original materials from cases that predate the U.S. Constitution."
• The RECAP Archive Part of CourtListener, RECAP provides access to millions of PACER documents and dockets.

State Courts

• State Court Websites This page provides a list of various state court system websites by state.
• Pennsylvania Judiciary Web Portal The Pennsylvania Judiciary Web Portal provides the public with access to various aspects of court information, including appellate courts, common pleas courts and magisterial district court docket sheets; common pleas courts and magisterial district court calendars; and PAePay.
• Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Opinions

US Supreme Court

• US Reports he opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States are published officially in the United States Reports.
• US Reports through HeinOnline
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How to Conduct Legal Research

September 21, 2021

Conducting legal research can challenge even the most skilled law practitioners.

As laws evolve across jurisdictions, it can be a difficult to keep pace with every legal development. Equally daunting is the ability to track and glean insights into stakeholder strategies and legal responses. Without quick and easy access to the right tools, the legal research upon which case strategy hinges may face cost, personnel, and litigation outcome challenges.

Bloomberg Law’s artificial intelligence-driven tools drastically reduce the time to perform legal research. Whether you seek quick answers to legal research definitions, or general guidance on the legal research process, Bloomberg Law’s Core Litigation Skills Toolkit has you covered.

What is legal research?

Legal research is the process of uncovering and understanding all of the legal precedents, laws, regulations, and other legal authorities that apply in a case and inform an attorney’s course of action.

Legal research often involves case law research, which is the practice of identifying and interpreting the most relevant cases concerning the topic at issue. Legal research can also involve a deep dive into a judge’s past rulings or opposing counsel’s record of success.

Research is not a process that has a finite start and end, but remains ongoing throughout every phase of a legal matter. It is a cornerstone of a litigator’s skills.

[Learn how our integrated, time-saving litigation research tools allow litigators to streamline their work and get answers quickly.]

Where do I begin my legal research?

Beginning your legal research will look different for each assignment. At the outset, ensure that you understand your goal by asking questions and taking careful notes. Ask about background case information, logistical issues such as filing deadlines, the client/matter number, and billing instructions.

It’s also important to consider how your legal research will be used. Is the research to be used for a pending motion? If you are helping with a motion for summary judgment, for example, your goal is to find cases that are in the same procedural posture as yours and come out favorably for your side (i.e., if your client is the one filing the motion, try to find cases where a motion for summary judgment was granted, not denied). Keep in mind the burden of proof for different kinds of motions.

Finally, but no less important, assess the key facts of the case. Who are the relevant parties? Where is the jurisdiction? Who is the judge? Note all case details that come to mind.

What if I’m new to the practice area or specific legal issue?

While conducting legal research, it is easy to go down rabbit holes. Resist the urge to start by reviewing individual cases, which may prove irrelevant. Start instead with secondary sources, which often provide a prevailing statement of the law for a specific topic. These sources will save time and orient you to the area of the law and key issues.

Litigation Practical Guidance provides the essentials including step-by-step guidance, expert legal analysis, and a preview of next steps. Source citations are included in all Practical Guidance, and you can filter Points of Law, Smart Code®, and court opinions searches to get the jurisdiction-specific cases or statutes you need.

Searching across Points of Law will help to get your bearings on an issue before diving into reading the cases in full. Points of Law uses machine learning to identify key legal principles expressed in court opinions, which are easily searchable by keyword and jurisdiction. This tool helps you quickly find other cases that have expressed the same Point of Law, and directs you to related Points of Law that might be relevant to your research. It is automatically updated with the most recent opinions, saving you time and helping you quickly drill down to the relevant cases.

How do I respond to the opposing side’s brief?

Whether a brief is yours or that of the opposing party, Bloomberg Law’s Brief Analyzer is an essential component in the legal research process. It reduces the time spent analyzing a brief, identifying relevant authorities, and preparing a solid response.

To start, navigate to Brief Analyzer available from the Bloomberg Law homepage, within the Litigation Intelligence Center , or from Docket Key search results for briefs.

Simply upload the opposing side’s brief into the tool, and Brief Analyzer will generate a report of the cited authorities and arguments contained in the brief.

You can easily view a comparison with the brief and analysis side by side. It will also point you directly to relevant cases, Points of Law, and Practical Guidance to jump start your research.

[ How to Write a Legal Brief – Learn how to shorten the legal research cycle and give your legal brief a competitive advantage.]

How to optimize your search.

Crafting searches is a critical skill when it comes to legal research. Although many legal research platforms, including Bloomberg Law, offer natural language searching, terms and connectors (also called Boolean) searching is still a vital legal research skill and should be used when searching across court opinions, dockets, Points of Law, and other primary and secondary sources.

When you conduct a natural language search, the search engine applies algorithms to rank your results. Why a certain case is ranked as it is may not be obvious. This makes it harder to interpret whether the search is giving you everything you need. It is also harder to efficiently and effectively manipulate your search terms to zero in on the results you want. Using Boolean searching gives you better control over your search and greater confidence in your results.

The good news? Bloomberg Law does not charge by the search for court opinion searches. If your initial search was much too broad or much too narrow, you do not have to worry about immediately running a new and improved search.

Follow these tips when beginning a search to ensure that you do not miss relevant materials:

• Make sure you do not have typos in your search string.
• Search the appropriate source or section of the research platform. It is possible to search only within a practice area, jurisdiction, secondary resource, or other grouping of materials.
• Make sure you know which terms and connectors are utilized by the platform you are working on and what they mean – there is no uniform standard set of terms of connectors utilized by all platforms.
• Include in your search all possible terms the court might use, or alternate ways the court may address an issue. It is best to group the alternatives together within a parenthetical, connected by OR between each term.
• Consider including single and multiple character wildcards when relevant. Using a single character wildcard (an asterisk) and/or a multiple character wildcard (an exclamation point) helps you capture all word variations – even those you might not have envisioned.
• Try using a tool that helps you find additional relevant case law. When you find relevant authority, use BCITE on Bloomberg Law to find all other cases and/or sources that cite back to that case. When in BCITE, click on the Citing Documents tab, and search by keyword to narrow the results. Alternatively, you can use the court’s language or ruling to search Points of Law and find other cases that addressed the same issue or reached the same ruling.

[Bloomberg Law subscribers can access a complete checklist of search term best practices . Not a subscriber? Request a Demo .]

How can legal research help with drafting or strategy?

Before drafting a motion or brief, search for examples of what firm lawyers filed with the court in similar cases. You can likely find recent examples in your firm’s internal document system or search Bloomberg Law’s dockets. If possible, look for things filed before the same judge so you can get a quick check on rules/procedures to be followed (and by the same partner when possible so you can get an idea of their style preferences).

Careful docket search provides a wealth of information about relevant cases, jurisdictions, judges, and opposing counsel. On Bloomberg Law, type “Dockets Search” in the Go bar or find the dockets search box in the Litigation Intelligence Center .

If you do not know the specific docket number and/or court, use the docket search functionality Docket Key . Select from any of 20 categories, including motions, briefs, and orders, across all 94 federal district courts, to pinpoint the exact filing of choice.

Dockets can also help you access lots of information to guide your case strategy. For example, if you are considering filing a particular type of motion, such as a sanctions motion, you can use dockets to help determine how frequently your judge grants sanctions motions. You can also use dockets to see how similar cases before your judge proceeded through discovery.

If you are researching expert witnesses, you can use dockets to help determine if the expert has been recently excluded from a case, or whether their opinion has been limited. If so, this will help you determine whether the expert is a good fit for your case.

Dockets are a powerful research tool that allow you to search across filings to support your argument. Stay apprised of docket updates with the “Create Alert” option on Bloomberg Law.

Dive deeper into competitive research.

For even more competitive research insights, dive into Bloomberg Law’s Litigation Analytics – this is available in the Litigation tab on the homepage. Data here helps attorneys develop litigation strategy, predict possible outcomes, and better advise clients.

To start, under Litigation Analytics , leverage the Attorney tab to view case history and preview legal strategies the opposition may practice against you. Also, within Litigation Analytics, use the Court tab to get aggregate motion and appeal outcome rates across all federal courts, with the option to run comparisons across jurisdictions, and filter by company, law firm, and attorney.

Use the Judge tab to glean insights from cited opinions, and past and current decisions by motion and appeal outcomes. Also view litigation analytics in the right rail of court opinions.

Docket search can also offer intel on your opponent. Has your opponent filed similar lawsuits or made similar arguments before? How did those cases pan out? You can learn a lot about an opponent from past appearances in court.

How do I validate case law citations?

Checking the status of case law is essential in legal research. Rely on Bloomberg Law’s proprietary citator, BCITE. This time-saving tool lets you know if a case is still good law.

Under each court opinion, simply look to the right rail. There, you will see a thumbnail icon for “BCITE Analysis.” Click on the icon, and you will be provided quick links to direct history (opinions that affect or are affected by the outcome of the case at issue); case analysis (citing cases, with filter and search options), table of authorities, and citing documents.

How should I use technology to improve my legal research?

A significant benefit of digital research platforms and analytics is increased efficiency. Modern legal research technology helps attorneys sift through thousands of cases quickly and comprehensively. These products can also help aggregate or summarize data in a way that is more useful and make associations instantaneously.

For example, before litigation analytics were common, a partner may have asked a junior associate to find all summary judgment motions ruled on by a specific judge to determine how often that judge grants or denies them. The attorney could have done so by manually searching over PACER and/or by searching through court opinions, but that would take a long time. Now, Litigation Analytics can aggregate that data and provide an answer in seconds. Understanding that such products exist can be a game changer. Automating parts of the research process frees up time and effort for other activities that benefit the client and makes legal research and writing more efficient.

