Thurgood Marshall School of Law Library Online Legal Research Tools

Transcription

1 Thurgood Marshall School of Law Library Online Legal Research Tools The Thurgood Marshall School of Law Library subscribes to a growing selection of online legal research tools covering many areas of law. In addition to these, we would like to provide a list of mobile applications which are relevant to our law students, law school community, and lawyers. Note: The list provided is strictly for informational and educational purposes. While apps are beneficial, they are not intended to be substitutes for official sources of law. Please refer to official sources when referencing law. It is the user s responsibility to verify the legal accuracy of all text. Displaying these app resources do not constitute an endorsement of any individual company unless the company is an official vendor. Thanks: Thanks to CALI and the consortium law schools who provided members with an exhaustive list of links to current mobile apps. Viewers, please feel free to me at sfdavis@tmslaw.edu to inform me of apps that would be beneficial to the list below: ABA Journal: is a FREE app for use on the iphone, ipod Touch, and ipad. The app provides breaking legal news and articles featured in the ABA Journal. The app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. AllLaw: AllLaw is a legal reference app that provides FREE access to the Federal Rules and additional access to state codes and other reference materials available as in-app purchases. The app may be downloaded for use on all ios devices from the itunes App Store. American Arbitration Association: provides ready access to AAA rules, codes, and protocols, as well as contact information for AAA offices worldwide. The app is FREE and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store for use on ios devices and from Google Play for use on Droid devices. American Lawyer: is a FREE app for use on the iphone and ipad. The app provides instant access to recent issues of American Lawyer every month. The app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store for ios devices or Google Play for Droid devices. BARBRI Mobile: offers a free application called BARBRI Challenge and a separate application available to students registered with BARBRI. BARBRI Challenge is a multiple-choice quiz on bar subjects that is FREE. For enrolled BARBRI students, BARBRI Mobile provides students with access to all BARBRI materials on their iphone, ipod Touch, or ipad devices. Both apps may be downloaded from the itunes App Store and from Google Play for Droid devices. Black s Law Dictionary: 9th Edition, edited by Bryan A. Garner, is a resource for lawyers, law students, and laypersons. The mobile application is available for purchase from the itunes App Store for $54.99, and the application may be used on both the iphone and the ipad. Thomson also recently released a version of Black's Law Dictionary for Android devices as well, which may be purchased on Thomson's website. Bloomberg: provides you with current information about news, stock quotes, company descriptions, market leaders/laggers, price charts, market trends analysis, and more. The app allows for a number of customizable settings and is FREE. The app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store, Google Play, and Blackberry App World. Also available in the itunes App Store is Bloomberg for ipad.

2 CLE Mobile: allows attorneys to complete continuing legal education courses on their iphone, ipod Touch, and ipad devices. With the app, users can download courses, listen to audio content, browse program materials, post to discussion forums, and submit completed courses for CLE credit. The app is FREE and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. Congress+: is an iphone app that offers information about the current session of Congress. The app will help you identify your elected officials in the House and Senate, retrieve their contact information, and obtain staff information, legislative activity and campaign information. The full federal version of the app is available for $4.99 in the itunes App Store. Congress (Sunlight Foundation): an app similar to the Congress+ app but for Android devices, check out Sunlight Labs' Congress app, which is FREE and available for download from Google Play. Constitution of the United States: with audio is a mobile app created by West. The app features the complete text of the U.S. Constitution, including a table of contents for easy navigation, audio versions of the Constitution, an integrated and linkable index, and details on the ratification of the Constitution. The app is compatible for use on the iphone, ipod Touch, and the ipad, and is available for purchase for $0.99 from the itunes App Store. Google Play has a number of apps providing mobile access to the U.S. Constitution as well. Courtroom Objections: An app developed by Anthony Shorter a Texas attorney who has been in practice since 1986 and who currently works as the Assistant Attorney General, Senior Regional Attorney in the Child Support Division of the Office of Attorney General. With Courtroom Objections, Shorter combined his legal knowledge and programming interest to create a legal app that attorneys and law students may find helpful relative to the area of evidence. The app is based on the Federal Rules of Evidence and Texas Rules of Evidence. When the app is launched, you can review lists of common objections to admissibility and objections to form. For instance, if you were to select "authentication" under "Objections to Admissibility," you would be presented with suggested language for and an explanation of the objection. By scrolling down past the explanation, you can click "Rule" to view the relevant rule of evidence. The app also allows you to increase the font size. This handy app may be used on ipad, iphone, and ipod Touch devices and is available for $2.99 to download from the itunes App Store. DocketLaw: is a FREE app that enables you to calculate important event dates and deadlines based on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Users with a DocketLaw or CalendarRules account can add individual courts or entire state court systems (monthly subscriptions start at $9.95/month). The app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store and is compatible for use on all ios devices. Fastcase: is a next-generation, Web-based legal research service that provides access to U.S. cases and statutes. The Fastcase mobile application is currently configured for use by iphone, ipod Touch, and ipad owners and is FREE. Searches of the Fastcase database may be performed using citations, phrases, or keywords. Boolean operators and proximity connectors may be used in constructing search statements. Fastcase may be downloaded from the itunes App Store or from the Fastcase website at As with the ios version of the app, the Fastcase app for Droid devices is FREE and may be downloaded from Google Play. HeinOnline: Hein is now accessible on ios devices! The HeinOnline app allows you to view PDF copies of content in the HeinOnline library, access content by citation, browse law reviewss and journals, and use the full

