This presentation is a guide to researching legal issues on the internet. Basic search topics applicable to any database are discussed as well as specific strategies for finding free or inexpensive legal materials, effectively using new technologies such as blogs, RSS feeds, and podcasts. Additionally, attendees are warned to avoid outdated technologies and sources

Rigual, Michelle

English

University of New Mexico

12-14-2006 
Find It Free and Fast on the Net: Strategies for Legal Research on 
the Web (2006) 
Michelle Rigual 
University of New Mexico - School of Law 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facultyscholarship 
 Part of the Law Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Michelle Rigual, Find It Free and Fast on the Net: Strategies for Legal Research on the Web (2006), 
National Business Institute Continuing Legal Education Seminar (2006). 
Available at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facultyscholarship/152 
This Presentation is brought to you for free and open 
access by the UNM School of Law at UNM Digital 
Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty 
Scholarship by an authorized administrator of UNM 
Digital Repository. For more information, please contact 
amywinter@unm.edu, lsloane@salud.unm.edu, 
sarahrk@unm.edu. 
Find it Free and Fast on the Net: 
 Strategies for Legal Research on the Web 
 
 
 
Michelle Rigual 
Albuquerque, New Mexico 
December 14, 2006 
 
Today’s Agenda 
 How to Search Like A Pro 
 Finding Free Legal Research Sites and Free Case Law 
 Casemaker 
 Discover the Invisible Web 
 Government Internet Resources: Federal, State and 
Local 
 Investigative Research: Public Records and “Publicly 
Available” Information 
 Finding “Practice” Tools 
 Locating Persons and Finding Background Information 
 Locating Companies for Due Diligence and Background 
Information 
I. How to Search Like a Pro 
 What is the Difference Between a Search Engine 
and a Directory? 
 How do Search Engines Really Work? 
 Learn Boolean Logic to Create the Best Search 
Strategies for Finding Relevant Documents. 
 Which Search Engines are the Best? 
 A Close Look at Google 
 Learn Browser Tricks 
 Managing Bookmarks 
 Effectively Using RSS Feeds, Blogs and Podcasts 
What Are Search Engines? 
 Huge databases 
of web page files 
automatically 
assembled by 
machine.  
 
 The best means 
invented (so far) 
for finding info on 
the web. 
 
Examples: 
 Google 
 Live Search 
 Ask.com 
 Jeteye 
 Blinkx 
 Rollyo 
 
 
How Do Search Engines Work? 
 Spiders crawl from link to 
link 
 
 Sites with no links to other 
pages may be missed 
 
 May submit URLs for crawling 
 
 
How Do Search Engines Work? 
 Site is indexed 
 
 Index contains every web page the spider finds.  
 
 If a web page changes, the index is updated. 
 
 Pages are not available to searchers until 
spidered AND indexed. 
 
How Do Search Engines Work? 
 Each search engine has unique software 
 
 Sifts through the pages recorded in the index  
 
 Finds matches to a search 
 
 Ranks the matches by relevance.  
 
 Remember, not up to the minute!! 
 


Search Engine Pros & Cons 
 Pros: 
 Access to a large portion of the publicly available 
pages on the Web 
 So far, the best means devised 
 
 Cons: 
 High likelihood of thousands of responses to 
simple search requests.  
 Many irrelevant hits.  
When to Use a Search Engine 
 To find: 
 
 unique keywords, phrases, quotes, and info 
buried in the full-text of web pages 
 
 a wide range of responses to specific queries, 
use a search engine  

What Are Subject Directories? 
 Created and maintained by human editors 
who review and select sites for inclusion 
 
 Annotations 
 
 Smaller than search engine databases 
(typically index only home page or top level 
pages) 
How Do Directories Work? 
 Matches keywords with its written 
descriptions 
 
 Can be special interest: 
 General 
 Legal 
 Academic 
 Commercial 
Distinctions are Blurring 
 The line between subject directories and 
search engines is blurring.  
 
