THE TOP WEB SITES NO PARALEGAL SHOULD BE WITHOUT.
That depends on what you are looking for. Do you want to search the United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations? The easiest way to find the Code is via www.uscode.house.gov. Yes, that is the House of Representative which maintains a search engine for the statutes. To review the CFR look at www.access.gpo.gov.nara/cfr/cfr-table-search.html. Want to look at recent U. S. Supreme Court cases? Try http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct. You can also look at www.fedword.gov which has a database for Supreme Court decisions from 1937-1975, if you want older decisions. If you want to listen to famous oral arguments before the United States Supreme Court, connect to oyez.nwu.edu. You must have a sound card and external speakers and you have to install RealplayerŽ on your computer. A free download is available at www.real.com.
Do you want recent 7th Circuit cases? www.kentlaw.edu/7circuit has cases from May, 1995 on its searchable database, or you can browse through cases back to January, 1993. How about the other circuits? Here are the sites:
www.ljextra.com/public/daily/XD8ca.html
www.findlaw.com/casecode/courts/9th.html
www.lawlib.wuacc.edu/ca10 www.ljextra.com/public/daily/XDcca.html
www.ll.georgetown.edu/Fed-Ct/cafed.html
There are two down sides to these sites; one is that, other than the Supreme Court, the sites only carry cases from a few years ago. If you are looking for a 1954 case in the 7th Circuit, better go to the books. The other downside is the search engine. Most are rudimentary at best and will bring up thousands of cases, even with a fairly narrowly designed search. Be advised that there are no District Court cases on a searchable database as of when I write this. The Federal District Court web sites are generally set up to give you information about the clerk's office, not cases.
Do you only want to remember one address? There are numerous attorney or corporate sites that have links to the statutes, code and Federal appellate cases. Some of the easiest I have found are http://law.miningco.com/msu3.htm (no, its not a coal mining company, it is a company which mines the 'net, or searches the internet for interesting and important sites and news) and The Internet Lawyer at www.internetlawyer.com and www.findlaw.com. By the way, I think that findlaw.com has the largest collection of United States Supreme Court cases, going back to the 1890's.
What about State of Illinois sites? Try the www.state.il.us/agency/iic for Illinois Industrial Commission the text of the Workers' Compensation Act, Occupational Diseases Act and Industrial Commission Rules, as well as lots of information about filing a claim, red line cases, weekly benefit rates and Commission news. Connect through the Illinois State Bar Association site at www.illinoisbar.org for Illinois cases, including hyperlinks to several different collections. The Illinois State Bar Association site also has the administrative rules online. Chicago-Kent Law School has an extensive array of Illinois decisions, including those of the Illinois Human Rights Commission at www.kentlaw.edu/legal_resources.
FINDING LEGAL COLLECTIONS
Quite frankly, you have to search for them. Several law schools like Cornell and Kent have fairly sophisticated sites with search engines which enable you to find a case if you know its name. Be forewarned, however, their search engines are rudimentary and you can not perform as narrow a search as you can on., say Lexis or Westlaw. Even a well defined search will yield hundreds of cases. At this time, looking for a case by its name is the best way to find it.
WHERE TO SEARCH FOR FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL STATUTORY INFORMATION
I have already given you some of the best sites for Federal and State statutes above. Local is a bit trickier. There just isn't a whole lot there. Municode.com is a commercial site maintained by the Municipal Code Corporation which quite a few municipal codes available for viewing. Some states are moving rapidly to put a great deal of state and local information on the internet, but it is certainly not complete as of yet. Illinois is doing a so-so job, IMHO (in my humble opinion).
The Federal government has done a magnificent job of putting many of its agencies online and providing a wealth of information. Even if you don't know the exact name, try typing in the initials of the particular department or agency and you will probably get it right. For example, to get to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, type in www.hud.gov. The Patent and Trademark office has a searchable database of patents and lots of forms to download at www.uspto.gov. The IRS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Social Security Administration have sites which provide forms which you can download from www.irs.gov , www.ins.gov and www.ssa.gov.
Really cool sites are provided by the Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration.
You can get reports of weather and precipitation charts, as well as watching satellite
images of storms track across the United States. Do you know what time it is? If not,
then go to http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/what.html for the exact time from the US Naval
Observatory at Washington, D.C. Did you know that the observatory keeps the official
clock for the United States?