Web Search Tips

• See the Guide to Free Legal Web Resources
• Remember Find functions to find text in big documents:  edit/find (Ctrl+F) in html, Find for pdf, or use Google site search
• Bookmark a few portals that link to legal research sites
  • Or   Emory Law Subject Guides
  • Or Cornell Legal Research Engine, Zimmerman's Legal Research Guide, Mercer's guide to Georgia Resources
• Web pages change and disappear, URLs change:  find stable sources, citations to print
• Use search engines to find specific documents by name, but find topical sources to do more general research

Drawbacks to legal research on the web

• Internet sources generally lack indexing
• Difficulty of choosing the right keywords
• Retrieval of irrelevant documents
• Many legal materials are not yet on the web, including secondary sources
• Invisible web:  Much of the internet is invisible to search engines because of database sites, dynamic pages, password protected sites
• Outdated information:  overturned and modified decisions, amended statutes
• Costs saved by using free resources may be outweighed by additional time spent searching
  • A focused search on a subscription database may be more cost-effective than hours spent trying to find free resources with a search engine
• Not all legal research materials are on the web, or even online
  • Many books and treatises not online
  • Opinions of lower courts may not be available online
  • Many legal research materials available on subscription databases but not free on the web

Problems with internet legal research

• Unofficial sources interpreting the law may be inaccurate
• Most legal issues require use of multiple statutes, regulations, and cases, not a single hit
• Results must be verified for accuracy and currency
• Better for starting information search, finding clues, terms, additional information 
  • Use official sources to cite or quote
• May be useful for finding specific documents in reliable sources
  • Look for government websites, pdf documents
• Most legal research will require some fee-based databases or print sources
• Wikipedia?
  • Perhaps as a starting source for an unfamiliar topic
  • Use caution with sources that are unofficial, not peer-reviewed, unfamiliar authors