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US Case Law

The United States Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. Lower courts on the federal level include the US Courts of Appeals, US District Courts, the US Court of Claims, and the US Court of International Trade and US Bankruptcy Courts. Federal courts hear cases involving matters related to the United States Constitution, other federal laws and regulations, and certain matters that involve parties from different states or countries and large sums of money in dispute.

Each state has its own judicial system that includes trial and appellate courts. The highest court in each state is often referred to as the “supreme” court, although there are some exceptions to this rule, for example, the New York Court of Appeals or the Maryland Court of Appeals. State courts generally hear cases involving state constitutional matters, state law and regulations, although state courts may also generally hear cases involving federal laws. States also usually have courts that handle only a specific subset of legal matters, such as family law and probate.

Case law, also known as precedent or common law, is the body of prior judicial decisions that guide judges deciding issues before them. Depending on the relationship between the deciding court and the precedent, case law may be binding or merely persuasive. For example, a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is binding on all federal district courts within the Fifth Circuit, but a court sitting in California (whether a federal or state court) is not strictly bound to follow the Fifth Circuit’s prior decision. Similarly, a decision by one district court in New York is not binding on another district court, but the original court’s reasoning might help guide the second court in reaching its decision.

Decisions by the US Supreme Court are binding on all federal and state courts.

US Federal Courts

Reported opinions from the us federal courts of appeals.

• Federal Reporter, 2nd Series (F.2d) (1924-1993)
• Federal Reporter, 3rd Series (F.3d) (1993-present)

Opinions From the US Federal Courts of Appeals

• US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
• US Court of International Trade
• US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review
• Bankruptcy Reporter (B.R.) (1980-present)
• Federal Reporter, 2nd Series (F.2d) (1924-1932)
• Federal Supplement (F. Supp.) (1933-1998)
• Federal Supplement, 2nd Series (F. Supp. 2d) (1998-present)
• Connecticut
• District of Columbia
• Massachusetts
• Mississippi
• New Hampshire
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• West Virginia
• US District Court for the District of Guam
• US District Court for the District of Puerto Rico
• US District Court for the District of the Northern Mariana Islands
• US District Court for the District of the US Virgin Islands
• Emergency Court of Appeals (1942-1974)
• US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims
• US Court of Claims (1855-1982)
• US Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (1909-1982)
• US Court of Federal Claims
• US Tax Court

State Courts

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Legal Research Fundamentals

• Research Strategy Tips
• Secondary Sources

The Different Types of Case Law Research

Popular case law databases, using secondary sources, any good case, from an annotated statute, ai and smart searching.

• Statutory Research
• Legislative History
• Administrative
• People, Firms, Witnesses, and other Analytics
• Transactional
• Non-Legal Resources
• Business Resources
• Foreign and International Law Resources This link opens in a new window

Generally, there are two types of case law research:

• Determining the case law that is binding or persuasive regarding a particular issue. Gathering and analyzing the relevant case law. 
• Searching for a specific case that applies the law to a set of facts in a particular way. 

These are two slightly different tasks. However, you can use many of the same case law search techniques for both of these types of questions. 

This guide outlines several different ways to locate case law. It is up to you to determine which methods are most suitable for your problem. 

When selecting a case law database, don't forget to choose the jurisdiction, time period, and level of court that is most appropriate for your purposes.

Note: Listed above are the databases that law students are most likely to use. It's possible that, once you leave law school, you will not have access to the same databases. Resources such as Fastcase  or Casetext may be your go-to. For any database, take the time to familiarize yourself with the basic and advanced search functions. 

Check out the Secondary Sources tab for information about how to locate a useful secondary source. 

Remember: secondary sources take the primary source law and analyze it so that you don't have to. Take advantage of the work the author has already done!

What do we mean by 'any good case'? 

A case that addresses the issue you care about. We can use the citing relationships and annotations found in case law databases to connect cases together based on their subject matter. You may find such a case from a secondary source, case law database search, or from a colleague.

How can we use one good case? 

1. Court opinions typically cited to  other cases to support their legal conclusions. Often these cited cases include important and authoritative decisions on the issue, because such decisions are precedential. 

2. Commercial legal research databases, including Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg, supplement cases with  headnotes . Headnotes allow you to quickly locate subsequent cases that cite the case you are looking at with respect to the specific language/discussion you care about. 

3. Links to topics or Key Numbers. Clicking through to these allows you to locate other cases with headnotes that fall under that topic. Once you select a suitable Key Number, you can also narrow down with keywords. A case may include multiple headnotes that address the same general issue.

4.  Subsequent citing cases.  By reading cases that have cited to the case you've started with, you can confirm that it remains "good law" and that its legal conclusions remain sound. You can also filter the citing references by jurisdiction, treatment, depth of treatment, date, and keyword, allowing you to focus your attention on the most relevant sub-set of cases.

5. Secondary sources! Useful secondary sources are listed in the Citing References. This can be a quick way to locate a good secondary source. 

NOTE: Good cases may come in many forms. For example, a recent lower court decision might lead you to the key case law in that jurisdiction, while a higher court decision from a few years back might be more widely-cited and lead you to a wider range of subsequent interpretive authority (and any key secondary sources). 

What is an annotated statute?

An annotated statute is simply a statute enhanced with editorial content. In Lexis and Westlaw, this editorial content provides the following: 

Historical Notes about amendments to the statute. These are provided below the statutory text (Lexis) or under the History tab (Westlaw). 

Case Notes  provided either at the bottom of the page (Lexis) or under the Notes of Decisions tab (Westlaw). These are cases identified by the publisher as especially important or useful for illustrating the case law interpreting the statute. They are organized by issue and include short summaries pertaining to the holding and relevance are provided for each case.  

Other Citing References  allow you to locate all other material within Lexis and Westlaw that cite to the statute. This includes secondary sources (always useful) and all case law that cites to that specific section. You can narrow down by keywords, jurisdiction, publication status, etc. In Lexis, click the Shepard's link. In Westlaw, click the Citing References tab.

Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg are all actively developing tools to lead you to cases more quickly. These include: 

Westlaw's recommendations and WestSearch Plus. These will show up in the "Suggestions" option that appears when you start typing into the search bar. 

Lexis Ravel View. When you search the case database in Lexis and click on the Ravel icon, you will see an interactive visualization of the citing relationships between the first 75 cases that appear in your results list, ranked by relevance.

Bloomberg's "Points of Law" feature in the Litigation Intelligence Center also allows users to visualize the citing relationships among cases meeting their search criteria.

• << Previous: Secondary Sources
• Next: Statutory Research >>
• Last Updated: Apr 5, 2024 2:06 PM
• URL: https://law.upenn.libguides.com/researchfundamentals

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How to Conduct Legal Research

September 21, 2021

Conducting legal research can challenge even the most skilled law practitioners.

As laws evolve across jurisdictions, it can be a difficult to keep pace with every legal development. Equally daunting is the ability to track and glean insights into stakeholder strategies and legal responses. Without quick and easy access to the right tools, the legal research upon which case strategy hinges may face cost, personnel, and litigation outcome challenges.

Bloomberg Law’s artificial intelligence-driven tools drastically reduce the time to perform legal research. Whether you seek quick answers to legal research definitions, or general guidance on the legal research process, Bloomberg Law’s Core Litigation Skills Toolkit has you covered.

What is legal research?

Legal research is the process of uncovering and understanding all of the legal precedents, laws, regulations, and other legal authorities that apply in a case and inform an attorney’s course of action.

Legal research often involves case law research, which is the practice of identifying and interpreting the most relevant cases concerning the topic at issue. Legal research can also involve a deep dive into a judge’s past rulings or opposing counsel’s record of success.

Research is not a process that has a finite start and end, but remains ongoing throughout every phase of a legal matter. It is a cornerstone of a litigator’s skills.

[Learn how our integrated, time-saving litigation research tools allow litigators to streamline their work and get answers quickly.]

Where do I begin my legal research?

Beginning your legal research will look different for each assignment. At the outset, ensure that you understand your goal by asking questions and taking careful notes. Ask about background case information, logistical issues such as filing deadlines, the client/matter number, and billing instructions.

It’s also important to consider how your legal research will be used. Is the research to be used for a pending motion? If you are helping with a motion for summary judgment, for example, your goal is to find cases that are in the same procedural posture as yours and come out favorably for your side (i.e., if your client is the one filing the motion, try to find cases where a motion for summary judgment was granted, not denied). Keep in mind the burden of proof for different kinds of motions.

Finally, but no less important, assess the key facts of the case. Who are the relevant parties? Where is the jurisdiction? Who is the judge? Note all case details that come to mind.

What if I’m new to the practice area or specific legal issue?

While conducting legal research, it is easy to go down rabbit holes. Resist the urge to start by reviewing individual cases, which may prove irrelevant. Start instead with secondary sources, which often provide a prevailing statement of the law for a specific topic. These sources will save time and orient you to the area of the law and key issues.

Litigation Practical Guidance provides the essentials including step-by-step guidance, expert legal analysis, and a preview of next steps. Source citations are included in all Practical Guidance, and you can filter Points of Law, Smart Code®, and court opinions searches to get the jurisdiction-specific cases or statutes you need.

Searching across Points of Law will help to get your bearings on an issue before diving into reading the cases in full. Points of Law uses machine learning to identify key legal principles expressed in court opinions, which are easily searchable by keyword and jurisdiction. This tool helps you quickly find other cases that have expressed the same Point of Law, and directs you to related Points of Law that might be relevant to your research. It is automatically updated with the most recent opinions, saving you time and helping you quickly drill down to the relevant cases.

How do I respond to the opposing side’s brief?

Whether a brief is yours or that of the opposing party, Bloomberg Law’s Brief Analyzer is an essential component in the legal research process. It reduces the time spent analyzing a brief, identifying relevant authorities, and preparing a solid response.

To start, navigate to Brief Analyzer available from the Bloomberg Law homepage, within the Litigation Intelligence Center , or from Docket Key search results for briefs.

Simply upload the opposing side’s brief into the tool, and Brief Analyzer will generate a report of the cited authorities and arguments contained in the brief.

You can easily view a comparison with the brief and analysis side by side. It will also point you directly to relevant cases, Points of Law, and Practical Guidance to jump start your research.