[Read our article: Six ways legal technology aids your litigation workflow .]

Tools like  Points of Law ,  dockets  and  Brief Analyzer  can also increase efficiency, especially when narrowing your research to confirm that you found everything on point. In the past, attorneys had to spend many hours (and lots of money) running multiple court opinion searches to ensure they did not miss a case on point. Now, there are tools that can dramatically speed up that process. For example, running a search over Points of Law can immediately direct you to other cases that discuss that same legal principle.

However, it’s important to remember that digital research and analytical tools should be seen as enhancing the legal research experience, not displacing the review, analysis, and judgment of an attorney. An attorney uses his or her knowledge of their client, the facts, the precedent, expert opinions, and his or her own experiences to predict the likely result in a given matter. Digital research products enhance this process by providing more data on a wider array of variables so that an attorney can take even more information into consideration.

[Get all your questions answered, request a Bloomberg Law demo , and more.]

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The People's Law Library

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• Legal Research

Finding Case Law

Topics on this page.

• What is case law?

Court Systems and Hierarchy

Where can i find case law.

• Finding case law by subject
• Can I rely on case law?

What is Case Law?

Case Law is made by judges. Case law is made up of the published opinions of a court on a particular case.  Opinions are written explanations of why the judges decided the case the way they did. Judges write opinions after hearing a case. Judges in the appellate courts (not trial courts) make case law.

Precedent  is a legal principle or rule that was established in an opinion that a lower court must follow. Along with relevant statutes and regulations, courts rely on past case law as precedent for how they will make decisions in present and future cases. Not all case law, however, is used as precedent. A court does not have to rely on past case law to make a decision if any of the following conditions are met:

• The facts of the cases differ.
• The decision in the previous case was from a court in a different jurisdiction.
• The decision in the previous case came from a lower court.
• There is a compelling public policy reason for not following the previous decision.

An appeal is where the court hears arguments on a case after it has gone through a lower court. A case is usually appealed when the party believes a mistake was made at the trial court level.

Case law research can be complex. Reach out to a public law library for assistance. The librarian cannot conduct the research for you, but can walk you through the research process.

Before you search for case law, you need to know about the court system for that jurisdiction, including the hierarchy of the various courts within that system. Court hierarchy determines which courts can overturn the decisions of other courts and which courts must follow another court's interpretation of the law. Trial courts are courts where cases must generally begin and the lowest courts in a court hierarchy.  Appellate courts  hear appeals from lower courts.

Maryland Court System

• The  Supreme Court of Maryland  (formerly the Court of Appeals) is the highest court.
• Below the Supreme Court, the  Appellate Court of Maryland  (formerly the Court of Special Appeals) is the mid-level appellate court.
• The Maryland District and Circuit Courts, are trial courts, the lowest courts in Maryland’s court hierarchy.

The court hierarchy means that if a higher Maryland court disagrees with a lower Maryland court about the meaning of Maryland law, the higher court’s interpretation is used. For example, the Appellate Court issued an opinion interpreting Section 8-213 of the Maryland Code, Real Property. A judge on the Circuit Court was later trying to interpret the same statute. The judge on the Circuit Court must follow the interpretation of the Appellate Court. On the other hand, the Supreme Court might decide that the Appellate Court interpreted the statute incorrectly. When this happens, all lower Maryland courts looking at the same statute must follow the same interpretation of the law used by Supreme Court.

Federal.  The federal legal system has its own system of courts that is completely separate from the state court systems.

• The  United States Supreme Court  is the highest court in the federal system.
• The  Circuit Courts of Appeals  are the intermediate appellate courts. There are 13 Circuit Courts. The jurisdiction of each Circuit Court can contain several states.
• The United States District Courts  are the trial courts. Each state has at least one U.S. District Court. Larger states may have two or more.

All U.S. Circuit and District Courts must follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretations of federal law. All of the U.S. District Courts within a given circuit must also follow that circuit’s U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' interpretation of the law.

Case law is published in periodicals called reporters . All federal and state court systems publish opinions in some form of reporter. A reporter publishes opinions from a limited geographical area or government unit.

Maryland Case Law.  The Supreme Court (formerly the Court of Appeals) and the Appellate Court (formerly the Court of Special Appeals) decide which opinions are published. Published opinions include only about 15% of cases decided by the Appellate Court. Opinions from the trial courts are NOT published. Most public law libraries have print copies of reporters.

• Maryland Reports  – This reporter publishes opinions issued by the Supreme Court of Maryland. In case law citations, the abbreviation is “Md.”
• Maryland Appellate Reports   – This reporter publishes opinions issued by the Appellate Court of Maryland. In case law citations, the abbreviation is “Md. App.”
• Atlantic Reporter  and  Atlantic Reporter Second Series  – The Atlantic Reporter publishes opinions from the appellate courts of many states, including Maryland. The same Maryland court opinions that appear in Maryland Reports and Maryland Appellate Reports also appear in Atlantic Reporter. Look up a Supreme Court of Maryland case in either the Atlantic Reporter or the Maryland Reports .

Unreported Opinions are court opinions that are not published. If you are reviewing an unreported opinion, be aware that there are rules about whether you can rely on that opinion. In Maryland, an unreported opinion of the Supreme Court of Maryland or the Appellate Court of Maryland is not precedent or persuasive authority.

Read the rule: Md. Rule 1-104

Finding Maryland Case Law with a Citation.  A citation is a reference to a legal authority (e.g., statutes, regulations, cases). A citation to a Maryland case published in Maryland Appellate Reports might look like this:  Kimmel v. Safeco Insurance Co. , 116 Md. App. 346 (1997).

• The first part, Kimmel v. Safeco Insurance Co. is the case title .  The title is usually made up of the names of the parties to the case [ Kimmel v. Safeco Insurance Co . , 116 Md. App. 346 (1997)].
• 116 is the volume number [ Kimmel v. Safeco Insurance Co. , 116 Md. App. 346 (1997)].
• Md. App. is the abbreviation of the reporter [ Kimmel v. Safeco Insurance Co. , 116 Md. App. 346 (1997)].
• 346 is the page number [ Kimmel v. Safeco Insurance Co. , 116 Md. App. 346 (1997)].
• 1997 is the year of the decision [ Kimmel v. Safeco Insurance Co. , 116 Md. App. 346 ( 1997 )].

If you are looking for this citation in the print volumes of the  Maryland Appellate Reports,  first locate the volume with 116 on its spine. Then open up the book to page 346. The opinion will start on that page.

Finding Maryland Case Law Online.  The availability of free Maryland case law online is limited. The Thurgood Marshall State Law Library has a research guide on Maryland Case Law Sources , which includes information about the appellate court opinions available on the Maryland Judiciary website.

Google Scholar  is an online option. Google Scholar has Maryland appellate opinions from the 1950s to the present as well as federal cases. Learn more about how to conduct case law research using Google Scholar . Your local public law library may provide access to paid, subscription databases that include features that check whether a case is still good law. A reference librarian can show you how to use these databases.

There are paid legal research databases, such as Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg BNA, that you can use for case law research. However, the subscription costs are usually too expensive for individual researchers. Many public law libraries in Maryland will provide free, in-person access to these databases. The reference librarian can also show you how to use the database. If you are planning on conducting extensive case law research, contact your local, public law library.

Federal Case Law.  All U.S. Supreme Court opinions are published in reporters. For federal Courts of Appeals, approximately 50% of cases are reported. For federal district courts, approximately 10% of cases are reported. Learn more about finding federal case law and decisions from the Library of Congress website.  The Library of Congress also has a research guide with additional resources to find federal case law online , including Google Scholar.

Citators and checking for Updates . Remember, no matter how old they are, cases remain binding law until they are overruled by other cases or until the law is changed by statute or regulation. This means you can’t rely on free Maryland case law databases or print volumes of the reporters for a complete search. You have to check to make sure the opinion that you're reading remains "good law." If the opinion has been superseded, the it is no longer good law. Superseded means that the case law has been overruled by a higher court or by a new regulation or statute. For example, you may be reading a case from 2019 that is no longer good law because the legislature passed a statute in 2020 that overrules the court's interpretation of the law.

To check whether an opinion has been superseded, you will need to use a citator. A citator is a print or online service that lists cases that have cited your case since it was decided. The most popular citator service is  Shepard's Citations , which is available in print and on the web. Print versions of citators can be challenging to use. A citator available through a paid, legal database is usually easier to use. Many, but not all, public law libraries have subscriptions to online citators. To learn about access and how to check if an opinion is still good law, contact your  local public law library .

Finding Case Law Using Google Scholar from the Library of Congress

Finding Case Law by Subject

Below is information about 4 different ways to find case law based on the subject.

Secondary sources - read articles, books, treatises, etc., about the topic.  These resources often include references to relevant case law.

• This is generally the best place to start your research.
• Look for articles or books by reputable authors who are attorneys or judges.
• Read the book and/or article carefully.
• Usually, the articles will discuss one or more cases and explain the patterns of the law applied to the cases.
• The closer that the facts in a case match your situation, the more likely the case will be helpful to you.
• The benefit of using an article/book to start your case research is that the author presumably has done some analysis and research on the topic.
• Be careful with the date of the article. You can assume that the author last did his/her research at least a month or two before the publication date. No cases since that day will be included, meaning, any cases that have been heard since the article was written which changed the law will not be reflected in the article.
• Some of the articles on the Peoples Law Library identify relevant cases. Law libraries have books and encyclopedias that talk about many other areas of law not covered here.