3 searching techniques of HeinOnline. The app is FREE and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store (IP authentication is required to access content). ijuror: is a mobile app developed for use on the ipad that aims to help facilitate the jury selection process. The app allows you to tap on seats to add juror information, add notes as the trial proceeds, and to drag and drop juror avatars to select jurors and alternates, or to dismiss jurors. The app is currently available for $9.99 and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. ijury: is a jury selection app marketed as an app built by trial attorneys for trial attorneys. Through its scoring system for potential jurors, the app generates various helpful metrics to assist attorneys in jury selection. The app allows you to track up to 250 potential jurors per case and to track peremptory challenges and dismissals for cause. The app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store for $14.99 and is optimized for use on the ipad. ipleading: is an app intended to assist attorneys and paralegals in creating pleadings on their mobile devices. The app may be purchased for ios devices for $4.99 from the itunes App Store and for Droid devices for $4.99 from Google Play. IntelliConnect Mobile: brought to us by publisher Wolters Kluwer Law & Business. The app is available to IntelliConnect subscribers for use on Blackberry and ios devices, with content including several Aspen treatise titles and IntelliConnent's Smart Charts in areas such as corporate governance, federal banking, financial reform, and secured transactions. The app is FREE (although a subscription is required to access content) and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store for use on ios devices and from the IC Mobile website for Blackberry devices. Jury Duty: is a mobile app intended to assist attorneys during the voir dire process. Features include the ability to create customized seating charts for particular courtrooms, record impressions of potential jurors, and to select and track voir dire topics, The app is available for $29.99 from the itunes App Store and is optimized for use on the ipad. JuryStar: is an ipad app created by a practicing litigator to aid in the jury selection process by minimizing the time required to input data about potential jurors and thereby increasing the time available to interact with potential jurors. With the app, attorneys may enter voir dire questions into the app, assign values to responses, rank favorable and unfavorable jurors, and more. The app is available for $39.99 from the itunes App Store. JuryTracker: is another app intended to assist attorneys with jury selection and observation. The app may be used to store notes concerning jurors and features a number of emoticons that can be selected to describe juror activity (e.g., note-taking, eye contact, fatigue, and so forth). The app is available for $4.99 and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. JuryTracker is optimized for use on the ipad. Kaplan MBE Flashcards: offers FREE MBE Flashcards and instructional videos in its mobile application, which students may use to supplement their studies for the Bar Exam. The app includes six instructional videos that highlight key concepts that appear on the MBE, and 425 terms, definitions, and concepts in the subjects of torts, constitutional law, evidence, criminal law and procedure, contracts, and real property. The app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store.