 Most directories have partnered with search 
engines while search engines are acquiring 
subject directories or creating their own.  
Directory Pros & Cons 
 Pros: 
 Capability of delivering a higher quality of content 
 Provide fewer out of context results 
 
 Cons: 
 More dead links 
 Slower search process 
When to Use a Directory 
 For browsing and general searches. 
 
 To see what kind of information is available, 
browse through the subject categories. 
 
 For information on popular topics, 
organizations, commercial sites and 
products. 
 
Directories in Action 
 Open Directory – www.dmoz.org 
 Look Smart - www.search.looksmart.com 
 Yahoo! – www.yahoo.com 
 
 Searching for:  
 Airline mergers 
 Weight Loss 
 










Search Engine/Directory Final Word 
 If you're browsing and trying to determine 
what's available in your subject area start 
with a subject directory 
 
 If you're looking for a specific piece of 
information go to a major search engine 
 
 Don’t forget print reference sources. 
 
 
Learn Boolean Logic… 
 Use connectors to add precision and 
relevance to search in ANY DATABASE. 
 
 AND: limits number of hits 
 
 OR: expands number of hits (to allow for 
idiosyncracies) 
 
 NOT: increases precision 
 
 
 
Learn Boolean Logic… 
 AND 
 
 truth 
 
 truth AND justice  
 
 truth AND justice AND ethics AND congress 
Learn Boolean Logic… 
 OR 
 
 college 
 
 college OR university 
 
 college OR university OR campus 
Learn Boolean Logic… 
 NOT 
 
 rico 
 
 rico NOT puerto 
 
 rico NOT act 
Learn Boolean Logic…to Construct the 
Best Search Strategies for Finding 
Relevant Documents 
 
 Proximity: limits number of hits 
 
 truth 
 
 truth AND justice 
 
 truth NEAR justice 
Learn Boolean Logic…to Construct the 
Best Search Strategies for Finding 
Relevant Documents 
 
 Nesting: increases precision by combining 
several search statements   
 
 (hybrid OR electric) AND (Toyota OR Honda) 
 
 Saturn  
 AND (car or automobile)  
 NOT (planet OR space) 
 
Learn Boolean Logic…to Construct the 
Best Search Strategies for Finding 
Relevant Documents 
 
 Field Searching: limits your hits and increases 
precision by searching only the relevant 
portion of a database. 
 
 Drop down menus 
 
 Tabs 
 
 Check boxes 
 



Learn Boolean Logic…to Construct the 
Best Search Strategies for Finding 
Relevant Documents 
 
 Look for useful features: 
 
 Advanced Search 
 
 Site map 
 










Learn Boolean Logic…to Construct the 
Best Search Strategies for Finding 
Relevant Documents 
 
 General search construction tips: 
 Be specific: Hurricane Hugo  
 Think about words you'd expect to find: anorexia 
bulimia eating disorder 
 Use multiple words: interaction vitamins drugs  
 Use nouns: fiesta dinnerware plates cups 
 Important terms first: hybrid electric gas vehicles 
 
Learn Boolean Logic…to Construct the 
Best Search Strategies for Finding 
Relevant Documents 
 
 General search construction tips: 
 Make phrases: "search engine tutorial” 
 Avoid common words unless part of a phrase: 
"bottled water” 
 To cut down on response time, search engines 
ignore small and common words  
 a, about, an, and, are, as, at, be, by, from, how, I, in, 
is, it, of, on, or, that, the, this, to, we, what, when, 
where, which, with, etc. 
 
 












Which Search Engines Are the Best? 
 Search Engine Showdown has 
everything you need to know about 
search engines. 
 
 Provides reviews, lists features, 
analyzes statistics, etc. 
 
 www.searchengineshowdown.com 
 



Which Search Engines Are the Best? 
 Google  
 Largest & most popular 
 Outperformed all other databases on the Search 
Engine Showdown 
 However… 
 Contains less than half the searchable Web 
 About half of the pages in any search engine 
database exist only in that database.  
 
 Get a second opinion from Live Search or Ask 

A Close Look at Google and Search 
Engines That “Think” 
 Easy to search 
 
 Highly relevant results 
 
 Lots of results in order of relevance 
 
 How to make the best use of it? 