Look at the "annotated" version of the law.  This is a good place to start if you already know the relevant statute. An  annotated code  is a version of the code that include annotations, which is information added by the editors. Annotations can include summaries of cases (i.e., case law), articles, and other sources that discuss that specific statute. Learn more about finding statutes.

Use a case digest.  A digest is basically a subject index to case law that also gives you summaries of the cases indexed. There are different case digests for different legal jurisdictions. For example, search the  Maryland Digest  to find Maryland case law. If you want to find federal case law, search the  Federal Practice Digest . Most public law libraries will have these digests in print as well as through subscription legal research databases.

Search by subject in a database.  There are free, online databases, such as Google Scholar, as well as paid, legal research databases, which are discussed above.

How to Research the Law: Diving In from the Maryland Courts

Can I Rely on Case Law?

It depends. Case law represents a particular decision based on a specific set of facts and circumstances. If you are looking to apply case law to your particular legal situation, keep this in mind. It is unlikely that your case will be exactly like any other. To get the most out of case law remember the following:

• Use case law where the facts are very similar to your legal situation.
• Use case law from the jurisdiction where your case will be heard. For example, if you are going to a Maryland District Court, case law from Maryland's higher courts, such as the Court of Appeals, or the Court of Special Appeals, would be helpful. There is a chart of how the Maryland courts are organized in the Maryland Manual.
• Make sure the case law has not been superseded.

Is this legal advice?

This site offers legal information, not legal advice.  We make every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information and to clearly explain your options.  However we do not provide legal advice - the application of the law to your individual circumstances. For legal advice, you should consult an attorney.  The Maryland Thurgood Marshall State Law Library, a court-related agency of the Maryland Judiciary, sponsors this site.  In the absence of file-specific attribution or copyright, the Maryland Thurgood Marshall State Law Library may hold the copyright to parts of this website. You are free to copy the information for your own use or for other non-commercial purposes with the following language “Source: Maryland's People’s Law Library – www.peoples-law.org . © Maryland Thurgood Marshall State Law Library, 2024.”

Library electronic resources outage May 29th and 30th

Between 9:00 PM EST on Saturday, May 29th and 9:00 PM EST on Sunday, May 30th users will not be able to access resources through the Law Library’s Catalog, the Law Library’s Database List, the Law Library’s Frequently Used Databases List, or the Law Library’s Research Guides. Users can still access databases that require an individual user account (ex. Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg Law), or databases listed on the Main Library’s A-Z Database List.

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There is an abundance of free case law available online. Unfortunately, many of the editorial enhancements and finding aids that legal researchers are accustomed to are not available through these free sources. For example, these sources do not provide digests or headnotes, which organize cases by points of law. Instead, these sources utilize browsing and keyword searching as the principal means of finding relevant cases. Researchers should be aware of these limitations and understand that keyword searching and browsing are not necessarily the best methods to find cases.

For guidance on the significance of case law and methods for finding relevant cases, please see our  Case Law Research Guide .

U.S. Supreme Court Cases

Federal Circuit Court Cases (Reported)

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State Court Cases

Online access to state materials varies widely. Please consult our  state research guides  for information about individual jurisdictions.

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Home » Blogs, News, Advice » Legal Education » Legal Research Techniques for Finding Relevant Case Law

Legal Research Techniques for Finding Relevant Case Law

• Aug 8, 2023
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Legal research is a systematic finding or ascertainment of law on an identified topic or in a given area. Additionally, it is a legal inquiry into the existing scholarship to advance the science of law.

Case law research and analysis is a prerequisite in the process of legal research. The method of acquiring this skill starts as soon as one embarks upon the journey of learning, studying, exploring and most importantly applying the law in a practical scenario.

Reading a case law, comprehending the rationale behind the decision and relating it to the present case to build a compelling and coherent argument is a skill every lawyer not only aspires to acquire. In order to become proficient and accomplished in their chosen profession, every lawyer must be skilled in finding relevant case laws through different means. One can learn several legal research techniques to find relevant case laws in legal databases.

Read on to find out several tools and techniques of Legal Research.

What are the different types of Legal Research?

Different types of research are crucial in case law research as they provide varied perspectives and information. Legal research helps identify relevant statutes, regulations, and precedents.

By utilizing these different research methods, researchers can obtain a comprehensive understanding of the legal landscape and make well-informed arguments or decisions in case law research. There are several legal research methodologies available for researchers to pursue their research.

1. Descriptive & Analytical Research

Descriptive research methodology focuses more on the “what” of the subject than the “why” of the research question. It is a description-based methodology that studies the characteristics of the population or phenomenon. The analytical research, however, uses the facts and information available to make a critical evaluation.

2. Qualitative & Quantitative Research

Qualitative legal research is a subjective method that relies on the researcher’s analysis of the controlled observations. In Quantitative Legal Research, one collects data from existing and potential data using sampling techniques like online surveys, polls, & questionnaires. The researcher can represent the outcomes of the quantitative study numerically.

3. Doctrinal & Empirical Research

In doctrinal legal research, the researcher analyses the existing statutory data to find the relevant answer to “What is the Law?” However, in empirical research, the researcher creates new data using several data collection methods and uses statistical tools to analyze it.

What is the Case Law Technique in Legal Research?

Case laws are the primary sources, i.e., the most original source, used in all legal research methodologies.

The case law technique in legal research methodology studies judicial opinions or decisions, and it is the technique of finding relevant legal precedents and principles. This is more challenging than it sounds because finding applicable case laws from legal databases is confusing and time-consuming, if the researcher is not well-versed with the tools.

Like legislation, case law can also be challenged and consequently change over time, as per the changing needs of the society. An earlier decision does not guarantee that it will always remain the law of the land.

Therefore, a lawyer must be skilled at finding, reading, and ascertaining the relevance, applicability and legal standing of any case law at a given point of time. . Thus, the importance of case law technique in legal research is quite significant as there can be no legal research without delving deep into judicial decisions.

How to Do Legal Research for Case Laws?

Before the time of the web, legal databases were in the form of multi-volume bulky books and digests. Researchers had to locate the cases manually with the help of case citations which was extremely time consuming. Though these periodicals are still available, online legal databases have overpowered them owing to their easy accessibility and time-saving tendency.

The Offline Tools for Legal Research

The researcher can locate case laws using the citations in printed law reporters. For example, the citation of a case is AIR 2017 SC 57, here the name of the Law Reporter in which the case law is published is AIR (All India Reporter), the year of the judgment is 2017, SC (Supreme Court) is the name of the Court, and the page number of the printed reporter on which the judgment can be found is 57.

The format of citation differs for every law reporter. Thus, the first step for locating the proper case law using citation is to decode the name of the law reporter.

The law reporters also categorize all the case laws. Thus, if the researcher does not know the case citation, they can find the case law as per its category.

The Online Tools for Legal Research

Using online tools for finding case laws is relatively easy. Even if the researcher does not know the name, citation, or year of the judgment, they can still find the same or similar judgments, thanks to these online tools’ intelligent features.

The only drawback is the majority of these tools require a heavy subscription fee which is not ideal for everyone.

What are the Methods of Locating Relevant Case Laws?

A researcher can locate relevant case laws if they know either of the following:

The identity of the case in law reporters, usually denoted in a combination of words & numbers.

For example: (1973) 4 SCC 225; AIR 1973 SC 1461

Case number

The official number the Court gives to a particular case.

For example: W.P.(C) 135 OF 1970

Name of the Parties

Either party’s name can be used for finding the case law.

For example: Petitioner’s name- Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalvaru

Respondent’s name- State of Kerala

Jurisdiction

A researcher can filter their finding by deciding which Court’s judgment they want to look for.

A researcher can refer to various statute-based legal databases while finding a case law pertaining to a particular statute.

For example: The Labour Law Reporter publishes judgments specifically related to the Labour Laws of India.

How to Find Relevant Case Laws in India?

The offline tools.

The Supreme Court Reports (SCR) are the only authorized Indian law report series, and Supreme Court decisions should be cited from here whenever possible. However, Supreme Court Reporters are about four years behind in publishing the cases. Because of the long delay in the publication of the SCR. Therefore, it is entirely acceptable to cite a few unauthorized reports in academic and judicial work.

All India Reporter (AIR) is often cited in preference to the SCR, and in the Indian courts it has the status of an authorized series. The Law Library has the AIRs in print.

Online Tools

• Supreme Court of India at main.sci.gov.in . All the latest judgments by the Supreme Court of India are available here.
• Judgment Search Portal at judgments.ecourts.gov.in/pdfsearch/index.php : You can find the old Supreme Court Judgments here by entering any related keyword. It can be the citation of the case, name of the parties, case number, nature of the case, etc.
• SCC Online at www.scconline.com : India’s premier legal database with access to complete coverage of the Supreme Court, all High Courts, Tribunals and Commissions, Statutory Material and many foreign jurisdictions’ and International material. Individual registration is required to use this online legal database .
• AIROnline at www.aironline.in : Again, a subscription-based legal database which covers the judgments of all Supreme Courts, all High Courts, Tribunals and Commissions. The subscribers can find the case laws through citations, individual words, or exact phrases.
• Manupatra at www.manupatrafast.com : Indian case law coverage includes full-text decisions from the Supreme Court, all High Courts, the Federal Court, Privy Council and many tribunals. It covers judgments from the inception of each Court. The legislations covered include bare acts, amending acts, repealed legislation, subordinate legislation and bills from all jurisdictions. The primary material is grouped by topic; the secondary material comprises annotated legislation and commentary.
• Indian Kanoon at indiankanoon.org contains unreported decisions and is more up-to-date by a few days than the unreported cases on Manupatra or SCC Online. It goes back further (for example, Supreme Court cases started in 1947 in Kanoon and 1950 in Manupatra).

