Google provides this disclaimer regarding the use of its case law database: “Legal advice in Google Scholar is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for legal advice from a licensed attorney. Google does not guarantee the completeness or accuracy of the information. Warnings like these can even be found on official court websites, where they provide a database of their own legal notices. As with any case law, it is imperative that you determine that you are using cases that have not been outvoted or overturned using Google Scholar`s citation features. or by checking citations against a payment database such as KeyCite, Shepard`s, or Casemaker; or using free alternatives. Also, you should always do a keyword search by party name to check for citations from Google and all other free/low-cost databases. To force a search for cases by party name, first limit the results to a specific court (for example, the United States). Supreme Court), if you know which court decided the case. Next, type the names of the parties (for example, Roe v.
Wade) into the search box for the exact phrase and make sure to use v. and not versus or vs. Finally, select the title of the article from the Where My Words Appear drop-down menu. This research brought back an opinion. No items were returned because choosing a dish eliminates items from search results (see Figure 6.6). You can try forcing a search to dismiss a judge as the author. For example, if you only want cases where a specific U.S. Supreme Court judge issued the opinion, first select that court, and then paste the judge`s name and word “provided” into the search box labeled Search for an article with all words. For other jurisdictions – Arizona for example – you can try the exact term using a search like Eckerstrom Opinion if you want Eckerstrom opinions. However, this is a coincidence.
It is possible that an outcome (or results) includes cases where someone else has given the opinion, but the designated judge has been mentioned in relation to his or her presentation of a different opinion, which is cited in the case you are considering. Or relevant opinions might be completely absent if the spacing or punctuation of your search sentence is disabled, or if the judge co-authored an opinion and their name is not the word following the review. 2. Reliable search algorithm and advanced search. Google`s efficient search algorithm supports Google Scholar. When searching for federal and state cases with keywords, the relevance of the results is comparable to the results on WestlawNext and Lexis Advance (but let that be our little secret). Like these paid services, Google Scholar is likely to return relevant results, even if you don`t use the right artistic terms. The rest of the Advanced Search field contains search fields for author, publication, and date. The judge label could replace the author label, as this is where a judge`s name can be entered when seeking opinions. However, test research suggests that this field does not necessarily return the opinions (or agreements or dissenting opinions) of the wanted judge. Any case in which the judge`s name appears (i.e. if he heard the case but did not write the opinion) may appear in the search results.
You can also access advanced search from the Google Scholar homepage (in two ways, depending on your browser). Most users can access the advanced search option by clicking a small down arrow on the right side of the search box. However, this arrow does not always appear and some users may need to access the feature by clicking on an advanced search link at the top of the Google Scholar homepage. Both options are presented above. Regardless of how you access advanced search, the menu is the same as shown in Figure 6.4. Before selecting the advanced search, make sure that you have changed the default value of case law articles if you want to search for the jurisdiction. For a custom search of opinions from all state courts, click the Select All link next to the State Courts heading. Also, to search only Nebraska state courts, click the Remove All link next to the State Courts heading (and the link next to Federal Courts, if selected), and then select the check box next to Nebraska.
If you only want the Nebraska Supreme Court but not the Nebraska Court of Appeals, simply click the Court of Appeals checkbox to clear it. (This also clears the Nebraska main checkbox.) When you have finished your seat selection, click Done to close the court screen. Once you select the dishes you search for and enter your search terms, you will get the list of results, similar to any other list of search results. However, Google Scholar now offers search results filtering options to find legal documents, allowing you to further refine your searches. You can find the filter options in a sidebar on the left side of the search results page. (See Figure 6.7.) In addition, you can use these fields to create opinion-specific search queries. For example, to force a citation search, type the citation (bluebook style) in the exact phrase search box. Even if a case citation is not an “article”, the results will include cases.
4. Case citation service. Google Scholar has a citation service that allows you to find subsequent cases and legal articles where your case has been cited. By default, the results are organized according to the depth of the discussion, which means that the first results listed covered your case in more detail than the later results. The depth of the discussion is represented by horizontal bars next to each case name: the more bars, the greater the discussion of your case. You can also sort the results by date – a useful feature for a known issue where all you have to do is confirm if a new case has resolved your issue. Note that despite my praise for Google Scholar, there are limits. While it`s a great addition, it`s not a one-stop shop for your research needs. We`ll discuss the top-down filters as they appear on the search results page. To switch between cases and journal articles that contain your search terms, click the Articles & Jurisprudence links at the top of the sidebar. Click these links to update your list of results to display the appropriate document type.
If you use the first or second method (and enter your search terms now), you can always filter the results by court or other criteria. We`ll discuss how to do this below. While you may have already selected the jurisdictions you want to search for before you get to this page, you can now customize them while keeping your search terms. The court links are the same as those displayed on the original Google Scholar search page, but you can click here to see your search results in different courts. You can also use the Advanced Search field to search for cases published in a specific reporter using the Return article in field. Test searches show that if you limit your search to case law, you can search for the abbreviation of different case reporters in the box of the return article, such as A.2d, P.3d, NY 2d, etc. (The search in the “Return Article” box for words such as Reports or Supreme Court returns no results; only the journalist`s abbreviation works.) So, for example, if you went to Smith v. Jones and you only knew the case was published in the Atlantic Reporter, you could always go to Smith v. Jones in the exact phrase field and type A.2d (or A.3d etc.) in the Published return articles field in the field. Free, low-cost legal research resources This article is excerpted from the Law Practice Division`s Internet Legal Research on a Budget.
In this book, you`ll learn how to do legal research without breaking the bank. Authors Carole Levitt and Judy Davis share the best websites, apps, blogs, Twitter feeds, and crowdsourced resources that will save you time, money, and frustration.