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In this lesson, you will review a search checklist, learn to use a legal research tool, and analyze the search results.
Analyzing results
- Determine where to search.
- If you don’t know where to start, begin with secondary sources.
- Create a list of keywords.
- Find statutes and cases that apply to the facts.
- Cornell Law and Justia are suggested for statutes and secondary sources.
- Look for information specific to your jurisdiction.
- Once you understand the topics and statutes, start looking for cases.
- Google Scholar is suggested for appellate cases in your jurisdiction.
- When you find an appropriate statute, include it in your keywords.
- Add terms or phrases you found in the statute to your list of keywords.
- Keep cases with facts similar to yours and that help your position.
- Discard cases with facts very different from yours.
- Discard cases decided on a different statute or different issues.
- Update your keywords as needed.
- Continue to search and analyze.
- When you start to see the same cases over and over, stop and read through the cases in more depth.
- Determine whether the cases answer your questions, support your position, defeat your opponent’s position, and/or interpret the statute.
- If not, continue to search.
Transcript
Legal searching and analysis is a winnowing down and back and forth process.
The two are done in tandem.
The process is to first determine where to search, then find statutes and cases that apply to the factual questions. Analyze the cases, record the findings, review and edit keywords, and end at an appropriate point.
If you don\’t know the topics or don\’t have a case or statute to begin with, start with sources that give you broad areas and allow you to browse, like encyclopedias and online guides.
If one thing doesn\’t work, try another.
Cornell Law and Justia are good online guides you can use to look for statutes. State judicial websites are also helpful.
They can be found using guides like Justia or Cornell. Take note that every state site is different.
Browse the Cornell or Justia site for statutes in your state.
In this example, rather than search through the statutes, the person used the Cornell site to browse to the Massachusetts legal materials page. They clicked Court System, then typed keyword \”adverse possession\”. The result is a link to the Massachusetts law about adverse possession. Clicking the link gets a list of cases, statutes, and topics about adverse possession in Massachusetts.
Sites like Justia and Cornell organize statutes from every state in one place. Search in your jurisdiction and read through the statutes to find one that fits the facts of your case.
When you find a statute included in your keywords, this will help when you search for cases. Cases that use your statute are most relevant.
Add other appropriate terms or phrases you found in the statute to your list of keywords.
Finding the most useful legal cases requires lots of searching, and there are several sources for that. We\’ll use Google Scholar for this lesson.
To use Google Scholar .com to find Massachusetts cases about adverse possession, click Case Law, then select Massachusetts.
All Massachusetts higher courts are selected.
Click \”Done\”.
Now when you type keywords in the text box, you\’ll get only Massachusetts cases.
Type \”adverse possession\”.
Click Search.
What follows is a list of cases.
Hyperlinks in red are filters you\’ve chosen for your search.
The circled items are case links that allow you to get a lot more information about similar cases.
Skim your collection of cases.
Keep your cases with facts similar to yours and that are helpful to your position.
At this point, also keep cases that are helpful to your opponent so you can find others to oppose them.
Discard cases with facts very different from yours.
Also discard cases decided on a different statute or different issues than yours.
If you haven\’t already, update the keywords to reflect what you know so far. Discard terms and phrases that do not result in useful cases. Continue to search and analyze.
When you start to see the same cases over and over, stop and read through the cases in more depth.
Of each case, ask yourself:
- Does this case answer my question?
- Does this case support my position?
- Does this case defeat my opponent\’s position?
- Are the statutes I found interpreted in this case?
- Does this case have similar facts as mine?
Discard cases that do not answer at least one of these questions.
Now ask the above questions of the entire body of collected cases. Do these cases answer my question and so on?
The purpose is to make sure there are no gaps.
If you answer Yes to all the previous questions, it\’s time to stop and weave statutes and cases into your legal writing.
It\’s okay at this point to discard cases that are weak, like ones that don\’t support your case as strongly as others.
If you answer No to any of the questions, review and edit your keywords, and continue searching to fill in the gap you\’re missing.
You might have to readjust your keywords and find additional statutes.
Who wins, Eric or Josie? It depends. Could be the one with the better facts. Most likely, it\’s the one with the most thorough research.