Conducting legal research is an essential part of every lawyer’s practice. However, paid legal research tools can cut deeply into your budget, especially if you are a small legal practice or a solo attorney just starting a practice. Fortunately, free legal research tools and resources are abundant if you know where to look.
Below, we review the top eight free legal research tools and other free resources you can find online.
The Top 8 Free Legal Research Tools for Lawyers
A variety of universities, law libraries, institutes, and companies offer free legal research tools.
1. Fastcase
Fastcase is one of the best free legal research databases and toolkits.
When you visit Fastcase, you may be surprised to see that it appears to be a paid service. However, every state bar association in the US provides sponsored membership. You may also be able to get access through your local bar association, law school, or academic institution.
Log in using your bar association credentials to access the platform for free.
Document Access
- Supreme Court case law
- Statutes
- Regulations
- State court rules
- Constitutions
- Law review articles
Fastcase adds over 5,000 new documents per day and boasts over 100 million citations and connections between documents. You can review your results in an easy-to-navigate HTML format, as well as printing them or downloading them as a PDF.
Citation
Citation is built directly into the law research tool. Fastcase will even add citations to your search results.
Fastcase also includes a citation tool called Authority Check which helps you navigate all cited authorities within a document.
You can also create bookmarks, alerts, and view search history to enhance your research flow.
2. FindLaw for Legal Professionals
FindlLaw is a popular free legal research tool that makes statutes and regulations accessible to everyone, even non-lawyers.
FindLaw for Legal Professionals offers an even more extensive library of statutes, cases, constitutions, and more.
In addition to providing a fairly comprehensive law library and searchable database, FindLaw offers several legal practice management resources. These range from sample contracts to marketing guides.
Document Access
- Federal and state case law
- US Supreme Court opinions
- Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals
- Codes and statutes
- US State constitutions
While FindLaw doesn’t have a built-in citation tool, there are lots of resources online that can help you generate accurate citations.
3. Legal Information Institute
Legal Information Institute (LII) is an international non-profit organization that offers free legal research tools.
Hosted by Cornell Law School, LII has been a pioneer in providing open access to legal materials since 1992. They currently operate over forty-five associations internationally.
LII believes that everyone should be able to read and understand the laws that govern them. They provide valuable access to a vast database of legal knowledge from statutes to case law and legal publications.
Document Access
- Supreme Court bulletin
- State statutes by topic
- US Code
- Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR)
- Federal government rules
- International law
LII has become an invaluable resource for legal professionals and law students alike as a free source of legal information. However, it does not have any special search functions or citations.
4. Casetext
Casetext leverages AI to help lawyers find the information they need for legal cases.
The Casetext developers named their research AI CARA (CAsetext Research Assistant). You upload the legal documents you already have, and CARA compiles a list of related documents and citations.
Casetext CoCounsel also offers some experimental generative AI features. It can help you streamline deposition prep, document review, contract revision, and more.
Document Access
- Statutes
- Regulations
- Case law
- Federal courts
- State law from all fifty states
Like Fastcase, Castext is officially a paid law research tool. However, many bar associations provide free access, so you may be able to log in using your bar credentials.
Citation
Casetext also includes an advanced citator or citation tool called SmartCite.
This uses the CARA AI to help find the most relevant cases for your fact pattern. It also deploys a “flag” to indicate if a case is still good law or if it relies on an overruled opinion.
Search features include
- Natural language parsing
- Booleans
- Filters
- Search history
- Research folders
- PDF or Word document downloads of your results
- Suggestions
- Citations
- Flags
You can also request legal research and citation alerts.
5. Justia
Justia is a well-rounded platform with a variety of free legal resources, including
- Lawyer directories
- Lawyer chat
- Law research
- Legal publications and blogs
- Legal news
- Premium legal practice marketing tools
They also manage the secondary source Oyez, a multimedia archive of Supreme Court oral arguments.
Document Access
- US and State constitutions
- US and State codes
- Federal government regulations
- Supreme Court rulings
- Circuit courts
- District courts
- Dockets and filings
- State case law
Justia has compiled a vast collection of legal reference documents, including US Supreme Court decisions all the way back to 1791. These court documents contain opinion summaries, briefs, and oral argument audio records.
They also run a legal directory called Find a Lawyer, as well as other premium marketing services.
6. Decisis
Decisis is another legal research tool that may be free through your bar association.
The platform boasts world-class standards for legal document access, law research tools, and its industry-leading citator.
Check with your state bar to see if you can get access to their free online resources.
