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Spring Into Free California Case Law on the Internet: A Comparison of LexisONE, FindLaw & the Daily Journal's California Case-Law Web Sites by Carole Levitt, J.D., M.L.S. |
On July 6,2000 Lexis debuted LexisONE.com, the first web site to offer a FREE, FULL-TEXT searchable California case-law database (back to 1996). The free LexisONE site offers almost the same robust search engine for constructing searches as the pay Lexis site. One month after the LexisONE debut, FindLaw.com (now owned by Westlaw) debuted its free California case-law database. Though FindLaw trailed by a month, their debut did manage to trump LexisONE--by extending its coverage of California case-law back to 1934. Last to enter the picture was the Daily Journal (dailyjournal.com) in December 2000. Like FindLaw, the Daily Journal (DJ) also provided California case-law coverage back to 1934, but it was free only to its print subscribers. (As a side note, this was also the same date the DJ joined the online world, after over 15 years of “coming soon”. For more information on the DJ site, see our full review of the entire site).
Both FindLaw and LexisONE also offer free, full-text searchable databases for other jurisdictions. At LexisONE, search the case-law of the other forty-nine states and the U.S. Court of Appeals back to 1996. Also available free at LexisONE are U.S. Supreme Court cases back to 1794. FindLaw offers U.S. Supreme Court cases back to 1893 and the U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit cases back to 1996.
Each of the three sites differs in the degree of user friendliness and currency. If I could combine the best features from each site, I'd have a near-perfect site, but I'll happily take what each site has to offer considering it's free.
CURRENCY
The FindLaw and LexisONE sites add cases to their database on a daily basis, while the DJ updates only monthly even though the same company (AccessLaw) provides both FindLaw and the DJ with its cases. Although the DJ site is a month behind, daily opinions can be accessed at the DJ's separate Daily Appellate Reporter (DAR) portion of its web site.
USER FRIENDLINESS
Search Construction
To construct a search, all three sites provide search boxes to enter a (1) party name or (2) a judge's name or (3) a citation. LexisONE and FindLaw also both provide a search box for counsel's name. In addition, LexisOne provides a date search box while FindLaw provides a docket number search box. Although the DJ's California case law database offers fewer search capabilities than LexisONE and FindLaw, the DJ DAR database offers more. Search by party name, judge name, citation, docket number, topic (and sub-topic), court and attorney name.
At the FindLaw and LexisONE site, a researcher can search the California Appellate and the California Supreme cases together, but at the DJ site, they must be run separately.
Boolean Connectors
To link keywords and phrases, all three sites feature boolean connectors (“and”, “or” and “not”). A word of caution about the DJ boolean connectors: instead of using the words “and”, “or” and “not”, as FindLaw and LexisONE do, the DJ employs symbols. For the “and” boolean connector, researchers must use “&”, for the “or” boolean connector, researchers must use the straight-line symbol “|” and for the “not” boolean connector, researchers must use the “tilde” symbol. Using the words instead of the symbols will result in no cases being found.
LexisONE helps attorneys narrow down a search by offering 12 proximity connectors in addition to boolean connectors (e.g. “one word within x words of another). Thus, a search can be constructed to find cases with the keywords “negligence” within 4 words of “automobile”. FindLaw offers only one proximity connector, “near” (which means “one word within 50 words of another word”) and the DJ offers none.
Display and Navigation
LexisONE displays the list of case results in reverse chronological order and includes both the case name and the date of the case. Most researchers prefer to look at recent cases first rather than older cases first, thus the reverse chronological order display makes navigating through the list easy. On the other hand, to navigate easily (and quickly) through the full text of an individual case, I prefer using FindLaw.com or dailyjournal.com because search terms are highlighted. Some other helpful navigational features on FindLaw are the hyper-links that link to any of the California cases that are cited in the case being viewed. This assists a researcher to expand his or her research to related cases. FindLaw also assists a researcher to cite to a specific page because FindLaw includes the internal pagination of a case. But for those needing parallel citations, LexisONE is the preferred choice. It displays the parallel cites (even the DJ DAR cite) on the first page of each case.
When it comes to finally printing out the case, however, I prefer the DJ site for because it is the only one to offer a “printer friendly version” (one without any advertising). See what I mean about putting all three sites together for my dream web site?
Is it “Good Law”?
Note that the cases found at these free sites (and even at the court's own official site) are “slip opinions" and may not yet be final. They are subject to clerical corrections, modifications and rehearing, and the Court of Appeal slip opinions are subject to a grant of review or to a depublication order by the Supreme Court. And, of course, opinions can be overruled or reversed. Thus, before relying on a case, attorneys need to verify that the case is still “good law”. To verify a case found at the free LexisONE site, link to Shepards. You will be asked for your credit card before you begin shepardizing your case ($4.00/per case). At FindLaw, enter a citation into the “Cite check” search box to locate (for free) other cases that cite to your case. The Daily Journal does not have a case citator.
Registration and Log-On
While FindLaw and LexisONE provide free access to California cases to anyone who registers online, the DJ offers free access only to those who subscribe to their print newspaper. Register by phoning the DJ for a password and then complete the registration online. Once registered, researchers need to log in with their user name and password each time thereafter at each of the three sites.
Search Engines
To compare the search engines, I performed the same search in the LexisOne site and the FindLaw site. For a full comparison, see our detailed report. In a nutshell, I was a little disappointed in FindLaw because it did not find a case I already knew existed. I later learned that results are limited to the first 100 cases. It would be helpful if the site warned of this in advance.
Conclusion
Although there are now three free California case law databases, there are several reasons to have access to a pay database: (1) to access cases older than 1934 (2) to access Shepards (or Key Cite) and (3) to search all courts simultaneously. If you do not have a subscription to a pay site, you can still search some pay sites on an ad hoc basis by using a credit card (e.g. Search the pay Lexis site via the LexisONE site at $9.00/per search).
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