| Finding Illinois Law Free on the 'Net: FindLaw, LexisONE and More
There is little doubt that Lexis and Westlaw, colloquially known as Wexis, provide invaluable online research services to our profession. They can also be very expensive to use and most firms have to keep tight control over their use. However, there is a way to keep online research costs down even though it may take a little getting used to. By coupling free online resources with the pay services, one can begin to trim research costs. Be that as it may, you still have to be a little wary of free services and ask yourself if it is fee vs. free, or fee vs. no service whatsoever? Due to the ubiquity of free online sites you should carefully explore those relevant to your research needs and decide accordingly which one(s) to use. Obviously, some offer more content than others, but it's always wise to remember that the content will never come close to rivaling Wexis pay services. The key is to take advantage of what freebies they do have to offer. For example, do you need a copy of a case handed down by the Illinois Supreme Court in 1999? Get it online for free. Need a 1902 U.S. Supreme Court case? Also free. Need a copy of a state court case prior to 1998? Problematic as to whether you will find this one. FindLaw The most highly trafficked site offering free research access is FindLaw, available at <http://findlaw.com/>. This site is a service of the Thomson/West company, which is best known for Westlaw by most people. FindLaw touts their service as "providing the most comprehensive set of legal resources on the Internet for legal professionals, businesses, students and individuals." FindLaw offers U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1893, California Supreme Court and Appellate Court decisions dating back to 1934, recent U.S. Circuit Court and other state court decisions, and federal and state codes. If you need legal forms, FindLaw purports to have nearly 8,000 ranging from "federal appellate, district and bankruptcy courts as well as state courts." The forms you have at your disposal include "civil and criminal subpoenas, summonses, complaints, affidavits and schedules." In addition, the FindLaw Library has a searchable online database of documents covering more than 200 topics. Typically these documents are the type published by state bar associations, legal publishers, law firms, and the government. Another attractive feature of FindLaw is the ease in finding materials. This site proves itself to be fairly intuitive even for those not entirely comfortable with online research. For instance, the user has the ability to browse by state or by practice interest, depending on their need. In the alternative, it is just as easy to search for needed materials using a standard "search" box. LexisONE FindLaw's main competitor in providing free online research is LexisONE, available at <http://lexisone.com/>. This site is provided by LexisNexis, which proclaims that the service is "[t]he resource for small law firms" and is "designed to meet the day-to-day practice demands of small-firm attorneys." Take note that LexisONE requires new users to register. Once registered, returning users are required to login with a user name and password each time. Registration is free, and users choose their own user names and passwords during registration. LexisONE offers federal and state case law dating back to January 1, 1998, as well as all U.S. Supreme Court decisions from 1790 to present. Coverage is surprisingly complete and most jurisdictions/courts are readily available, including state supreme and appellate courts. Sure, you may not find every single specialty (think tax) court available, but that's to be expected of a free site. When it comes to documents, LexisONE offers more than 6,000 free of charge, including forms from the Matthew Bender collection. According to LexisONE, all forms are regularly updated, logically organized, and where applicable are date stamped. The forms are available in either HotDocs or PDF format. While both are user friendly, HotDocs significantly expedites the form preparation process. This service essentially allows the user to fill in the blanks of a pre-selected form and then print it. In fact, the user can also save the document for future use. The great thing about the HotDocs service is that the document is ready for signatures immediately after printing. And that's not all... Are LexisONE and FindLaw the only free research services available on the Internet? Not by a long shot, but they do constitute the higher end when it comes to depth, quality, and currency of information. However, there are plenty of free sites that have a lot to offer and in the interest of saving money should not be overlooked. For instance, LawGuru.com is an excellent site that has access to over 500 legal search engines, tools, and databases. According to LawGuru, users can simultaneously search multiple state codes and statutes, multiple state court opinions, or U.S. Federal Court opinions and codes (U.S. Supreme Court and circuit court opinions, as well as U.S. Codes). The Internet Law Library is also found on LawGuru and is another great way to find American (federal and state) law as well as foreign laws. We have all probably heard the horror stories of unchecked summer interns racking up exorbitant bills using pay services to do basic legal research. While it might be nothing more than an urban legend passed around by email, it does point out the need to be aware of the costs involved when performing online legal research. With judicious use of the available free sites it is possible to trim research overhead. The key is to determine whether a site will be useful or not by knowing precisely what it has to offer before you begin the research process. Why pay for something that you can have for free? Finding Illinois Law is coauthored by Paul Callister, library director and associate professor of law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, and Phill Johnson, assistant professor of library administration and reference librarian at the University of Illinois College of Law at Urbana-Champaign. To suggest a topic, e-mail Paul at <callisterp@umkc.edu> or Phill at <pwjohnso@law.uiuc.edu>. |