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Got a question about the law? It's easier than ever to research it on the Internet. There's a wealth of information online,
ranging from primary sources — court opinions, statutes, and regulations — to law-review articles to backgrounders from law firms and legal
organizations.
Legal research won't take the place of consulting an attorney skilled in legal interpretation, cautions Joshua B. Blackman, a
New York lawyer and author of How to Use the Internet for Legal Research (Find/SVP). But it will give you a road map to the legal system, a
mastery of the jargon, and an appreciation of how courts reach their decisions.
Where to start? The goal is to locate relevant statutes or regulations and then find the most recent court opinions that have
interpreted them, notes Stephen Elias, co-author of Legal Research: How to Find and Understand the Law (Nolo.com). A helpful site is
Findlaw.com, a legal portal that lets you search state and federal law databases. Or, if you're after reading, dip into Findlaw's
subject-matter index on specialized legal topics such as cyberspace and intellectual-property law. Under each listing, you'll find an array of
resources, such as law journals, mailing lists, and bulletin boards where you can post questions.
EXTENSIVE LIBRARIES. The most ambitious site of all may be Villanova University's Lawyer Express,
(vls.law.vill.edu/library/express), which has links to dozens of law-related sites on a single page. All federal and state statutes (except for
Louisiana) are available online, but case-law archives are not nearly as comprehensive. In general, you'll find the most recent opinions of state
appellate and supreme courts and federal circuit courts online, but not older cases — say, five years or more — or trial-level decisions. U.S.
Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1893, however, can be found online.
For $6.95 a month, you can subscribe to Versuslaw.com, which allows unlimited searches of raw state and federal appellate and
Supreme Court opinions. Or make strategic use of the extensive libraries of Westlaw and Lexis, the legal profession's two leading computerized
search services. The benefit of both is that they include summaries and are indexed in a way that lets you zoom in on what you're looking for.
Although few entrepreneurs would want to pay the steep price of a subscription, you can print out a decision for $10 at Westlaw (www.westlaw.com)
or $9 at Lexis (web.lexis.com/xchange) and for about $4, use their citation services to see if a particular case has been overruled or if other
jurisdictions are following it.
What's on the horizon? Databases are proliferating, as states and municipalities follow the federal government's lead and go
online with ordinances, regulations, and pending legislation. Also, look for more sophisticated search engines, typified by the Securities &
Exchange Commission's current efforts to upgrade its EDGAR database so that SEC submissions are searchable by the registrant's name and date.
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