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CMLawLibraryBlog

The CM Law Library Blog seeks to inform the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law community about key legal education, research, practice, and law library news, with a particular focus on Cuyahoga County and Ohio as well as faculty research interests.

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Holy Cow! Google Scholar Provides More Free Case Law Than Previously Available

Jan Novak, Associate Director jan.novak@law.csuohio.edu | November 19, 2009 - 15:05

If you've missed the many alternatives to Lexis and Westlaw for retrieving cases at no cost,* the latest entry into the market is kind of hard to ignore. Google announced earlier this week its latest addition to Google Scholar: access to federal and state case law, searchable by topic or party, including the ability to view how other cases and commentators have cited the case retrieved. See Google's release Finding the Laws that Govern Us, and try out the links for Terry v. Ohio View the case and How this document has been cited to get a feel for how it works. Let us know what you think!

*See prior posts on AltLaw, Frugal Firms, Let the Cases be Free,Explosion of New Free Legal Databases

Coverage Information

Coverage Note: From Google Scholar's Help Page -

"Currently, Google Scholar allows you to search and read opinions for US state appellate and supreme court cases since 1950, US federal district, appellate, tax and bankruptcy courts since 1923 and US Supreme Court cases since 1791 (please check back periodically for updates to coverage information). In addition, it includes citations for cases cited by indexed opinions or journal articles which allows you to find influential cases (usually older or international) which are not yet online or publicly available. "

(from the Law Librarian Blog)

I tried it, and it does have Ohio appellate and Ohio Supreme Court cases back to 1950. NO OTHER FREE SOURCE HAS OHIO CASES GOING BACK THAT FAR. It appears that the Ohio unreported cases do not start until 2004. Google Scholar ha Federal District court cases going back to 1923, which is much further back than previously available for free on the web.


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