If you are looking for very recent decisions or if it is optional to access a reported version of the case, use Kanoon. Citation, party names, keywords, Court, date range etc., can search it. Researchers can also browse Indian Kanoon by Court and year. Indian Kanoon is also free!

However, Indian Kanoon tends to provide fewer parallel citations than Manupatra. It relies on user-generated content, lacks official verification, may contain outdated or inaccurate information, and sometimes does not provide comprehensive access to all relevant legal materials and judgments.

The approach to case law research has changed globally and in India due to technological advancement. According to statistics, roughly 33.9% of lawyers begin their research by using Google. Because Google is a generic search engine, the search results may sometimes be vague. Hence, case law databases or search engines that are tailor-made for lawyers emerge.

Lawctopus Law School’s Legal Research & Writing Course helps law students and legal professionals in understanding a crisp way to conduct Legal Research of different techniques and the right way to use legal databases.

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How to Research Case Law

Last Updated: August 9, 2020 References

This article was written by Jennifer Mueller, JD . Jennifer Mueller is an in-house legal expert at wikiHow. Jennifer reviews, fact-checks, and evaluates wikiHow's legal content to ensure thoroughness and accuracy. She received her JD from Indiana University Maurer School of Law in 2006. This article has been viewed 22,283 times.

U.S. law is more than just statutes passed by legislatures. Appellate courts – including the U.S. Supreme Court – are responsible for interpreting those statutes, and that interpretation becomes part of the law itself. Therefore, to understand a statute and how a court will decide an issue arising under it, you must study written appellate court opinions. Researching case law begins with finding one case that discusses the legal issues you've identified, then using that case to find others that together point to a legal resolution for the problem at hand.

Identifying Legal Issues

• For example, if you were involved in a car accident and want to sue the driver of the other car, you'll want case law that deals with the duty of care of other drivers that relates specifically to the circumstances surrounding your accident. If the other driver hit you because she ran a stop sign, you should look for cases that involve accidents that occurred when one party ran a stop sign.
• Cases provide stronger support that have facts that are more closely related to the facts in your situation. All facts potentially are relevant in finding the most similar case, so you can argue that the rule the court applied in that case also applies to your situation.
• To continue the stop-sign example, if the accident occurred at night, you should be looking for cases where the accident occurred at night – even if visibility wasn't a serious issue in your case. The courts may have established a different rule for night driving that doesn't apply during the day.
• You also want to be on the lookout for underlying or tertiary issues. For example, if you want to research case law relevant to your divorce, there may be other issues involving property ownership, retirement accounts, or child custody. Those issues typically would have to be researched separately.

• For example, some parties have a fiduciary relationship, which means one party owes the other a higher standard of care. Financial advisors and home-care providers are examples of professionals who have a fiduciary duty to their clients.
• A contractual relationship is another type of relationship that may be present. If the parties signed a contract, that document likely defines their relationship and their duties to one another.

• For example, suppose you want to know whether you can ask a court to order specific performance under a contract you entered in which the other party breached. While cases similar to yours that stand for the principal that the actions of the other party amount to breach of contract, you also want to focus on the remedy – whether the party who sued was entitled to anything other than monetary damages as a result of the breach.
• Similarly, if you're interested in what the maximum monetary award might be for a case such as yours, you would want to look for cases in which the amount of monetary damages was one of the issues before the court that issued the decision.

• In many ways, doing legal research is similar to researching anything else. The search limits you set at this stage are mostly based on common sense.
• For example, if you were doing research on a historical event, you might limit your search to the year the event took place or the geographical area where the event occurred.
• Similarly, if you're researching a legal issue, you want to limit your research to the relevant state or geographic area, and to relatively recent cases. Although it may be interesting, you probably won't get much value from a case decided 100 years ago.

Finding the Most Relevant Cases

• In addition to print resources, the public law library also may have subscriptions to legal research databases and search engines, which typically allow you to conduct case law research more efficiently.
• Major online research databases include Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg Law. Through these databases you should be able to find most of the published opinions for federal and state appellate courts. These databases are only available with a subscription, but the library you visit may have one so patrons can conduct research.
• There also are several online databases that can be searched for free, such as Findlaw and Google Scholar. These databases typically have more limited offerings than the subscription databases, and their search engines may be clunkier and less intuitive.
• You can work with many of these free online resources on your computer at home, but you won't have the benefit of a law librarian to help you if you get stuck.

• Secondary sources also can help you become more familiar with legal phrases and terms of art that are frequently mentioned in judicial opinions or other discussions of your research topic.
• For example, you may be researching merchandising agreements, but be unaware that these agreements also are referred to simply as "licensing agreements," since they typically deal with trademarked intellectual property. Including this information in your searches can produce more targeted search results.

• If your legal issue relates to a particular law, you always should start with the text of the law itself. However, if the law was passed recently, you may be able to find news articles or other information about the law that can aid in your understanding of it.
• Look up the statute in an annotated reporter, and you'll see citations for articles and court cases that discuss that particular law.
• The context of the annotation should give you some idea of why the law was referenced and what was said about it.

• For example, if you're looking for cases involving car accidents, you may want to search using a word like "vehicle" as well. Not only would that word also include trucks and SUVs, but it's a word more likely used in statutes and police reports, which means it's also more likely to show up in court opinions.
• In other situations, you may need a narrower word. For example, searching for intellectual property cases may turn up cases involving copyrights, patents, and trademarks – each of which is subject to different laws and licensing schemes. If you're only interested in copyright infringement cases, you should use the word "copyright" instead of "intellectual property."

• To locate a case you've found using print volumes, look at the citation. The name of the case will be first.
• After the name of the case, there will be a name surrounded by numbers. The name is the case reporter where that opinion is found.
• The number before the case reporter's name is the volume number, while the number following the reporter's name is the page number where that case is printed within that volume.
• For example, suppose you see the case Smith v. California come up frequently in your reading. The first part of the citation for that case is "Smith v. California, 22 U.S. 248." This tells you that the case is a U.S. Supreme Court case, published in the U.S. Reporter, and that you'll find the case on page 248 of volume 22.
• If you're searching for a case online, you can enter the same information into the search bar of the legal search engine you're using to pull up the case.
• If you don't yet have a citation and you're trying to find cases relevant to an issue, you can use basic search terms online to find cases, but keep in mind there's no guarantee that these cases will actually have value for you.
• If you search using key words, you'll have to read the cases you find to know if they actually have anything to do with the topic or issue you're researching. Even though they're not officially part of the court's decision, the summary and head notes can be helpful here by enabling you to quickly skim and determine if a case has enough relevance to your issue to justify reading further.
• Keep the hierarchy of courts in mind. A U.S. Supreme Court case is binding on all lower courts, but an appellate court decision is only binding within its own district. Outside of that territory, these cases are referred to as "persuasive" authority, meaning a court in another district may consider them is not bound to follow them.
• The strongest case you can find to support your argument is one with facts similar to yours that is binding over the courts in the geographic area where your case will be heard. Make sure the holding itself falls in line with the reasoning of your argument.

Following the Research Trail

• Keep in mind that the headnotes are created by the editors of the volumes in which the cases are published – they aren't part of the decision itself, but they can help you focus your research.
• Each publisher has its own system for organizing headnotes, so you have to stay within the same publisher when you're following headnotes or the numbers won't match up.
• For example, if you're using West's reporters and you're researching case law on a property line dispute you have with your neighbor, you might look under the West key number 15, which corresponds to "adjoining landowners."
• Most print publishers also have their own online case research services, so be careful not to get confused if you're using more than one online service.
• For example, the publisher West also operates Westlaw, so the key numbers there are the same as the ones in West's print reporters, but wouldn't match up with the headnotes used by another publisher – either online or in print.
• Consider the information in the headnotes to be research assistance, but always read the entire opinion if you think you're going to use it for your argument. The headnotes can sometimes misrepresent the holding of the case, and courts don't consider them authoritative anyway.

• Keep in mind that Shepard's is a particular citator service, which is owned by Lexis. Competing legal publishers such as Bloomberg Law and West have their own citator services that go by different names, but follow the same basic process and lead to similar results.
• Technically, you'll want to Shepardize any case you plan to use or reference in legal documents to make sure it's still "good law." This means the case is still cited by other courts for that rule or principal, and hasn't been overturned by a later court.
• When you Shepardize a case, you look it up in the appropriate volume of Shepard's Citations, and evaluate the stream of cites listed for your case.
• If you're using an online database, it typically will have a method to Shepardize the case that will provide you with the same information as if you'd used the print volumes. An online database also often includes a summary of the results that will tell you more immediately if the case is still considered good law.

• Looking up a case using a citator service helps you ascertain the status of the case and its precedential value –whether it is binding on other courts, and to what extent. You do this by finding out what happened to the case after the decision you found, and how other courts treated the decision once it was published.
• For example, if you're reading a case from a federal circuit court of appeals, that case won't have any information on what happened to it afterward. If the losing party appealed to a higher court, and that higher court reversed the lower court decision you read, the case you read is not good law.
• However, if the lower court ruling was affirmed on appeal, it's potentially a stronger case. You'll have to read the higher court case to determine if the reasoning was the same.
• In the line of citations, look for words or codes used as signals to tell you how the case was treated in the citations that follow. For example, you might see the word (or abbreviation for the word) "criticized," followed by a citation to another case. This tells you that the court in the cited case criticized the holding of the case you read.
• If you see any negative treatment of a case you plan to use, you need to read those cases to figure out how they affect your case. If an opinion is roundly criticized by other courts and is never followed, it typically isn't a strong case to cite for that legal principal.