4 LawBox: is a legal reference app that provides access to the text of the United States Code and state statutes from Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas. The app is FREE and may be used on all ios devices. The app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. The Law Guide: is an Android app developed by the creators of the legal website TheLaw.com. The app is FREE and provides access to a legal dictionary, legal forms, case reviews, job post board, the New York Code and more. The app may be downloaded from Google Play. The Law in a Flash: is a product of Aspen Publishers. There are currently 16 titles available for download from the itunes App Store, on subjects such as: civil procedure, constitutional law, criminal law, criminal procedure, commercial sales, contracts, corporations, evidence, federal income tax, future interests, professional responsibility, real property, torts, and wills and trusts. The cost of the downloads ranges from $39.99 to $ A search performed on uquery provides links to the various titles available in the itunes App Store. Law School Dojo: The app is described as a quiz game that features hundreds of multiple choice questions to learn legal concepts, vocabulary, and procedure (with some random legal trivia thrown in the mix). Currently developer Hand Drawn Apps offers apps for ios devices for general legal concepts (FREE), civil procedure ($2.99), and international law (FREE). Apps are also offered for Droid devices, including apps for general legal concepts (FREE), torts ($2.99), international law ($2.99), civil procedure ($2.99), and an app called "Know Your Rights" (FREE), described as "a law quiz about your rights when dealing with the government and police." LawStack: is preloaded with the text of the U.S. Constitution, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, Federal Rules of Evidence, and the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure (as effective as of December 1, 2009). Once LawStack is downloaded to your device, you may also download titles of the Code of Federal Regulations, the U.S. Code, and statutes from a number of states, including California. LawStack is FREE and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. Lawyers.com: is a mobile app powered by LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell. With the app, users can search for attorneys or law firms from 160 countries. The app allows you to search by name, practice area, or location, to review lawyer ratings and profiles, and to obtain driving directions to a selected law office. The app is FREE and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. Legal Edge: is a legal news app that helps users keep informed about current legal developments with updates, news alerts, and case filings from various legal professionals in the United States. The app was developed by JD Supra and subject areas include, among others, real estate, banking and finance, immigration, insurance, consumer protection, taxes, bankruptcy, intellectual property, health law, labor and employment, legal marketing. The app is FREE and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store for use on all ios devices. Legal News Reader: is a simple RSS feed aggregator that retrieves important news stories from a number of legal news sites, thereby allowing the user to keep up to date on developments in the news in one convenient place. The app allows users to comment on articles, to read comments left by others, and to share stories with others. The app is $0.99 and may be downladed from the itunes App Store.

5 Lexis Advance for Solos: is a new legal research app developed by LexisNexis in collaboration with solo practice lawyers. Lexis Advance for Solos is intended to be a more efficient research tool for solo practitioners; it features a single search interface, integrates results from the Internet, includes search filters that enable users to refine results, and provides tools with which to save queries. Although the app is FREE and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store, a subscription to Lexis Advance for Solos is required to utilize the app. LexisNexis Courtlink: is a new app developed by LexisNexis that allows you to review recent court docket Alert and Tracking activity. With the app, you can set up alerts to monitor activity on a specific case, to learn of newly filed cases in a particular practice area, or to learn of newly filed cases involving specific parties. Although the app is FREE and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store, a subscription to CourtLink is required to utilize the app. LexisNexis Get Cases & Shepardize: mobile app allows you to retrieve U.S. cases and federal and state statutes from Lexis using citations and to Shepardize cases from your iphone. Keyword searching is not available in the current version of the application. Users with active LexisNexis accounts may download the LexisNexis app for FREE from the itunes App Store. LexisNexis Law School Q & A Series: is an interactive app that aims to help law students study for final exams with multiple choice and essay questions for subjects typically covered in the law school curriculum. All Q & A subject areas were authored by law school professors considered to be experts in their chosen field. For each multiple-choice question, the authors provide detailed answers that indicate which of the options is the best answer and explains thoroughly why that option is better than the other choices. Each short-answer question is designed to be answered in fifteen minutes or less. For these questions, the authors provide model answers. While the Q & A app is FREE and previews of each topic are available, users must make an in-app purchase to buy the Q & A book that is desired (each book costs about $29.99). Q & A books are available to purchase in-app: administrative law, bankruptcy, constitutional law, copyright law, criminal law, criminal procedure, environmental law, evidence, federal estate and gift taxation, federal income tax, intellectual property, patent law, property, remedies, secured transactions, taxation of business entities, the First Amendment, torts, trademark and unfair competition, and wills, trusts & estates. Once a title is purchased, users can take a full practice exam and view results in the provided scoreboard. Practice exams may be taken multiple times. The app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store and may be used on all ios devices. LexisNexis Legal News: is intended to complement the LexisNexis law school services available to UCLA Law faculty, staff, and students. The app gathers a wide array of the best legal news from video, blog, and twitter sources, and pushes the data to users in a continuously updating content feed. The app is FREE and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. LexisNexis Tax Law Community: is a FREE source for legal news, analysis, and commentary on emerging legal tax issues. The content for the app is pulled from blogs, podcasts, and legal news headlines. The app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. Mobile Transcript: provides attorneys with the ability to read deposition transcripts formatted for their devices. Transcripts are uploaded by attorneys' court reporters to the Mobile Transcript website, which in turn downloads the transcripts to the attorneys' devices (court reporters must hold a subscription with Mobile Transcript to be able to upload transcripts). The app allows attorneys to highlight and flag text. The app is FREE and is available for use on iphone, ipod Touch, and ipad devices, as well as Droid and Blackberry devices. For iphone and ipod