A Close Look at Google 
 How often does Google crawl the web?  
 They won’t say besides “on a regular cycle”  
 
 How does Google determine which pages to 
return and their order?  
 Every link is like a vote. 
 Analyzes the importance of the page that casts the 
vote. 
 “sophisticated text-matching techniques” 
A Close Look at Google 
 Where is my search term? 
 It might not be there. 
 In evaluating merit and relevance, Google 
considers the text of the page and of links that 
point to the page.  
A Close Look at Google 
 First - see ‘general search construction tips’ 
 Google-specific tips: 
 Not case sensitive. Searches for george 
washington, George Washington, and gEoRgE 
wAsHiNgToN will all return the same results.  
 No need to include "and" between terms.  
 The order in which the terms are typed will affect 
the search results.  
 To restrict a search, just include more terms.  
 
 
A Close Look at Google 
 Google-specific tips: 
 Common words are ignored 
 If a common word is essential, either: 
 put a "+" sign in front of it  
  Star Wars Episode +I 
 put your phrase in quotation marks 
  "Star Wars Episode I“ 
 Stemming technology is used. 
 NOT is indicated by a negative sign.   
   rico -puerto  
 Synonym search, place the tilde sign ("~") immediately in 
front of your search term.  
Special queries  define:quo warranto 
Special queries stocks:intc yhoo 
Special queries link:www.fscll.org 
Special queries related:www.nmbar.org 
Special queries cache:www.whitehouse.gov iraq 
Special queries echostar site:www.fcc.gov 
A Close Look at Google 
 Other Special Queries  
 
 allintitle:echostar fcc 
 “echostar” and “fcc” must both appear in the page’s title 
 
 intitle:echostar fcc 
 “echostar” must appear in the page’s title and “fcc” must 
appear in the text 
 
A Close Look at Google 
 Other Special Queries  
 
 allinurl:echostar fcc 
 “echostar” and “fcc” must both appear in the page’s URL 
 
 inurl:echostar fcc  
 “echostar” must appear in the page’s URL and “fcc” 
must appear in the text 
 
  




The “Find” Function 



Managing Bookmarks 






Effectively Using RSS Feeds, Blogs and 
Podcasts 
 Blogs 
 Weblogs 
 Online journals using software that allows people 
with little or no technical background to update 
and maintain them.   
 Those who continuously add new content to their 
pages are 'bloggers'.  
 A tool for fast breaking,unfiltered information.  
Effectively Using RSS Feeds, Blogs and 
Podcasts 
 Blog Searching 
 
 Google blogsearch www.google.com/blogsearch 
 
 Feedster www.feedster.com 
 
Effectively Using RSS Feeds, Blogs and 
Podcasts 
 Blog Posting 
 Legal blogs (blawgs) usually focus tightly on one 
niche area of the law and/or jurisdiction.  
 Provide readers with a constantly renewing source 
of news and insight about the topic.  
 Usually written by an individual lawyer or practice 
group. 
 Establishes the author as a reliable, helpful authority 
 Builds and enhances the writer’s reputation.  
Effectively Using RSS Feeds, Blogs and 
Podcasts 
 RSS Feeds 
 Rich Site Summary 
 Stay up to date through preferred news sources  
 Includes summaries, headlines, and links to online 
news stories. 
 Click a RSS link or button, you are directed to the 
URL address of that feed.  
 The feeds are viewable online using RSS 
Readers.  
 
Effectively Using RSS Feeds, Blogs and 
Podcasts 
 Where can I find RSS Readers? 
 
 Awasu - http://www.awasu.com/   
 
 Amphetadesk - 
http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/ 
 
 RSS Reader - http://www.rssreader.com/  
 
 NetNewsWire - http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/  
 
Effectively Using RSS Feeds, Blogs and 
Podcasts 
 Typical Features of RSS Readers: 
 Monitor any site that provides an RSS  
 Let you know when new content is found.  
 Keep track of what you have already read so you 
don't waste time looking at the same thing more 
than once.  
 Archive all feed content 
 Provide a good search engine to help you find 
what you're looking for. 
 
