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.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Because I don't know where else to suggest topics, here are a couple…
There are updates to the Massey Coal case. The West Virginia Supreme Court overturned a $50 million jury verdict for the third time. But now we have the precedent that you can take the case to the SCOTUS and get a Justice thrown out if you didn't like the original verdict.
How about discussing the high ranking DOJ officials having to recuse themselves from detainee cases because they worked for terror-friendly law firms? http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/22/on-terrorists-justice-recused/