Legal, Factual and Other Internet Sites for Attorneys and Others

By Timothy L. Coggins*

This listing of Internet sites for legal, factual, and other research presents a variety of sources for attorneys, law students, librarians, and others who use the Web.  Initially developed for an Advanced Legal Research course and a continuing education session for legal assistants, the listing includes sites for primary authorities, both federal and state, as well as URLs for other types of information such as names of possible expert witnesses and biographical and background information (including social security numbers in some instances) about individuals.

Researchers who want to locate additional sites for legal and other types of research can find Internet sites for attorneys and other legal researches identified in many sources.  Individuals familiar with the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Management Section’s annual “Tech Show” know about the always popular “60 Sites in 60 Minutes” session at the conference, during which lawyers present some of their favorite and most interesting web sites.1  There are additionally many other sites and even print books that identify relevant, new, useful, and intriguing web sites for attorneys and other legal researchers.2

Attorneys and others who are interested more generally in how attorneys and their office personnel are using technology and the Web today, including for research purposes, might be interested in the results of an annual survey distributed and compiled by the Legal Technology Resource Center of the American Bar Association.  Over 1,500 private attorneys participated in the most recent 2004-2005 survey.  The survey results include both explanatory information as well as data reported in chart format in five different volumes, covering (1) Law Office Technology, (2) Litigation and Courtroom Technology, (3) Mobile Lawyers, (4) Online Research, and (5) Web and Communication Technology.  An “executive summary” of the 2004-2005 report is available in pdf download format from the Legal Technology Resource Center’s website.3

This listing of Internet sites is divided into eleven sections.  Part I covers search engines.  Part II identifies some important “comprehensive” or portal web sites.  Part III includes those web sites that can be used to search for legislative and administrative materials, both Federal and state.  Part IV covers case law research sites.  Part V lists some important Virginia legal research and other web sites.  Part VI is a listing of foreign and international law sites, and Part VII covers secondary materials.  Part VIII is a fairly long listing of web sites for people, places, weather, vital records, company information, expert witnesses, and more.  Part IX presents some helpful sites for legal and other news, as well as a brief introduction to some law blogs (blawgs).  Part X covers sites that are difficult to categorize into one of the preceding nine parts, and the last section, Part XI, is a listing of URLs for the law schools in Virginia, many of which have legal research sections that might present additional sources for the legal researcher.

Part I: Search Engines

The listing below categorizes websites into one of four different types: standard search engines (such as Google); alternative search engines that categorize or cluster results; metasearch; and context or natural language searching.4  More and more new and different search engine technologies are appearing frequently today, and there is some concern about how law firms, companies, and others will keep up, not only with the search engines themselves, but with the legal complexities of search engines.5

Standard Search Engines

http://www.altavista.com	http://www.excite.com
http://www.go.com	http://www.lycos.com
http://www.hotbot.com	http://www.google.com
http://www.yahoo.com	http://www.wisenut.com

Alternative Search Engines (category/collections/clustering):6

http://www.northernlight.com	http://www.grokker.com
http://search.yahoo.com	http://www.soople.com
http://www.vivisimo.com	http://teoma.com
http://clusty.com	http://a9.com

Metasearch Engines

http://www.dogpile.com	http://www.search.looksmart.com
http://www.metacrawler.com	http://www.mamma.com
http://www.search.com	http://www.alltheweb.com
http://www.zapmeta.com

Context/Natural Language Searching/Answers:7

http://www.ask.com (AskJeeves)	http://yq.search.yahoo.com
http://search.msn.com	http://answers.com
http://answers.google.com

Part II: Comprehensive or Portal Research Sites

Some researchers might be better served by starting their legal and other research by going to a comprehensive or portal research site.  These sites are useful because they serve as good starting points for many different types of information, both primary and secondary.  Another advantage of the comprehensive or portal site is its organization.  Unlike searching the Web generally, portal sites offer some uniformity and consistency from page to page, allowing the user to develop an understanding of how he might be able to locate information using the portal.  For example, a person researching the “Law About…” page of the Cornell Legal Information Institute website will find the same organization for information about immigration law as he finds for domestic relations law.  In both instances, the researcher will find a section providing some general background information about the subject matter as well as references and links to primary authority, secondary resources, and other sources.8 