• It is always best to cite published cases. A judge may order a case unpublished for a variety of reasons, but in many cases an unpublished opinion is not seen as binding authority.
• If you find an unpublished opinion that you want to cite, check the local rules of the court that issued the opinion to try to figure out why it wasn't published.
• Whenever you find a case that you think you want to use, you must go through the same process you did with the first cases you found, in terms of running the citation of the case through a citator service and confirming that it is still good law.

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

• ↑ http://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/cases
• ↑ http://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/cases/lexis-westlaw
• ↑ http://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/02/how-to-locate-free-case-law-on-the-internet/
• ↑ https://www.law.georgetown.edu/library/research/tutorials/cases/upload/3_finding_text.pdf
• ↑ https://www.law.georgetown.edu/library/research/tutorials/cases/upload/4_headnotes_text.pdf

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Artificial Intelligence and the Law

Legal scholars on the potential for innovation and upheaval.

• December 5, 2023
• Tomas Weber
• Illustrations by Joan Wong | Photography by Timothy Archibald
• Fall 2023 – Issue 109
• Cover Story
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Earlier this year, in Belgium, a young father of two ended his life after a conversation with an AI-powered chatbot. He had, apparently, been talking to the large language model regularly and had become emotionally dependent on it. When the system encouraged him to commit suicide, he did. “Without these conversations with the chatbot,” his widow told a Brussels newspaper, “my husband would still be here.”

A devastating tragedy, but one that experts predict could become a lot more common.

As the use of generative AI expands, so does the capacity of large language models to cause serious harm. Mark Lemley (BA ’88), the William H. Neukom Professor of Law, worries about a future in which AI provides advice on committing acts of terrorism, recipes for poisons or explosives, or disinformation that can ruin reputations or incite violence.

The question is who, if anybody, will be held accountable for these harms?

“We don’t have case law yet,” Lemley says. “The company that runs the AI is not doing anything deliberate. They don’t necessarily know what the AI is going to say in response to any given prompt.” So, who’s liable? “The correct answer, right now, might be nobody. And that’s something we will probably want to change.”

Generative AI is developing at a stunning speed, creating new and thorny problems in well-established legal areas, disrupting long-standing regimes of civil liability—and outpacing the necessary frameworks, both legal and regulatory, that can ensure the risks are anticipated and accounted for.

To keep up with the flood of new,  large language models like ChatGPT, judges and lawmakers will need to grapple, for the first time, with a host of complex questions. For starters, how should the law govern harmful speech that is not created by human beings with rights under the First Amendment? How must criminal statutes and prosecutions change to address the role of bots in the commission of crimes? As growing numbers of people seek legal advice from chatbots, what does that mean for the regulation of legal services? With large language models capable of authoring novels and AI video generators churning out movies, how can existing copyright law be made current?

Hanging over this urgent list of questions is yet another: Are politicians, administrators, judges, and lawyers ready for the upheaval AI has triggered?

ARTIFICIAL AGENTS, CRIMINAL INTENT

Did ChatGPT defame Professor Lemley?

In 2023, when Lemley asked the chatbot GPT-4 to provide information about himself, it said he had been accused of a crime: namely, the misappropriation of trade secrets. Director of the Stanford Program in Law, Science and Technology , Lemley had done no such thing. His area of research, it seems, had caused the chatbot to hallucinate criminal offenses.

More recently, while researching a paper on AI and liability, Lemley and his team asked Google for information on how to prevent seizures. The search engine responded with a link titled “Had a seizure, now what?” and Lemley clicked. Among the answers: “put something in someone’s mouth” and “hold the person down.” Something was very wrong. Google’s algorithm, it turned out, had sourced content from a webpage explaining precisely what not to do. The error could have caused serious injury. (This advice is no longer included in search results.)

Lemley says it is not clear AI companies will be held liable for errors like these. The law, he says, needs to evolve to plug the gaps. But Lemley is also concerned about an even broader problem: how to deal with AI models that cause harm but that have impenetrable technical details locked inside a black box.

Take defamation. Establishing liability, Lemley explains, requires a plaintiff to prove mens rea: an intent to deceive. When the author of an allegedly defamatory statement is a chatbot, though, the question of intent becomes murky and will likely turn on the model’s technical details: how exactly it was trained and optimized.

To guard against possible exposure, Lemley fears, developers will make their models less transparent. Turning an AI into a black box, after all, makes it harder for plaintiffs to argue that it had the requisite “intent.” At the same time, it makes models more difficult to regulate.

How, then, should we change the law? What’s needed, says Lemley, is a legal framework that incentivizes developers to focus less on avoiding liability and more on encouraging companies to create systems that reflect our preferences. We’d like systems to be open and comprehensible, he says. We’d prefer AIs that do not lie and do not cause harm. But that doesn’t mean they should only say nice things about people simply to avoid liability. We expect them to be genuinely informative.

In light of these competing interests, judges and policymakers should take a fine-grained approach to AI cases, asking what, exactly, we should be seeking to incentivize. As a starting point, suggests Lemley, we should dump the mens rea requirement in AI defamation cases now that we’ve entered an era when dangerous content can so easily be generated by machines that lack intent.

Lemley’s point extends to AI speech that contributes to criminal conduct. Imagine, he says, a chatbot generating a list of instructions for becoming a hit man or making a deadly toxin. There is precedent for finding human beings liable for these things. But when it comes to AI, once again accountability is made difficult by the machine’s lack of intent.

“We want AI to avoid persuading people to hurt themselves, facilitating crimes, and telling falsehoods about people,” Lemley writes in “Where’s the Liability in Harmful AI Speech?” So instead of liability resting on intent, which AIs lack, Lemley suggests an AI company should be held liable for harms in cases where it was designed without taking standard actions to mitigate risk.

“It is deploying AI to help prosecutors make decisions that are not conditioned on race. Because that’s what the law requires.”

Julian Nyarko, associate professor of law, on the algorithm he developed

At the same time, Lemley worries that holding AI companies liable when ordinary humans wouldn’t be, may inappropriately discourage development of the technology. He and his co-authors argue that we need a set of best practices for safe AI. Companies that follow the best practices would be immune from suit for harms that result from their technology while companies that ignore best practices would be held responsible when their AIs are found to have contributed to a resulting harm.

HELPING TO CLOSE THE ACCESS TO JUSTICE GAP 

As AI threatens to disrupt criminal law, lawyers themselves are facing major disruptions. The technology has empowered individuals who cannot find or pay an attorney to turn to AI-powered legal help. In a civil justice system awash in unmet legal need, that could be a game changer.

“It’s hard to believe,” says David Freeman Engstrom , JD ’02, Stanford’s LSVF Professor in Law and co-director of the Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession , “but the majority of civil cases in the American legal system—that’s millions of cases each year—are debt collections, evictions, or family law matters.” Most pit a represented institutional plaintiff (a bank, landlord, or government agency) against an unrepresented individual. AI-powered legal help could profoundly shift the legal services marketplace while opening courthouse doors wider for all.

“Up until now,” says Engstrom, “my view was that AI wasn’t powerful enough to move the dial on access to justice.” That view was front and center in a book Engstrom published earlier this year, Legal Tech and the Future of Civil Justice . Then ChatGPT roared onto the scene—a “lightning-bolt moment,” as he puts it. The technology has advanced so fast that Engstrom now sees rich potential for large language models to translate back and forth between plain language and legalese, parsing an individual’s description of a problem and responding with clear legal options and actions.

“We need to make more room for new tools to serve people who currently don’t have lawyers,” says Engstrom, whose Rhode Center has worked with multiple state supreme courts on how to responsibly relax their unauthorized practice of law and related rules. As part of that work, a groundbreaking Rhode Center study offered the first rigorous evidence on legal innovation in Utah and Arizona, the first two states to implement significant reforms.

But there are signs of trouble on the horizon. This summer, a New York judge sanctioned an attorney for filing a motion that cited phantom precedents. The lawyer, it turns out, relied on ChatGPT for legal research, never imagining the chatbot might hallucinate fake law.

How worried should we be about AI-powered legal tech leading lay people—or even attorneys—astray? Margaret Hagan , JD ’13, lecturer in law, is trying to walk a fine line between techno-optimism and pessimism.

“I can see the point of view of both camps,” says Hagan, who is also the executive director of the Legal Design Lab , which is researching how AI can increase access to justice, as well as designing and evaluating new tools. “The lab tries to steer between those two viewpoints and not be guided by either optimistic anecdotes or scary stories.”

To that end, Hagan is studying how individuals are using AI tools to solve legal problems. Beginning in June, she gave volunteers fictional legal scenarios, such as receiving an eviction notice, and watched as they consulted Google Bard. “People were asking, ‘Do I have any rights if my landlord sends me a notice?’ and ‘Can I really be evicted if I pay my rent on time?’” says Hagan.

Bard “provided them with very clear and seemingly authoritative information,” she says, including correct statutes and ordinances. It also offered up imaginary case law and phone numbers of nonexistent legal aid groups.