6 devices, the app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. Mobile Transcript has a separate app optimized for the ipad that may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. The app for Blackberry smartphones may be downloaded from the Mobile Transcript website, and the Droid version may be downloaded from Google Play. MyCongress: is a mobile app that provides you with detailed information about your elected U.S. Congressional officials. The app allows you to track legislators' news, video, and Twitter feeds, to look up their official Open Congress profile, or to contact legislators directly. The FREE app is optimized for use on the ipad and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. My Legal Projects: is a productivity app that helps associates organize task lists and set up deadline reminders for legal research assignments. For each project, you can use the product details page to record key information about the project, such as jurisdiction, key terms, leading cases, and relevant statutes. Notes taken with the app can be shared via or Bluetooth. The app can link directly into WestlawNext (subscription required). The app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store for $1.99. My Real Practice: is a FREE, secure, cloud-based app that aims to assist solo practitioners and small law firms attract and retain more clients, manage their work, and increase their productivity. The app allows users to manage and retrieve contacts, track time and billing, create and manage key matters and track tasks, and receive and respond to prospective client leads. The app may be used on all ios devices and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. NPR News: is a FREE app optimized for use on ios and Android devices. The app allows you to follow local and national news, listen to your favorite NPR programs when you like, access on-demand audio, find station broadcast frequencies while traveling, and more. The app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store for use on ios devices and from Google Play for use on Android devices. NYTimes: allows you to access the latest news articles and photos that appear on NYTimes.com. The app also lets you customize the toolbar to show your favorite sections of NYTimes.com. The app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store for use on ios devices and from Google Play for use on Android devices (Android tablet owners please click HERE to download from Google Play). Nolo s Plain English Law Dictionary: is a FREE application that may be downloaded from the itunes App Store for use on ios devices, and from Google Play for use on Droid devices. The current price for the Droid version of the app is $ OpenRegs: is an app optimized for use on idevices that provides convenient access to regulations published in the Federal Register. The app lets you track "significant" and "economically significant" regulations published in the FR, locate recently issued notices of final and proposed rule-making, and browse regulations by agency or comment periods closing soon or recently opened. The app is FREE and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. OyezToday: Developed by Chicago-Kent College of Law's Illinois Institute of Technology, OyezToday is a new mobile app that offers you the latest information and media on cases currently pending in Supreme Court of the

7 United States. The app provides access to searchable audio of oral arguments and transcripts, summaries of the Court's most recent decisions, and copies of the Court's decisions. Social features are integrated with the app, allowing users to share reactions to current SCOTUS news in their social networks. OyezToday is compatible for use on all ios devices and may be downloaded for FREE from the itunes App Store. Development of the app for Android devices is underway. PocketJusticeFULL: provides you with abstracts of the U.S. Supreme Court's constitutional decisions and access to audio files for its public sessions. The app includes voting alignments and biographical sketches for all 110 Justices, searchable transcripts, and information and audio for more than 600 constitutional law cases heard in the U.S. Supreme Court. The full version of the app is available for $4.99 and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store for use on the iphone and ipod Touch (a FREE version may also be downloaded from the itunes App Store, but it offers fewer features). The app may also be downloaded for use on Android devices from Google Play for $4.99. Rate Driver: allows users to research law firm billing rates in major U.S. markets. The data available in the app is derived from actual attorney invoices and is based on a statistical model from the recently published Real Rate Report, which identifies the top five statistical drivers of any lawyer's rate. The statistical model considers factors such as geography, practice area, firm size, and years of experience to provide estimates of average attorney fees for a U.S. lawyer fitting any particular profile. The FREE version of the app offers a 60-day trial (the app is otherwise $4.99) and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store for ios devices, Google Play for Droid devices, and Blackberry App World for Blackberry devices. Real Time Congress: provides live updates from the U.S. House and Senate regarding the current legislative session. The app can deliver updates, schedules, and key policy documents to your device the moment they are released by Congress and the White House. The app is FREE and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store for use on the iphone, ipod Touch, and ipad. RECALLS.GOV: is a FREE mobile app created by the U.S. government that provides information from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Department of Agriculture about recall announcements. You can type a product's name into your device and learn immediately whether the product has been recalled because of a safety concern. You can also use the app to see photos of recalled products and to learn what to do with recalled products in your home. The app is currently optimized for use on Android devices and is available for download at USA.gov. Owners of other devices may access the app using the mobile web by pointing their browsers to the following site: Reuters News Pro: is a FREE mobile app that provides you with access to news and market data on a number of handheld devices. Features include world, business, and market news, global financial data, corporate information, customizable stock tab, sports, science, health, technology and entertainment news, and full-text articles and photos optimized for easy reading on mobile devices. The app is available for use on iphones, ipod Touch devices, Blackberry smartphones, and the Android. Information for downloading the app on these devices may be found on the Reuters website. Rulebook: provides users mobile access to federal and state court rules. Among the features offered in Rulebook: fulltext searching of the user's Rulebook library, basic annotation tools, and hyperlink to other relevant rules. The app is FREE and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. The standard cost of in-app purchases