• FindLaw: http://www.findlaw.com  (Now owned and managed by Thomson-West.)
• LexisOne: http://www.lexisone.com (Free up to a point; five years of case law are free.)
• Legal Information Institute (Cornell University): http://www.law.cornell.edu (Probably the best of the law school web sites; the “Law About…” section of the LII site is frequently used by legal researchers to discover basic information about a subject matter as well as the basic documents such as statutes and regulations that are important in a specific subject area.)
• Washburn University’s WashLaw: http://www.washlaw.edu
• Chicago-Kent College of Law: http://www.kentlaw.edu
• CataLaw: http://www.CataLaw.com
• Internet Legal Research Group: http://www.ilrg.com
• WWW Virtual Law Library: http://www.law.indiana.edu/library/onlineresources
• Virtual Chase: http://www.virtualchase.com
• Hieros Gamos: http://www.hg.org
• Reference Desk:  http://www.refdesk.com
• State and Local Government on the Net (formerly Piper Resources): http://www.statelocalgov.net
• Law.com: http://www.law.com
• eLaw.Central: http://www.elawcentral.com/elaw.isa/main
• TheLaw.net: http://www.thelaw.net
• Zimmerman’s Legal Research Guides: http://www.lexisnexis.com/infopro

Part III: Online Sites for Legislative and Administrative Materials

Federal Legislation & Administrative Materials:

THOMAS:Access to federal legislation (full text, summaries, status), committee reports, public laws, and the Congressional Record. The site also highlights significant documents such as Omnibus Budget Acts and the Starr Report. http://thomas.loc.gov

FirstGov:A comprehensive site that consolidates about 27 million government web pages; useful for information from any branch/agency of the Federal Government. http://www.firstgov.gov       

U.S. Code: This version of the United States Code has a good level of search flexibility. http://uscode.house.gov/search/criteria.shtml  and http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode

Code of Federal Regulations:  http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/index.html

Regulations.gov: Offers the opportunity to find, review, and submit comments on proposed rules from Federal agencies; designed for lay citizens, not attorneys. http://www.regulations.gov

Federal Register: Coverage includes 1994-present (vol. 59 - present). http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html
 (the current issue of the Federal Register is also accessible at this site)   

Federal Web Locator: Contains links to federal agencies. http://www.infoctr.edu/fwl

GPOAccess:  Access to government documents including, the U.S. Budget, Congressional Directory and documents, bills, Congressional Record, Federal Register, History of Bills, Public Laws, Congressional Calendars, United States Code, and the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents.  http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html

Federal Legislative History sites:  Thomas - http://thomas.loc.gov ; University of Michigan -  http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/legishis.html.  (Don’t forget about LexisNexis and Westlaw for legislative history documents for those attorneys who have subscriptions.  For users searching for legislative history documents at the University of Richmond, Legislative History (CIS) at the Law Library web site and Congressional Universe available through the Boatwright Library “online databases” page are available.)

LSU Libraries Federal Agencies Directory: Created in 1994 this website lists and links to current/active/existing U.S. Federal government agencies.  http://www.lib.lsu.edu/gov/fedgov.html

GovTrack: An independent website run by a graduate student “in his spare time,” following the status of federal legislation and the activities of senators and representatives.  http://www.govtrack.us

National Archives: National Archives and Records Administration website of important documents. http://www.archives.gov

FOI Request: Helpful for attorneys and others who have to submit a FOIA request by providing a form that walks the requestor through the process of completing the form. http://www.rcfp.org/foi_letter/generate.php           
           
State Legislation:

ALSO!: American Law Sources Online: State law resources, including state statutes. http://www.lawsource.com/also

State Legislative Presence on the Internet (Multistate Associates Incorporated): A chart comparing online state statute availability. http://www.multistate.com/site.nsf/state?openPage

Drafts of Uniform and Model Acts: http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/ulc/ulc.htm

National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws: Develops and provides to states “non-partisan, well-conceived and well-drafted legislation that brings clarity and stability to critical areas of the law.” http://www.nccusl.org/update

Council of State Governments: May be used like a “portal” site since it links to state home pages. http://www.csg.org/CSG/default.htm

Municode: Excellent collection of municipal and city codes available free with good searching capabilities.  http://www.municode.com

Part IV: Case Law Sites

The sites listed below offer access to state and federal court decisions. An attorney or researcher might begin his research with Emory Law Library’s Court Finder (http://www.law.emory.edu/caselaw). The Emory Law Library Court Finder links to Supreme Court decisions and opinions from the district courts and federal courts of appeals when available. Search strategies may vary greatly from site to site at the court websites, but most are searchable by keyword and/or date.

