Today, we have learned that LexisNexis has emailed contacts asking “Are You a Loislaw^® customer?”, with an offer to match your current Loislaw pricing for a new Lexis Advance subscription that matches the “equivalent information” of your Loislaw subscription.

In the message we saw, a Lexis Account Representative characterized Fastcase’s acquisition as “the pending Loislaw^® shutdown,” while touting “Exclusive access to Shepard’s Citations Service, the industry standard,” among other advantages of Lexis Advance. Restrictions apply.

The full-text of the message we saw is included below.

The post LexisNexis Offering to Match Loislaw Subscription Pricing for “Equivalent Information” appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.

However, in March 2014, Carole co-spoke on a Crowdsourcing panel at the ABA TECHSHOW where she discussed the free legal research platform Casetext—a crowdsourcing site for case law that showed some potential in this area. Now, we've read about another possible solution to our hope for a better, free citator: the newly launched WeCite Project, a crowdsourcing project co-sponsored by Casetext and the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics. Paul Lomio, library director and lecturer at law at Stanford Law School, lays out the details in his article at http://legalresearchplus.com/2014/03/19/wecite-projects-win-win-opportunities.

Lomio explains the project this way:

Along with the traditional crowdsourcing strategy of enabling a community of like-minded people to easily contribute, the WeCite Project is also giving law schools the unique opportunity to do their fair share in another win-win way: students learn about citators and citation analysis; the database grows. Already a number of advanced legal research classes have already participated and our class this spring will join the crowd… Importantly, any and all citator entries created under the WeCite Project (“wecites”) are public domain under a Creative Commons SA license. Casetext will also be creating an API to allow anyone to bulk download wecites. The beauty of crowdsourcing is that small contributions from individuals can aggregate into something magnificent. For those who are interesting in pitching in, instructions can be found here: https://casetext.com/wecite.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if Casemaker or Fastcase joined in this crowdsourced project to speed it along?

The post We’ve Been Hoping for a Free Citator Equal to the Fee-Based Shepard’s, BCite, and KeyCite: Has the Time Arrived? appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.

FindLaw and Google Scholar offer free California state and Ninth Circuit federal case law databases (in addition to free case law databases to all other states, circuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court).

For California-only free case law databases, you can use FindLaw’s ACCESSLAW database and the Lexis-provided database at the California Official Reports Public Access Web site.

To search select federal Ninth Circuit court (and other federal courts) dockets for free, there are two sites: Justia and RECAP.

Each of the sites noted above differ in the courts they cover, the degree of user friendliness, date coverage, and currency.

Free court forms are provided at the California Court’s official site.

FindLaw’s “Powered By ACCESSLAW” California Case Law Database

FindLaw.com (owned by Westlaw) offers a free California case-law database, powered by ACCESSLAW (http://www.findlaw.com/cacases/index.html#dirsearch2), with coverage back to 1934. California Appellate and the California Supreme cases can only be searched together. To use the FindLaw.com California case law database (http://www.findlaw.com/cacases/index.html#dirsearch2), scroll down the page to the search boxes below “Powered By ACCESSLAW.”

You can search by:

(1) Citation by clicking on the Citation tab or

(2) Advanced Search by clicking on its tab.

Cases can be searched by the following criteria:

(1) Keywords and Phrases (full text)

(2) Docket Number

(3) Party Name

(4) Judge Name

(5) Attorney Name

(6) Cite Check (for an explanation of Cite Check, see the later section with the heading “Is it “Good Law”?).

Cases can also be browsed by date or volume if you scroll down the Advanced Search page. 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’s ACCESSLAW database uses the Boolean connectors “and”, “or” and “not.” If you leave a space between words, it will not understand your request—you must use one of the Boolean connectors. To search for an exact phrase, enclose it in quotation marks.

Other FindLaw Case Law Databases

FindLaw also offers U.S. Supreme Court cases back to 1893 (http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html, U.S. Courts of Appeals cases back to 1995 or 1996 (but the First Circuit goes back to 1984), and all fifty state courts’ cases dating back to 1997 (for most states). NOTE: FindLaw has two separate databases for California cases: one that is part of the fifty-state court case law database (which only goes back to 1997) and the ACCESSLAW one discussed in the prior paragraph. You will want to use ACCESSLAW, not only because it goes back further in time (1934), but because it offers more search capabilities.

