I have been doing some intricate legal research lately, for an attorney…I had found, to my delight, the website www.usscplus.com which has an online database: U. S. Supreme Court cases in their entirety, as far back as 1892.
But finding anything in the Federal Reporter series (Circuit Courts) and Federal Supplement series (U.S. District Courts), as well as State case law (OK, California) has eluded me so far.
I can’t use Shepards or Lexis-Nexis to do this, since they require subscription. Any info?
Some court websites post their opinions. You can also try www.findlaw.com which is a very good resource for finding court websites. Or, if there is a law school near you, go to their library. (You should call first, as many school libraries are not open to the public.) Also, some larger public libraries have this stuff as well.
–Cliffy
Another excellent site, covering the USSC, the Circuits, the New York court system, plus links to the Districts and other states, is the Legal Information Institute at Cornell: www.law.cornell.edu.
If you go to a law library, you can still perform searches in the sources you described through the print versions. It will take a little bit longer, but it should work fine once you get the hang out of it.
People were doing legal research long before the Internet.
Indeed, BobT. That includes me. However, sometimes I want to do my research at times of day, or on sundays or holidays, when the books in law libraries are inaccessible. (The local branch law library I use, in the courthouse, in Torrance, CA, has the Lawyers’ Edition of Supreme Court Reports; although West’s Supreme Court Reporter is not an official series, I prefer it because it’s more readable.
I think you’ve found the best internet research resources (beyond Westlaw, of course), but IMHO, internet research is dangerous dangerous dangerous. There is no citator service, no annotation, and relatively no finding tools. Beware!