Effectively Using RSS Feeds, Blogs and 
Podcasts 
 Podcast 
 A multimedia file distributed over the Internet that 
can be downloaded automatically for playback on 
mobile devices and personal computers. 
 Despite the name, an Ipod is not required to 
download. 
 Feeds are managed through an aggregator just 
like RSS. 
 Like RSS and blogs – key is immediacy. 
II. Finding Free Legal Research Sites and 
Free Case Law 
 Finding the Shortcuts to Legal Research: 
Free Legal Portals and Meta-Sites 
 Finding and Using Free, Full-Text Case Law 
Sites 
 Learn About the Free (Poor Man’s) 
“Shepards” 
Finding the Shortcuts to Legal Research: 
Free Legal Portals and Meta-Sites 
  Portals (meta-sites) 
 One-stop-shopping 
 Intended to quickly direct you to all the resources 
you are likely to want 
 
 Examples: 
 FindLaw 
 Hieros Gamos 
 Cornell Law School’s LII 
 Washburn University's WashLaw.  












Finding the Shortcuts to Legal Research: 
Free Legal Portals and Meta-Sites 
  Newer Sites: 
 AllLaw.com 
 LawyerExpress 
 Law Guru 
 Narrow focus 
 Employment Law Information Network 
 GigaLaw.com (IT law) 
 ILW.COM (immigration) 
 PageBid (litigation pricing) 
 The Virtual Chase (legal research guides) 
Finding & Using Free, Full-Text Case Law 
Sites 
 Free.   
 Usually provided by a govt entity 
 Limited search capability 
 Limited date range 
Finding & Using Free, Full-Text Case Law 
Sites 
 Free, but...   
 Free, full-text with enhanced search capability and 
full date range 
 Must travel and park. 
 
 Pay Per Use.   


Learn About the Free (Poor Man’s) 
“Shepards” 
 Free.   
 Must be in a full-text keyword searchable case 
website 
 Search for the case name or citation 
 The results list won’t give you any idea of the 
treatment your case received, you must determine 
that based upon your reading of the case.   
 
 



Learn About the Free (Poor Man’s) 
“Shepards” 
 Free, but...   
 Free 
 Must travel and park. 
 
 Pay Per Use.  
 Available by Credit Card.   
 $32/day, $52/week, $107/month.  
End of Part II 
Switch Speakers for Part III 
IV. Discover the Invisible Web 
 What is the Invisible Web? 
 How Does it Differ From the Visible Web? 
 Learn to Find “Invisible Documents” 
 Where do Old Web Pages Go?  Learn to 
Locate Them 
What is the Invisible Web? 
 Visible web - what you see in the results pages 
from general web search engines.  
 
 Invisible web - what you cannot retrieve ("see") 
in the search results and other links contained 
in these types of tools.  
Learn to Find Invisible Documents 
 Static pages  
 reside on servers 
 identified by a unique URL 
 spiders can find a static page if it is linked to in any 
other page they "know" about 
 Dynamic Pages 
 created as the result of a search 
 not stored anywhere 
 cannot be seen by spiders 


Learn to Find Invisible Documents 
 Sites requiring a password or login are 
closed to search engine spiders  
 
 They require typing something spiders 
cannot "know"  
 
 Contents unlikely to be in any general 
Web search engine 
Learn to Find Invisible Documents 
 Think "databases" and keep your eyes open  
 
 Search directories – sites are often 
categorized as databases 
 
 Search engines – add the term “database” to 
search queries. 
 



Where do Old Web Pages Go?   
Learn to Locate Them 
 The Wayback Machine 
 
 The CyberCemetery 
 
 Search engine snapshots 


BLM Site - 12/23/01 
BLM Site - 8/27/01 







End of Part IV 
Switch Speakers for Part V 


Find It Free and Fast on the Net: Strategies for Legal Research on the Web (2006)

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1152&context=law_facultyscholarship

Find It Free and Fast on the Net: Strategies for Legal Research on the Web (2006)

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