To find FindLaw’s U.S. Supreme Court and Circuit Courts of Appeals case law databases and all fifty states’ case law databases select the “Cases & Codes” tab on the upper-left side of FindLaw’s home page at http://lp.findlaw.com and then:

• Scroll down to “Browse Cases and Codes”
• For the U.S. Supreme Court or any of the Circuit Courts of Appeals, scroll down to “US Courts of Appeals - Opinions & Resources” and select one of the courts.
• For one of the state’s courts, scroll down to “State Resources” and select a state. Then, scroll down to “State Court Opinions” and choose the database labeled “From FindLaw.”

FindLaw’s U.S. Supreme Court cases (http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html) are searchable by Citation, Full-text, or Party name. For an explanation of how to cite check U.S. Supreme Court cases, see the later section with the heading “Is it “Good Law”?

FindLaw’s Circuit court cases and state cases are searchable by Free Text Search—also known as a full-text search (keywords and phrases), Party Name Search (although the  Party Name Search states it includes Counsel and Judge Names, only a party name search worked for us), and Docket Number (instead of the Citation search found at the U.S. Supreme Court database). A Date Range can also be added to the preceding searches (the U.S. Supreme Court database does not offer this option). The Circuit and state courts case law search menu also contains a Browse by Court tab, which displays opinions in reverse date order by year/month.

FindLaw uses the Boolean connectors “and”, “or” and “not” and offers only one proximity connector, “near” (which means “one word within 50 words of another word”). To search for an exact phrase, enclose it in quotation marks. The single asterisk ( * ) wildcard is used to expand the root of a word. For example, fly* would bring back results with the word fly or flying. The double asterisk ( ** ) wildcard is used to include variations of a word. For example, fly** would bring back results with the word fly or flying, but also flown or flew.

After you run your search, there will be a results list displaying the summary of the case. Click the case name and then click the Read link to view the full text of the case. Note that you must be logged into your free FindLaw account to view the full text. (To register for a free account, see http://linkon.in/csv4n0.)

FindLaw adds cases to its database on a daily basis and FindLaw highlights your search terms.

Google Scholar Case Law Database

Late in the evening of November 17, 2009 a Google employee tweeted that something was new at Google Scholar and 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 with this direct URL: http://scholar.google.com/.

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 (and non-legal) journal articles. Google Scholar has no documentation about its currency. 

Google Scholar can be searched with the same Boolean connectors that you use to search at Google.com. You can enter your search into the large search box on the Scholar home page. 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 will be searching all cases and articles together but you will be able to narrow down once you receive your results by using the left-hand side bar. This is where you can narrow your search to Articles or Case Law. If you choose Case law, then you can further narrow your search to specific courts (click the Select Courts link).

Keywords are highlighted (in light yellow), but highlighting can be removed. Cases seem to be displayed in random date order in Google Scholar results.

If you want to begin your search with a specific court (or courts), you would click into the “Case law” radio button. Then, you are given a choice of “Federal Courts” or “Select Courts” (or the last court you searched). After selecting your court(s), click “Done” and then you are offered a search box. Enter your search here, using the same Boolean connectors noted above.

You can also use the Advanced Search, which gets shifted around from time to time. Currently, it is located at the top of the page, above the large search box. If you choose the Advanced Search, you will be searching all cases and articles together but you will be able to narrow down once you receive your results.

You can enter words into one or more of the following Advanced search boxes:

• with all of the words
•  with at least one of the words
•  without the words

You can enter one or more phrases into the following Advanced search box:

• with the exact phrase (note that if you enter one phrase, do not use quotation marks but if you enter more than one phrase enclose each phrase in its own quotation marks)

You can restrict your words/phrases to appear:

• Anywhere in the article* or
• In the title of the article*

You can also restrict your search to:

• Return articles* authored by
• Return articles* published in
• Return articles* dated between

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 OR *you could enter a judge’s name into the authored by search box or a reporter name into the published in search box. In other words, “articles” could also include “cases” even though it’s not labeled as such. Entering dates into the Return articles* dated between search box will also work for cases.

