The Best Free Legal Research Tools

Free legal research tools used to be a dream. High-quality legal research is a necessity for all law firms—after all, finding the right precedent or statute could give you the edge to win your case.

In the past, paid research platforms were the only choice. We accepted legal research tools as a costly-but-necessary expense for law firms. Today, however, there are excellent free tools available online. These tools mean free legal research a viable option for law firms looking to allocate funds to other areas of their practice, without compromising the quality of their research.

The only catch? You have to know where to look.

Below, we’ve collected some of the best free legal research tools for law firms to help you cut costs in an inflation economy.

(And, for even more tips on cutting costs, be sure to read our guide, Lawyers and Inflation: Staying Competitive in an Inflationary Economy.)

7 Free legal search engines and databases

The combination of more legal resources being digitized and the development of new technologies means that there’s now an overwhelming amount of legal information online. The good news? Many of these legal research resources can be found online for free. (If you want to really dive deep, browse this comprehensive resource for an in-depth listing of free legal research options.)

Below, we’ve curated seven of the best free search engines and databases help you find exactly what you need for your legal research:

1. Fastcase: For an online law library

As one of the largest online law libraries in the world, Fastcase provides online access to case law, statutes, regulations, constitutions, court rules, and law review articles—making legal research and analysis faster and easier.

Additionally, thanks to an integration with Clio, using Fastcase makes it simple to accurately monitor the time you spend on legal research and keep your research well-ordered. Without ever having to leave Fastcase, the Clio integration allows you to:

• Create Clio time entries for time spent on research
• Save your results as case documents in Clio
• Keep your research organized according to each case

While Fastcase offers a variety of paid desktop plans (you can try a free trial to test them out), their free mobile app is available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone—and anyone with the app can access Fastcase’s comprehensive legal research database on the go, for free.

Fastcase also has the most member benefit deals with bar associations of any legal research provider. You may already have access through your bar dues.

2. CourtListener: For legal opinions

Sponsored by the Non-Profit Free Law Project, CourtListener is a legal research website featuring millions of legal opinions from federal and state courts. Search CourtListener by case name, topic, or citation—the data is all free to access and updated daily.

3. Caselaw Access Project: For book-published case law

As part of a mission to make all published US court decisions freely available to publish online, the Caselaw Access Project (CAP) offers free access to all official, book-published US case law. Every volume is designated as an official report of decisions by a court within the United States through June 2018 (Fun fact: The earliest case available is from 1658.). The 360 years of United States case law data was digitized from the collection of the Harvard Law Library.

4. FindLaw: For searchable Supreme Court decisions

Designed to make the law more accessible to all, FindLaw’s FindLaw for Legal Professionals division offers free online legal content including case law from state and federal courts, case summaries, statutes, and legal news.

FindLaw also offers a browsable, searchable database of US Supreme Court decisions since 1760. Browse Supreme Court opinions by year and US Reports volume number, or search by party name, case title, citation, full text, and docket number. FindLaw also features an archive of Supreme Court opinion summaries since the year 2000.

5. Legal Information Institute: For US law online and a legal encyclopedia

Legal Information Institutes (LII) are a global resource that offers open access to law knowledge. There are over 46 LII associations around the world that publish source law through their own search engines, providing freely accessible case laws, regulations, and statutes unique to those countries.

The Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell Law School provides access to most US laws online for free, making it a good resource when you need to find a statute or regulation, while also providing online access to legal materials like the:

• Supreme Court Bulletin
• State statutes by topic
• US Code
• Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR)
• Constitution
• Federal Rules
• Uniform Commercial Code
• World law

Another free research resource hosted by LII is Wex—a free, community-built legal dictionary and legal encyclopedia created and edited by legal experts.

6. Casetext: For AI assistance

Technically, number six on this list isn’t free, but low-cost artificial intelligence-powered options for legal research can make a huge difference for your bottom line. Powered by AI to help you conduct legal research better and faster, Casetext’s search finds you cases and other authorities on the same facts, legal issues, and jurisdiction as your matter.