[ How to Write a Legal Brief – Learn how to shorten the legal research cycle and give your legal brief a competitive advantage.]

How to optimize your search.

Crafting searches is a critical skill when it comes to legal research. Although many legal research platforms, including Bloomberg Law, offer natural language searching, terms and connectors (also called Boolean) searching is still a vital legal research skill and should be used when searching across court opinions, dockets, Points of Law, and other primary and secondary sources.

When you conduct a natural language search, the search engine applies algorithms to rank your results. Why a certain case is ranked as it is may not be obvious. This makes it harder to interpret whether the search is giving you everything you need. It is also harder to efficiently and effectively manipulate your search terms to zero in on the results you want. Using Boolean searching gives you better control over your search and greater confidence in your results.

The good news? Bloomberg Law does not charge by the search for court opinion searches. If your initial search was much too broad or much too narrow, you do not have to worry about immediately running a new and improved search.

Follow these tips when beginning a search to ensure that you do not miss relevant materials:

• Make sure you do not have typos in your search string.
• Search the appropriate source or section of the research platform. It is possible to search only within a practice area, jurisdiction, secondary resource, or other grouping of materials.
• Make sure you know which terms and connectors are utilized by the platform you are working on and what they mean – there is no uniform standard set of terms of connectors utilized by all platforms.
• Include in your search all possible terms the court might use, or alternate ways the court may address an issue. It is best to group the alternatives together within a parenthetical, connected by OR between each term.
• Consider including single and multiple character wildcards when relevant. Using a single character wildcard (an asterisk) and/or a multiple character wildcard (an exclamation point) helps you capture all word variations – even those you might not have envisioned.
• Try using a tool that helps you find additional relevant case law. When you find relevant authority, use BCITE on Bloomberg Law to find all other cases and/or sources that cite back to that case. When in BCITE, click on the Citing Documents tab, and search by keyword to narrow the results. Alternatively, you can use the court’s language or ruling to search Points of Law and find other cases that addressed the same issue or reached the same ruling.

[Bloomberg Law subscribers can access a complete checklist of search term best practices . Not a subscriber? Request a Demo .]

How can legal research help with drafting or strategy?

Before drafting a motion or brief, search for examples of what firm lawyers filed with the court in similar cases. You can likely find recent examples in your firm’s internal document system or search Bloomberg Law’s dockets. If possible, look for things filed before the same judge so you can get a quick check on rules/procedures to be followed (and by the same partner when possible so you can get an idea of their style preferences).

Careful docket search provides a wealth of information about relevant cases, jurisdictions, judges, and opposing counsel. On Bloomberg Law, type “Dockets Search” in the Go bar or find the dockets search box in the Litigation Intelligence Center .

If you do not know the specific docket number and/or court, use the docket search functionality Docket Key . Select from any of 20 categories, including motions, briefs, and orders, across all 94 federal district courts, to pinpoint the exact filing of choice.

Dockets can also help you access lots of information to guide your case strategy. For example, if you are considering filing a particular type of motion, such as a sanctions motion, you can use dockets to help determine how frequently your judge grants sanctions motions. You can also use dockets to see how similar cases before your judge proceeded through discovery.

If you are researching expert witnesses, you can use dockets to help determine if the expert has been recently excluded from a case, or whether their opinion has been limited. If so, this will help you determine whether the expert is a good fit for your case.

Dockets are a powerful research tool that allow you to search across filings to support your argument. Stay apprised of docket updates with the “Create Alert” option on Bloomberg Law.

Dive deeper into competitive research.

For even more competitive research insights, dive into Bloomberg Law’s Litigation Analytics – this is available in the Litigation tab on the homepage. Data here helps attorneys develop litigation strategy, predict possible outcomes, and better advise clients.

To start, under Litigation Analytics , leverage the Attorney tab to view case history and preview legal strategies the opposition may practice against you. Also, within Litigation Analytics, use the Court tab to get aggregate motion and appeal outcome rates across all federal courts, with the option to run comparisons across jurisdictions, and filter by company, law firm, and attorney.

Use the Judge tab to glean insights from cited opinions, and past and current decisions by motion and appeal outcomes. Also view litigation analytics in the right rail of court opinions.

Docket search can also offer intel on your opponent. Has your opponent filed similar lawsuits or made similar arguments before? How did those cases pan out? You can learn a lot about an opponent from past appearances in court.

How do I validate case law citations?

Checking the status of case law is essential in legal research. Rely on Bloomberg Law’s proprietary citator, BCITE. This time-saving tool lets you know if a case is still good law.

Under each court opinion, simply look to the right rail. There, you will see a thumbnail icon for “BCITE Analysis.” Click on the icon, and you will be provided quick links to direct history (opinions that affect or are affected by the outcome of the case at issue); case analysis (citing cases, with filter and search options), table of authorities, and citing documents.

How should I use technology to improve my legal research?

A significant benefit of digital research platforms and analytics is increased efficiency. Modern legal research technology helps attorneys sift through thousands of cases quickly and comprehensively. These products can also help aggregate or summarize data in a way that is more useful and make associations instantaneously.

For example, before litigation analytics were common, a partner may have asked a junior associate to find all summary judgment motions ruled on by a specific judge to determine how often that judge grants or denies them. The attorney could have done so by manually searching over PACER and/or by searching through court opinions, but that would take a long time. Now, Litigation Analytics can aggregate that data and provide an answer in seconds. Understanding that such products exist can be a game changer. Automating parts of the research process frees up time and effort for other activities that benefit the client and makes legal research and writing more efficient.

[Read our article: Six ways legal technology aids your litigation workflow .]

Tools like  Points of Law ,  dockets  and  Brief Analyzer  can also increase efficiency, especially when narrowing your research to confirm that you found everything on point. In the past, attorneys had to spend many hours (and lots of money) running multiple court opinion searches to ensure they did not miss a case on point. Now, there are tools that can dramatically speed up that process. For example, running a search over Points of Law can immediately direct you to other cases that discuss that same legal principle.

However, it’s important to remember that digital research and analytical tools should be seen as enhancing the legal research experience, not displacing the review, analysis, and judgment of an attorney. An attorney uses his or her knowledge of their client, the facts, the precedent, expert opinions, and his or her own experiences to predict the likely result in a given matter. Digital research products enhance this process by providing more data on a wider array of variables so that an attorney can take even more information into consideration.

[Get all your questions answered, request a Bloomberg Law demo , and more.]

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Case Law Research: Introduction

• Introduction
• Abbreviations
• Find Cases in Print This link opens in a new window
• Methods of Finding Cases
• Citators/Updating Cases
• Search Tips

What is Case Law?

Case law refers to law found in decisions issued by courts. The level of authority of particular cases will vary depending on the type of court issuing the decision, the jurisdiction, and the type of case. 

Tutorial:  Understanding Jurisdiction 

Court Structure

Federal Courts:  There are three tiers of courts in the federal system. 

• United States Supreme Court:  Highest court in the United States. Hears a limited number of cases each year on a discretionary basis. Those cases may originate in state or federal courts.  
• US Courts of Appeals :  There are 13 circuits that hear appeals from district courts located within those circuits. 
• US District Courts:  The trial courts of the federal system, with jurisdiction over federal criminal and civil matters. 

Missouri Courts:  There are three tiers of courts in the Missouri. 

• Supreme Court of Missouri:  Highest court in the state. Hears certain types of cases as a matter or right, but most are heard at the discretion of the Court. 
• Missouri Court of Appeals:  These courts hear appeals of circuit court decisions. Divided into three regional districts: Eastern, Southern, and Western. 
• Specialized Courts : There are a number of specialized divisions within circuit courts. These include juvenile courts. probate courts, family courts, and drug courts. 

Where are Federal Cases Found?

Not All Cases Are Published

It is important to remember that most court decisions are never published in reporters or made available electronically. This is often the case with trial decisions and appellate court decisions that do not have precedential  weight. Whether unpublished decisions can be cited depends on the jurisdiction.  

Where are State Cases Found?

Click here for a map of the National Reporter system. 

*Many states no longer publish an official reporter.  For a list of states that still have an official reporter consult table T1.3 in the  Bluebook.

• Next: Abbreviations >>
• Last Updated: Apr 18, 2024 2:47 PM
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Legal Research Basics: A Step-By-Step Guide to Brushing Up on Your Skills

Legal research is imperative to the practice of law. Depending on where you are in your legal career, there could be multiple reasons to brush up on the basics of legal research. You could be a: 

• Law student or recent graduate preparing for your career 
• Seasoned attorney aiming to brush up on the basics amidst ever-evolving legal research technology 
• Growing law firm preparing to train new attorneys or paralegals 

Regardless of which of these categories you align with most, reviewing the basics of legal research should become regular practice. After all, the importance of legal research cannot be overstated – pinpointing the best facts and knowledge for your case can make the difference between winning and losing.  

Use this article to review the basics and set yourself (and your firm) up for success. First, we’ll define legal research and its components. Then, we’ll walk you through a step-by-step process for conducting superior legal research. Finally, we’ll close with recommendations for tools that can help you become both an accurate and efficient legal researcher – which ultimately equips you with a reputation for success in the courtroom.  

What is Legal Research?

Legal research is defined as the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making. There are multiple reasons you might conduct legal research: 

• To find “good” case law that backs up your motion or brief  
• To provide legal counsel to clients  
• To provide a memo or brief for class (law students only)  
• To identify case law that refutes an opposing argument 
• To support the over-arching narrative of your case 

What is the Importance of Legal Research?

Legal research provides support for decision-making on complex issues, by providing specific facts and legal precedent that allow you to produce complete answers for clients. Quality legal research is critical to the practice of law.

Historically, attorneys combed through books and libraries for the perfect facts, cases, and issues; now, technology has largely replaced this process. While the prominence of ever-evolving technology has made the process more efficient (and, in many ways, easier), the sheer number of products and options available can be overwhelming.  

The Legal Research Process

Understanding that the legal research process can be overwhelming and time-consuming, we’ve broken the legal research process down into three key steps: 

• Understand the facts of your case 
• Gather sources of law 
• Check your citations for “good” law 

Each of these steps is detailed below, alongside a quick-view checklist.  