Once you have entered your search into the search boxes, notice the left-hand side bar. This is where you can narrow your search to Articles or Case Law. If you choose Case law, then you can further narrow your search to specific courts (click the Select Courts link).

Google Scholar offers a “Create alert” feature (at the bottom of the left-hand column on the results page), which allows researchers to receive alerts about cases, on any chosen topic emanating from any chosen court (or alerts for articles on any chosen topic). The alert defaults to your current search and current court choices, but you can revise the alert by typing in other keywords/phrases.

California Court’s Official Site: Lexis California State Case Law Database

A free California case law database is provided by Lexis at the court's official site (http://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/CACourts), with coverage back to 1850. The search default is “Search for Opinions by Natural Language Word or Phrase” which means you would not be using Boolean or proximity connectors. To search your keywords and phrases with Boolean and proximity connectors, notice the left-hand column where you are offered an Advanced Search. In addition to the Advanced Search you can also search by field searches: By Citation, By Party Name, and By Judge.

Lexis uses the Boolean connectors “and”, “or” and “not.” Lexis also offers proximity 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.   Lexis updates its California database once a month at the court's web site.

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.

Is it “Good Law”?

 Note that the cases found at these free sites (and even at a court's own official site) are “slip opinions" and may not yet be final. They are subject to clerical corrections, modifications and rehearing. California Court of Appeal slip opinions are subject to a grant of review or to a depublication order by the California 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 California ACCESSLAW case at FindLaw, use the Advanced Search menu (http://www.findlaw.com/cacases/index.html#dirsearch2) and enter a citation into the search box labeled “Cite check: Find Cases which cite another case." In the alternative, while reading a California ACCESSLAW case at FindLaw, you can click the link labeled "Cases citing this case." While reading a U.S. Supreme Court case at FindLaw, you can click the link labeled "Cases citing this case: Supreme Court" or "Cases citing this case: Circuit Courts" to learn how your case has been treated by other cases. There is no citator service for the U. S. Courts of Appeals or states other than California.

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

None of these free citator services provide editorial treatment. Instead, you will need to read the case to learn how your case has been treated by other cases and whether it's still good law.

 Registration and Log-On

Google Scholar and the Lexis California databases do not require registration, but FindLaw requires registration (free). 

Number of Cases Displayed

FindLaw results are limited to the first 100 cases while Lexis' California case results are limited to the first 25 cases. Google Scholar does not seem to have a limit.

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, click into the "Appellate District" or “Supreme Court” radio button in the "Please Select" section on the right-hand side. If you select "Appellate District," you will then need to select an individual district (or county if you don’t know its district number). You can 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 State Court Judicial Biographies

The Court’s site also has biographical information for many of California's justices at http://www.courts.ca.gov/. To find Court of Appeals biographies, use the link bar (on the top of the home page of the California Court’s official site) and click on the button labeled "Courts." Then choose a district and then click “Justices” and then browse the Division list for the judge’s name. To find biographical information about Supreme Court justices, use the link bar (on the top of the home page of the California Court’s official site) and then click “Justices.”

California Court Forms

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

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 and the U.S. Courts of Appeals’ dockets from 2004 to present. You can limit your search to a Circuit (e.g., Ninth) or to a District Court (e.g., all California Federal District courts or just the C.D. of California). 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, only select underlying pleadings (complaints, answers, etc.) are. Researchers are directed to the government’s pay database, PACER. At PACER, one can also search the dockets of the Bankruptcy Court—something that Justia does not offer.

The post Free California Internet Legal Research: Cases, Dockets, and Forms appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.

Fastcase has also posted the following video describing the service.

“Fastcase’s Authority Check feature is already a very powerful tool for identifying whether your case is still good law,” said Fastcase CEO Ed Walters in the same press release. “Authority Check includes data visualization tools to see the later history of cases, citation analytics and filterable lists of later-citing cases. The addition of Bad Law Bot, to help identify negative history, is a major step forward. This is the first of many additions to Authority Check that we’ll roll out over the next year.”

