Magazzino

1.  Is Google’s free service functional?  Google’s service isn’t the first time we’ve seen free legal research on the Internet.  For years, Findlaw purported to be a source of free research and to its credit, it aggregated most publicly issued court releases.  But Findlaw didn’t offer a search engine for locating the material nor did the cases include citations.  Moreover, Findlaw didn’t include any federal district court law, thus severely limiting its functionality.

Google’s legal research tool is different.  The coverage is broad, dating back at least 60 years and encompassing federal district court cases, bankruptcy and state and federal appellate decisions.  Not surprisingly, the search engine is robust, speedy and offers several neat features, such as the ability to search by state and to see how a case has been cited previously.  In addition, the cases include the appropriate Bluebook citation (e.g., 333 US 234 (1943)) and hyperlinks to other cited precedent.  

One deficiency I noticed, however:  I was unable to find unreported cases (or at least my one unreported case; most of mine are published).  For example, a Section 1983 case of mine went up to the Fourth Circuit and was affirmed in an unreported case.  Google lists the lower court decision, but the appellate decision isn’t available either through direct search or the cited previously feature.  That’s potentially a problem (even though many circuits don’t permit cites to unreported cases, they can prove valuable) and I assume it will be corrected or the omission will be clarified.

Update - for more extensive functionality analysis, see Don Cruse’s Scotx Blog and Volokh (describing his vanity search).