Research Guides: Legal Research Basics: Methods of Finding Cases: Free and Low-Cost Alternatives

Related Guides

Supreme Court of the United States
Official website of the Supreme Court. Court documents, including opinions, can be located from the menu on the left-hand side of the screen.
Official State Websites
This research guide will give you information for tracking down state case opinions and dockets for all fifty states, including where to look on official state government websites.

Findlaw This link opens in a new window
For locating case law, statutes, and more across multiple jurisdictions
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.

In practice, you may not have access to Lexis, Westlaw, or Bloomberg Law services, so it is good to know about alternative services as well.

State Bar Associations Provide Free Legal Resources - information on four services that may be available from your state bar association

Fastcase - the Law Library has a subscription for this if you'd like to get to know this product; its recent partnership with HeinOnline means that you'll be able to access Fastcase materials after graduation, through the Law Library's HeinOnline Alumni Access subscription.
Casemaker - free account available for students and faculty
Versus Law - try a demo of their site for free
LoisLaw - try a free search

To see which state bars offer which services, check out this map from the 3 Geeks and Law Blog.