U.S. Supreme Court

U.S. Supreme Court website: Includes brief information about the Court, as well as links for the calendars, court rules, dockets, opinions, orders, and other information.  Previous volumes of U.S. Reports at this site look just like the bound print volumes. http://www.supremecourtus.gov

Legal Information Institute (Cornell): Coverage May, 1990-present. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/index.html

LexisOne: Free up to a certain point; limited database of case law.  http://www.lexisone.com

“FLITE” database (Federal Legal Information Through Electronics): Includes over 7400 Supreme Court opinions from 1937-1975. http://www.fedworld.gov/supcourt/index.htm

Fastcase: http://www.fastcase.com/corporate/home.aspx A cheaper alternative for accessing state and federal cases; check database coverage. 

Findlaw: http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html Includes Supreme Court decisions since 1893 (comprehensive); may be browed by year and by U.S. Reports volume number; searchable by citation, title, and full text.

U.S. Supreme Court Oral Arguments: http://www.oyez.org/oyez/frontpage Audio files of recordings of selected oral arguments from Oyez: U.S. Supreme Court Multimedia. 

U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs: http://curiae.law.yale.edu The Curiae Project (selected cases only).

Web Guide to U.S. Supreme Court Research: http://www.llrx.com/features/supremectwebguide.htm

Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals

• Federal Circuit:  August 1995 – present.  http://www.law.emory.edu/fedcircuit/
• D.C. Circuit:  March 1995 – present.  http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/internet.nsf
• First Circuit:  November 1995 – present.  http://www.law.emory.edu/1circuit/
• Second Circuit:  January 1995 – present.  http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/
• Third Circuit:  May 1994 – present.  http://vls.law.vill.edu/Locator/3/index.htm
• Fourth Circuit:  January 1995 – present. http://www.law.emory.edu/4circuit /; http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov
• Fifth Circuit:  1992 – present.  http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/
• Sixth Circuit:  January 1995 – present.  http://www.law.emory.edu/6circuit/
• Seventh Circuit:  1993 – present.  http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/
• Eight Circuit:  November 1995 – present.  http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opinions/opinions.html
• Ninth Circuit:  June 1995 – present.  http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/
• Tenth Circuit:  Oct. 1997 – present.  http://www.kscourts.org/ca10/
• Eleventh Circuit:  November 1994 – present.  http://www.law.emory.edu/11circuit

(NOTE: If a court website exits, there will typically be a link from the Emory site to the court site. In some instances, there will be a link from the official court site back to Emory for earlier opinions since the Emory Law Library site has opinions from earlier dates.)

State Court Opinions

Internet Legal Resources Guide: Includes links to state and federal decisions. http://www.ilrg.com/caselaw

ALSO!: American Law Sources Online: State law resources, including court opinions. http://www.lawsource.com/also 

Court Information: Federal-State Court Directory from Want Publishing Company. http://www.courts.com/

Federal, state and local court rules (links to 400+ sites): http://www.llrx.com/columns/litigat.htm

Legal Dockets Online: Court case information and public records. http://www.legaldockets.com  (Can subscribe to a blog at this site – http://www.legaldockets.com/files/blogger.html)
           
SunEthics.com: Legal ethics, judicial ethics, and bar admissions issues. http://sunethics.com

Part V: Sites for Virginia-Related Legal and Other Materials

Virginia General Assembly: Full text, summaries, status and history of bills and resolutions; schedules of activity; full text searching of the Virginia Code, Administrative Code, Constitution, and legislation. http://legis.state.va.us

• Code of Virginia:  http://leg1.state.va.us/000/src.htm
• Virginia Administrative Code:  http://leg1.state.va.us/000/srr.htm
• Virginia Register of Regulations: http://legis.state.va.us/codecomm/Register/regindex.htm

State of Virginia: http://www.virginia.gov/cmsportal/ The “government” link provides access to State agencies, boards, councils and commissions; Virginia Government Directory; and other information. 

Municipal Codes and Ordinances: http://www.municode.com/ Repeated here because it includes a large number of codes and ordinances for Virginia cities and counties.  (Select “Online Library” and then click on the specific state; a listing of the city and county ordinances will appear after selecting a state)

Virginia’s Judicial System: http://www.court s.state.va.us Opinions of the Virginia Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals; General information about Virginia courts including Supreme, Court of Appeals, Circuit Courts, and District Courts; Virginia State Law Library, Supreme Court session calendar and arguments docket. 

Rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia: http://leg1.state.va.us/000/srs.htm

Bankruptcy courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia: Includes court rules, hours, and fee schedules; registered users can access bankruptcy court opinions from the Eastern District. http://www.vaeb.uscourts.gov/  and http://www.vawb.uscourts.gov/courtweb.enter.html 

Workers’ Compensation Commission: Cases from 1995 to the present as well as those cases since 1990 that were electronically transcribed. http://www.vwc.state.va.us

Office of the Attorney General for Virginia: Opinions from 1996 to the present. http://www.oag.state.va.us/

Virginia Code of Professional Responsibility & the Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct:  Includes a cross-reference table between the Rules and the Code. http://www.legalethics.com/ethics.law?state=Virginia

Virginia Legal Ethics Opinions:Provides access to LEOs numbered 1360 through 1819; 1990 – present. http://www.vacle.org/leo.htm

Virginia State Bar: Bar exam results; officers; committees and boards; sections; staff directory; recent LEO and UPL opinions. http://www.vsb.org

Virginia Bar Association: Membership information; publications; and calendar. http://www.vba.org

Virginia State Corporation Commission: http://www.scc.virginia.gov
           
Virginia Law Resource Center: Contains information on Virginia law geared both to attorneys and the general public.  Includes links to other legal sites. http://www.us-law.com/

Virginia Lawyers Weekly: Legal news for Virginia, including synopses of opinions from the Virginia Supreme Court, the Virginia Court of Appeals, and various lower courts in Virginia. http://www.virginialaw.com/

Virginia CLE: Mandatory CLE information; online registration and order forms; seminars; publications; Virginia Attorneys Network. http://www.vacle.org/home.htm

Virginia Association of Law Libraries: General information about VALL and member libraries; includes some legal research links. http://law.richmond.edu/vall/

Part VI: Searching for Foreign and International Law Materials

Findlaw International Law Sources:  Links to international organizations and laws of foreign countries.  Also allows web search of law resources by continent. http://www.findlaw.com/12international/index.html

The European Library: http://www.europeanlibrary.org/portal/index.htm

Guide to Law Online: Nation of the World (Library of Congress): Annotated list of links to the law of jurisdictions around the world. http://www.loc.gov/law/guide/nations.html

ASIL Guide to Electronic Resources for International Law: Published since 1997, a comprehensive guide to legal research in international law. http://www.asil.org/resource/treaty1.htm

ASIL Electronic Information System for International Law: Published by the American Society of International Law in various formats since 1997. http://www.eisil.org

Guide to Foreign and International Legal Databases: Maintained by the Law Library at New York University. http://www.law.nyu.edu/library/foreign_intl

Researching Public International Law: Treaty Sources: Database of frequently-cited treaties and other international instruments, maintained by the Law Library at the University of Minnesota. http://www.law.umn.edu/library/tools/pathfinders/most-cited.html             

Foreign and International Law: Guide from the D’Angelo Law Library at the University of Chicago. http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/law/intl.html 

Commonwealth Legal Information Institute: Recently launched web site for browsing and searching 464 databases from 50 Commonwealth and common law countries and territories. http://www.commonlii.org

Part VII: Sites for Secondary Resources

Law Review and Journals:

Findlaw: Allows keyword searching through the text of online law reviews. http://stu.findlaw.com/journals/general.html

University of Southern California: Brief descriptions and links to online law reviews. http://lawweb.usc.edu/library/resources/journals.html 

Contents Pages from Law Reviews and Other Scholarly Journals: Searchable database of the current three months’ worth of contents pages from over 750 law reviews and scholarly journals received by the Tarlton Law Library at the University of Texas. http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/tallons/content_search.html

Ingenta:Searchable index to thousands of academic and professional journals. http://www.ingenta.com/ 

HighWire: More than a million scholarly journal articles from more than 900 journals available free through HighWire Press, a division of the Stanford University Libraries. http://highwire.stanford.edu

HighBeam: 35 million documents from over 3,000 sources, going back as far as twenty years. http://www.highbeam.com  

Associations & Directories:

American Bar Association: ABA news; ABA Journal; publications, meetings, CLE opportunities; discussion groups. http://www.abanet.org

Findlaw: Foreign/international, national, state and local bar associations; directories. http://www.findlaw.com/06associations

Martindale-Hubbell:  Locate lawyers, law firms, government lawyers, and corporate law departments. http://www.martindale.com/
 
West Legal Directory:  Listing of lawyers and law firms.  http://lawyers.findlaw.com/

General Legal and Other Reference Resources:

