Memorandum- Demonstrate the Use of Legal Research Services and Databases
Facts
The successful operation of a legal firm requires understanding all the business aspects of a legal firm. Therefore, it is essential to have access to legal search engines to guarantee fast access to information to facilitate faster decision-making and reduce mistakes (Olmstead, 2014). There are various free and paid legal search engines that the firm should consider. According to Hagan & Li (2020), paid legal search engines include Westlaw, Lexis, Casemaker, and FastCase, while the free ones include FindLaw, Justia, and Google Scholar.
Lexis provides access to a wide range of records and documents from different business and legal sources. It allows users to pre-filter their search to a specific jurisdiction, category, or practice area before beginning the search. Search charges cost between $75 to $469 per month. New users are eligible for a free trial for one month. The main advantages of Lexis are that it provides a detailed case law commentary, allows quick access to cases, and grants access to past and current statutes. The main disadvantages are that it can be hard to navigate for new users, and the interface gets so busy sometimes.
Westlaw is an online legal search engine that provides legal information for legal professionals. Its main search capability is the use of artificial intelligence, natural language search, and Boolean search. Artificial Intelligence includes using an AI legal assistant to identify relevant statutes and cases and draft a brief. Westlaw’s pricing ranges between $99 to $283 per month. The main advantage of the search engine is the accuracy of information due to updated, organized, and connected collections of statutes, case law, and regulations. The second advantage is efficiency due to the use of time-saving research tools and editorial developments. The main disadvantage is poor customer service, which results in a delayed resolution of issues a user may encounter when using the search engine. The second disadvantage is that it is expensive.
FastCase provides the tools required to make legal research more intuitive and less complicated by allowing users to retrieve documents using citations through a Citation Lookup search. Its pricing ranges between $65 per month to $95 per month. It also offers a free trial to new users. One of the main advantages of FastCase is that it has many jurisdictions that a user can search. The search engine’s customer service is also friendly and responsive. The main disadvantage is that it is complicated to use.
Casemaker covers federal and state laws to provide on-point and accurate results to various legal searches. The main search capability is access to Case Digest, which summarizes federal and state appellate decisions in a user’s area of interest. Casemaker’s price ranges between $60 and $95 per month. One of its advantages is that it continuously updates federal and state codes and statutes, including future changes. The second advantage is that it provides access to a wide range of past and current information. The main disadvantage is that it does not have any state regulations. The second disadvantage is that it limits the user’s ability to save records and searches.
Google Scholar indexes metadata or the full text of scholarly data across different disciplines and formats. It includes various professional societies, academic publishers and repositories from different universities, and academic articles on the web (Ortega, 2014). It also contains patents and court opinions. The main advantage is that it allows users to view articles related to their interests. The main disadvantage is that it does not limit results to either full texts or peer-reviewed material.
Justia provides free codes, case laws, legal information, and regulations. Its main search capability is providing a searchable database of all decisions made by the US Supreme Court since the 1790s. The main advantage is that it provides a lot of information, including Supreme Court judicial reviews and documents for free. The main disadvantage is that it has a fragmented online presence, thus limiting the efficiency of SEO.FindLaw offers access to legal information and a detailed lawyer directory. Its main search capabilities are providing access to articles with updated legal information and current legal news. Its main advantage is that it has the largest team of online experts in the legal sector. The main disadvantage is that it only allows researchers to search one federal circuit or state at a time.
Issue
The main issue that the firm is currently facing is limited access to legal information required to serve customers. Being a new law firm puts pressure on attorneys to maintain high performance to gain more customers. There is, therefore, a need to access all important legal data required to provide high-quality legal services.
Answer to issue
The main solution is choosing a legal search engine that offers access to a wide range of legal information relevant to daily business aspects in legal practice. Since the law firm is still new, it is suitable to use free legal search engines to reduce operating costs. I would, therefore, propose using FindLaw. Attorneys should also correctly cite any information drawn from the search engine to avoid ethical issues arising from failure to acknowledge another writer’s work.
Reasoning
FindLaw is the best legal search engine that the law firm can use because it provides a wide range of reliable legal information. FindLaw also has a lawyer directory listing qualified attorneys that attorneys can consult on how to address the business aspects of the firm. FindLaw also allows peer-to-peer exchanges on current legal topics, thus ensuring that attorneys stay updated on the legal issues around them.
Conclusion
Effective implementation of the legal research idea to increase the knowledge and capabilities of attorneys in the new law firm relies on collaboration between all attorneys to ensure they understand how the search engines work. Therefore, it is important to create teams that will present any newly acquired information and legal insight weekly.
References
Hagan, M., & Li, Y. (2020). Legal help search audit: Are search engines effective brokers of legal information? SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3623333
Olmstead, J. (2014). The key building blocks of a lasting and successful law firm. The Law Firm of the Future, 49-53. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788119702.00008
Ortega, J. L. (2014). Other academic search engines. Academic Search Engines, 143-157. https://doi.org/10.1533/9781780634722.143
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Question 
Demonstrate the use of legal research services and databases
Instructions/Content:
You were recently hired into a law firm. The firm’s attorneys had recently split off from their previous large law firms and formed this small new law firm. None of the attorneys had dealt with the business aspects of the firm.
Memorandum- Demonstrate the Use of Legal Research Services and Databases
As such, they have asked you to review the various paid legal search engines available and write a report providing a comparison of each engine, with pros and cons for each. As the firm is new, they are also interested in whether they could forgo the purchase of a membership to a pay-for website (such as Lexis or Westlaw), and instead utilize free internet sources for their research. Prepare a report for the partners providing (1) the search capabilities, price, services, pros and cons of each paid legal search engine (including at a minimum Lexis, Westlaw, FastCase, and Casemaker), (2) the search capabilities, price, services, pros and cons of free internet search engines (including at a minimum Google Scholar, Justia and FindLaw), and (3) provide a recommendation for the best course of action for the firm regarding its research needs, and address any ethical or reliability concerns with using various search engines or websites (including pay-for engines, free engines, and sites like Wikipedia).
Format:
Your assignment should be formatted as a memorandum to the firm’s attorneys in the law firm.
Your memo should contain the following sections:
Heading or Caption
Facts
Issue(s) Presented
Answer to Issue
Reasoning or Discussion
Conclusion