In her policy lab class, AI for Legal Help , which began last autumn, Hagan’s students are continuing that work by interviewing members of the public about how they might use AI to help them with legal problems. As a future lawyer, Jessica Shin, JD ’25, a participant in Hagan’s class, is concerned about vulnerable people placing too much faith in these tools.

“I’m worried that if a chatbot isn’t dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, key things can and will be missed—like  statute of limitation deadlines or other procedural steps that will make or break their cases,” she says.

“Government cannot govern AI, if government doesn’t understand AI.”

Daniel Ho, William Benjamin Scott and Luna M. Scott Professor of Law

Given all this promise and peril, courts need guidance, and SLS is providing it. Engstrom was just tapped by the American Law Institute to lead a multiyear project to advise courts on “high-volume” dockets, including debt, eviction, and family cases. Technology will be a pivotal part, as will examining how courts can leverage AI. Two years ago, Engstrom and Hagan teamed up with Mark Chandler, JD ’81, former Cisco chief legal officer now at the Rhode Center, to launch the Filing Fairness Project . They’ve partnered with courts in seven states, from Alaska to Texas, to make it easier for tech providers to serve litigants using AI-based tools. Their latest collaboration will work with the Los Angeles Superior Court, the nation’s largest, to design new digital pathways that better serve court users.

CAN MACHINES PROMOTE COMPLIANCE WITH THE LAW?

The hope that AI can be harnessed to help foster fairness and efficiency extends to the work of government too. Take criminal justice. It’s supposed to be blind, but the system all too often can be discriminatory—especially when it comes to race. When deciding whether to charge or dismiss a case, a prosecutor is prohibited by the Constitution from taking a suspect’s race into account. There is real concern, though, that these decisions might be shaped by racial bias—whether implicit or explicit.

Enter AI. Julian Nyarko , associate professor of law, has developed an algorithm to mask race-related information from felony reports. He then implemented the algorithm in a district attorney’s office, erasing racially identifying details before the reports reached the prosecutor’s desk. Nyarko believes his algorithm will help ensure lawful prosecutorial decisions.

“The work uses AI tools to increase compliance with the law,” he says. “It is deploying AI to help prosecutors make decisions that are not conditioned on race. Because that’s what the law requires.”

GOVERNING AI

While the legal profession evaluates how it might integrate this new technology, the government has been catching up on how to grapple with the AI revolution. According to Daniel Ho , the William Benjamin Scott and Luna M. Scott Professor of Law and a senior fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI, one of the core challenges for the public sector is a dearth of expertise.

Very few specialists in AI choose to work in the public sector. According to a recent survey, less than 1 percent of recent AI PhD graduates took positions in government—compared with some 60 percent who chose industry jobs. A lack of the right people, and an ailing government digital infrastructure, means the public sector is missing the expertise to craft law and policy and effectively use these tools to improve governance. “Government cannot govern AI,” says Ho, “if government doesn’t understand AI.”

Ho, who also advises the White House as an appointed member of the National AI Advisory Committee (NAIAC), is concerned policymakers and administrators lack sufficient knowledge to separate speculative from concrete risks posed by the technology.

Evelyn Douek , a Stanford Law assistant professor, agrees. There is a lack of available information about how commonly used AI tools work—information the government could use to guide its regulatory approach, she says. The outcome? An epidemic of what Douek calls “magical thinking” on the part of the public sector about what is possible.

The information gap between the public and private sectors motivated a large research team from Stanford Law School’s Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab (RegLab) to assess the feasibility of recent proposals for AI regulation. The team, which included Tino Cuéllar (MA ’96, PhD ’00), former SLS professor and president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Colleen Honigsberg , professor of law; and Ho, concluded that one important step is for the government to collect and investigate events in which AI systems seriously malfunction or cause harm, such as with bioweapons risk.

“If you look at other complex products, like cars and pharmaceuticals, the government has a database of information that details the factors that led to accidents and harms,” says Neel Guha, JD/PhD ’24 (BA ’18), a PhD student in computer science and co-author of a forthcoming paper that explores this topic. The NAIAC formally adopted this recommendation for such a reporting system in November.

“Our full understanding of how these systems are being used and where they might fail is still in flux,” says Guha. “An adverse-event-reporting system is a necessary prerequisite for more effective governance.”

MODERNIZING GOVERNMENT

While the latest AI models demand new regulatory tools and frameworks, they also require that we rethink existing ones—a challenge when the various stakeholders often operate in separate silos.

“Policymakers might propose something that is technically impossible. Engineers might propose a technical solution that is flatly illegal.” Ho says. “What you need are people with an understanding of both dimensions.”

Last year, Ho, Christie Lawrence, JD ’24, and Isaac Cui, JD ’25, documented extensive challenges the federal government faced in implementing AI legal requirements in an article. This led Ho to testify before the U.S. Senate on a range of reforms. And this work is driving change. The landmark White House executive order on AI adopted these recommendations, and the proposed AI Leadership to Enable Accountable Deployment (AI LEAD) Act would further codify recommendations, such as the creation of a chief AI officer, agency AI governance boards, and agency strategic planning. These requirements would help ensure the government is able to properly use and govern the technology.

“If generative AI technologies continue on their present trajectory, it seems likely that they will upend many of our assumptions about a copyright system.”

Paul Goldstein, Stella W. and Ira S. Lillick Professor of Law

Ho, as faculty director of RegLab, is also building bridges with local and federal agencies to develop high-impact demonstration projects of machine learning and data science in the public sector.

The RegLab is working with the Internal Revenue Service to modernize the tax-collection system with AI. It is collaborating with the Environmental Protection Agency to develop machine-learning technology to improve environmental compliance. And during the pandemic, it partnered with Santa Clara County to improve the public health department’s wide range of pandemic response programs.

“AI has real potential to transform parts of the public sector,” says Ho. “Our demonstration projects with government agencies help to envision an affirmative view of responsible technology to serve Americans.”

In a sign of an encouraging shift, Ho has observed an increasing number of computer scientists gravitating toward public policy, eager to participate in shaping laws and policy to respond to rapidly advancing AI, as well as law students with deep interests in technology. Alumni of the RegLab have been snapped up to serve in the IRS and the U.S. Digital Service, the technical arm of the executive branch. Ho himself serves as senior advisor on responsible AI to the U.S. Department of Labor. And the law school and the RegLab are front and center in training a new generation of lawyers and technologists to shape this future.

AI GOES TO HOLLYWOOD 

Swaths of books and movies have been made about humans threatened by artificial intelligence, but what happens when the technology becomes a menace to the entertainment industry itself? It’s still early days for generative AI-created novels, films, and other content, but it’s beginning to look like Hollywood has been cast in its own science fiction tale—and the law has a role to play.

“If generative AI technologies continue on their present trajectory,” says the Stella W. and Ira S. Lillick Professor of Law Paul Goldstein , “it seems likely that they will upend many of our assumptions about a copyright system.”

There are two main assumptions behind intellectual property law that AI is on track to disrupt. From feature films and video games with multimillion-dollar budgets to a book whose author took five years to complete, the presumption has been that copyright law is necessary to incentivize costly investments. Now AI has upended that logic.

“When a video game that today requires a $100 million investment can be produced by generative AI at a cost that is one or two orders of magnitude lower,” says Goldstein, “the argument for copyright as an incentive to investment will weaken significantly across popular culture.”

The second assumption, resting on the consumer side of the equation, is no more stable. Copyright, a system designed in part to protect the creators of original works, has also long been justified as maximizing consumer choice. However, in an era of AI-powered recommendation engines, individual choice becomes less and less important, and the argument will only weaken as streaming services “get a lot better at figuring out what suits your tastes and making decisions for you,” says Goldstein.

If these bedrock assumptions behind copyright are both going to be rendered “increasingly irrelevant” by AI, what then is the necessary response? Goldstein says we need to find legal frameworks that will better safeguard human authors.

“I believe that authorship and autonomy are independent values that deserve to be protected,” he says. Goldstein foresees a framework in which AI-produced works are clearly labeled as such to guarantee consumers have accurate information.

The labeling approach may have the advantage of simplicity, but on its own it is not enough. At a moment of unprecedented disruption, Goldstein argues, lawmakers should be looking for additional ways to support human creators who will find themselves competing with AIs that can generate works faster and for a fraction of the cost. The solution, he suggests, might involve looking to practices in countries that have traditionally given greater thought to supporting artists, such as those in Europe.

“There will always be an appetite for authenticity, a taste for the real thing,” Goldstein says. “How else do you explain why someone will pay $2,000 to watch Taylor Swift from a distant balcony, when they could stream the same songs in their living room for pennies?” In the case of intellectual property law, catching up with the technology may mean heeding our human impulse—and taking the necessary steps to facilitate the deeply rooted urge to make and share authentic works of art.  SL

This Week in the Law Library … July 15, 2024

This week in the Law Library we’re looking at more bar exam resources, reviewing more basic legal research skills for summer, and celebrating Disability Pride Month.

Bar Exam Study Resources

Congratulations! You have made it through law school but now the bar exam looms. Don’t worry, the Law Library’s got your back. When you’ve caught your breath and you’re ready to start your bar studying, we have resources that can help. Check out our Bar Exam Research Guide .

The July 2024 bar examination will be administered at the Roberts Centre , 123 Gano Road, Wilmington, Ohio July 30-31, 2024. The Holiday Inn Roberts Centre room block opens on May 14, 2024, at 11 am. Learn more at: Ohio Bar Exam

5 More Resources to Help You Study for the Bar Exam

The Bar Exam is not a sprint, it’s a marathon so pace yourself! You can see the previous week’s featured bar exam resources on our July 1 , June 24 , June 17 , June 10 , June 3 , May 28 , and May 21 . Check out this week’s Bar Exam Resource highlights below on what to do two weeks before the bar exam.

