Since there's no getting around Google, you should make sure you're using it effectively. A recent article from the National Law Journal by Tracey Rich -- "How Lawyers Can Improve Search Results" -- might give you the answer.
The article deals with advance search techniques and "ways to determine the reliability of a Web site." It has some good ideas. Meanwhile, you can also check out the following related posts on this weblog:
A new website called Litilaw offers "published articles for litigators" with this introduction--
Welcome to our free collection of hundreds of recently published articles of interest to litigators and related legal professionals. All articles are full-text, written by lawyers and have been published as part of continuing legal education (CLE) seminars, in legal journals, or are of similar quality. Litilaw links to copies of articles available on the internet . . .
Litilaw also invites lawyers to add their own articles to the database. Link from Robert Ambrogi's LawSites.
Members of the Illinois State Bar Association now get free access to Fastcase, an online provider of legal research. The online FAQ has some of the details:
Through a link from the Illinois State Bar Association Web site, you have unlimited free access to the Fastcase federal and national library and "framed" Illinois statutes and codes.
Here's just some of what Fastcase includes:
- an easy-to-use search engine that allows both Boolean and natural-language searching;
- cases from the courts of review from Illinois and every other state, as well as U.S. Supreme and federal appellate cases (users can search all jurisdictions at once);
- star pagination and double-column printing.
To log on, all that's needed is your ISBA member number, which is printed in the upper left-hand corner of your Illinois Bar Journal mailing label.
Need to know when your client is sued in federal court? Justia Federal Court Filings allows you to see new filings by state, court, or subject matter. You can even set up RSS feeds to track the information you need to know. Link from Learning to Practice.
UPDATE: There's more from Justia about the new service here.
The new Google Patent Search covers U.S. patents from the 1790s through 2006. Not covered are patent applications, international patents, or patents from the last few months.
There's more at The Invent Blog and Patent Baristas.
Related posts:
There are two new legal blog search tools from Justia.com you might want to know about: BlawgSearch.com for legal weblogs and Blawgs.fm for law-related audio and video content.
If you want an introduction to these new tools, see the Justia weblog, where Tim Stanley has a long post explaining the site's Blawg Directory, Blawg Rankings, and more. There are already 48 law-related weblogs in the "trials and litigation" category, with other law-related weblogs being added each day.
That's a lot of useful, free information from lawyers who have no problem sharing their secrets with others--much more than when I started Illinois Trial Practice three years ago.
In his article "What can Google do for you?" (Trial, 9/06), David Ratcliff suggests a number of Google-powered search engines that might be useful to lawyers, including these:
Ratcliff also reminds readers to try Google's advanced search options, which allow Boolean operators. There are still other suggestions in the article.
Extra-serious Google users should check out the book Google Hacks, which documents a number of useful but little-known Google capabilities.
Are you out of town without your rulebook? Here are the Missouri Supreme Court Rules online, including the Rules of Civil Procedure.
Related: Illinois Rules and Statutes Online.
The lawyers at Miller & Zois, LLC don't have a weblog, but they're participating in the open-source lawyering movement anyway by sharing information on the Attorney Help Center page of their website. Here's their thinking--
The purpose of this Maryland Personal Injury Attorney Help Center is to serve as a resource for Maryland personal injury attorneys and other lawyers around the country representing injury victims. As we looked at personal injury sites on the Internet, we noticed that while many sites are good at talking about themselves and the types of personal injury cases they handle, few provide real information of assistance to injured victims or other personal injury lawyers.
At the Attorney Help Center, you'll find sample pleadings, motions, discovery, jury instructions, and more. An example of what's offered is "Plaintiff's First Request for Admissions," a comprehensive set of requests for admissions in a vehicle injury case that would work as a model in most states.
At Washington & Lee School of Law, John Doyle is helping to make law journals more accessible online. First, Doyle has made it possible to search the table of contents of many law journals at "Current Law Journal Content." Not only will you find article titles; sometimes, there's a link to the full contents of the article. For example, I searched "opening statement" and found a free article called "Opening Statement: Raise the Bar" from Litigation magazine, one of my favorites (pdf).
Second, Doyle has created Law Journal Feeds, which lists RSS feeds from over a hundred law journals. Since it's possible to pick and choose the journals that interest you, Law Journal Feeds is a powerful tool for keeping up with developments in your area of the law.
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