CBA Paralegal Committee June 22, 2010 Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles: Casemaker, Lexis, Westlaw & More! Wanda McDavid Access/Information, Inc.

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles: Casemaker, Lexis, Westlaw & More! Access/Information Who are we? We are one of the oldest information professional companies in the country and the largest of our type in Denver and the Rocky Mountain region. Our staff is comprised of experienced law librarians and paralegals. We currently provide services to over 70% of the top law firms in Denver.

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Class Objective To review the CBA's Casemaker online legal research library – discuss search strategy and the Colorado and Federal resources available from Casemaker. Discuss Web-based pathways to free or inexpensive legal research sites –to become more efficient searchers while saving time and money.

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Coverage will include: Casemaker When to search/not search on the Web Legal Portals Primary Sources/Case Law Public Records Web Browsing Tips

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Primary Sources/Case Law Casemaker: –CaseCheck –MultiBook searches –Printing enhancements –State and Federal resources

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Use free online resources for: Becoming acquainted with the language/terminology of legal fields for which you are unfamiliar –Zimmerman’s Research Guide –Wex – LII’s law dictionary and encyclopedia –bing.com, Google.com, Yahoo.com

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Use free online resources for: Single-state based research for cases and statutes –Findlaw State Law collection –LLRX.com - Court rules by state Locating government documents and public records

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Go directly to a commercial database for: Comprehensive national searches Specific legal fields for which Lexis or Westlaw have established a specific library.

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Legal Portals A legal portal is essentially a gateway to all sorts of legal and law-related information. Generally portals provide some original content, but mostly they serve as a launch pad to legal sites all over the Internet.

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Cornell University Law School’s Legal Information Institute (LII): –Introduction to Basic Citation Justia: (recently acquired the Virtual Chase site.)

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Primary Sources LexisOne: ne/ ne/ Thomas:

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Government Documents – Federal USA.gov: USAsearch.gov: Law Library of Congress:

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Public Records Business records – UCC/formation, etc. Judgments Liens Real Property Professional licenses Docket sheets/registers of actions (CoCourt and Courtlink docket sheets are very abbreviated) Inmate records Tax records Political Contributions

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Public Records – State and Local Searchsystems.Net: Public Records Directory:

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Law Journals HeinOnline – Law Journal Library Ebsco – legal collection University of Southern California Law Library Legal Journals -

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Odds and Ends SSRN The Blawg 100: 100_2008/news 100_2008/news

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Identifying Authoritative Sources: Trade Associations Government Information and Public RecordsGovernment Information Public Records Information Hubs Limiting searches to.org,.edu, and.gov extensions

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Browser Tips Keyboard shortcuts Bookmarks/Favorites Search individual web pages (CTRL – F) Using multiple browsers ing web pages – Use Internet Explorer or if the page has a link to the page (news stories have it) PDF documents

Fact-Finding on the Web Starting Points and Beyond Identifying Authoritative Sources: Trade Associations ations/By_Industry ations/By_Industry Government Information and Public Records Information Hubs Limiting searches to.org,.edu, and.gov extensions

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Validating Information Plan the search Limit the field Indentify and review the original source Evaluate the source Verify the date of publication Beware

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Documenting and Citing Sources: Following links to original sources Citing sources ( uebook1_7.cfm ) in your deliverableCiting sourceshttp:// uebook1_7.cfm Documenting your search strategy

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles Speed and Efficiency Know your tools –Developing a search strategy –Bookmarking –Advanced Search Options –Special directories and search options

Flexing and Using Your Legal Research Muscles We provide: –Public Records Research and Retrieval, including court document research and retrieval –Expert Witness Due Diligence –Patent Prior Art Compilation and Retrieval –Insurance Rate Research and Retrieval –Document Delivery –Customized Web Training –Law Library Management –Records Management