I am looking for good recommendations on online legal libraries.
1. Is Lexis the only library to 'shepardize' the results?
2. Economically speaking, is there a 'best bang for your buck'?
Thanks & Happy Holidays!
The best bang for buck is to visit your local public law library.
Shephards is a copyrighted service of Lexis-Nexis. Westlaw has a similar service called Key Cite. My law library uses Westlaw which works fine, it allows printing to PDF on a gig stick.
JBrinkworth, post: 350845, member: 6179 wrote: I am looking for good recommendations on online legal libraries.
1. Is Lexis the only library to 'shepardize' the results?
2. Economically speaking, is there a 'best bang for your buck'?Thanks & Happy Holidays!
A subscription can be very expensive, but it's worth it if you will be using it every day. You would want to get training in the service you subscribe to because they charge according to a fairly complicated structure that will cost a small fortune if you don't use the proper search methods in the proper ways.
I like westlaw best. But even google scholar has a cite function now. Of course there are limits on what you can find in any of the free ones. As Dave mentioned, the law library is open to the public for free and you get access to the best (either lexis or westlaw). You might also get access to the educational version of one of those (still better than the free ones) through your local college library. And don't forget to check your states court website; these are slowly becoming more inclusive and better for research (and may be the only place to find some lower court decisions), also the federal courts have their own which you can register to use called PACER.
Duane Frymire, post: 350858, member: 110 wrote: A subscription can be very expensive, but it's worth it if you will be using it every day. You would want to get training in the service you subscribe to because they charge according to a fairly complicated structure that will cost a small fortune if you don't use the proper search methods in the proper ways.
I like westlaw best. But even google scholar has a cite function now. Of course there are limits on what you can find in any of the free ones. As Dave mentioned, the law library is open to the public for free and you get access to the best (either lexis or westlaw). You might also get access to the educational version of one of those (still better than the free ones) through your local college library. And don't forget to check your states court website; these are slowly becoming more inclusive and better for research (and may be the only place to find some lower court decisions), also the federal courts have their own which you can register to use called PACER.
The California Courts have a free service provided by Lexis but it doesn't include any premium services such as Shephards but it is still very useful.