Net’s Best Law Dictionary - Legal Lexicon’s Lyceum: Includes thousands of definitions and explanations of legal terms, phrases & concepts.  http://www.lectlaw.com/def.htm

American Law Sources Online (ALSO): Laws of the United States, Canada, and Mexico; uniform laws; law schools; law reviews; directories.  http://www.lawsource.com/also

LawyerLinks: Corporate law research service, organizes materials using a topical index.  http://www.lawyerlinks.com

President’s DNA Initiative: An initiative designed to “advance justice through DNA technology” with links to highlights, research initiatives, speeches and testimony, press releases, and other information.  http://www.dna.gov/

FDA’s Heart Health Online: http://www.fda.gov/hearthealth/

Recalls: Presents recalls as issued by six government agencies.  http://www.recalls.gov/

Findlaw: Legal subject index; cases and codes; professional development; news and reference materials; law firms and lawyers; legal associations and organizations.  http://www.findlaw.com

Defense Research Institute: National association of defense lawyers’ website that features DRI seminar materials and magazine and newsletter articles, searchable by keywords or browse by topic.  http://www.dri.org

FOIA Facts: http://www.llrx.com/columns/foia23.htm

Agency Websites (Hide and Seek with FOIA Information): http://www.llrx.com/columns/foia8.htm

FOLDOC: Free On-line Dictionary of Computing. http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc

Handbook on Military Law (From Secrecy News): http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/law2004.pdf

HIPAA Security Rule: What It Is & How to Comply With It: http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1764

Legal Information Institute (Cornell): Legal materials arranged by topic; United States Supreme Court decisions; United States Code and Constitution; Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Evidence; and a variety of other legal materials.  http://www.law.cornell.edu

Citation Information from LII: Citation primer based on the Bluebook (shows changes made by the 18th ed.  http://www.law.cornell.edu/citation

Labor Union Statistics (compilation): http://www.unionstats.com/

LawStartPage: http://www.lawstartpage.com/

The Memory Hole: The web site owner saves many documents that disappear from other web sites, especially government sites.  Examples of items available at the Memory Hole include items such as CRS Reports that are generally not available to the public as well as many documents about the NSA government surveillance program.  http://www.thememoryhole.org

CyberCemetery: Maintained by the University of North Texas libraries, this site is a repository for many government publications, both state and federal, including a database of Congressional Research Service reports (which are generally not available to researchers and the public); click on the “Digital Collections” for access to the CRS reports and other important collections.  http://govinfo.library.unt.edu

NLRB FOIA Manual: http://www.nlrb.gov/nlrb/about/foia/procedural_manual.asp
 
Patent Assignments on the Web: http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/?db=pat
 
Jurist - Law Professors’ Network: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/lawschl2.htm

Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press - State-by-State Look at Electronic Court Access: http://www.rcfp.org/elecaccess/elec_access_statesmain.htm

Merck Manual: Based on the world’s most widely used textbook in medicine.  http://www.merck.com/mmhe/index.html
           
Visual Thesaurus: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/?vt
Legal Bitstream: Tax materials since 1990: http://www.legalbitstream.com

Sources for Verifying Quotations:

Bartleby.com: http://www.bartleby.com/quotations

Bibliomania: http://www.bibliomania.com/

Quote Finder from Blogoscoped: http://blog.outer-court.com/quotefinder

Quoteland: http://www.quoteland.com  

QuotesandSayings.com: http://www.quotesandsayings.com/finquoteframes.htm

Part VIII: Searching for People, Places, Weather, Records, Company Information, Expert Witnesses and More

Directories:

555-1212: Yellow, White, and Blue Pages: Meta site for InfoSpace, Switchboard, and Four11; offers address only look-up in Four11; allows searching by name or telephone number; locate address, phone number, or email; white and yellow page searching available.  Covers both the United States and Canada.  http://www.555-1212.com

Addresses.com: United States white pages; offers a reverse telephone directory – enter a telephone number and find the resident’s address and name.  http://www.addresses.com/white_pages.php

Four11: Compiled by Metromail from published white page directories and other publicly available sources; one of the most comprehensive on the net; owned by Yahoo.  http://people.yahoo.com/

Infospace: Features an array of white and yellow pages directories, city guides, and other listings; contains 112 million listings.  http://www.infospace.com

Switchboard: One of the fastest directories; 106 million residential listings and 11 million business listings.  http://www.switchboard.com