While Fastcase is the first to offer such a service for free to its users, Casemaker has been providing negative history through its Casecheck+ product for some time - albeit at an additional cost to its users.

In our recent white paper "Are All Citators Created Equal," we compared the citator services of Bloomberg Law, LexisNexis, WestLaw, Casemaker, Fastcase, and Google Scholar - looking for indications of how they displayed both negative and positive treatment of published and unpublished cases. In that side by side comparison,  we found that Casemaker, Fastcase, and Google Scholar's citators did not include unpublished cases so they did not let you know if a later published case had reversed or affirmed the unpublished case. While we found that "legal researchers can still use these databases [Casemaker, Fastcase, and Google Scholar] to learn if their cases are still good law by taking the extra step to run a search using the party names as keywords," we recommended "NOT relying entirely on any of [those three]." We concluded that the paid services offered by Bloomberg Law, LexisNexis, and Westlaw provided the most comprehensive coverage of this information.

Even in its press release announcing the new service, Fastcase seems to concede that point when the company says, "The new Bad Law Bot feature helps users identify negative treatment of the cases [sic] judicial opinions. However, because it only reports what cases say in citations, researchers should rely on Bad Law Bot as an aid to identifying negative history, not as a comprehensive guide."

We agree that Bad Law Bot is a step forward for free/low-cost case law research databases because rather than just listing all of the cases that cite the case you've searched for, Bad Law Bot points out the negative treatment so you can focus on reading those cases first.  It's important to note however, that Fastcase's Authority Check still does not provide information such as positive treatment of cases or whether an unpublished case has been affirmed by a later published case. We look forward to seeing where the journey leads.

The post Fastcase Launches Bad Law Bot to Flag Negative Treatment in Case Law appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.

We also thought that our experiences updating this unpublished case would be a good opportunity to compare three of the most popular free and low-cost case law databases (Google Scholar, Fastcase, Casemaker) and their citator services, with the more expensive databases (LexisNexis, WestlawNext, and Bloomberg) and their citator services.Our white paper "Are all Citator Services Created Equal?" details the results of that comparison.

Complete the form below (or on our web site if not displayed in your e-mail) to download your free copy of this report.

The post Are All Caselaw Citators Created Equal? A comparison of Google Scholar, Fastcase, Casemaker, LexisNexis, WestlawNext, and Bloomberg appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.

LexisNexis' Decade-Long Free Case Law Research Experiment Comes to an End

Free, current case law research has disappeared from LexisNexis Communities. All links and access to the database formerly known as lexisONE have been removed. The deep link that previously led to a functional free case law search form on the LexisNexis Communities pages now displays only a message announcing where one can pay to access LexisNexis' case law databases.

LexisONE, originally launched in July 2000 as a free legal portal by Lexis, was re-launched in December 2008 as LexisONE Community, and relaunched again in September 2011 as LexisNexis (LN) Communities (http://www.lexisnexis.com/community/portal). Explaining the change,  at the time Lexis stated,  “LexisNexis Communities have replaced the lexisONE Community to provide you with access to more innovative, up-to-date content and resources across multiple practice and professional areas. Even though lexisONE Community will no longer be available, you will still be able to access the same Forms and Free Case Law [emphasis added] which were offered through lexisONE, but now through a broader extension of our Communities” (http://www.lexisnexis.com/ COMMUNITY/WORKERSCOMPENSATIONLAW/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/ CommunityServer.Components.SiteFiles/Documents/lexisONE-community- FAQ.doc).

On February 24, 2012, as we were revising the 12th edition of The Cybersleuth's Guide to the Internet, we noted a dramatic change to the LexisNexis Communities site -- the removal of any links to what we considered the highlight of the portal’s free resources: its full-text searchable case law database. Although there has been no announcement from Lexis, at the time, the home page pointed to the demise of the free case law search. At that time the homepage read, “Even though lexisONE Community will no longer be available, you will still be able to access the same Forms which were offered through lexisONE, but now through a broader extension of our Communities.” Despite the lack of any mention of providing access to case law, the free case law search form was still available at http://linkon.in/sRr0mt. 

