Friday, September 18, 2015

Two Helpful Sites for Legal Research

I recently learned about two helpful sites for online legal research.  They are not new, just new to me. The first is Court Listener.  This site "is a free legal research [database] containing millions of legal opinions from federal and state courts."  Since it tracks subsequent cases that cite the main case you are researching, it can be used as a poor man's Shepard's.  Court Listener also allows you to download oral arguments for selected cases - nifty!

The second site is called Casetext.  Casetext says it's the "best place to read and write about the law." Similar to Court Listener, it also features cases and excellent tools to track citations called WeCite. What I really like about Casetext is ease of use and the beautiful presentation.  The cases seem so much more readable on this website than many others.  Casetext encourages discussions about the case on a unobtrusive sidebar.  I believe this feature has tremendous potential.  Big thumbs up!

Would you like more information about the pending bankruptcy form changes and a preview?  As a reminder, these will go into effect on December 1st.  Click here.


All month, every time I see Google's new logo, I am annoyed.  I can't help thinking to myself, "Boy does that new logo suck!"  This must be my inner graphics design artist.  Tonight I used Google to see if I was the only one who felt this way.  The short answer is "Nope!"  Check out this interesting thread, "Google's New Logo Sucks" on New Media Rock Stars.  Dozens of comments confirmed the validity of my feelings and effectively summarized the problems with the new flat design.  Here's the chief complaints:  looks like it was designed by a child in kindergarten, boring and uninspired, "don't fix it if it isn't broke", mindless change for the sake of change and justify new hires and messes with the brand identity.  I agree with all these things.  *gag*