WhoWhere?:  Claims to have the largest directory of e-mail addresses as well as more than 90 million residential phone listings; offers a “familyfinder” genealogy search engine; utilizes a wildcard search option on the first name.  http://www.whowhere.lycos.com/

World Pages: Listings of links to world-wide telephone numbers.  http://www.worldpages.com

Online Directory of Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/chiefs

Globemaster Links:  Provides access to database of active, reserve, retired, and veteran military personnel.  http://www.globemaster.de/sitemap/index.htm

Other people finder websites:

• Bigfoot: http://bigfoot.com
• Google: http://www.google.com/help/features.html
• KnowX People Finder: http://www.knowx.com
• The Ultimate Pages: http://www.theultimates.com
• Internet Address Finder: http://www.iaf.net/
• PeopleSearch.net: http://peoplesearch.net/

People – Social Security Numbers:

Accurint:   Now owned by LexisNexis, Accurint can locate almost anyone with aliases, historical addresses, relatives, associates, neighbors, assets, and more; focused on helping collection agencies, companies with internal collections departments, lawyers, insurance professionals, law enforcement agencies, and corporations locate debtors, witnesses, suspects, and other persons critical to their work.  http://www.accurint.com

Directories – Business:

BigBook: American Business Information’s version of the nationwide yellow pages; search by company name, industry, and location.  http://www.bigbook.com

Hoover’s Online: Provides information on 12,000 public and private companies; provides free capsule reports, but full profiles are for subscribers only.  http://www.hoovers.com

EDGAR Database: SEC’s database of financial filings of public companies; 24 hour delay in data availability.  http://www.sec.gov/edgarhp.htm

Corporate Information: Jump station for sites that offer information on locating companies; organized by country.   http://www.corporateinformation.com

Delaware Corporations Commission: http://corporate-law.widener.edu

Guide to Other Sources for Company Information: http://virtualchase.com/coinfo/index.htm

Expert Witnesses9

Expert Witness & Litigation Consultant Pages: Organized by specialty, country, and state; scope is broad, and results seem somewhat limited.  http://www.expertpages.com/

Noble Expert Witness Directory: One of the most famous directories now available on the net.  http://www.experts.com/

Expert List from Hieros Gamos: Simple, phone book style list of experts organized by area of expertise compiled from experts who advertise in major legal publications; site also includes a searchable, self-listing database, in which experts can list themselves, describe their credentials and services, and provide links to their web sites.  http://www.hg.org/experts-serv.html

Expert Witness Internet Resources: Constructed by the Northern California Association of Law Libraries from various Internet sources.  http://www.nocall.org/experts.htm

WashLaw Experts Page: Lengthy collection of links, including most sites listed here and links to individual expert pages; maintained by the Washburn University Law Library.  http://www.washlaw.edu/expert/

FindLaw Experts Section: Extensive index of experts and consultants on the web; browse the index or search by key words.  http://marketcenter.findlaw.com

Expert Witness Network: Sponsored by the Legal Resource Network; an extensive, searchable index of experts with Web pages and the archives of the “expert-l” discussion list are available free of charge; paid subscribers have access to a database of experts’ curricula vitae and articles written by various experts.  http://www.witness.net/

National Directory of Expert Witnesses: Produced by the Claims Providers of America; available in print as well; designed specifically for use by law firms and insurance professionals; experts are arranged into 400 categories.  http://www.claims.com/online.html

Expert Transcript Center: Extensive database of expert transcripts; lists experts for which Triodyne has background information; must call for list of transcripts for specific expert; fee for transcripts based on number of pages.  http://www.triodyne.com/Transcript.htm

Defense Research Institute: Searchable database of 47,000 experts; fee-based and membership if required.  http://www.dri.org 10

Idex: Commonly believed to be the best resource for defense experts; includes more than 75,000 experts’ names; provides list of prior cases and opposition’s expert testimony; electronic transcript archive; membership required.  http://www.idex.com

Virginia Association of Defense Attorneys: Data about experts available only to members.  http://www.vada.org

Public Records:

KnowX: Free searches for people and businesses using a variety of data; results of free searches are highly summarized; full record is available for a fee.  http://www.knowx.com

Death Records Index: Social Security death index offers information about individuals dying since 1962, including name, social security number, date of birth, date of death, last known address; data from the Social Security Administration.  http://www.ancestry.com/search/

Other related sites: http://www.funeralnet.com/ & http://www.legacy.com/obituaries.asp

National Obituary Archive: http://www.arrangeonline.com

Portico: collection of web sites, containing publicly available information for the advancement community.  http://indorgs.virginia.edu/portico/