Step 1: Record the Facts of Your Case and Create a Research Plan  

Handling a legal task with authority requires confidence in the process. This is true in any practice, jurisdictional setting, or level of legal expertise. A good process should start by taking time to identify and understand the facts of your case. Ask yourself the following questions: 

• What is the legal issue at hand?  
• What are the details of the case?  
• What jurisdiction is most relevant?  
• Do you need state or federal case law? 

Record your facts in a case management tool before beginning – this can help you develop a course of action and narrow down where to start your research. While it may be tempting to skip this step, a commitment to this process saves you time in the long run by helping you efficiently juggle multiple clients. Not to mention, you will likely need what you’ve recorded to file a motion or brief. 

With the facts of the case recorded, you can begin your research. Because this will help you develop a plan for gathering your sources, we will briefly discuss creating a research plan before moving on to Step 2.  

Did you know? LexisNexis boasts a collection of state case law superior to its leading competitors. Easily filter by jurisdiction before or after your search.  

Creating a Research Plan  

Review the facts you recorded to determine what information you will need to build your case. When legal research first moved online, many attorneys felt the need to start with a free service like Google to identify terms of art before conducting a search in a legal research platform. However, this is no longer necessary. Research platforms like Lexis+ allow you to start your search with a natural language search or question and equip you to quickly comb both primary and secondary sources. Litigators, specifically, can use Fact and Issue Finder – integrated directly with Lexis+ – to help quickly identify the best terms of art for their search.  

Creating your research plan is less about planning where you will search and more about planning what you will search. You know your research can be conducted on one, fully integrated platform. So, what questions will you ask to get started? What legal issues do you need more information about? What filters will you need (jurisdiction, time period, etc.)?  

Once you know what you will search for, you are ready to gather sources.  

Step 2: Gather Sources of Law  

The next step in your process is to gather relevant sources of law. Below, we detail the difference between primary law and secondary law. Importantly, when gathering sources, start with secondary law materials. This helps ensure you are up-to-speed on what experts have to say about a topic before you begin your case law search. Why does this matter? Think about it as building your knowledge base before crafting an argument – you’ll be less likely to make mistakes and more inclined to spot case-winning primary law.  

What are Secondary Sources of Law?  

Secondary legal sources are materials that describe or interpret the law. They are educational resources that provide analysis of the law. These documents are cited by attorneys to persuade a court to reach a particular decision in a case, but which the court is not obligated to follow. Start with secondary sources to learn from legal experts that have already explored a given topic.  

Secondary sources may include: 

• Practice guides 
• Legal treatises 
• Law review articles 
• Scholarly journals 
• Legal news 
• Jury instructions 
• Legal dictionaries and encyclopedias 

What are Primary Sources of Law?  

A primary legal source is a formal document officially issued by the government that establishes the law on a particular matter, such as a case decision or legislative act. Primary sources are the law. This is the most authoritative step in the legal research process. You can support arguments with primary sources as they are not only authoritative, but precedential and controlling.  

Your primary sources may include: 

• Case law (federal and/or state) 
• Orders 
• Decisions 
• Statutes and regulations 
• Constitutions  
• Treatises 

Step 3: Check to See If You’re Using Good Law   

The final step in your research process should include a final check to ensure you have used “good” law – this means you are using case law that has been treated positively in court (as opposed to case law that has been overturned or brought into question). 

Check your case citations as you collect them, especially since legal research software can allow a quick view of how your case has been treated in court directly from your search results. However, it is best practice to review your citations once your research process is complete to check for any gaps, changes, or oversights.  

Read more about using good law and the process of " Shepardizing ."

Conduct Winning Legal Research  

Following this three-step process ensures you’re taking the right measures to find the most accurate, relevant and valuable data to achieve your objectives. Now that you’re ready to conduct winning legal research, take some time to review products and tools that can help you in your path to success.  

Getting Started with Legal Research Tools   

Legal research is key to drafting effective documents and building winning cases. Legal research solutions have evolved substantially – helping you conduct legal research with increased efficiency and accuracy . Below is a list of legal research tools to help you build a winning case:  

• Lexis +:  This is the premier LexisNexis fully integrated legal research platform. Features such as Shepard's At Risk ensures you’re citing only the most authoritative sources, with unprecedented visibility into whether a case is at risk of being overruled or undermined. Other Lexis+ features include, but aren’t limited to: 
• Brief Analysis: Get a clear picture of the contents of your legal brief to identify any missteps and bolster your arguments against opposing counsel. Simply upload and file and quickly evaluate the legal authority cited in your (or an opposing) brief in granular detail and receive recommendations for additional searches.  
• Litigation Analytics: Get the most accurate insights into judges, courts, attorneys, and law firms to ensure your success in litigation. Understand critical insights regarding caseloads, experience across case types, timing to key milestones, and damages by comparing federal districts and judges. 
• Shepard's ® Citations Service:  See if a case has been overturned, reaffirmed, questioned, or cited by later cases, or is at risk of negative treatment. Your research needs to provide precedential value. Using reversed or overruled authority doesn't qualify as "Good Law" and your research may be ineffectual or harmful to your case.  
• Practical Guidance: View professional insights on 20 different practice areas. Accomplish any task with practice notes, annotated templates, and checklists.  
• Legal News Hub: Receive up-to-the-minute, award-winning journalism and legal news from Law360 and Law360 Pulse anytime you need it — without having to leave the Lexis+ ecosystem. Stay current on critical developments across legal practice areas, with over 70 coverage areas spanning the practice and business of law. 

LexisNexis is here to support your firm in winning your next case. With Lexis+, all of your legal research needs are integrated into one platform as a true start-to-finish solution. Ready to learn more? Take a guided tour of Lexis+ today. 

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How to do legal research in 3 steps

Knowing where to start a difficult legal research project can be a challenge. But if you already understand the basics of legal research, the process can be significantly easier — not to mention quicker.

Solid research skills are crucial to crafting a winning argument. So, whether you are a law school student or a seasoned attorney with years of experience, knowing how to perform legal research is important — including where to start and the steps to follow.

What is legal research, and where do I start? 

Black's Law Dictionary defines legal research as “[t]he finding and assembling of authorities that bear on a question of law." But what does that actually mean? It means that legal research is the process you use to identify and find the laws — including statutes, regulations, and court opinions — that apply to the facts of your case.

In most instances, the purpose of legal research is to find support for a specific legal issue or decision. For example, attorneys must conduct legal research if they need court opinions — that is, case law — to back up a legal argument they are making in a motion or brief filed with the court.

Alternatively, lawyers may need legal research to provide clients with accurate legal guidance . In the case of law students, they often use legal research to complete memos and briefs for class. But these are just a few situations in which legal research is necessary.

Why is legal research hard?

Each step — from defining research questions to synthesizing findings — demands critical thinking and rigorous analysis.

1. Identifying the legal issue is not so straightforward. Legal research involves interpreting many legal precedents and theories to justify your questions. Finding the right issue takes time and patience.

2. There's too much to research. Attorneys now face a great deal of case law and statutory material. The sheer volume forces the researcher to be efficient by following a methodology based on a solid foundation of legal knowledge and principles.

3. The law is a fluid doctrine. It changes with time, and staying updated with the latest legal codes, precedents, and statutes means the most resourceful lawyer needs to assess the relevance and importance of new decisions.

Legal research can pose quite a challenge, but professionals can improve it at every stage of the process . 

Step 1: Key questions to ask yourself when starting legal research

Before you begin looking for laws and court opinions, you first need to define the scope of your legal research project. There are several key questions you can use to help do this.

What are the facts?

Always gather the essential facts so you know the “who, what, why, when, where, and how” of your case. Take the time to write everything down, especially since you will likely need to include a statement of facts in an eventual filing or brief anyway. Even if you don't think a fact may be relevant now, write it down because it may be relevant later. These facts will also be helpful when identifying your legal issue.

What is the actual legal issue?

You will never know what to research if you don't know what your legal issue is. Does your client need help collecting money from an insurance company following a car accident involving a negligent driver? How about a criminal case involving excluding evidence found during an alleged illegal stop?

No matter the legal research project, you must identify the relevant legal problem and the outcome or relief sought. This information will guide your research so you can stay focused and on topic.

What is the relevant jurisdiction?

Don't cast your net too wide regarding legal research; you should focus on the relevant jurisdiction. For example, does your case deal with federal or state law? If it is state law, which state? You may find a case in California state court that is precisely on point, but it won't be beneficial if your legal project involves New York law.

Where to start legal research: The library, online, or even AI?

In years past, future attorneys were trained in law school to perform research in the library. But now, you can find almost everything from the library — and more — online. While you can certainly still use the library if you want, you will probably be costing yourself valuable time if you do.

When it comes to online research, some people start with free legal research options , including search engines like Google or Bing. But to ensure your legal research is comprehensive, you will want to use an online research service designed specifically for the law, such as Westlaw . Not only do online solutions like Westlaw have all the legal sources you need, but they also include artificial intelligence research features that help make quick work of your research

Step 2: How to find relevant case law and other primary sources of law

Now that you have gathered the facts and know your legal issue, the next step is knowing what to look for. After all, you will need the law to support your legal argument, whether providing guidance to a client or writing an internal memo, brief, or some other legal document.

But what type of law do you need? The answer: primary sources of law. Some of the more important types of primary law include:

• Case law, which are court opinions or decisions issued by federal or state courts
• Statutes, including legislation passed by both the U.S. Congress and state lawmakers
• Regulations, including those issued by either federal or state agencies
• Constitutions, both federal and state

Searching for primary sources of law

So, if it's primary law you want, it makes sense to begin searching there first, right? Not so fast. While you will need primary sources of law to support your case, in many instances, it is much easier — and a more efficient use of your time — to begin your search with secondary sources such as practice guides, treatises, and legal articles.

Why? Because secondary sources provide a thorough overview of legal topics, meaning you don't have to start your research from scratch. After secondary sources, you can move on to primary sources of law.

For example, while no two legal research projects are the same, the order in which you will want to search different types of sources may look something like this:

• Secondary sources . If you are researching a new legal principle or an unfamiliar area of the law, the best place to start is secondary sources, including law journals, practice guides , legal encyclopedias, and treatises. They are a good jumping-off point for legal research since they've already done the work for you. As an added bonus, they can save you additional time since they often identify and cite important statutes and seminal cases.
• Case law . If you have already found some case law in secondary sources, great, you have something to work with. But if not, don't fret. You can still search for relevant case law in a variety of ways, including running a search in a case law research tool.