8 of rules is $1.99. Rulebook provide mobile access to The Bluebook, the legal citation system. The Bluebook is available as an in-app purchase for $ Social Science Research Network: is a resource for scholarly research in a number of disciplines, including law. With the issrn application, users may search more than 260,000 research papers in the SSRN library, as well as or view papers retrieved in search results. The issrn app is compatible with the iphone, ipod Touch, and ipad, and may be downloaded for FREE from the itunes App Store. Sum & Substance: is a product of West. There are currently five titles available for download from the itunes App Store, on subjects including: contracts, constitutional law, criminal law, criminal procedure, and real property. The apps consist solely of audio recordings of lectures by noteworthy law faculty from U.S. law schools. The cost of the downloads ranges from $49.99 to $59.99 per app. Links to the six Sum & Substance apps available in the itunes App Store are available on the West website. Texas Rules of Civil Procedure : Is a reference source that provides all of Texas Civil Rules in your pocket. This app is designed for both iphone and ipad. The app is compatible with iphone, ipod touch, and ipad. It requires ios 4.3 or later. It s available for $9.99, and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. Texas Rules of Evidence: Is a reference source that provides all of Texas Rules of Evidence (TX Law) in your pocket. This app is designed for iphone and ipad. The app is compatible with iphone, ipod touch, and ipad. It requires ios 4.3 or later. It s available for $5.99, and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. The Themis Bar Review: provides Themis students mobile access to substantive lectures for all subjects tested on the bar exam and hundreds of diagnostic assessment questions. The FREE version of the app provides access to demo content. The full content of the app is available only to students enrolled in Themis Bar Review courses. WiFi connection is required to review the app's content. The app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store for ios devices and from Google Play for Droid devices. TransLegal: provides definitions for thousands of legal terms, sound recordings to aid pronunciation, and contextual examples to aid in understanding legal terms. The app has several flexible search features, including wildcard searching, which enables you to locate terms regardless of misspelling. The app is currently available for $12.99 through October 6, 2012 for use on ios devices from the itunes App Store (regular price is $24.99). TrialEvidence: a reference tool for reviewing common courtroom evidentiary foundations used to admit items into evidence. The app is currently configured for use on ios devices. The app may be downloaded for $1.99 from the itunes App Store. WestlawNext: Students with WestlawNext accounts may also access the mobile version of the site by pointing their browsers to Students with regular Westlaw accounts may access regular Westlaw by pointing their browsers to For those using paid accounts through their places of employment, please note that search sessions using the mobile versions of these sites will incur charges at the employer's current subscription rate. Thomson Reuters also has Android app to accompany its ipad app for

9 WestlawNext! Both apps are FREE for students with active accounts. The Droid app may be downloaded from Google Play, and the ios app may be downloaded from the itunes App Store. The White House: is the official mobile app of the White House. The app is FREE and delivers the latest news from the White House's blog and newsroom, featured videos and photos, and live video streaming of White House events with President Barack Obama. The app is currently optimized for use on Droid devices, the iphone, ipod Touch, or ipad, and may be downloaded from USA.gov. Wolfram Lawyer s Professional Assistant: is a legal reference tool that provides access to a dictionary of legal terms, statutes of limitations for each state in the U.S., a tool for calendar calculations, a variety of calculators, and crime rate and demographic data. The app is powered by the Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine and is compatible for use on all ios devices. The app sells for $4.99 and may be downloaded from the itunes App Store..