Search Systems: http://www.searchsystems.net

Vital Records Information State Index: Links and information on obtaining vital records from each state, territory, and county of the United States; no data, but good information.  http://vitalrec.com/index.html

Corporate Filings (example): Arizona - http://www.cc.state.az.us/corp/

Criminal Records (examples):

• Bureau of Justice Statistics: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/
• Rapsheets: http://www.rapsheets.com
• Public Records Sources: http://www.brbpub.com
• AutoTrackXP: http://www.autotrackxp.com
• Criminal Records at The Virtual Chase: http://www.virtualchase.com/resources/criminal_records.html
• Who’s A Rat:  http://www.whosarat.com

                                   
Photo, Image, and Design Finders and Virtual Videos:

• AltaVista Image Search: http://www.altavista.com/image/default
• ImageFinder: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/imagefinder
• Fine art, design, etc: http://adam.ac.uk
• Lycos:  http://multimedia.lycos.com
• VideoCenter: http://video.lycos.com
• Google: http://images.google.com/        

Part IX: News/Updating Sites and Blawgs

Online Legal Research News and Online Legal News:

• LLRX: Excellent source for learning how to research a particular subject.  http://www.llrx.com 11
• Findlaw Legal News: http://news.findlaw.com
• Electronic Discovery News:  http://www.evestigate.com
• Kasunic:  http://www.kasunic.com
• Legal Smartpros:  http://accounting.smartpros.com/legalhome.xml
• Inter Alia: http://www.inter-alia.net/
• Law.com: http://www.law.com
• Virtual Chase: Another excellent resource for guidance about legal research.    http://www.virtualchase.com

News (Especially up-to-date news):

• Paradigm News Search:  http://www.totalnews.com
• Northern Light:  “Today’s headlines” section very useful.  http://www.northernlight.com/  
• Moreover:  http://www.moreover.com
• Salon Magazine:  http://salon.com/?x
• News Is Free:  http://www.newsisfree.com/
• Excite News Tracker: Good source for older news.  http://news.excite.com/index/id/home.html   
• Writenews:  Newspapers from many different locations.  http://www.writenews.com/newslinks
• GoogleNews:  http://news.google.com
• GoogleNewsAlerts:  Sign up for alerts that will email you whenever an article that matches your search criteria is published in any of the index’s sources.  Use URL for GoogleNews.
• News Aggregator:  http://www.newsgator.com

Law Blogs (Blawgs): 12

• Law.com:  Includes a frequently updated listing of law-related blogs (see “visit our bloggers” listing at the first page of the newsletter.); sign up for delivery of free Legal Blog Watch newsletter.    http://www.law.com
• beSpacific: Best law blog for those interested in law and technology.  http://www.bespacific.com 13
• Library Weblogs:  http://www.libdex.com/weblogs.html
• Directory of Law Related Blogs:  http://www.blawg.org
• Law Library Blogs/Blogs by Law Librarians or Law Library Associations:  http://library.law.wisc.edu/wisblawg/blogslistpublic.htm
• Blogpulse:  Indexes around 400,000 posts per day; calls itself an “automated trend discovery system.”  http://www.blogpulse.com
• Slaw: Weblog about Canadian legal research and the impact of technology on it; aim is to share information, offer advice and instruction.  http://www.slaw.ca/
  

Part X: Miscellaneous Internet Sites

CEO Express: Source organized for a busy CEO with links to many different types of information, including movie reviews, airline schedules/prices, stock market; also includes a section with links to Internet reference type resources such as directories, dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc.   http://www.ceoexpress.com

CitySearch: Provides restaurant and entertainment reviews, weather, maps, sections for singles, and online auctions (absorbed content of Sidwalk.com).  http://www.CitySearch.com
           
CityGuide: Similar to CitySearch.  http://cityguide.aol.com/main.adp

Deep Web Research: http://www.deepwebresearch.info/

Extreme Searcher’s Internet Handbook: http://www.extremesearcher.com/

Weather Information (many places): http://www.nws.noaa.gov/  and http://www.ceoexpress.com/

The World Clock: http://www.timeanddate.com

Nolo.com (“Law for All”): Legal publisher that publishes many “self help” type materials, but also includes a law store for purchasing software, books, forms, and other materials; legal internet guide section includes information arranged by practice areas and other categories.  http://www.nolo.com/

Newspapers (many locations): http://www.moreover.com

Statistics (a few significant ones):