Ameribar, It’s Two Weeks Before the Bar Exam. Help!

Shelley Awe, Bar Exam Tips for Two Weeks Out, Vault (Feb. 8, 2021)

Bar Exam Mind, Bar Exam Schedule: The Final Two Weeks

Bar Exam Toolbox, You Have Two Weeks of Bar Prep Remaining, Have You Completed This Checklist?

JD Advising, How to Make a Study Schedule the Last Two Weeks of Bar Exam Prep

Summer Legal Research Tips

Previously, we looked at:

Initial steps to take when you get a summer research project

Start by identifying the resources available to you at your place of summer employment and ask questions. Develop a research plan. Read more about developing a research plan on our Research Strategy & Documentation guide .

Secondary sources

Then you may need to do background research about your issue before jumping into primary sources such as statutes and case law. A good secondary source can explain the law around your issue and cite you to primary sources. It can save you a lot of time and effort! Learn more about researching in secondary sources in our Researching Secondary Sources Guide or watch our videos on finding and searching within the various secondary source types .

Researching statutes in annotated codes

If your issue is statutory, you want to use an annotated code. An annotated code is a great research tool because it offers editorial enhancements such as: (1) cross references to related statutes and regulations; (2) more detailed historical notes, secondary source references; (3) if it is a Thomson Reuters code you will get topic and key number references to help you find cases; and (3) the case annotations.

Statutory finding tools

Once in an annotated code, use the statutory finding tools like indexes, tables of contents, parallel reference tables, and the popular names table to find the statutory sections you need.

Updating and validating statutes

Update and validate your statutes by making sure that you are working with the most current version of a statute when researching a current issue and using Shepards and KeyCite to validate your statute and to identify any pending legislation that may impact your statute.

Historical and Superseded Codes

You can research historical codes using HeinOnline, Govinfo.gov, Bloomberg Law, Fastcase, Lexis, and Westlaw. You can also compare statutes on Lexis and Westlaw and be sure and always check the effective dates of statutes.

Statutory Surveys

Sometimes a researcher is asked to find statutes from multiple jurisdictions on a particular topic. Take advantage of compiled statutory surveys such as (1) Lexis and Westlaw 50-state surveys; (2) Subject Compilations of State Laws on HeinOnline ; (3) State Law Charts on Bloomberg Law and Smart Charts on VitalLaw ; and (4) National Conference of State Legislatures . Read more about statutory surveys in our 50-State Surveys Guide .

This week we will begin covering how to find cases.

Finding Cases by Headnote

Headnotes are summaries of the issues in a case. They are not actually part of the opinion. Each headnote is numbered. You can click on the headnote number and be taken to the place within the opinion where the issue of the headnote is discussed. Headnotes are tools that can be used for research but they are not part of the actual case itself. You should never cite to a headnote and always read the opinion and do not rely on the headnote.

Headnotes in Westlaw

Using westlaw topic and key numbers assigned to headnotes to find cases.

Each headnote in a case published in Westlaw is assigned a topic and key number. These topic and key numbers can be used to find more cases on the same subject. For example, if we had a headnote that was assigned the topic of Damages and the key number of 57.21 and we want to find more cases that talk about what is needed to prove a claim of Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, we can use the topic of Damages and the key number of 57.21 and look online to find more cases that discuss this same thing. If you want to see the topic and key numbers in Westlaw headnotes, you may have to click the grid view link at the top of where the headnotes begin. The key number assigned to a particular headnote is always the last and narrowest key number assigned. Click on the link for the topic and key number and Westlaw will run a search and bring up all cases in their system that have been classified under that topic and key number. Note that you may need to change your jurisdiction for the search because the system keeps the last jurisdiction chosen.

Using Cases that Cite This Headnote

To find other cases that cite a particular headnote, click on the “Cases that cite this headnote” link located below the headnote summary of the point of law. Cases that cite a headnote consist of the citing references that specifically address that particular point of law in the case. Because cases may address many different issues, this can be a quick way to find the most relevant cases citing your case for the particular issue covered by that headnote.

Headnotes in Lexis

Using lexis topics assigned to headnotes to find cases.

Lexis headnotes are still organized by broad topics and then progressively subdivided by narrower subjects, but Lexis headnote subjects tend to be broader concepts than the Westlaw key numbers. Also, Lexis headnotes do not editorialize, they actually lift language straight from the text of the case. We can find more cases on a topic by clicking on the topic links assigned to the headnote. In Lexis, the topic links are above the headnote. If we want a broader search, we can use the topic intermediate levels, for example, we could search Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress rather than the specific Elements beneath that. A search on any intermediate level will bring up results for all the more specific levels below it.

Using More Like this Headnote to Find Cases

More Like This Headnote appears at the end of a headnote, and gives you the ability to find cases that have headnotes that closely match the language or meaning of a headnote in your case.

Using Shepardize – Narrow by this Headnote to Find Cases

To find more cases that discuss the same point of law, click “Shepardize – Narrow by this Headnote.” This will show you all cases that cite to this case that reference the same issue as that headnote.

Don’t forget that you can always find out more about researching cases in our Researching Cases Guide or watch our videos on finding cases.

July Is Disability Pride Month!

Disability Pride Flag. A black flag with a lightning bolt of blue, yellow, white, red, and green. Source: Ann Magill/Public Domain

About Disability Pride Month

Disability Pride Month is an annual worldwide observance holiday during the month of July. It promotes awareness of disability as an identity, a community, a culture & the positive pride felt by disabled people. It directly challenges systematic ableism and discrimination. President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law in 1990 and in July of that same year, the first Disability Pride Day was celebrated in Boston.

This month, the American Bar Association’s Commission on Disability Rights invites you to take part in the #BeCounted campaign . The #BeCounted campaign encourages lawyers with disabilities across the country to add themselves to the ABA’s U.S. map.

5 Resources to Learn More about Accessibility & Disability Issues

Disability rights are civil rights. From voting to parking, the ADA is a law that protects people with disabilities in many areas of public life. From answers to common questions to official legal documents, ADA.gov has everything you need to understand your rights and responsibilities under the ADA.

Disability History Museum

The Disability History Museum is a virtual project that aims to foster a deeper understanding about how changing cultural values, notions of identity, laws and policies have shaped and influenced the experience of people with disabilities, their families and their communities over time.

Library of Congress, Disability Law in the United States: A Beginner’s Guide

This research guide provides an overview of relevant laws and regulations related to disability rights. It provides resources from the federal government and non-profit organizations that work toward advancing the rights of people with disabilities. The guide is by no means exhaustive, however it offers a extensive guidance on resources for performing legal research on this subject, as well as information from leading advocates and government entities with missions to protect those with disabilities from discrimination.

Museum of disABILITY History (Virtual Museum)

The Museum of disABILITY History is dedicated to advancing the understanding, acceptance and independence of people with disabilities. The Museum's exhibits, collections, archives and educational programs create awareness and a platform for dialogue and discovery.

Smithsonian National Museum of American History, EveryBody: An Artifact History of Disability in America

People with disabilities have been present throughout American history, but rarely appear in textbooks or shared public memories. This online exhibition helps us understand the American experience and reveals how complicated history really is.

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Northwestern Pritzker Law receives nearly $5 million to benefit Supreme Court and appellate advocacy

Gift made in honor of Northwestern Law alum Carter Phillips, one of the most influential Supreme Court litigators

Media Information

• Release Date: August 5, 2024

Media Contacts

Shanice Harris

• (847) 467-5498
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Press release: August 5, 2024

CHICAGO --- Northwestern Pritzker School of Law has received nearly $5 million in gifts to expand the Carter G. Phillips Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Center’s programs. The funds will be used for Supreme Court programming and related events across the Law School, as well as the Center’s two clinics: the newly named Carter G. Phillips/Sidley Austin LLP Supreme Court Clinic, where students work under the direction of faculty members who have collectively argued nearly 100 cases before the Supreme Court; and the Federal Appellate Clinic, in which students research, brief and argue cases in federal appellate courts across the country.   

Inspired by major contributions from Northwestern Law alums Sue J. Henry (JD ’77), Carter G. Phillips (JD ’77), Jessica E. Phillips (JD ’06) and the Sidley Austin Foundation, more than 50 friends, family and colleagues contributed to the donation in honor of Carter Phillips’ career and contributions to the legal profession as one of the most influential and successful Supreme Court and appellate litigators in the country. This act of generosity marks the latest commitment to education, research and scholarship at the Law School on the part of Sidley Austin and the Phillips family. Sidley Austin attorneys have operated in partnership with the Carter G. Phillips Center for Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy since its founding.  

“We are tremendously grateful to Sue J. Henry, Carter G. Phillips, Jessica Phillips, Sidley Austin and all those who generously helped to establish these new funds to support Supreme Court and appellate programming at the Law School,” Dean Hari Osofsky said. “Carter Phillips has made an extraordinary difference through his incredible legal career and advocacy before the Supreme Court, and his leadership in our Carter G. Phillips Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Center and on our Law Board has made such a difference. This gift is a fitting and well-deserved tribute to his tremendous impact.”  

Carter Phillips currently serves as an adjunct professor at Northwestern Pritzker Law and has been director of the Supreme Court Clinic since its founding. Sue J. Henry and Jessica Phillips, Carter’s wife and daughter, have joined him and the Sidley Austin Foundation to make this latest, significant contribution to inspire others to donate in support of appellate advocacy at the Law School.  