Once you find a helpful case, you can use it to find others. For example, in Westlaw, most cases contain headnotes that summarize each of the case's important legal issues. These headnotes are also assigned a Key Number based on the topic associated with that legal issue. So, once you find a good case, you can use the headnotes and Key Numbers within it to quickly find more relevant case law.

• Statutes and regulations . In many instances, secondary sources and case law list the statutes and regulations relevant to your legal issue. But if you haven't found anything yet, you can still search for statutes and regs online like you do with cases.

Once you know which statute or reg is pertinent to your case, pull up the annotated version on Westlaw. Why the annotated version? Because the annotations will include vital information, such as a list of important cases that cite your statute or reg. Sometimes, these cases are even organized by topic — just one more way to find the case law you need to support your legal argument.

Keep in mind, though, that legal research isn't always a linear process. You may start out going from source to source as outlined above and then find yourself needing to go back to secondary sources once you have a better grasp of the legal issue. In other instances, you may even find the answer you are looking for in a source not listed above, like a sample brief filed with the court by another attorney. Ultimately, you need to go where the information takes you.

Step 3: Make sure you are using ‘good’ law

One of the most important steps with every legal research project is to verify that you are using “good" law — meaning a court hasn't invalidated it or struck it down in some way. After all, it probably won't look good to a judge if you cite a case that has been overruled or use a statute deemed unconstitutional. It doesn't necessarily mean you can never cite these sources; you just need to take a closer look before you do.

The simplest way to find out if something is still good law is to use a legal tool known as a citator, which will show you subsequent cases that have cited your source as well as any negative history, including if it has been overruled, reversed, questioned, or merely differentiated.

For instance, if a case, statute, or regulation has any negative history — and therefore may no longer be good law — KeyCite, the citator on Westlaw, will warn you. Specifically, KeyCite will show a flag or icon at the top of the document, along with a little blurb about the negative history. This alert system allows you to quickly know if there may be anything you need to worry about.

Some examples of these flags and icons include:

• A red flag on a case warns you it is no longer good for at least one point of law, meaning it may have been overruled or reversed on appeal.
• A yellow flag on a case warns that it has some negative history but is not expressly overruled or reversed, meaning another court may have criticized it or pointed out the holding was limited to a specific fact pattern.
• A blue-striped flag on a case warns you that it has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court or the U.S. Court of Appeals.
• The KeyCite Overruling Risk icon on a case warns you that the case may be implicitly undermined because it relies on another case that has been overruled.

Another bonus of using a citator like KeyCite is that it also provides a list of other cases that merely cite your source — it can lead to additional sources you previously didn't know about.

Perseverance is vital when it comes to legal research

Given that legal research is a complex process, it will likely come as no surprise that this guide cannot provide everything you need to know.

There is a reason why there are entire law school courses and countless books focused solely on legal research methodology. In fact, many attorneys will spend their entire careers honing their research skills — and even then, they may not have perfected the process.

So, if you are just beginning, don't get discouraged if you find legal research difficult — almost everyone does at first. With enough time, patience, and dedication, you can master the art of legal research.

Thomson Reuters originally published this article on November 10, 2020.

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11 Finding and Using Case Law

Learning goals.

After reading this chapter, you will be able to

• Identify and use many search techniques to find relevant case law.
• Identify and use free, non-subscription platforms to find relevant case law.
• Conduct case law research more confidently and efficiently.

Where Do You Find Cases?

Most people conduct case law research online. Several websites provide free access to case law: Google Scholar , state and federal court websites, Library of Congress (only United States Reports), the Government Printing Office website (federal court opinions), Findlaw , Justia , and Caselaw Access Project . Fastcase is available through some state law libraries (i.e. the State of Oregon Law Library website ) and with state Bar Association membership. Keep in mind that freely available websites and platforms will have few or no tools to help with searching, and some provide cases only from certain jurisdictions or for certain date ranges.

Commercial platforms such as Casetext, Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg will provide more editorial enhancements to increase your efficiency and effectiveness in finding results.

A note about print sources

Some academic and public law libraries still have case reporters in print. Case reporters are multi-volume sets that publish case law for different jurisdictions. Each state has reporters for their courts. Regional reporters publish cases for states in a certain geographic region. For example, the Pacific Reporter series publishes state cases from Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

Federal cases are published in West’s Federal Supplement (U.S. District Court), West’s Federal Reporter (Federal Court of Appeals), West’s Supreme Court Reporter (U.S. Supreme Court decisions), Lexis’s United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers’ ed. (U.S. Supreme Court decisions), and United States Reports (official version of U.S. Supreme Court decisions). The citations you see for cases refer to the volume number, the reporter name, the page number, the court and date of the decision.

How Do You Find Cases?

Finding case law is an important part of your research process for most legal issues. You probably practiced case law research frequently in first year legal research and writing courses. However, most students feel that they need additional practice because they want more confidence in their results and more efficiency in their searches. This chapter will focus on practicing different methods of finding cases:

• Using secondary sources.
• Using statutory annotations.
• Using one good case.
• Using an index (West’s Topic and Key Number system, Lexis’s Case Notes system).
• Using natural language and terms and connectors (Boolean) searching.

Using Secondary Sources

Chapter 9 discusses different types of secondary sources and how to use them to learn background information about your legal issue and find primary sources of law. To reiterate, when you are starting your research and reading secondary sources, you might come across citations to cases important to that legal topic or issue. You might have noted some cases at that point; but if not, you can circle back to secondary sources to find citations to cases that seem important now that you know a bit more about your issue.

Use Statutory Annotations

If you found an important statute in your research, you probably looked at the annotations to the statute to start finding cases. (See Chapter 10 ).

Use One Good Case

If you found a citation to a relevant case in a secondary source or a statute, you can use that case to find other cases. There are several ways to use a good case to find more cases:

• Look at the cases cited in the good case.
• On Westlaw or Lexis, use the headnote tools in the good case to find other cases.
• On Westlaw or Lexis, use the citators (Key Cite and Shepards) in the good case to find other cases.
• On Google Scholar, use the Cited By and How Cited links to find other cases.

Practice Activity

For the trademark issue, use google scholar to find any relevant cases. Compare your results to the cases you find on a subscription platform such as Westlaw or Lexis.

Use an Index

Westlaw and Lexis have indexing systems that allow you to use legal topics and sub-topics to find cases. On Westlaw, the Topic and Key Number system indexes all U.S. case law; on Lexis, the Topics system provides that service.

You can use the index in a few ways:

• In a case headnote, look at the corresponding index terms or Key Numbers and click on the links to find other cases categorized under that index term or number.
• On Westlaw, find Key Numbers under the Content Types tab and either browse or term search in that list of Key Numbers.
• On Lexis, find the Topics tab and search or browse.
• Use the Key Number or Topic as a search term when you are doing Boolean searching (see below discussion of Boolean searching).

Use Natural Language and Boolean Searching

Most students are adept at using natural language to search for cases. An example of a natural language search is what constitutes trademark infringement on a beer label? Search algorithms have improved, so most platforms you use for searching will produce relevant results. However, most law librarians and legal research and writing professors will advise you to use multiple methods and tools to ensure that your results are both thorough and accurate. In this section, you will learn more about using terms and connectors (also called Boolean language) to search effectively for cases. Boolean searching may seem time-consuming and awkward at first, but with practice, it will become easier.

Boolean Searching

When you encounter a website or research platform, look for a “search help” link, which will inform you of search language and other search tips for that platform. Although the connectors will vary in meaning based on the website or platform you are using, the following are some common terms and connectors:

The connectors are processed in a specific order in your searches. After the connector OR, proximity connectors are processed from narrowest “” to broadest, AND. Sometimes, you need to use parentheses to change the order. For example, frisk! OR search! /3 seiz! should be expressed like this to run properly:  frisk! OR (search! /3 seiz!).

Suggested Activity:

In this activity, you will practice creating a Boolean (terms and connectors search) on the issue of trademark infringement in the context of beer labels and names. Try this search on several platforms, compare results, then revise your searches to try different combinations of terms.

Student added discussion and reflection questions

• Which case searching method do you feel most comfortable with?
• Have you used one type of searching method more than other in your research?
• What type of searching method is the most frustrating for you? Why?

Contribute a discussion or reflection question to this section.

Advanced Legal Research: Process and Practice Copyright © by Megan Austin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Williams Library Reference

Reference Desk : Atrium, 2nd (Main) Floor (202) 662-9140 Request a Research Consultation  

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• © Georgetown University Law Library. These guides may be used for educational purposes, as long as proper credit is given. These guides may not be sold. Any comments, suggestions, or requests to republish or adapt a guide should be submitted using the Research Guides Comments form . Proper credit includes the statement: Written by, or adapted from, Georgetown Law Library (current as of .....).
• Last Updated: Jul 21, 2023 2:08 PM
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Pritzker Legal Research Center

Researching case law, what do you need, where to find free case law online.

• Finding Cases
• Determining if Case Law is Still Good

Research Tip

Keep records of your work throughout the process.  Make notes of where you searched and your results from each step.  

This will keep you from having to repeat steps and will help you recall what search terms you used.  If you cannot find a definitive answer, you will be also able to report on what you did find and where you looked.

• Most authoritative statement of rule(s) from high court.
• Most recent reaffirmation of rule(s) from the binding lower courts.
• Which case most approximates your case facts? Do any highly analogous cases exist in other jurisdictions (especially if their overall legal principles are similar)? Typically, real world assignments do not precisely match precedents. The best lawyers are those who see connections between cases with superficial dissimilarities. 
• Which cases state the principles in the most advantageous way? In which cases does the position you represent win (e.g., the defendant, the movant, etc.)? 
• What trouble lurks in the cases that your opponent will exploit in attacking your arguments? 
• What trends can be identified in the cases (e.g., “no court has ever . . .”)? 
• What overarching principles can you synthesize into a framework to demonstrate to a court, even if the framework is not specifically articulated by courts? Are there related principles that may help support arguments you want to make? 

This guide discusses researching case law using Lexis, Westlaw and Bloomberg Law, the commercial databases most frequently used in law firms.  However, there are many free options for conducting case law research online. 

