Legal Research

Google News just announced a nifty new feature -- if you enter the name of a prominent figure in the news in the Google News search box, you can (sometimes) retrieve quotations made by this person.  You can also search within the retrieved quotations to find quotes about a specific topic.  Here's how to do it:

• Enter the name of a prominent person in the Google News search box.  I tried "antonin scalia."

• At the next screen, you'll see the usual news story search results, but you'll also see a quotation from that person at the top of the page, along with a link that says "by Antonin Scalia."  If you click on the "by Antonin Scalia" link, you'll be able to access all quotes within news stories by Justice Scalia.

• You can search within these quotes by entering some search terms in the "Search these quotes" box on the left-hand side of the quotations page.  You can also organize the quotes by date, by relevance, or view quotes from stories posted in the last hour, day, week, or month.

So far, this feature seems to be working sporadically for prominent political figures. I found quotations highlighted in my Google news search results for Senator Arlen Specter, but no quotes at all for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Thanks to beSpacific for the tip!