What You Are Likely to Find Online for Free
- More federal than state materials, and more state materials than local government information
- More government information than privately generated content; generally more primary material than secondary material
- More recent information (1990s to present) than older material
- More case opinions than case dockets or filings
- More "just the document" rather than items with additional editorial content
- More unofficial (can't cite to it) information than official
Information You Probably Won't Find Free Online
- Comprehensive site featuring all types of materials collected from all jurisdictions
- Secondary sources that are excellent quality and from reliable publishers
- Digests, headnotes, and other editorial content and finding aids
- Citator with broad reach
- Some free-to-bar members or lost-cost resources, like Fastcase, have citators but they are limited in scope
Potential Pitfalls of Free Legal Resources
- Not Comprehensive
- Cover only a narrow subject matter
- Cover only a "snapshot" of time such as the most recent five years or may no longer be updated
When to Use Free Resources
- At the beginning of your search--for background information
- To look up a discrete piece of information
- find a case/statute/regulation by citation
- look up an article by title or author
- locate a person by name
- To pinpoint a citation for a case/statute/regulation to run through a citator on Bloomberg, Lexis, or Westlaw
- To generate search term
- To local news articles about a topic
- To locate contact or other directory information for a person or business