See the Library of Congress's Guide for more information:

• How To Find Free Case Law Online - Library of Congress A research guide to help you locate free case law on the internet using Google Scholar, CourtListener, FindLaw, Justia, and Public Library of Law (PLoL).

This research guide was last revised and updated on 8/22/2019. 

• Next: Finding Cases >>
• Last Updated: Aug 22, 2019 1:57 PM
• URL: https://library.law.northwestern.edu/cases

Basic Legal Research Guide: Case Law

• Getting Started
• Dictionaries
• Encyclopedias
• Law Reviews
• Restatements
• Statutes and Codes
• Administrative Law
• Illinois Resources
• Research Strategy

Accessing Cases in Print

Please note that the Law Library is no longer updating any state law reporters in print. The Law Library is retaining reporters from states besides Illinois on the 5th floor of the Library. Regional reporters and digests are located from call numbers KF 35 .A7 ( Atlantic Reporter ) through KF 135.S8 ( Southern Reporter ); state reporters and digests (if we own them) can be found with the non-Illinois state law materials (call numbers KFA through KFW ). See the map below for the location of the regional reporters and digests and state reporters in relation to the stairwell.

Federal case law reporters and the Federal Practice Digest are still being updated in print; all sets can be found on the 4th floor of the Law Library. See the map below for their location in relation to the stairwell.

About the National Reporter System

Cases are published in chronological order based on the date they were decided, and not by subject. Unfortunately, however, the research projects you receive usually will be asking you to research a legal issue (i.e., a subject). Therefore, you need an index to the reporter system. This is where the West American Digest System  and the  Topic and Key Number system come in handy. West publishes unofficial reporters as part of its National Reporter System  with the goal of including every reported case from every jurisdiction. For state cases, West publishes seven regional reporters, which each include cases from several states. West publishes a map that shows which states are covered in each regional reporter. Note that these do not always make geographic sense; for instance, Oklahoma and Kansas are listed as "Pacific" states.

About the West Key Number System

• Searching with Key Numbers in Westlaw Edge - Quick Reference Guide

Cases are published in chronological order based on the date they were decided and not by subject. However, the research projects you receive usually will be asking you to research a legal issue (i.e., a subject). Therefore, you need an index to the reporter system. The West Key Number System  provides an indexing function for all published cases, enabling a researcher to locate cases by subject from any court in any jurisdiction. The system also acts as an abstracting service, providing researchers with short summaries of the points of law discussed in the indexed opinions. 

The Key Number System subdivides the law into over 450 broad legal  Topics , which are then further subdivided into Key Numbers , which are assigned to specific legal issues within the broader Topics. Topics and Key Numbers are consistent throughout West's System; the same subject arrangement is applied to all cases from every jurisdiction, so that if you find a case from one jurisdiction that discusses a legal issue you are researching, you can use the Topic and Key Number for that issue to find other cases from other jurisdictions that discuss the same issue. The "Searching with Key Numbers" guide (above) provides more detail.

West employs attorneys who read each case, identify the point(s) of law discussed, summarize the point(s) of law in a headnote (a paragraph summary of the point of law) using consistent legal terminology. At least one Topic and Key Number are assigned to each headnote. These headnotes will appear in a West  digest under the appropriate Topic and Key Number and at the beginning of each case as it appears in a West reporter. 

Therefore, headnotes act as the bridge between the Key Number System and cases: you can use the headnotes from a case you've identified and look for similar cases on the same topic. Alternatively, you can start with the Key Number System, look up your subject by Topic and Key Number, and then find cases by reviewing the language of the headnotes you find.

About Cases

Cases are opinions written by judges that resolve disputed legal issues (as opposed to disputed factual issues ). Researching cases is important because of the doctrine of stare decisis  or precedent . Under the principle of stare decisis , courts are bound to follow the rulings of law from previously decided cases in the same jurisdiction when facing similar cases currently before the court. For the legal researcher, reviewing cases from a court will help determine how the court will rule if given a similar factual situation. In the U.S. system, the only published cases you will find are from intermediate appellate courts and supreme courts. Most trial court decisions are not published.

Cases are published in chronological order in reporters . There are two different categories of reporters that you need to know:  official reporters , which are usually published by a government entity, and unofficial reporters , which are published commercially (usually by either West or Lexis). 

To find a case in a reporter, you will need to know its citation . A case citation includes the name of the case, the volume number of the reporter containing the case, the abbreviation for the reporter, the first page of the case, and the year of the decision. For example:

P.G.A. v. Martin , 532 U.S. 661 (2001).

To find the text of this case in print, you would go to volume 532 of the United States Reports (the official reporter of the U.S. Supreme Court) , then page 661. The U.S. Supreme Court decided the case in the year 2001. To find it online, you would search by the citation.

You will often see multiple citations to the same case when the case is reported in multiple reporters (called  parallel citations ).  Table T.1  of  The Bluebook  lists the reporters (both official and unofficial) for every jurisdiction in the United States. For example, the P.G.A. v. Martin  case below is reported in three reporters in the following order: the United States Reports (the official reporter of the U.S. Supreme Court),  the  Supreme Court Reporter   (West's unofficial reporter), and the  Lawyers' Edition   (Lexis's unofficial reporter).  

P.G.A. v. Martin , 532 U.S. 661, 121 S.Ct. 1879, 149 L. Ed. 2d 904 (2001).

How to Read a Case

At the top of the reporter page (see below), you will see the citation to the case, including any parallel citations (citations to the same case in other reporters). Then you will see a short summary of the case (the syllabus ), which includes an indication of how it got to the court that has issued the opinion, and the holding(s) on the point(s) of law. After the syllabus, you will see the headnotes discussing the point(s) of law in the case in the order in which they appear in the opinion, as well as the Topics and Key Numbers that can be used to find other cases on the same legal issue(s). Next is the actual text of the opinion.

One important note: The headnotes and summary are NOT written by the court; they are written by West editors. Therefore, you should never cite to a case based on what you've read in the syllabus and headnotes; you must read the case and cite to the language written by the court.

For additional insights, Prof. Orin Kerr's article " How to Read a Legal Opinion: a Guide for New Law Students " explains what judicial opinions are, how they are structured, and what to look for when reading them.

Using Citators

Citators  perform three functions for legal researchers. A citator will tell you if the case you've found is still "good law," or if subsequent decisions have weakened its authority or overruled it altogether. A citator can also provide citations to other cases and secondary sources that discuss the same legal issue as in the case you've found. Finally, a citator can provide you with case history (references to other proceedings in the same case).

Each subscription research service has its own citator. In Lexis, the citator is called Shepard's . Westlaw's citator is called KeyCite . Bloomberg Law's citator is called BCite . The following presentations will show you how each citator works. Westlaw also has a "Quick Reference Guide" (PDF) for using KeyCite (see below).

If you have access to multiple citators, it's a good idea to check your case in each citator, because citator results will often include different cases, different secondary sources, and different interpretations of subsequent cases that have cited to your case.

Lawyer's Nightmare: DOL Blames Westlaw for Skimpy Brief - this Law360 article demonstrates the hazards of relying on the results of just one research platform/citator.

Below are vendor-produced materials on citators: a PDF Guide to using KeyCite in Westlaw, and video tutorials on using Shepard's in Lexis and BCite in Bloomberg Law.

• Checking Cases in KeyCite - Quick Reference Guide

BCite from Bloomberg Law - Law School Team on Vimeo .

Subject Guide

CALI LibTour - West's Digests

As part of its LibTour podcast series, CALI created this brief introduction to the West American Digest System . Follow the link below to the podcast.

• CALI LibTour Podcast - West's Digests

How to Cite Cases - Examples

Rule B10 (Bluepages) of The Bluebook (21st edition) covers how to cite cases in non-academic legal documents.  The Bluebook , however, notes that practitioners should be aware of local court rules and specifies on p. 3,"Make sure to abide by any citation requirements of the court to which you are submitting your documents."  Table BT2 of the Bluepages contains an index of jurisdiction-specific citation rules. See the " Illinois Resources " tab of this guide for specific information on citing cases, statutes, and regulations in Illinois court documents.

There are many variables involved in citing cases, so you will probably have to check one of the sub-parts of a rule to determine how to cite your particular case. The following example is the first one included in rule B10 (rule B10.1) (Bluepages) (see p. 11)

Engel v. Vitale , 370 U.S. 421, 430 (1962) ("The Establishment Clause, unlike the Free Exercise Clause, does not depend upon any showing of direct governmental compulsion . . . .").

The components of the citation are, in order: the name of the case; the published or unpublished source in which the case can be found; a parenthetical indicating the court and year of decision; other parenthetical information, if any; the case's subsequent history, if any. For the case name, omit all parties other than the first party listed on each side of the "v." per rule B10.1.1 (Bluepages) . In the above citation, note that the first page of the case is listed, as well as the specific page referred to (pinpoint citation) per rule B10.1.2 (Bluepages) . Per rule B10.1.3 (Bluepages) , when citing decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, or a state's highest court, do not include the name of the deciding court, as in the above example.

Table T6  (p. 304) lists abbreviations for case names and institutional authors in citations.

This example for a federal appellate court case is listed in rule B10.1.3 (Bluepages) (see p. 13):

Envtl. Def. Fund v. EPA , 465 F.2d 528, 533 (D.C. Cir. 1972).

The Bluebook  notes that the Bluepages retain the tradition of underlining certain text, although italics are equivalent (see p. 6).

Rule 10 (Whitepages) (see p. 95) contains the rules for citing cases in academic works. Some examples The Bluebook provides are:

Meritor Sav. Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 60 (1986).

In this example, the case was published in volume 477 of the U.S. Reports (the official reporter of the U.S. Supreme  Court). The case starts on p. 57, but the cited information appears on p. 60. The case was decided in 1986.

Ward v. Reddy, 727 F. Supp. 1407, 1412 (D. Mass 1990). 

In this example, the case was published in volume 727 of the Federal Supplement (a West reporter that contains selected decisions of the U.S. District Courts). The case starts on p. 1407, and the cited information appears on p. 1412. The case was decided by the District Court of Massachusetts in 1990. 

• << Previous: Treatises
• Next: Statutes and Codes >>
• Last Updated: Apr 11, 2024 2:11 PM
• URL: https://lawlibguides.luc.edu/firstyearlegalresearch

Free Legal Research Resources - United States

Federal law & gov't docs, secondary sources, data sources, getting help, how to use this guide.