• http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stats.html
• http://www.bls.gov
• http://www.census.gov
• http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

FedStats: http://www.fedstats.gov

Labor Union Statistics: http://www.unionstats.com

Statistical Abstracts of the United States: http://www.census.gov/statab/www

Statistical Resource on 100 Largest U.S. Cities: Living Cities Databook Series: http://www.brookings.edu/es/urban/livingcities/databooks.htm
                                   
Words and Phrases: Devoted to recently coined words and phrases, old words that are being used in different ways, and existing words that have enjoyed a “recent renaissance.”  http://www.wordspy.com

Contentville:  Source for magazines, books, newsletters, study guides, and other information; developing collection of dissertations.   http://www.contentville.com

Wikipedia:  Online encyclopedia that “anyone can edit” with over 957,000 articles; recently changed its editorial policy so that only authorized individuals can change the text of its articles.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Moreover. Com:  Recent news and updates: news headlines and stories from over 1500 sources.   http://w.moreover.com

Dumb Laws: Listings and texts of “stupid” laws still on the books, organized by jurisdiction. http://www.dumblaws.com

Part XI: Virginia Law School Websites

Many law libraries at law schools maintain web pages dealing with legal research. For example, the University of Richmond’s website provides access to a series of research guides dealing with topics such as “federal case law,” “Virginia materials,” “treaties and agreements,” as well as many other topics. These research guides identify both print and electronic resources that might be useful to attorneys and other legal researchers. Similar research materials might be available at the “Law Library” or “Library” portion of the following websites.

• Appalachian School of Law -  http://www.asl.edu/
• College of William and Mary School of Law - http://www.wm.edu/law/
• George Mason University School of Law - http://www.gmu.edu/departments/law/
• Liberty University School of Law - http://law.liberty.edu
• Regent University School of Law - http://www.regent.edu/acad/schlaw/
• University of Richmond School of Law - http://law.richmond.edu
• University of Virginia School of Law - http://www.law.virginia.edu/
• Washington and Lee University School of Law - http://www.law.wlu.edu/

 

Conclusion

Although fairly obvious, there are two caveats that must be attached to any listing of this type. First, anyone using the sources identified in the listing of Internet websites must recognize that website URLs change frequently and that websites disappear. If you cannot locate a website using the URL in this listing, merely use the name of the web site in Google or another search engine to attempt to locate the current URL for the site. Secondly, as merely a listing of web sites that might be useful to attorneys, law students, and others in the legal profession, this article clearly does not deal with the issue of whether or not online searching, print searching, or some combination of the two is the most effective type of legal and other research. Numerous authors have written extensively about that issue.14

*Associate Dean for Library and Information Services & Professor of Law, University of Richmond School of Law

6. See Robert J. Ambrogi, Beyond Google: New Ways to Do Legal Research on the Web, Legal Times, March 28, 2005, at 20 (listing some of the search engines that are designed to make searching the Web more efficiently); Robert J. Ambrogi, Search Engines: Three Upstarts Take on the Almighty Google, Nat’l L.J., June 10, 2002, at C8 (discussing the effectiveness and search results for three new search engines – Teoma; Vivisimo; and WiseNut).  See also New Search

7. Steve Bass, Search Sites Try to Give Instant Answers, PC World, Nov. 2005, at 28 (includes a “report card” that illustrates how four search engines, Answers.com, Askjeeves, MSN Search, and Google, perform with responses to ten specific questions).

8. The Legal Information Institute has recently re-named a portion of its page to Wex.  The site describes Wex as “an ambitious effort to construct a collaboratively-created, public-access law dictionary and encyclopedia. It is sponsored and hosted by the Legal Information Institute at the Cornell Law School (http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/). Much of the material that appears in Wex was originally developed for the LII's "Law about..." pages, to which Wex is the successor.”  http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Main_Page.

14. For a recent article about this issue, see Barbara Bintliff, Electronic Resources or Print Resources: Some Observations on Where to Search, 14 Persp.: Teaching Legal Res. and Writing 23 (2005), available at http://west.thomson.com/pdf/perspec/Fall2005/Fall057.pdf.  See also Scott P. Stolley, The Corruption of Legal Research, For the Def., Apr. 2004, at 39, available at http://terrenceberres.com/sto-cor.pdf; Lyn Warmath, Yes, Virginia, Everything Is Available on the Web for Free, Va. Law., Dec. 2005, at 32, available at http://www.vsb.org/publications/valawyer/dec05/warmath.pdf.