“I am honored to be recognized by my family and colleagues through this extremely generous gift, which will help provide Northwestern Law students with the best possible tools in preparation for a career in appellate law,” Phillips said. “This new fund will contribute to the Center for Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy’s vital work in representing clients in federal courts of appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court while also providing crucial practical experiences for students.”  

“Sidley is proud to contribute to this outstanding institution, the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, and to honor Carter for all he has done throughout his highly accomplished career,” said Yvette Ostolaza, Sidley’s management committee chair. “Throughout the 158-year history of our firm, we have been committed to strengthening the education of the next generation of leaders and will always remain dedicated to that pursuit.”

The Carter G. Phillips Center for Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy has been a core part of the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law's Bluhm Legal Clinic for nearly 20 years. The Center, which is directed by Professor Danielle Hamilton and operated in partnership with attorneys from Sidley Austin LLP , serves the Northwestern Pritzker Law community and the general public through three primary avenues: two year-long clinical courses; a moot program; and a variety of research, policy and other events for the Northwestern Pritzker Law community. This includes supervising students pursuing an Appellate Concentration ; inviting guest speakers to Chicago, including Justices of the Supreme Court; and publishing relevant scholarship in law reviews.  

Sidley Austin, LLP, is an elite global law firm. With 2,300 lawyers, the firm represents clients from more than 70 countries, with 21 offices strategically situated in key commercial and financial hubs across the United States, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Lawyers at the firm have operated in partnership with the Carter G. Phillips Center for Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy for nearly 20 years, providing hands-on education and mentorship for students as they research, brief and argue federal cases across the country, including before the Supreme Court. Through its latest financial contribution to the Center, Sidley Austin Foundation hopes to continue supporting students in pursuit of appellate careers far into the future.  

• Library of Congress
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How To Find Free Case Law Online

Introduction.

• Google Scholar
• CourtListener
• Caselaw Access Project

Law Library : Ask a Librarian

Have a question? Need assistance? Use our online form to ask a librarian for help.

Authors: Barbara Bavis, Bibliographic and Research Instruction Librarian, Law Library of Congress

Robert Brammer, Senior Legal Information Specialist, Law Library of Congress

Editors: Anna Price, Senior Legal Reference Librarian, Law Library of Congress

Olivia Kane-Cruz, Librarian-in-Residence, Law Library of Congress

Janeen Williams, Legal Reference Librarian, Law Library of Congress

Kellee Bonnell, Legal Reference Librarian, Law Library of Congress

Note: This guide is adapted from a research guide originally published on the Law Library's blog, In Custodia Legis .

Created: June 15, 2018

Last Updated: December 21, 2022

One of the defining features of the common law system is the emphasis placed on the precedential value of case law. Until recently, case law has not been widely available on the Internet, leaving researchers with no choice but to seek out print reporters and commercial electronic databases to locate cases of interest. This situation has started to change, however, and now researchers have several free, online databases at their disposal. These resources do not replace the use of commercial print and electronic resources, since they are often limited in coverage, do not provide a digest, and do not contain a quick and effective citator External , but researchers’ use of free online materials as a starting point can save them time and money. For example, researchers might use these resources to locate cases of interest and then visit their local public law library to use citators External and other subscription resources to ensure these cases are still "good law."

There are several freely-available options for tracking down electronic case law. Some of the most prominent of these are listed in this guide.

After using these resources, if you have any questions, or would like to use a citator to update the cases you have found, feel free to visit the Law Library of Congress or your local public law library External .

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• Last Updated: Jul 7, 2023 3:25 PM
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• Research & Reports

Can Trump Vote Now That He Has Felony Convictions?

Trump’s eligibility to vote this fall will depend on the outcome of his New York sentencing and pending prosecutions.

• Voting Rights Restoration

After Donald Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a crime, many believed that the Florida resident would be barred from voting in the 2024 election because of the state’s harsh felony disenfranchisement law, which denies voting rights to more than 1 million people . However, Trump’s eligibility to cast a ballot this fall will depend on how he is sentenced in New York for falsifying business records.

His ability to vote in Florida could also be affected by the prosecutions against him in Georgia state court and federal courts in Florida and Washington, DC, although those trials are unlikely to happen before the election.

Can Trump vote in the 2024 election?

Yes, unless he is incarcerated for his felonies in New York at the time of the election or convicted of a felony in another jurisdiction that takes away his right to vote in that jurisdiction. Trump is a Florida resident, and Florida law says that a person convicted in another state can vote in Florida if they are allowed to vote in that other state. Since he was convicted in a New York state court, his eligibility to vote in Florida is governed by New York’s law, which allows everyone who’s not currently serving a sentence in prison to vote.

According to the Florida Division of Elections , “a felony conviction in another state makes a person ineligible to vote in Florida only if the conviction would make the person ineligible to vote in the state where the person was convicted.”

Trump has been convicted of felonies in New York and under New York state law, so New York law will determine his eligibility to vote in Florida. Under New York law , a person convicted of a felony is disenfranchised only while incarcerated for that felony. Thus, Trump will be able to vote as long as he is not incarcerated for his New York felonies at the time of the election.

If Trump can vote so long as he’s not in prison, why are so many other Floridians with past convictions who are living in the community disenfranchised?

Florida treats residents convicted of a felony in the state differently than residents convicted of a felony out of state. Under Florida law , people convicted of a felony other than murder or a felony sexual offense in a Florida state or federal court are disenfranchised during any term of incarceration, probation, parole, or other forms of community supervision and until they have paid off any fines, fees, court costs, and restitution ordered by the court at the time of sentencing. Therefore, had Trump been convicted in Florida, he would have been barred from voting unless he had completed all the terms of his sentence — including payment of any related court debts — or had his voting rights restored by the state’s clemency board.

The Brennan Center supports the right to vote for everyone who’s living in the community, and that includes Trump. The fact that he likely will be able to vote — while the more than 1 million Floridians living in the community will be denied that right simply because they were convicted in Florida — demonstrates the injustice in the state’s approach.

Additionally, the difficulty of determining Trump’s voter eligibility shows how complicated it can be for any Florida resident to understand their own. This confusing system underscores the unfairness of the state’s prosecutions of dozens of people who were confused or misled about their eligibility to vote.

Would Trump be eligible to vote in the fall if he’s convicted of a felony in Georgia or federal court?

It depends on which case results in a conviction, although a completed trial in any of them before the election is highly unlikely. Trump has two active prosecutions related to his role in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election: one in federal court in Washington and the other in Georgia state court. His prosecution in Florida federal court for his alleged mishandling of classified documents was dismissed by Judge Aileen Cannon on July 15.

If Trump were found guilty of another felony in the DC federal court case, his voting eligibility would be unaffected because people convicted of a felony in DC do not lose the right to vote.

A Georgia state felony conviction, by contrast, would likely disenfranchise Trump unless he was pardoned by the state’s governor or had his voting rights restored by Florida’s clemency board. Georgia law establishes that people convicted of a felony cannot vote during any period of incarceration, probation, or parole and unless they’ve fully paid any fines for that felony.

A federal conviction in Florida would likely disenfranchise Trump as well unless he was pardoned by the president or had his voting rights restored by the state’s clemency board, as people convicted of a felony other than murder or a felony sex offense in Florida are barred from voting during any period of incarceration, probation, or community control and unless they’ve fully paid any fines, fees, court costs, and restitution ordered by the court at the time of sentencing.

Could Florida’s clemency board intervene if Trump does become ineligible to vote?

After the news of Trump’s conviction, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that the Florida Clemency Board , which is made up of DeSantis and the three members of his cabinet, would step in to restore the former president’s voting rights if needed. The clemency board could probably follow through on that promise.

If Trump were in prison for his New York convictions at the time of the election ( which appears unlikely ), he would not be eligible to vote in Florida unless the clemency board restored his voting rights. The Rules of Executive Clemency require people with out-of-state or federal convictions to complete all nonfinancial terms of their sentence, including any term of incarceration or supervision, before they can apply to have their rights restored. The rules also limit restoration to those who do not have pending criminal charges. Thus, if Trump were incarcerated at the time of the election for his New York felonies or any of his prosecutions were active, he would not be eligible to apply to have his voting rights restored.

That said, the clemency board has broad authority to restore civil rights under Florida law to people with out-of-state or federal felonies. Its rules give the governor “unfettered discretion to require at any time that an individual matter be treated under other provisions of these rules, whether or not the person satisfies the eligibility requirements of a particular rule.” So DeSantis could bend the rules to allow Trump to apply even if he otherwise would not be eligible to do so. Trump’s application would then have to be approved by DeSantis and at least two other members of the clemency board.

Are all states’ rules for voting after a felony conviction as confusing as Florida’s?

No. However, the variation between states causes immense confusion among voters and election officials alike. Maine, Vermont, and Washington, DC, have the simplest rules because they never take the right to vote away, followed by the 23 states that disenfranchise people convicted of felonies only while they are incarcerated. In the remaining 25 states, people can remain disenfranchised after release from prison, and their eligibility to vote can depend on a number of factors, such as the type of offense or the type of fines or fees that they owe.

Constitutional Amendment Processes in the 50 States

States offer multiple paths for amending their constitutions, which are much easier to change than the federal Constitution.

The Filibuster Explained

The procedure, whose use has increased dramatically in recent decades, has troubling implications for democracy.

Roe v. Wade and Supreme Court Abortion Cases

Reproductive rights in the United States, explained.

Informed citizens are democracy’s best defense