Internet Legal Issues and Research

Faye JonesDirector and Professor

Florida State UniversityCollege of Law Library

fejones@law.fsu.edu

Acknowledgements

Florida State University Law Library Mary McCormick, J.D., M.S.

Assistant Director for Public Services Margaret Clark, M.S.

Reference Librarian Marin Dell, J.D., M.S.

Reference Librarian U.S. Department of Defense

ARPA/DARPA, http://www.darpa.mil/body/arpa_darpa.html

Internet Legal Issues

Internet Legal Issues E-commerce

Contracts, Intellectual Property, Privacy, Cybercrime E-discovery issues and metadata E-data from automobile black boxes

Is Your Car Spying on You? MVEDRs

Ethical issues Risks of law firm websites, blogs and email

Ex parte communication Mullins v. Department of Commerce, 06-3284 (C.A. Fed Circuit,

May 4, 2007) E-lawyering

LegalXML, http://www.legalxml.org/about/index.shtml

Keeping up with the Joneses, Esq.

Blogs & RSS feeds DennisKennedy.com

Feedblitz Tech Law Prof Blog

Google To Offer Deep Government Info for Four States California, Arizona, Utah and Virginia To Googlize inaccessible data in state electronic files

Search engines Google and 47+ others

Internet legal research

Florida Electronic Library

http://www.flelibrary.org/

Available resources include electronic magazines, newspapers, almanacs, encyclopedias, and books, providing information on topics such as current events, education, business, technology, and health issues.

FloridaLawHelp.org

FloridaLawHelp.org

http://www.floridalawhelp.org/FL/index.cfm

Links to a Legal Services Directory for the State of Florida, as well as a list of collected information materials from agencies and legal clinics throughout Florida.

Caselaw – Where to Find It for Free

US Supreme Court:Official Slip Opinions: http://www.supremecourtus.govLegal Information Institute: http://www.law.cornell.eduLexisONE: http://www.lexisone.com/ (Click on “Find Cases for Free”)

US Circuit Courts:Office of US Courts: http://www.uscourts.gov/links.htmlFederal Courts Finder: http://law.emory.edu/caselaw/

US District Courts:Office of US Courts: http://www.uscourts.gov/links.htmlLegal Information Institute: http://www.law.cornell.edu/federal/districts.html

Pacer

http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/ Electronic access to U.S. District,

Bankruptcy, and Appellate court records Free written opinions Federal case statistics Party/Case Index

LexisOne

http://www.lexisone.com/

Use the LexisNexis® Research Service to access U.S. Supreme Court cases from 1790 to present, as well as federal and state cases decided within the last five years. (selected coverage)

Florida Supreme Court website

http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/decisions/index.shtml

Also provides links to District Court of Appeals opinions and Court Rules.

Justia

http://www.justia.com/ Free legal information on practice areas

Cases Regulation tracker, a free searchable database of

Federal Register Regulations, Proposed Rules and Notices

Online Sunshine

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/

Links to Florida legislation, including the Florida Statutes, the Laws of Florida and the Florida Constitution.

LII/Legal Information Institute

http://www.law.cornell.edu/

The Legal Information Institute (LII) is a research and electronic publishing activity of the Cornell Law School.

Wex: a collaboratively-created, public-access law dictionary and encyclopedia.

Municode.com

http://www.municode.com

Online Library with U.S. municipal/county ordinances

Pamphlets for selected state analysis by Municode

Forms.gov

Forms.gov

http://forms.gov/bgfPortal/citizen.portal

Federal Forms listed by form number, agency and “frequently used” forms.

USCourtforms.com

U.S. Courtforms

http://www.uscourtforms.com/

Court, Legal & Business Forms Available in non-fillable PDF format

Federal, State and Local County Forms in all practice areas.

Florida State Courts website – Family Law Forms/Rules & Opinions http://www.flcourts.org/

Family law forms for use in dissolution, paternity, child support, name change, and grandparent visitation cases. The forms are up-to-date, in engrossed (ready to use) format, with all amendments incorporated.

Internet Legal Research Group

http://www.ilrg.com/forms/

Over 2000 free legal forms, a number of forms are adapted for state-specific use.

‘Lectric Law Library

http://www.lectlaw.com/form.html

Business & General - dealing with subjects like Real Estate, Corporations, Employment, Contracts, Trusts and Wills.

Legal Practice - focusing on Law Practice Management, Litigation and related matters.

FindLaw

FindLaw.com

http://public.findlaw.com/library/state-laws.html

Legal information portal for the general public; contains links to forms, state and federal legislation and a legal dictionary.

LLRX.com

http://www.llrx.com/resources7.htm

Legal information portal with links to a legal resource center, legal articles and law related listservs.

MegaLaw.com

http://www.megalaw.com/states.php

Legal portal with state specific legal resource pages.

LawSource

http://www.lawsource.com/

The home of American Law Sources On-line (ALSO!), providing a comprehensive, uniform, and useful compilation of links to freely accessible on-line sources of law for the United States and Canada, as well as Mexican sources.

Where to find briefs

http://www.legaline.com/freebriefslinks.html

Portal linking to free Internet sites with searchable state and federal briefs.

FSU Law Library Free Internet Research Page

http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/databases/publiclegalinfo.html

International Law

http://www.asil.org/ http://lexmercatoria.net/ Human rights International business transactions Arbitration Maritime law Taxation

Tips for Creating a Practice Library

Organize bookmarks of most frequently used sites by jurisdiction, function and subject MFU-FL MFU-FRM MFU-FAM

Review daily client schedule and pull up relevant bookmarks for that day

Download or cut/paste frequently used forms for quick use

Check sites often for new content and functionality

Need More Help?

Inter Alia weblog, http://www.inter-alia.net/ Zimmerman’s Guide:

http://www.lexisone.com/zimmermanguide/index.html

An online legal encyclopedia providing definitions, examples, explanations and useful links

The Virtual Chase How-To Guides: http://www.virtualchase.com/resources/court_records.htmlAn annotated guide to sources of information on various types of legal research