legal-research court-records public-records
How can I quickly narrow down publicly viewable lawsuits about a specific topic?
<p>I imagine there's a way instead of going through a million cases but to be honest I don't know how. And would I have to go by each individual courthouse or county website to view public lawsuits or is there a broader website for this? Thank you</p>

<p>I use Westlaw and Practical Law (paid services) for this. I'm in the UK but I know they also cover other jurisdictions.</p>
<p>If I know the particular piece of legislation I am interested in, Westlaw allows you to view a specific part (e.g. a section, rule, article, or regulation number) and from there you can view cases which have referred to that. &quot;<em>Key cases citing</em>&quot; shows a selection of cases which are considered important in some way and &quot;<em>all cases citing</em>&quot; lists everything which is available on Westlaw. From there I open tabs for all the cases and quickly read the abstract to shortlist the ones which might be relevant, before reading the cases in more detail.</p>
<p>If instead I don't know the legislation, Practical law has &quot;Practice Notes&quot;. These are concise but detailed articles which summarise the main issues relating to a particular topic. There are practice notes for just about any reasonably common topic that you care to think of. A given practice note will cite the key legislation and cases. From there you can look up the case on Westlaw.</p>
<p>Once you have identified one or two of the most relevant cases, it is easy to find more because the judgment will mention any other cases which the court considered in making its decisions. You can also use Westlaw's &quot;<em>cases citing</em>&quot; feature here to go in the other direction (i.e. find cases which cited the one you are reading). Westlaw will also indicate whether a case is still good law of whether it has had subsequent negative judicial treatment.</p>
<p>If the above is not enough or I want to get wider coverage or see other perspectives, I'll use Westlaw Books. These are respected legal texts which cover specific topics and contain a mixture of analysis and references to legislation and cases. As they are on Westlaw, they are also cross-referenced so e.g. if a case is mentioned you can click on it. Rarely, you may be trying to argue a point in court for which there is no case but some legal analysis in a book. In these scenarios it can be acceptable to present the book's viewpoint as support for your argument. Just be careful to check that it is a serious legal text aimed at practitioners rather than for popular consumption.</p>
<p>There are free services (such as BAILII) but they tend to have a much smaller set of cases, no advanced cross-referencing, and no way to check if a case is still good law. Unfortunately there is a reason that virtually every legal professional has a database subscription. What you are paying for is for a team of people to have read &quot;millions of cases&quot; so that you don't have to.</p>

<p>It depends on whose law you are interested in, and what area of law (suits) you want to know about, for what purpose. The easiest DIY approach is to read appellate decisions in the area of interest, for example breach of contract (which is still way to vague). Such opinions from the US are often made available on the internet with free services like Findlaw, Justia, Casetext, and in a generally less-accessible manner, each court in principle makes some judgments available. A parallel tool is reading law review articles (which may be on the free side of the paywall), which include citations of relevant law. On the other hand, if you want every document related to a case such as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Hulk Hogan v. Gawker</a> case, most of it was posted somewhere but now it seems to be gone. For US cases, you might get access with <a href="https://pacer.uscourts.gov/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">PACER</a>, for US federal courts. You may have to go to the courthouse for other cases.</p>
