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

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

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). They will be discussed in a separate article.

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

LexisONE.com

On July 6,2000 Lexis debuted LexisONE.com, 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 LexisONE 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. Though FindLaw trailed by a month, their debut did manage to trump LexisONE--by extending its coverage of California case-law back to 1934.

Daily Journal Corporation

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 10 years. 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 ($6.00/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.

LexisONE and FindLaw Search Engines Compared

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.

California Case Law - 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).

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.