Tcl - Casemaker: Colorado Legal Resources - November 2006 - Legal Research Corner
| Publication year | 2006 |
| Pages | 101 |
| Citation | Vol. 35 No. 11 Pg. 101 |
2006, November, Pg. 101. TCL - Casemaker: Colorado Legal Resources - November 2006 - Legal Research Corner
November 2006
Vol. 35, No. 11 [Page 101]
This department, published quarterly, is sponsored by the Colorado Association of Law Librarians ("CoALL") to assist attorneys with common problems in legal research. Readers interested in submitting research questions may send them to: CoALL, Legal Research Corner, at http://www.aallnet.org/chapter/coall; or to: "Legal Research Corner," c/o Leona Martinez, Managing Editor, The Colorado Lawyer, 1900 Grant St., Suite 900, Denver, CO 80203-4336 or e-mail: leonamartinez@cobar.org.
Members of CoALL will attempt to answer as many questions as possible, either individually or as part of this department. The information provided in this space is for educational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice. No endorsement or recommendation is made of any product named in this department. Department coordinators are CoALL members and include Don Ford, Andrea Hamilton, Theresa (Tracy) Leming, and Wanda McDavid. For more information about CoALL, see www.aallnet.org/chapter/coall.
Wanda J. McDavid is the Vice-President and Director of Business Development for Access/Information, Inc. - (303) 778-7677, wanda.mcdavid@access-information.com. She is a member of the Colorado Association of Law Libraries and the Special Libraries Association. She has developed and promoted training sessions on the use of the Internet for legal research, and presented programs on legal research, business research, and evaluating search engines both locally and nationally.
Editor's Note: Casemaker has announced plans to begin offering new enhancements that will make searching the Casemaker library more user-friendly; implementation was slated to begin on October 21, 2006. Because the new search features were not available at the time this article went to print, this article is based on the search strategies in use prior to October 21, 2006. For more information, contact Michelle Gersic at (303) 824-5342, (800) 332-6736, or mgersic@cobar.org.
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Have you used the Casemaker(T) Online Law Library for legal research? Have you used it to retrieve a case, review a statute, find an article from The Colorado Lawyer, keep up-to-date on Attorney General Opinions, or look at a new session law? Casemaker, the Colorado Bar Association ("CBA") membership free legal resource tool, provides access to all of this, as well as to court rules, through any Internet connection to the CBA website.(fn1) In addition, Casemaker provides access to other states' materials, as well as a limited federal library of resources. Logging on to Casemaker is as simple as going to the CBA website, logging on with your Bar membership ID, and then clicking on the blue-and-white Casemaker logo.
Casemaker: An Overview
The Casemaker legal research tool was developed in 1999 by the Lawriter Corporation, in conjunction with the Ohio Bar Association. Currently, thirty-two states and more than 500,000 attorneys are members of the Casemaker consortium. By the end of 2006, Casemaker plans to include case law libraries for all fifty states from at least 1950, as well as all state constitutions, rules of court, and current statutes. Each bar association determines what resources to offer their membership. According to the CBA Internet and Technology Department's records, there have been approximately 16,000 Casemaker hits per month for the past several months.
When you use Casemaker, online or per-search charges are not incurred. You have the freedom to edit your search, start a new search, move from one resource to the next, or jump from case to case or from one section of a statute to another, at no cost. Moreover, Casemaker gives you the flexibility to experiment with new search strategies if your original ideas do not produce desired results.
Getting Started
Before entering Casemaker, it is a good idea to set up your computer so that you are permanently logged in as a member at the CBA site (see the sidebar entitled "Accessing the Colorado Library" for complete steps). Every time you access Casemaker, you must consent to the license agreement by selecting the "I Agree" button. At this point, you are immediately taken to the Casemaker Library Contents page (fig. 1). It is from this page that you have the options of entering the Federal Library, the Nationwide Collections, the Colorado Library, or any of the other state libraries listed on the main page. Simply place your cursor on the library of interest and select it. Because content continually is added to the Casemaker library, periodically check the "Current Contents Information" link at the bottom of each Library page for coverage and the most up-to-date information in the database.
Figure 1: The Library Contents Page
After entering the Colorado Library, you are given a variety of choices. Do you need to find an article that was published in The Colorado Lawyer? Do you have a particular court case to read? Is there a section of the statute cited in a case for which you need to confirm the language and then review the annotations? With the easy maneuverability within Casemaker, you can do all of the above in a short amount of time.
Accessing the Colorado Library
1. Go to the CBA homepage at http://www.cobar.org.
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