White Paper

Internet Searching vs. Researching; Legal-Specific Search Sites

 
“The Internet is a great place to find the law, but it is not necessarily a great place to research “the law.” Search engines help immensely in locating specific, useful materials for a research problem. If a researcher looks for a specific document using related keywords and it appears on an official or other site, a search engine will almost always return a result for that document within the first page of results. On the other hand, searching a concept, such as the use of parol evidence1 in interpreting a contract, and the results will be more random and general. Case law and statutes appear on the web, though these relevant legal sources hardly ever appear in results from concept searches in any search engine. Rather, they are typically found in searches for specific opinions and legislation on sites dedicated to those collections. There are also better strategies for locating statutes as discussed below.”

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Mark Giangrande is a legal research specialist with DePaul University College of Law Library and has practiced law librarianship since 1976. His has extensive professional law library experience, having served at six law schools, including four in the Chicago area. He created and managed law school computing facilities. Mr. Giangrande taught a course in advanced legal research at DePaul University College of Law.

Faculty

Mark Giangrande

Mark Giangrande

DePaul University