Case laws
Google Scholar case laws collection is an open-access solution for those who wish to explore legal information in the United States. The collection offers an extensive coverage of published court opinions from the following sources:
- U.S. State Appellate and Supreme court cases since 1950.
- U.S. Federal District, Appellate, Tax, and Bankruptcy courts since 1923.
- U.S. Supreme Court cases since 1791.
In addition, it includes citations for cases cited by indexed opinions or journal articles which allows you to find influential cases (usually older or international) which are not yet online or publicly available.
Filtering results with case law
To start searching for case laws, select the "Case law" filter. State and Federal Courts are by default selected. You may want to narrow down your search by selecting courts. In this case, click "Select courts" and choose the ones you want.
Selecting Keywords
You can start your search by using natural language terms, however you should keep in mind that sometimes you may need technical language to retrieve relevant case laws. In such cases, you may consult the Glossary of Legal Terms provided by the United States Courts. When searching for party names, it is important to separate the name with a "v." such as, Wudrick v. Clements. Avoid using vs. or versus.
Expanding results with case law features
Each case law opinion that appears on the results list has some features that could lead you to find more relevant sources. These features are:
- Cited by: Lists the documents that have cited the specific opinion.
- Related articles: Provides a list of opinions and documents that are closely related to the specific opinion.
- How cited: Allows you to see how individual cases have been quoted or discussed in other opinions.