This guide contains selected, free, online United States federal and state legal research materials.

Many lawyers have access to paid databases. Yet, combining paid and free resources, can help them to avoid potentially expensive searches. According to a 2020 Legal Technology Survey Report, nearly 60% of lawyers “say they regularly use free online resources to conduct legal research.”

• Legal Technology - ABA Legal Profile

For researchers without access to paid databases, the following resources may be essential. Legal research is often more effective when using a local law library. To learn more about law libraries throughout the United States, visit:

• Local Law Libraries by AJ Blechner Last Updated Apr 12, 2024 666 views this year

Range of Materials

The Constitution

Statutes and Legislative Materials

Statutes and legislative materials are becoming available freely online, with increasing frequency. Free resources can be a great starting place for statutory research. However, always make sure you confirm your findings in an authoritative version of the law.

Supreme Court

Case Law and Court Documents

Federal case law and court documents are often available freely online, particularly recently decided cases. Check the website of the deciding court for digital copies of their cases. In addition, the following resources provide free case law.

Case Validation

Case involves ensuring that cases have not been overruled or negatively impacted by later caselaw. Case searching and retrieval through free databases is increasingly achievable. However, paid services are still most often used to validate cases. Tools that facilitate this case validation process are called citators. The best way to access free citators is through state and local public law libraries. To find a state or local law library visit:

Executive Documents

State Statutes and Regulations

Many states and localities publish some or all of their legislative materials on their website. Consider starting with the website of the state or locality in question. Remember, materials on official government websites, may not be the “official copy.” The National Conference of State Legislators provides a list of State Legislative Websites.

The sources below provide alternatives for hard-to-find state materials.

State Case Law and Court Documents

Courts are increasingly making their materials freely available online, frequently via the court website. This is particularly true for state Supreme Courts. When looking for state case law, consider starting with the website of the deciding court. The National Center for State Courts provides a list of state court websites.

U.S. Treaties

Several government-sponsored websites provide the full-text of U.S. treaties on the web. Refer to the list below for date ranges for each sources.

Foreign & International Law

For free resources on foreign and international law, see our foreign and international law guide:

• Free Legal Research Resources - Foreign & International by AJ Blechner Last Updated Sep 12, 2023 655 views this year

Journal Search & Legal Opinions - Google Scholar

Google Scholar offers access to many legal documents including patents, legal opinions and journals. Use the search box below and select the appropriate options from the dropdown menu at the top left of your screen.

While many journals are only available through paid databases, high-quality, open access journals are increasingly common. The following sources collect freely available journal articles.

Books, Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Treatises, Dissertations, Etc.

Secondary sources are also increasingly available online for free. 

Federal Data Sources

Many government data sources are made available to the public for free online. Check the websites of relevant agencies or organizations to look for additional data.

• Additional sources are available on the Harvard Law School Library's website.

Contact Us!

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This guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License .

You may reproduce any part of it for noncommercial purposes as long as credit is included and it is shared in the same manner. 

• Last Updated: Apr 12, 2024 4:50 PM
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An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock A locked padlock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Closing Cases Using Gunshot Residue

Not every crime scene will have definitive evidence, such as DNA, to link an individual to a crime. In those cases, law enforcement relies on other evidence to build the burden of proof. NIJ graduate research fellow Dr. Shelby Khandasammy developed a tool to analyze organic gunshot residue and distinguish between different firearms calibers and manufacturers. She joins Marie Garcia, office director for the Office of Criminal Justice Systems at NIJ, to talk about her work and experience as a research fellow. 

SPEAKER 1: Welcome to Justice Today, the official podcast of the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs, where we shine a light on cutting-edge research and practices and offer an in-depth look at what we're doing to meet the biggest public safety challenges of our time. Join us as we explore how funded science and technology help us achieve strong communities.

MARIE GARCIA: Welcome back to the show everyone. My name is Marie Garcia and I'm the Office Director for the Office of Criminal Justice Systems at NIJ. I'm excited to be back and talking about NIJ's Graduate Research Fellowship Program with one of our recent research fellows. I was a fellow as well, and I received amazing support from NIJ during my doctoral program. And I love hearing about the work being done by our fellows today. Joining me to talk about her research on organic gunshot residue is Dr. Shelby Khandasammy. Welcome to the show, Shelby.

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: Hi. Thanks for having me.

MARIE GARCIA: So, to start, Shelby, tell us a little bit about yourself.

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: So, I finished my Ph.D. in Chemistry with my research focus being in forensic chemistry from SUNY Albany under Dr. Igor Lednev in December 2022, so last year.

MARIE GARCIA: Great, congratulations.

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: Thank you.

MARIE GARCIA: So today we're going to talk about your dissertation research, which focused on, as you just mentioned, gunshot residue. And before we get there, can you tell us about the differences between processing a crime scene in real life compared to what we see on popular TV crime shows?

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: Processing a crime scene looks very straightforward in crime shows, but it's very different in real life. It's highly glamorous, as most things with TV are. Usually, they find a perfect fingerprint, or a perfect spent bullet, or DNA just laying there in pristine condition. But crime is messy and not every scene will have DNA, or bullets, or more of the really specific evidence types that we can link definitively to a person who has committed the crime. So it's not always so neat and easy and we're not always able to specifically find evidence that can link us to a specific person.

MARIE GARCIA: Okay, great. So let's start with the basics. For listeners who, like me, are not forensic scientists, I'm not a hard scientist. I'm not a bench scientist. I did do well in biology and chemistry in college, but I still don't know a whole lot about this line of research. So can you tell us more about trace evidence and specifically gunshot residue and the work that you've done?

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: So the concept of trace evidence is that every contact leaves a trace. So whenever we have a perpetrator, a victim, and a crime scene between those three, we're going to have different interactions. We're going to have traces, or trace evidence, that's generated between those interactions. And gunshot residue itself is a type of trace evidence that is produced when we discharge a firearm. So when we discharge a firearm, a lot of times, in TV and movies, you’ll see a big plume of smoke happen. And in that plume of smoke, that’s where we find our little particulates, or our gunshot residues. And these settle on the surface of people's skin, their hair, their clothing, the crime scene itself.

MARIE GARCIA: So, with gunshot residue, as you mentioned in TV, you see like this burst of smoke, you see that in movies as well. Can gunshot residue be washed off?

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: So gunshot residue is kind of akin to tiny particulates like sand, so of course it can be washed off because that's physical movement. However, we've been turning to other locations for sampling like your nasal fluids because people don't often clean out their noses after a crime, or hair, or clothing. And oftentimes if you get to gunshot residue quickly enough, you could recover it.

MARIE GARCIA: So, tell us about the importance of gunshot residue.

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: So my work primarily focused on the analysis of organic gunshot residue, which is one of the two subtypes of gunshot residue. There's inorganic and organic gunshot residue. And recent research has turned to organic gunshot residue as a really important potential trace evidence type. And there's a couple reasons, but one of the major ones is that it has shown great potential to point us to a specific type of ammunition and caliber.

MARIE GARCIA: When we were preparing for this discussion today, you mentioned how important it is to distinguish between bullets and cartridge casings. Why is that important?

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: So, as a whole, like people are more familiar with the bullet, you know. When we see crime shows and sometimes when we talk about ammunition cartridges themselves, we often call it a bullet, but it really is an ammunition cartridge as a whole, and there are several components within. You have your bullet or your projectile that flies out of our firearm upon a firearm discharge event. And below this, we have the things that actually make that combustion reaction happen, which are our primer and our propellant. And our propellant is smokeless powders or tiny explosives you can picture. And our primer is shock-sensitive. So when we pull the trigger, what actually happens is you have a firing pin that hits your primer, and then we have some combustion that happens there, and this ignites our propellant, or our smokeless powder, and our primer and our propellant are actually what create our gunshot residue particles.

MARIE GARCIA: Great. Thank you so much. So let's get into your research. So what drove you to do this research for your dissertation?

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: For us, we looked at the field and what we'd done in the past with gunshot residue because we worked on a previous NIJ grant, and what we found was that organic gunshot residue was taking off. There was great interest in it as a potential evidence source. It seemed to be very informative, much more informative than inorganic gunshot residue. So we thought this is being underutilized. It's a great evidence type. More of it is generated at a crime scene than inorganic gunshot residue. It's easier to find because it's larger. This is awesome. And my lab primarily uses Raman spectroscopy, which is a non-destructive technique that uses lasers, and we get some signature from these molecules, and we're able to identify our sample in that way. So what we wanted to do was develop non-destructive methods for analyzing this organic gunshot residue, see what type of signatures we could get. And the idea was also, you know, there's more destructive techniques out there, but Raman spectroscopy can give you great information and you can preserve this evidence for later processing or other techniques that might destroy it.

MARIE GARCIA: So the research that you undertook, is it something that we see right now in the criminal justice system? Are there forensic labs that are engaging in this type of work as well?

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: So as far as Raman spectroscopy goes, it hasn't really entered the field fully yet. And the reason being is it's new and there's always different standards, right? But we are moving towards it, and Raman spectroscopy is being utilized in a lot of different forensic evidence types. And one thing my lab also focuses on is analysis of body fluids at crime scenes, directly at a crime scene, using Raman spectroscopy. And then I worked on gunshot residue, but people have looked into things like paints, cosmetics, hairs, fibers. And the non-destructive nature of it is really what, I think, the appeal is. And people are working and talking and moving towards incorporating it, I think in a forensic lab setting.

MARIE GARCIA: Yeah, that's great to hear. NIJ has a pretty robust portfolio of research in this space, so hopefully, I'm sure your research will add to it as well. So with regard to your dissertation research, can you break down the types of questions that you were looking to answer with your research, and what were your findings?

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: Yeah. So we really focused on three major, sort of, areas. We wanted to detect, identify, and characterize organic gunshot residues better. And we had four projects that I specifically worked on. So we looked at creating a method using fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy for detecting and identifying organic gunshot residues. We also looked at the--at the method by which we could characterize organic gunshot residues better using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, which is another type of spectroscopy that's destructive but actually offers us almost fingerprint-like information as it's very specific. And we also looked at the precursor to organic gunshot residues, our propellant as I mentioned, and we utilize Raman spectroscopy for that study as well and looked at characterization and differentiating between manufacturers and calibers. So we really looked in three major areas to try to help law enforcement, first detect, then identify their organic gunshot residue, and then move into characterization later and get really important information out.

