Westlaw and LexisNexis restrict law students' access during the summer months. But, under certain circumstances, you can extend your access. Make sure to check your West/Lexis main pages to see if these exemptions apply to you.
You might also consider checking out these alternative / supplementary legal databases (most of which are free):
"Searching the Web is easy. Why should searching the law be any different? That's why Fastcase has created the Public Library of Law -- to make it easy to find the law online. PLoL is one of the largest free law libraries in the world, because we assemble law available for free scattered across many different sites -- all in one place. PLoL is the best starting place to find law on the Web."
"To advance the availability of legal resources for the benefit of society."
"GPO's Federal Digital System (FDsys) provides public access to Government information submitted by Congress and Federal agencies and preserved as technology changes."
"The U.S. Government Printing Office disseminates official information from all three branches of the Federal Government."
"THOMAS was launched in January of 1995, at the inception of the 104th Congress. The leadership of the 104th Congress directed the Library of Congress to make federal legislative information freely available to the public."
"Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research."
"A not-for-profit group that believes everyone should be able to read and understand the laws that govern them, without cost."
"Launched on Jan. 9, 1996, FindLaw.com soon offered a mix of cases, statutes, legal news, a lawyer directory, an online career center, and community-oriented tools such as mailing lists and message boards. The Web site rapidly developed into the leading legal information site on the Internet."
"lexisONE® Community is a unique, online community and research resource designed to meet the day-to-day practice demands of individual attorneys -- loaded with both free and fee-based resources"
There are several freely-available options for tracking down electronic case law. Some of the most prominent of these are listed below:
After using these resources, if you have any questions, or would like to use a citator to update the cases you have found, feel free to visit the Law Library of Congress or your local public law library.
