Fastcase: Boolean Operators and Algorithms
| Jurisdiction | Georgia,United States |
| Citation | Vol. 23 No. 7 Pg. 0073 |
| Pages | 0073 |
| Publication year | 2018 |
Member Benefits
Fastcase: Boolean Operators and Algorithms
Fastcase training classes are offered three times a month at the State Bar of Georgia in Atlanta for Bar members and their staff. Training is available at other locations and in various formats and will be listed on the calendar at www.gabar.org. Please call 404-526-8618 to request onsite classes for local and specialty bar associations.
BY SHEILA BALDWIN
Fastcase Legal Research platform is provided to the members of the State Bar of Georgia as a member benefit and included free with your Bar dues. Many attorneys think of this as their best benefit. Fastcase is, for the most part, a primary law database that contains cases, statutes, regulations, court rules and constitutions. In Georgia you can also access attorney general opinions, law reviews and the Georgia Bar Journal.
Several times a month I conduct Fastcase training at the Bar Center. The training covers methods of searching caselaw by Boolean operators or keywords in context of the algorithms that Fastcase uses to process your search. I am often asked what an algorithm is or what Boolean means. Algorithms are the rules or formulas that the computer software uses to solve a problem, or in our case, a search query. Boolean is a type of logic developed by English mathematician George Boole in the mid-19th century. His ideas were used to develop operators or symbols to tell a search engine how to relate keywords to one another. Boolean searches allow you to combine words and phrases using the words AND, OR, NOT and a few other indicators like parenthesis or within to limit, widen or define your search. Fortunately, the Boolean terms are easy to find in the Advanced Caselaw Search page under the query box with search tips explaining how to use them effectively.
In Fastcase, the order of operations (algorithm) runs the within operator (w/2) first, the AND operator is run second, the NOT operator runs third and the OR operator runs last. You can change this protocol by placing parenthesis around words or phrases to change the way the search engine interprets your query. This is akin to algebra in mathematics; any numbers within parenthesis are solved first. Searching for car or vehicle and getaway in Georgia, Fastcase understands the query as "vehicle and getaway or car” because it follows the rules and runs the...
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