MARIE GARCIA: So how would someone in the field use this research and the findings that you produced?

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: So ideally, what we envision in the field is that you would go to a crime scene and collect your gunshot residue or have a suspect come down to the precinct and you would collect the gunshot residue from their clothing, or their hair, or their nasal fluid, or whatever it is. And you would then take that gunshot residue, utilize fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy to non-destructively detect and identify your organic gunshot residues. And then you could use another technique, such as laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, which I use in my research to help differentiate and identify and get a specific fingerprint that you could then put in a database for gunshot residue and say, "Okay, this is the type of gunshot residue. It came from, let's give a very general example, like a Winchester 9mm Luger. And you said you didn't fire a gun recently, but we found gunshot residue, first of all. And secondly, we found this specific type of ammunition, and that's linking you to the crime." And while it may not be definitive, you know, sort of a nail in the coffin so to speak, in that, you know, someone else could have fired that weapon, it is an important tool that could be used interrogation. And also to build burden of proof because if we have other pieces of trace evidence telling us that someone may have been involved or at a crime scene or just witnessed something, that's really important.

MARIE GARCIA: So, I listen to a lot of podcasts, and a lot of crime-specific podcasts that talk a lot about cold cases. Is gunshot residue or can it be helpful to solve cold cases?

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: It's a really good question, and I feel like, you know, their aging is something that we're really interested in and how they age and how they degrade over time, I'm not sure. But I would say based on what I know about their chemical makeup, they are rather stable. They're not something that's going to crumble away into dust or just fall apart, you know, after a year or two, based on my personal experiences looking at samples that we'd had prior to me even starting my project in our lab.

MARIE GARCIA: That's interesting because most of the podcasts I hear about, they're talking about blood evidence and, like, DNA. They don't really talk about gunshot residue, so that's really interesting to hear. So now that you've done your research and we--everything is completed for your fellowship, what are the implications and for policy and practice, for your research for practitioners in the field? What do you want them to know about your work?

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: I think what I want them to know about our work is we've really tried to optimize it in the sense of, we look at an evidence type that's easier to collect, that's more prevalent and, you know, is also allowing specific information. So we really want to make it something that is also a technique that is non-destructive, that's helping them to preserve chain of custody, and also a technique that hopefully can be incorporated and almost used in a black box fashion is, like, the vision we have. So I think what I'd want them to know is, you know, it's a new technology, it's an innovation, but we are trying our best to make it as accessible, easy, and time-saving as possible for them.

MARIE GARCIA: That's great to know. So I started the podcast with introducing you as a fellow. So I'd like to ask you about your time in NIJ's Fellowship Program. So the GRF is one of our long-standing programs here at the agency. We're incredibly proud of the investments that we've made with new scholars like yourself. And I--again, I was one myself so I know how beneficial this program could be. So, tell me how you became interested in the program.

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: So we'd had a couple fellows in our lab previously, actually two. And one of my really good friends who mentored me in our laboratory, he'd, you know, mentioned it--and my professor, of course, had wanted me to apply for the program. And my friend who'd gotten the fellowship had this, like, great experience and he was like, you know, "It really helped my work and it just got me like all the supplies, everything I needed. It streamlined the process for me." So I was really encouraged by that, you know, to apply. And then we--I'd previously been working on an NIJ grant, actually, and I was helping my professor working on that grant and writing reports and so on and so forth. So I became kind of familiar with how the process worked or like, you know, the--how do we take the grant and make deliverables and write this report and, like, modify our budget. And I'd had a really good experience with that too. So I was like, "This is great. You know, the mission is great, and I think they're very focused on it and they're focused on giving us what we need to do the work." So I was--I was really interested I think just in the sense that it was also just very, like, very straightforward, you know, like, just like, "We are here. We want to solve crimes and deliver justice to people. Here's the money." Like, it was very nice, I think, you know. There was not, like, all this red tape or, like, fluff.

MARIE GARCIA: No, that's great to hear. I know the goal of the program is to help students as they finish up. I mean this--the dissertation program, it's all very intense and stressful. So we certainly don't want to add to the stress with the program. So that's good to hear. So how was the program helpful to you? I know you mentioned supplies and, you know, being able to have what you need to do your work. Did it help you in terms of time and just, you know, giving you the resources, generally, to do the work that you needed to get done?

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: So I think the biggest supply for me was my computer and that was mainly because we didn't have a computer. I was working with--when I was working on our fluorescence mapping project, these huge datasets that contain millions of spectra in them. And I would have to sit on our other computer, and this was before I got the fellowship, I'd worked on a previous iteration of the project, and I'd have to sit on this special computer in this almost fishbowl-like setup because it was this glass walled thing. I'd have to, like, leave our lab, go outside, go to this special computer that I had special permissions to work on that they had to set up for me, and I would load that thing and that computer was the fastest they could offer me, that we could access easily. And I think it still took about half an hour to an hour to load one dataset and then I'd have to work with it. So a lot of times I'd have to just go for a walk or I'd have to load it, maybe run back to our lab and try to work on something. But unless I had my dataset, it was--there was nothing to work on. Sometimes my professor would come by and he'd ask to see something, and I'd have to open the file and we'd sit there for 20 minutes, like, waiting. 

So, my computer made the process so great and so easy, and I was able to just open my files and get on with my day and it never took more than two to three minutes to open a file. It was beautiful and great, like, and we ended up working with 3D Raman mapping, which had even more spectra in the maps because we had spectra in the Z direction as well. And that was, you know, that would've been awful on the other computer. I think it would've broken it, and I would've had to pay the university money or something. But that was huge and also I did a collaboration--a couple collaborations where we went to sites. At least I did two, and NIJ was really great because at one point, one of our collaborators called and he's like, "I have time but it has to be this week if you want to do this project on our instrument." And so I'd contacted NIJ and said, "Hey, I know this is short notice and this wasn't in our travel plans, but can I go? It's for the work." And they're like, "Sure, go. Just send us a short justification." It was very easy. So that was really nice.

MARIE GARCIA: I was a fellow myself, and I remember one of the huge takeaways for me was just not having to stress about finding extra funding anywhere for my time and just being able to focus on my research. So it sounds like you had a similar experience that the funding gave you the resources that you need so that you could get the work done.

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: I think sometimes, like, you know, I definitely heard in--with certain grant programs like--or fellowship programs, like people will have a lot of limitations on them and a lot of questions asked like, "Oh, why do you need to go there? Why do you do that?" And, like, I think with the GRF Fellowship, I did not have that experience. I just justified myself and they're like, "Yup, go. That's great. We want you to do the work." So that was really encouraging. I think the level of trust and support they gave was also really encouraging because I felt that they treated, you know, even though you're a student, they treat you as like, you know, a fully-fledged scholar as someone doing important research. It's not--you know, you're not just a throwaway or like, you know what I mean?

MARIE GARCIA: It sounds like you had a really great experience in the GRF Program, which is great to hear.

SHELBY KHANDASAMMY: Yeah.

MARIE GARCIA: So I want to thank you, Shelby, for joining us today and for sharing a lot more about yourself and your expertise and especially your time in the program. That's really helpful to hear. So I want to also thank our listeners for tuning in. If you are interested in science and criminal justice, please follow us wherever you get your podcasts. So stay tuned for future episodes and use the link in the description to sign up for various NIJ topics, including when funding opportunities like GRF are released each year. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER 2: To learn more about today's topic or about NIJ, visit the links in the episode description and join us for new episodes every month. 

Disclaimer:

Opinions or points of view expressed in these recordings represent those of the speakers and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Any commercial products and manufacturers discussed in these recordings are presented for informational purposes only and do not constitute product approval or endorsement by the U.S. Department of Justice.

An AI tool used in thousands of criminal cases is facing legal challenges

Law enforcement agencies and prosecutors from Colorado to New York have turned to a little-known artificial intelligence tool in recent years to help investigate, charge and convict suspects accused of murder and other serious crimes.

But as the software, called Cybercheck, has spread, defense lawyers have questioned its accuracy and reliability. Its methodology is opaque, they’ve said, and it hasn’t been independently vetted. 

The company behind the software has said the technology relies on machine learning to scour vast swaths of the web and gather “open source intelligence” — social media profiles, email addresses and other publicly available information — to help identify potential suspects’ physical locations and other details in homicides and human trafficking crimes, cold cases and manhunts.

The tool’s creator, Adam Mosher, has said that Cybercheck’s accuracy tops 90% and that it performs automated research that would take humans hundreds of hours to complete. By last year, the software had been used in nearly 8,000 cases spanning 40 states and nearly 300 agencies, according to a court decision that cited prosecutors in a New York case that relied on the tool.   

In the New York case, a judge barred authorities from introducing Cybercheck evidence last year after having found that prosecutors hadn’t shown that it was reliable or well-accepted, the decision shows. In another ruling last year, an Ohio judge blocked a Cybercheck analysis when Mosher refused to disclose the software’s methodology.

“We’re being asked to trust a company to present evidence that could eventually put people in prison,” said William Budington, a senior staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group. “That goes against the right to due process.”

In a motion filed last month in a fatal robbery in Akron, Ohio, defense lawyers representing two defendants charged with murder demanded that Mosher provide the software’s proprietary code and algorithm. 

In the April 10 filing, the lawyers also made an alarming series of allegations: Mosher lied under oath about his expertise and made false claims about when and where the technology has been used.

Donald Malarcik, one of the defense lawyers who filed the motion, said in an email that it was “shocking” that prosecutors continued to rely on Mosher as an expert.

Mosher didn’t respond to a detailed list of questions about Malarcik’s comments or the filing. An executive for the Canadian company that makes Cybercheck, Global Intelligence Inc., cited ongoing court matters and said it wouldn’t comment. 

Mosher has said he wouldn’t provide Cybercheck’s software to defense experts because it is proprietary, according to an appeals filing in the Ohio homicide case that was ruled on last year. 

A spokesman for the Akron Police Department, which investigated the fatal robbery, didn’t respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office, which is handling the case, wouldn’t comment, citing pending litigation.

