The big news this week on the legal blogs – Google Scholar now searches case law!
It is fast and easy to use. You can search by case name (Terry v. Ohio) or by topics (fourth amendment).
Let’s Get Started
Go to Google.com. Click MORE at the top of the page and from the drop down choices, select SCHOLAR. Make sure to click the radio button for “Legal Opinions and Journals.” Enter your search. That’s it…very easy. Here is a direct link to Google Scholar to save in your Favorites.
Picking a Jurisdiction
Do you need to just search Ohio cases? Click on the Advanced Scholar Search to the right of the search button. At the bottom of the next screen you can select to search one state or a grouping of states. You can also search just federal court opinions if you wish. While you are on the Advanced Scholar Search page, you may also want to limit your search by date.
The Results
Did I mention that it was FAST! Thousands of cases searched and results displayed in seconds. The search results are sorted by the highest courts first and by the most cited cases. From the resulting list of cases, click on the name of a case to read the opinion. Your search terms are highlighted in the case. Many cases mentioned in the opinion link directly to the case. Statutes and rules cited in the opinion are not linked. This should be an easy fix for Google since statutes and court rules are already available for free on the web. See here for free Ohio Statutes and here for Ohio Court Rules.
Page numbers on the left cite to the West Reporters. Watch out…there has been some criticism that the pages numbers may be off by a couple of words.
The HOW CITED tab takes you to lists of cases that cite your case or are related in some way (Cited By, on the right). Also on the left are cases that quote from you case (How This Document Has Been Cited). The left column gives snippets from the citing case. Opening one of these cases will take you directly to the relevant part of the case.
Searches will also list law journals but a subscription is usually needed to go to the full text copy of the article. This may be changing as more law reviews move to the web.
Search Tips
- Use quotation marks to search phrases. Many legal concepts are often phrases- habeas corpus, sovereign immunity, Second Amendment, etc., so use the quotes.
- If your search pulls up too many results, use the date restriction at the top of the page in the SCHOLAR line. The default is all dates. The drop-down arrow allows you to narrow the results by year ranges.
Coverage
“Google Scholar allows you to search and read opinions for US state appellate and supreme court cases since 1950, US federal district, appellate, tax and bankruptcy courts since 1923 and US Supreme Court cases since 1791 (please check back periodically for updates to coverage information). In addition, it includes citations for cases cited by indexed opinions or journal articles which allows you to find influential cases (usually older or international) which are not yet online or publicly available.” Source
See Google’s Nov. 17th announcement for more information.
In today's Wall Street Journal, there is an interview with Prof. Daylian Cain of the Yale School of Management. Prof. Cain teaches a course entitled, "Business Ethics Meets Behavioral Economics." In the interview, Prof. Cain states that: "Behavioral economics is such a great tool because it shows how people make bad decisions and separate their actions from their values." In other words, you can be really smart and have really great values and still make terrible mistakes because you are not the perfectly rational actor of classical economics who lives in a world where all the messy realities of life are assumed away.
Perhaps some of this insight is implicated by today's post by Prof. Lawrence Cunningham over at Concurring Opinions (HT: Kristina Melomed). Prof. Cunningham recounts that: [click to continue…]
Hallelujah! Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) has released the "Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act" – his melding of the health care reform bills that had been approved by the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate HELP Committee. In addition, the Congressional Budget Office has released its estimate of the effect of the bill on the federal budget. Details below. [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
CBO,
congressional budget office,
harry reid,
health care,
health care bill,
health care financing reform,
health care reform,
health insurance reform,
Reid bill,
senate bill,
senate health care bill
Earlier today the Supreme Court announced that it would not hear the case that had been brought against the owners of the Washington Redskins football team challenging their use of the name "Redskins" as a trademark. The issue in the case was not the First Amendment or even the substance of Trademark Law; instead, the issue was whether the plaintiffs had brought their lawsuit in time, or whether it was barred by the doctrine of "laches." [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
appeal,
disparaging,
redskins,
scandalous,
SCOTUS,
section 2 of trademark act,
supreme court,
trademark,
washington redskins
Attorney General Eric Holder has decided to try five prisoners in the war on terror, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, on criminal charges in New York for the attacks of September 11. They will face the death penalty. [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
Attorney General Eric Holder,
barack obama,
criminal court,
Eric Holder,
khalid sheikh mohammed,
New York,
president barack obama,
trial,
trial of terrorists
According to a recent summary from the Congressional Budget Office, because our population is becoming older and sicker spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is set to explode and the resulting mountain of debt will overwhelm us. Here are the depressing statistics. [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
aging population,
CBO,
federal debt,
federal deficits,
health care,
medicaid,
medicare,
national debt
On November 2, the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) released a report analyzing the Dept. of Defense’s ability to drawdown (or withdrawal) U.S. Forces from Iraq. Troop withdrawal plans are based on the U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement signed in 2008 (support by President Obama here ) and intend to reduce to 50,000 troops by August 2010 and be completely withdrawn by the end of 2011. This task is daunting and means the drawdown of 128,700 U.S. troops, 115,000 contractors, closing 295 bases and the retrograde of over 3.3 million pieces of U.S. DOD equipment in Iraq worth $45.8 billion. Can the DOD meet the timeline set by the President and the U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement? The GAO took a look. [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
GAO,
General Accountability Office,
Iraqi War,
Multi-National Forces Iraq,
Security Agreement,
Strategic Framework Agreement,
War in Iraq,
withdrawal of troops
The University of Akron School of Law Center for Intellectual Property Law and Technology will host a lecture by Jacqueline Lipton, professor of law at Case Western Reserve University. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is titled “Mapping Online Privacy” and will be held Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 5 p.m. in Room 152 at The University of Akron School of Law, 150 University Ave., Akron, Ohio. A reception will immediately follow the lecture.
Lipton’s lecture will address the difficulties in applying existing concepts of personal privacy to the maturing Internet. With Web 2.0 technologies, more people have more opportunities to post information about themselves and others online, often with scant regard for individual privacy. Shifting notions of “reasonable expectations of privacy” in the context of blogs, wikis, and online social networks create challenges for privacy regulation. Courts and commentators struggle with Web 2.0 privacy incursions without the benefit of a clear regulatory framework.
