Legal Research Resources
ABA Supreme Court Preview
Hosted by the ABA’s Division for Public Education, Supreme Court Preview maintains a free, comprehensive, and regularly updated archive of all merits and amicus briefs filed in every case accepted for oral argument by the U.S. Supreme Court.
eCasebriefs
Launched in 1995 to provide free law study aid content written by lawyers and law professors to help students better understand how to study law and prepare for their daily course work and exams.
FindACase
Hosted by VersusLaw, FindACase is an ad-supported research site that provides the state and federal case law each state, i.e., the state appellate courts, the Federal Circuit Court, the U.S. District Court cases, and the U.S. Supreme Court back to 1900.
Findlaw
Findlaw, owned by West Group, is probably the leading free online index of legal materials, with links to off-site resources as well as a great deal of hosted material and tools, including hosted e-mail and the Lawcrawler search engine. The state-specific collections of resources are particularly useful.
Free Legal Resources Provided by State Bar Associations
Hosted by Three Geeks and a Law Blog, this listing is a convenient compilation of primary legal research tools provided by state bar associations.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar has a legal opinion database that allows you to find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts.
Justia
A free searchable database of US Federal District Court civil cases categorized by state, individual court and legal practice area. You can also subscribe to RSS feeds to track courts, case types and parties.
Lawyer Express
A CEOExpress Web site with a customized area for lawyers.
Legal Information Institute
Hosted by Cornell University's School of Law, the LII is one of the preeminent legal resources on the Web, including one of the best arrangements of the Code of Federal Regulations and many substantive resources.
LexisONE
A free (requires registration) service of LexisNexis, the online legal research service. Includes free US supreme court (1790-present) and selected federal and state court (since 1996) searching, forms, and other services. Can pay as you go to use premium options including Shepards©.
The National Center for State Courts (NCSC)
The NCSC is a clearinghouse for research information and comparative data and provides a list of judicial branch links for states that make appellate opinions and federal court cases available through their respective court sites.
The OYEZ Project
Hosted by Northwestern University School of Law, Oyez provides transcripts and, in some cases, audio files of leading US Supreme Court cases.
PublicLegal
PublicLegal, produced by the Internet Legal Research Group, is an index of thousands of legal web sites, forms, and file.
The Public Library of Law (PLoL)
Hosted by Fastcase, PLoL is a free database of state and federal case law, with links to additional resources.