The process is simple:

1. Drag and drop a brief or complaint into Casetext’s artificial intelligence search, CARA.
2. Get relevant cases from CARA that enhance your research for your own drafts, or to check for missing or omitted cases within opposing council’s briefs and complaints.

The practice is even smoother via Casetext’s Clio integration, which lets you send a document from Clio to CARA in a single click.

Casetext’s AI search is a low-cost option for legal research—though you can get a free 14-day trial.

Read our comprehensive guide about AI for lawyers to learn more about how lawyers can (and can’t) leverage AI.

7. Justia: For the latest summaries sent straight to you

Research case law, codes, statutes, regulations, and articles related to federal and state cases with Justia’s extensive, free database.

You can also stay effortlessly well-informed on specific practice areas with Justia. It will send the latest straight to your inbox with an array of free newsletters ranging from daily summaries of opinions from all federal appellate courts and all 50 state supreme courts to weekly summaries of opinions in certain practice areas.

Beyond legal databases: Other free research resources

As valuable as legal databases are for your case research, there are also other alternative sources where you can find information and resources to support your legal research. Below, we offer a few free and cost-effective options for help build your case.

1. Primary sources: For going straight to the source

Sometimes, the easiest way to get the information you need is to be direct. You can find many case law and court documents online for free. Legislatures and courts are publishing their own materials, which are sometimes now available online as downloadable PDFs.

Keep in mind that some online versions are not considered “official” and can be refuted by the print version, even though they come from the same source.

Here are some resources you can access directly online:

• US Office of the Law Revision Counsel
• Bound Volumes of the Supreme Court
• Rulings from regulatory and administrative agencies like, Social Security Administration, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Remember that while this information might be easy to access through primary sources, you’ll likely miss out on the advanced search functions or analysis features that you’d find with legal search engines and databases.

Also, older legal information may not be available online yet. In this situation, visit a library and look for archived legal information that is unavailable elsewhere. You may also find potential collaborators in your colleagues (and the librarians) who will be researching there as well. These collaborators will be a great source for information on what arguments worked in the past, and may help you find local knowledge you might not be able to uncover yourself.

If you are a member of a bar association, you should also make full use of the resources available to you through your member benefits, such as:

• Courthouses
• Law schools
• Bar Association headquarters

2. Legal blogs: For keeping up-to-date

One of the best ways to become a more efficient legal researcher is to stay ahead of the game. The best way to do that? Maintain your subject matter competency. Keep up-to-date on the latest developments in your practice area by regularly reading legal journals and legal blogs.

One of your best sources is the American Bar Association (ABA)’s annual list, which started in 2007 as the Blawg 100 list of blogs. It has since evolved into the Web 100 list of favorite law blogs, podcasts, tweeters, and web tools—a.k.a. a list of the best free law-focused resources and people to follow.

LexBlog—an online network of over 22,000 legal bloggers—is a hub of the latest commentary on the law. Sorting blogs by channels, LexBlog makes it easy to find and subscribe to legal blogs that focus on your specific area of law.

By maintaining subject-matter competency, you’ll already have cases and ideas top-of-mind—so that when you’re presented with a new case, you won’t always be starting from scratch.

3. Google Scholar: For searching legal journals and published opinions

Although not specifically tailored to legal research, Google Scholar allows you to broadly search and access scholarly literature—which means it’s an effective, free way to find legal documents like patents, legal opinions, legal journals, and articles.

Want the simplest way to search case law? On the Google Scholar main page, select the “Case Law” button under the search box to easily search case law, filtered by jurisdiction.

Final thoughts

Conducting smart legal research that’s thorough, accurate, and time-effective makes a big difference to the success of your law firm—but it doesn’t have to be expensive. Today’s free legal research resources help you be more efficient so you can serve your clients more effectively, and stay a step ahead of the competition.

Cutting costs for your legal research can also make room in your budget for technology that helps you run your firm more efficiently. Introducing legal practice management software like Clio, for example, can help you increase—or even double—revenue.

Clio enables you to automate routine tasks, keep your legal research organized, and easily report on key business metrics—helping you to make your law firm profitable and efficient. Want to see how? Book a demo today!

We published this blog post in August 2019. Last updated: March 15, 2024.

Categorized in: Business