Document Access
- Federal and state regulations and registrars
- Federal and state statutes and case law
- Federal codes and court rules
- Agency decisions
- State constitutions
- Supreme Court decisions
- Attorney General decisions
- Appeals Court cases
- Administrative hearing decisions
- Full-text bills
In Decisis listings, state documents are unique to each state’s legal structures and operational processes.
Users can also see clear listings of where Decisis sources their legal materials when they’re searching by state.
Citation
Decisis’s renowned citator is InterCite, a best-in-class tool that boasts more relevant case connections than other competitors.
InterCite offers visualizations of
- Historical citation patterns
- How often a case has been cited
- When those citations have occurred
- Which judges or courts have cited it
Decisis has built its reputation on the power of InterCite, and you’ll find that prestige well-deserved.
7. CourtListener
CourtListener is an open-source legal resource. It provides free access to legal opinions, filings, financial records, and case law.
Most notably, CourtListener includes oral argument audio files that go beyond the printed databases of other free legal resources.
Document Access
- Case law
- Federal court documents
- Oral arguments
- Judge data
- RECAP archive
In addition to extensive written case law and audio recordings of oral arguments, the RECAP archive makes it possible to search every docket and PDF in full text.
It also includes an extensive database of American judges, magistrates, and justices. They also have the biographies and disclosure records to help you truly prepare for a case.
Citation
CourtListener uses a citation tool called CiteGeist. In addition to being an excellent pun, the tool helps analyze your searches.
CiteGeist applies a score to each citation. A high score indicates often-used citations. A lower score marks a less-cited source or a source that’s only cited for unimportant opinions.
Then it decides how relevant a citation is and generates a combined score. This indicates how important each citation may be to your case.
8. Bloomberg Law
Bloomberg Law offers a legal research tool that goes far beyond a simple document search. Their platform includes a brief analyzer, litigation practical guidance, a Transactional Intelligence Center, and more.
Like some of the other legal research tools we’ve discussed, Bloomberg Law is technically a paid service. However, many bar associations offer complimentary membership, so you may be able to access the database for free.
Document Access
- Federal and state court dockets
- Precedent documents
- Legal briefs
- Treatises
In addition, Bloomberg provides Practical Guidance tools that include sample forms, checklists, and more.
Citation
Bloomberg’s citation tool is called BCITE. It allows users to explore court opinion citations, indicates the status of cases, and provides a view into the case’s direct history.
Other Free Legal Research Tools for Lawyers
In addition to the legal research tools we’ve discussed, lawyers can also find the case support they need from a variety of other free resources.
Primary Resources
Every court in the nation is now capable of running its own website and posting its own statutes.
Not all states choose to post their statutes on their court websites, however. But you never know when a state court or even small local legal office might have an avid webmaster who uploads every public document that passes through.
These resources can get you access to bankruptcy court documents, official federal government publications, federal appellate documents, federal law case summaries, lower court opinions, Congressional records, and more.
It is always worth checking whether state, county, city, and even local organization websites have the legal information you need for a case.
Legal Blogs
Law blogs can be extremely helpful, as some cover details of similar cases and have already compiled the legal research you need. You may find references to useful federal and state case law and even links to hard-to-find secondary sources that will help you build the right citations.
The American Bar Association (ABA) maintains the Web 100, an annual list of favorite law blogs, podcasts, and web tools.
LexBlog is also a valuable hub of over 22K legal bloggers that you can sort by channel.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a search engine that helps users find scholarly literature, including court opinions, patents, legal journal articles, and legal publications.
Only valid and vetted sources will appear in your Google Scholar search results. And you can use all Google’s innovative search features, including
- Boolean search terms
- Natural language search
- Key phrases
You can even find a “Case Law” button on the main Google Scholar page that allows you to filter by jurisdiction.
US Office of the Law Revision Counsel
The US Office of the Law Revision Counsel is a division of the House of Representatives. Their website hosts a vast collection of US legal codes. Listings include a popular name table, a citation checker, and more.
Public laws are organized by subject matter and include sections, notes, and appendices.
SupremeCourt.gov
The Supreme Court website can be another fantastic resource for federal case law.
The top navigation bar gives you direct access to legal opinions, oral arguments, case documents, legal news, and more. In addition to those categories, you can also find a case citation finder, a list of granted or noted cases, and a docket search.
Find More Time for Free Legal Research
When you’re running a law firm, time management is essential, and case research can be incredibly time-consuming. These best free legal research databases can help you streamline the process without breaking your budget.
Before you head down to the law library, you should also check the other public legal research tools available from federal and state governments.
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