While the searchable database was still accesible when this post was originally published, it would have taken a cybersleuth to find it. To access the search form from the LexisNexis Communities homepage you had to you click the Browse through State Courts for free or Browse through Federal Courts for free (at the bottom of the page). Even then, you would have seen that no cases had been added to the browseable list of cases since December 2011. It is unclear if the database will be kept online. We suspect not since the links to it have been removed and it is no longer an up-to-date database. As late as 3/29/2012, searches could still retrieve recent cases. That is no longer the case.

Within days of this post going live, LexisNexis removed access to the database entirely. Now, instead of accessing the the free case law search form, the page at http://linkon.in/sRr0mt displays the following message: “Thank you for your interest in case law offered by LexisNexis^® through LexisNexis Communities and lexisONE. Our case law collection is now only available through a subscription to Lexis Advance^™ or lexis.com^®.”

There is no longer any doubt. Free case law research from Lexis is most certainly dead - quietly killed off. 

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Lawyers can claim their free trial membership in the American Bar Association (and one Section) by clicking here.

For those who once relied on the free case law at LN Communities, try these other free options (all of which are described in detail in The Cybersleuth's Guide to the Internet book):

• Casemaker or Fastcase (check your state or local bar’s site to see if they offer it free as a member benefit)
• Google Scholar
• Justia
• FindLaw
• Cornell Legal Information Institute
• LexisNexis California Cases
• The Public Library of Law (PLoL)
• FindACase Network

Other Changes at LexisNexis Communities

Another dramatic change at Lexis, for which there was an announcement, is the demise of the “pay by credit card” ad hoc use of Lexis and Shepard’s.

So, What’s Left at LexisNexis Communities?

The following services are available (accessible from tabs listed beneath the Featured Content column on the left of the home page as noted in the above illustration):

• News (headlines from Mealey's^TM Legal News and other sources)
• Blogs
• Forms
• Podcasts
• Videocasts
• Emerging Issues
• Top Cases

Before clicking any of the tabs noted above, select the Practice Areas dropdown arrow beneath the Visit Other Communities By and select a practice area (see above illustration). Then, when you click a tab from the Featured Content column, such as News, Podcasts, etc. it will be customized to your chosen practice area.

In the Visit Other Communities By section, there are two other communities besides Practice Areas: the Global and the Professional. For those interested in legal news from Australia, Hong Kong, or Japan, select one of those countries from the Global tab.

The Professional community tab is divided into a few professions, (such as Academic and Legal and Corporate Information Professionals) and there is also a link to Martindale.com.

Other services can be accessed by scrolling down the home page, such as Lexis Web (a “search engine that delivers free web content specifically from legal sites validated by LexisNexis^® attorney editors”) and Forms (ranging from over 6,000 free forms from Matthew Bender^® to interactive pay forms) Users can customize their LN Communities page by clicking Add Content to My [Page]. To use the portal registration (free) is required (even to use the free portion).

The post What’s Missing From LexisNexis Communities? Free Case Law appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.

LexisNexis has raised the price of Shephardizing a single case at it's LexisONE Community free online caselaw research site from $6.00/case to $15.00/case. This appears to be a New Year's price increase, as the price was $6.00/case when we visited the site in late December 2010. Prices have not increased for longer-term access to Shephard's. Daily packages for unlimited access to Shepard’s remain $43, the weekly package remains $69, and the monthly package remains $146. Additional discounts may be available as a member benefit through state, local, and specialty  bar associations.

LexisONE Community is a legal portal (partially free and partially pay) offered by the commercial legal vendor LexisNexis. It was originally launched in July 2000 as LexisONE and re-launched as LexisONE Community in December 2008.

The Cybersleuth's Guide to the Internet details free sources for case law research on the Internet. All new for 2011!

The highlights of the portal’s free “added value” resources are accessible from the tabs on the home page, beginning with Free Case Law (full-text searchable), Lexis Web (“search engine that delivers free web content specifically from legal sites validated by LexisNexis^® attorney editors”), Forms (ranging from free forms to interactive pay forms), and Lawyer Locator.

The post LexisNexis Raises Price of Shephardizing Cases in LexisONE Community appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.