Miscellaneous

Google Scholar Now Searches Cases by Jurisdiction and Court

By Robert Ambrogi

When I first wrote last year about the fact that Google Scholar had added case law research, I acknowledged it was still rough around the edges. Even so, I described it as “more than just a good start,” adding, “I expect there will be further refinements and enhancements to come.”

A notable enhancement launched this week: Google Scholar added the ability to search court opinions and law journals by jurisdiction. Simply go to the advanced search page and, under “Collections” at the bottom of the page, pick your jurisdiction.

The default choices are to search all courts within a federal circuit or within a state. But click the link that says, “Select specific courts to search,” and you open a menu that lets you pick individual courts. In fact, you can even “mix and match” specific courts from across multiple  jurisdictions.

Thus, you could, if you wanted, conduct a single search of just the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts and the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, or any other combination.

Needless to say, this enhances the ability to use Google Scholar for more targeted research.

Read more about this at the Google Scholar Blog.

Full post as published by Lawsites on January 13, 2011 (boomark / email).