At a hearing last year, the prosecutor addressed some of the allegations in the filing and said Mosher was “great at software, great at open source intelligence, a work in progress on the law,” according to a transcript of the September hearing.

The prosecutor, Brian Stano, said his office had no intention of opening an investigation into Mosher, the transcript shows. 

“I believe this is more of a lost-in-translation issue as opposed to some sort of impropriety,” he said.

‘Circumstantial’ evidence 

When law enforcement agencies request assistance from Cybercheck, the software searches parts of the web that aren’t indexed by search engines, as well as the surface web. Those findings are compiled in a report and provided to law enforcement agencies.

Several contracts and proposals reviewed by NBC News show officials from Washington state to Pennsylvania considering or agreeing to pay Global Intelligence $11,000 to $35,000 for Cybercheck. The company secured a $25,000 agreement with Akron beginning in April 2022 that included 50 cases and 40 hours of “real time intelligence,” according to a copy of the contract Malarcik obtained through a public records request and shared with NBC News.

The Akron police spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment about the agreement.

In the fatal robbery, two men were arrested in July 2021 in connection with the alleged crime nine months earlier, authorities said in a news release. The men, Deshawn Coleman and Eric Farrey Jr., were later indicted on charges of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and other crimes.

A ballistics analysis on a gun found at Coleman’s home linked him to shell casings at the scene of the homicide, Malarcik said. A car registered to Farrey was captured on camera near the scene, he said. Both men have pleaded not guilty, and Malarcik described that evidence as “entirely circumstantial.”

In December 2022, Malarcik said in an interview, Cybercheck produced a report placing both men at the scene. The report was created after the software searched the web for 21 days in an automated process that sifted through 1.1 petabytes of information — or more than 1 million gigabytes — and created “cyber profiles” for Coleman and Farrey, according to the filing.

Those profiles were assembled from email addresses and social media accounts, according to the filing. Cybercheck connected the profiles to the scene of the killing within minutes of the homicide using a network address — a unique number that identifies devices connected to the internet — from a Wi-Fi-enabled security camera, according to the filing.

At least one device — possibly a phone — with a suspect’s cyber profile had tried to communicate with the camera’s Wi-Fi connection, according to the report, Malarcik said.

The report didn’t cite any video recording of the killing, and it wasn’t clear where Cybercheck found the camera’s network address or how it verified that the device was at the scene. The defense’s forensic experts were unable to locate the social media accounts cited in the report, the filing says, and it wasn’t clear how the software verified an email address that it said belonged to both defendants. 

At a hearing last summer, Mosher testified that the software’s conclusions in the case were 98.2% accurate, according to the filing, which doesn’t provide additional details about how that accuracy rate was calculated.

At the hearing, Mosher said his software has never been peer-reviewed, the filing says, noting that he provided the same testimony in an earlier case in Akron.

But at a hearing in a third homicide case in Akron in October, Mosher said Cybercheck was peer-reviewed by the University of Saskatchewan, according to a ruling this year. The judge in that case ordered Mosher to provide the study to prosecutors and Malarcik, a copy of the ruling shows. 

The 47-page document, which Malarcik said Mosher emailed him in February, is from 2019. It appears to be an instructional document for the software and doesn’t say who performed the review or include their findings.

A University of Saskatchewan spokesman said the school had a research contract with Global Intelligence that was connected to an agreement with Canada’s National Research Council, a science and technology agency focused on research and development.  

The university “was not involved in the creation of the document, nor did we create any content for the document, nor can we say conclusively what information the company used to create it,” the spokesman said in a statement.

The research done under the contract was never submitted anywhere, the spokesman said, “and therefore was not peer-reviewed.”

Global Intelligence and the spokesman for the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office wouldn’t comment on the document.

Data not preserved 

According to the defendant’s April 10 filing in the Akron homicide prosecution, Cybercheck doesn’t preserve the data it uses to create or locate cyber profiles.

Mosher didn’t respond to a request for comment on the apparent practice. In a transcript of July proceedings in the case provided by Malarcik, Stano, the prosecutor, questioned Mosher about what data Cybercheck stores. 

Mosher said the software doesn’t index or collect data because it’s a data processor, not a data collector. He cited the large sizes of the files, as well as “other considerations around governance and compliance,” according to the transcript.

The April 10 filing asks the judge to order Mosher to share Cybercheck’s software and points to other decisions in which judges have ruled that defendants are entitled to review it. Mosher didn’t respond to a question asking whether he planned to share Cybercheck’s methodology, and Malarcik said he wasn’t aware whether Mosher had shared the software in any of the cases in which he has been ordered to. 

In one such case — another Akron homicide, in which the defendant, Javion Rankin, was charged with aggravated murder and other crimes in 2021 — Mosher refused to provide the software’s methodology because it is proprietary, a March 28 appeals filing shows. After that refusal, the judge barred prosecutors from introducing Cybercheck evidence in the case, the filing shows. 

Prosecutors appealed the ruling, saying it “destroyed” the possibility of an effective prosecution, a notice of appeal shows. Rankin was released on his own recognizance last year while the appeal moves forward, said Malarcik, who also represents Rankin.  

Expert testimony under scrutiny

Lawyers for Farrey and Coleman also point to claims Mosher made under oath in the Rankin case in June about his experience as an expert witness. 

Mosher said he has testified 13 times, the filing says, but he failed to provide a list of cases after the judge requested one. At an April 2023 hearing in Colorado for a case alleging child sex abuse image crimes, Mosher told a judge he’d testified just twice, the filing says.

The two cases Mosher cited in the Colorado hearing were linked to child sexual abuse image crimes in Canada, according to the filing. Mosher provided case names and numbers, according to the filing, and during a hearing he said he’d provide trial transcripts.

But when an investigator for the lawyer in Colorado reached out, prosecutors in Canada said Mosher hadn’t testified, the filing says, citing emails from the officials. 

In one case, Mosher provided material to authorities in Calgary, Alberta, that he said he found on the dark web, the filing says.

“But it was not usable disclosure,” the prosecutor in that case said, according to the filing. “Our Internet Child Exploitation Unit technicians were unable to read or analyze it or locate anything in the ‘data dump.’” 

The prosecutor added that the trial ended on the first day, when the accused pleaded guilty, the filing says.

In the second case, in New Brunswick, the person Mosher identified as a defendant hadn’t even been charged, the filing says, citing a corporal with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s child exploitation unit.

When prosecutors in Canada learned about Mosher’s “false testimony,” the filing says, they reached out to authorities handling the Colorado case. 

On Aug. 4, prosecutors moved to dismiss the charges, a court filing shows. The filing doesn’t say why the Boulder County prosecutor sought the dismissal. A spokesperson for the DA’s office declined to comment, citing a state law that bars her office from discussing cases that have been dismissed and sealed.

Mosher didn’t respond to requests for comment.

In the alleged robbery in Akron, Malarcik said he expects a decision in the coming months about whether the judge in that case will order Mosher to turn over his software.

Tim Stelloh is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.

LEAP Announces Three Student Grant Program Recipients for 2024

The Law, Ethics & Animals Program (LEAP) at Yale Law School is thrilled to continue the LEAP Student Grant Program this year. Chosen from a highly competitive applicant pool, three students from across Yale are undertaking projects that build understanding of, draw attention to, and/or develop new strategies to address the urgent threats facing non-human animals. This year’s set of awards will support multidisciplinary projects in documentary filmmaking, comparative animal law, and the history of science. The 2024 LEAP Student Grant recipients include:

Daniel Blokh

Blokh is a senior at Yale College majoring in Comparative Literature and Russian and a writer and filmmaker from Birmingham, Alabama. His LEAP project is "Looking Back with Laika," a short documentary about the famous dog who became the first living creature in space. Through interviews with citizens of the former Soviet Union, he aims to explore the wide range of feelings Soviet citizens harbored toward Laika, from pride and patriotism to sadness and ethical uncertainty. By capturing the wide range of feelings Soviet citizens harbored toward Laika, the film will convey the importance of non-human animals in forming our political identity, our fears and hopes, our ethical beliefs, and our worldviews generally. Laika is an extreme example of the mutual interdependence that characterizes our relationship with all non-human animals, reminding us how greatly our actions impact (and currently threaten) animal life, as well as how greatly animals impact our lives in return.

Ilaria Cimadori

Cimadori is a third-year Ph.D. candidate at the Yale School of the Environment. Her academic and professional interests revolve around animal protection, particularly the exploration of animal protection within national and international law. With her LEAP Student Grant, Ilaria will conduct a comparative law analysis across the U.S., the E.U., and Switzerland assessing the adequacy of laws safeguarding farm animal welfare against detrimental applications of breeding techniques and emerging biotechnologies such as gene-editing. Gene-editing, particularly CRISPR, has an unprecedented power to modify animals' genomes to pursue desired traits — from productivity to fitness — and presents novel issues, like off-target mutations. It is also, however, considered a new breeding technique in addition to the techniques already in use. Thus, a key concern is not only the technology used, but also the design of breeding programs for farm animals more broadly. In the current project, Ilaria will explore how different jurisdictions approach this problem. Because of her commitment to enhancing animal protection and the absence of global consensus on gene-editing applications, breeding practices, and animal welfare coupled with an increased societal concern for animal welfare, Ilaria hopes to provide policy recommendations that would improve the protection of animals in breeding thanks to insights from different legal systems.

Lauren Killingsworth

Killingsworth is an M.D.-Ph.D. student at Yale School of Medicine in the Department of History of Science and Medicine. She centers the non-human in her interdisciplinary scholarship on emerging infectious diseases, environmental history, and public health. Her project examines the practice and history of biological control, the use of living organisms (such as mosquito-eating fish and parasitic insects) to eradicate vector-borne diseases. The strategy gained traction in the early twentieth century as part of imperial public health campaigns. With the LEAP grant, she will study the archives of the World Health Organization, the Commonwealth Institute for Biological Control, and other international organizations involved in this global exchange of species. She hopes to examine the ethical dilemmas raised by biological control: the valuation of different species, attempts to control non-human reproduction, and the promises and consequences of environmental manipulation in the name of human health. 

Read more about the 2023 cohort , 2022 cohort , and 2021 cohort of LEAP student grantees and learn more about the LEAP Student Grant Program on LEAP’s website .

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