What am I going to do…
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Oct 9, 2010 in The 2L Life | Subscribe
…when I no longer have my free1 “all you can eat” access to WestLaw and Lexis-Nexis?
Even though I’m not the world’s biggest fan of writing legal memos, I still get a kick out of combing through the case law of different jurisdictions when I’m doing legal research (something I picked up during 1L year).
Random example: I learned Missouri is apparently one of only a few states that don’t have stated rules of evidence for criminal proceedings 
Any post-Ls out there have advice on coping with freely-available-research withdrawal? 
- And yes, I realize my tuition $$ in part pays for this access and it’s not really “free.” This is a blog, not a statute; literalist readings of every word aren’t always appropriate.
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I worry about this all the time.
Use Google Scholar?
I’m glad I’m not the only one!
@é›…é›…: Google Scholar doesn’t have in-opinion hyperlinks to the cited cases though
Sadly, most of the good law review articles in google scholar lead to pay links
I’ve found Fastcase to be a great resource for Legal research. Until WestlawNext came out I used it more for class as it was faster than Plain old WestLaw. It has basic citation checking and is usually free if you are a member of the state Bar. I’ve also used Google Scholar for the same and have found that as time goes by, more and more cited cases are hyper-linked.
I’ve never tried Fastcase before, I’ll have to get acquainted with that before I lose Wexis access to ease the transition