I am really interested in the case of Jason Pepper. It’s a very important Federal criminal case recently decided by the United States Supreme Court. I am interested to see how the Federal circuits interpret this case.
As President of TheLaw.net Corporation I have access to vast information resources that are similar to what you might expect to find in a large law firm or government office. That said, one of the best tools for tracking the activity surrounding an opinion is Google Alerts.
I enter the citation and Alert’s robot emails me updates for free.
The judicial opinions you find in commercial databases do not come from Westlaw, as some industry gatekeepers might have you believe. They come from courts. They appear first on the websites of courts before they appear in commercial databases. Google indexes the websites, sometimes even before opinions appear in Westlaw, Lexis and TheLaw.net. In addition to black letter judicial opinions, Alerts emails me links to emerging Pepper related news and comment.
Alerts provides a way to robotically force your will on Google. Google is getting harder and harder to control. Programmers tweak the algorithm hundreds of times a week. The search engine has a mind of its own and that mind is focused on generating revenue for advertisers. If you search Google by citation you will receive diffuse links to the freeweb where it still looks like a law library with the books all over the floor.
An Alert is not a substitute for Validation or for comprehensively searching West, Lexis or TheLaw.net by citation and point of law. It does, however, keep me in the real-time reference loop of what’s happening with opinions I’m interested in tracking and delivers the perspective of commentators who are interested in the same thing I’m interested in.
Searching West and Lexis by citation only works if you have access to all 315 Federal and state jurisdictions. You can use KeyCite or Shepards, but forcing your individual will on KeyCite is impossible. Forcing it on Shepards is cumbersome.
TheLaw.net provides all subscribers with all 315 Federal and state jurisdictions for less than $50 a month. Subscribers easily search by citation and point of law to build their HOTLIST of relevant opinions in seconds.
ANCHOR + FILTER = HOTLIST
ANCHOR your query with the citation and FILTER by point of law: “130 S.Ct. 3499″ and resentencing and rehabilitation gives me opinions citing my case for the reason(s) I care about from the court(s) I care about.
Try using this process as an end-run around West’s Keycite and Lexis’ Shepards. You’ll be thrilled with the results. You won’t overlook opinions that have been red-flagged for a point of law that is unrelated to your search and you’ll learn the good news about cases that are buried in your citator results.
In other words, you’ll be the most informed lawyer in the room.
