Spring Into Free California Case Law on the Internet: A Comparison of LexisONE, FindLaw, Google Scholar, & the Daily Journal's California Case-Law Web Sites

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There are five web sites where California state cases can be searched full-text, free of any charge: (1) FindLaw; (2) LexisNexis Communities; (3) The Public Library of Law (PLoL); (4) the California Court’s official site, which is provided by LexisNexis; and (5) Google Scholar.

The Daily Journal also has a searchable California state case law database, but it is "free" only to those who pay to subscribe to The Daily Journal's print newspaper.

There is only one site where California federal (and other) federal district court dockets can be searched full-text, free of any charge (Justia).

In this article, we will not be discussing the free searchable California state case law databases found at The Public Library of Law (PLoL) or at the California Court’s official site (provided by LexisNexis).

We will discuss free California state case law databases found at FindLaw, Lexis, Google Scholar, and The Daily Journal. We will also discuss free federal dockets found at Justia and free California state court dockets and court forms found at the California Court’s official site.

LexisNexis Communities (formerly LexisONE.com)

On July 6,2000 Lexis debuted LexisONE, now called LexisNexis Communities (http://www.lexisone.com/lx1/caselaw/freecaselaw?action=FCLDisplayCaseSea...), the first web site to offer a FREE, FULL-TEXT searchable California case-law database. However, it only covered the most recent five years of case law. It now covers the most recent 10 years of case law. The free Lexis site offers almost the same robust search engine for constructing searches as the pay Lexis site

FindLaw.com

One month after the LexisONE debut, FindLaw.com (now owned by Westlaw) debuted its free California case-law database (http://www.findlaw.com/cacases/index.html#dirsearch2). Though FindLaw trailed by a month, their debut did manage to trump Lexis--by extending its coverage of California case-law back to 1934.

Daily Journal Corporation

In December 2000, the Daily Journal (dailyjournal.com) entered the picture. 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).

Google Scholar

Late in the evening of November 17, 2009 a Google employee tweeted that something was new at Google Scholarand challenged readers to figure out what it was ... One of the authors of this article, a well-known late-night type, visited Google Scholar that evening and learned that Google had launched a free case law database Legal Opinions and Journals. You can reach Google Scholar from the Google.com home page by selecting the More tab, and then selecting Scholar or you can use this direct URL:  http://scholar.google.com/.

Both FindLaw, Google Scholar, and Lexis offer free, full-text searchable databases for other jurisdictions. At Lexis, search the case-law of the other forty-nine states and the U.S. Court of Appeals back 10 years. Also available free at Lexis 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. Google Scholar contains opinions from: all U.S. state appellate and state supreme courts back to 1950, the U.S. federal district, appellate, tax, and bankruptcy courts back to 1923, and the U.S. Supreme Court back to 1791. Also included in this database are legal journal articles.

Each of the four sites noted above differ 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 they are free.

Currency

The FindLaw and Lexis 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. Google Scholar has no documentation about its currency.

Search Construction

To construct a search, FindLaw, Daily Journal, and Lexis provide search boxes to enter a (1) party name or (2) a judge's name or (3) a citation. Lexis and FindLaw also both provide a search box for counsel's name. In addition, Lexis provides a date search box while FindLaw provides a docket number search box. Be sure to click FindLaw's Advanced Search to display all of the search boxes described above. Although the DJ's California case law database offers fewer search capabilities than Lexis and FindLaw, the DJ DAR (Daily Appellate Reporter) database offers more. Search by party name, judge name, citation, docket number, topic (and sub-topic), court and attorney name.

Google Scholar can be searched the same way you search at Google.com but it's better to use the Advanced Search at http://scholar.google.com/advanced_scholar_search to construct a sophisticated search using the various search boxes that allow you to search with phrases, exclude words/phrases or search by author, publication name, date, etc. (The author and publication name are useful for searching the journals database.) There are no separate search boxes to search by citation, party name, counsel, or judge, so use the "all of the words" search box or the "exact phrase" search box.

At the FindLaw, Google Scholar and Lexis site, a researcher can search the California Appellate and the California Supreme cases together, but at the DJ site, they must be run separately. In Google Scholar, to search all California courts, scroll down to the bottom of the Advanced Search page and select "Calfornia" from the drop-down menu labeled "Search opinions of X court." To search other jurisdictions or combinations of jurisdictions, click the "Select specific courts to search" link.

Boolean Connectors

To link keywords and phrases, all four 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 Lexis 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.

Lexis 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” by typing: negligence w/4 automobile.  FindLaw offers only one proximity connector, “near” (which means “one word within 50 words of another word”) and the DJ offers none.

To search Google Scholar, you use the same Boolean connectors that you use when you conduct a Google.com search. A space between words indicates "and," the minus sign indicates you are excluding a word, and "OR," which must be in upper case, indicates you want one or the other or both words. Google's proximity connector  "AROUND(n)" is similar to Lexis' "w/" connector. AROUND must be in upper case and you replace the "n" with the number of words you want one word to be within another word.  Thus, a search can be constructed to find cases with the keywords “negligence” within 4 words of “automobile” by typing: negligence AROUND(4) automobile.  You can, in the alternative, use the Advanced Search menu at http://scholar.google.com/advanced_scholar_search (discussed earlier) and enter your keywords into the various search boxes.

Display and Navigation

Lexis 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 Google Scholar, 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, Lexis and Google Scholar are the preferred choices because display the parallel cites on the first page of each case. Lexis even displays the DJ DAR cite. Cases seem to be displayed in random date order in Google Scholar results.

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 these 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 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.The "How cited tab" displayed to the right of the "View this case" tab in a Google Scholar case will help you conduct a rudimentary citation check to ascertain whether your case is still good law.

Registration and Log-On

Google Scholar does not require registration to use its free case law database, but FindLaw and Lexis do require registration (free). 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.

Lexis and FindLaw Search Engines Compared

To compare the search engines, I performed the same search in the Lexis 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.

California Case Law - Conclusion

Although free California case law databases are available, there are several reasons to have access to a pay database: (1) to access cases older than 1934 and (2) to access Shepards (or Key Cite).

California State Court Dockets

Case information (dockets) for California Supreme and Appellate Courts can be searched at http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/. To locate information about specific cases, select the Supreme Court or an individual district (or county if you don’t know its district number) and then search by docket number, attorney name, law firm, case name, or case caption. From the case summary screen, you can link to docket entries, future scheduled actions, briefs, trial court information (including the name of the trial court judge), request automatic e-mail notification of case actions, etc. You may select which case actions to be notified of including “record on appeal filed, brief filed, calendar notice, disposition, and remittitur issued.”

California Court Forms

Court forms can be viewed by number, name, or topic (http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/forms/). Also, you can view a list of recently changed forms only. If a form is interactive, it will be labeled “fillable.”

New Free Federal Docket Web Site-Justia

Justia’s U.S. District Court’s civil case filings and dockets database (http://dockets.justia.com) provides free searching of the federal district court’s civil filings and dockets from 2004 to present. This database is updated multiple times per day. This Justia database can’t be searched by keywords and phrases. Instead, it is searched by one or more of the following “field” options: party name, court, date, or lawsuit type. “Lawsuit type” refers to the Nature of the Suit (“NOS”), which is assigned by the court. For example, in the Lawsuit Type search box, you could search by the NOS Airplane Product Liability to search all cases relating to that one topic. You would leave the party name search box empty, but you could narrow down the search with dates or specific federal district courts (e.g. all California Federal District Courts or only the California Federal Central District Court).

The database can also be browsed by state, NOS, or case name.

While the opinions and orders noted on the docket sheet are available from Justia, the other underlying pleadings (complaints, answers, etc.) are not. Researchers are directed to the government’s pay database, PACER. At PACER, one can also search the dockets of the Bankruptcy Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeal—something that Justia does not offer.