General Practice, Solo, and Small Firm Division
Solo
Winter 2003 vol. 9 Number 2
Five Essential Search Sites for Solos
By Robert J. Ambrogi
Consider combing through more than 5 billion documents-a
conservative estimate of the Internet's size-and you understand
why a good search engine is a lawyer's most critical Internet
tool. But no single tool performs every job, so I rely on a
select few search sites, each tailored to a common task. Think of
them as a legal researcher's Swiss Army knife.
Google (www.google.com) Start your search with
Google, whose sheer breadth-it indexes more than 3 billion Web
documents-helps make it the best overall search engine. Vast
though it is, it delivers highly relevant results, thanks to its
PageRank technology. The more sites that link to a webpage,
Google presumes, the more valuable it must be. There is more to
Google than Web searching. Google Groups is a complete archive of
discussions from Usenet-the Internet's original bulletin
board-back to 1981. Need a medical illustration? Try Google Image
Search, possibly the largest image bank on the Web. Google News
delivers headlines from more than 4,000 sources.
FindLaw (www.findlaw.com) For finding legal
sites, FindLaw is a multifaceted portal. Its core is a
comprehensive index of links to resources in more than 30
practice areas. Beyond its index are a host of features,
including LawCrawler, a search engine that scours only sites that
contain legal information, and an ever-growing library of free
court opinions and statutory codes. West Group purchased FindLaw
in January 2001, adding the West Legal Directory and other
original content.
FirstGov (www.firstgov.gov) The official gateway
to U.S. government information on the Internet, FirstGov connects
to more than 51 million pages on more than 20,000 federal, state,
territorial, and tribal sites. Overhauled last year, links are
now organized by type of user (citizen, business, etc.) as well
as by common reference terms, such as forms, laws, and press
releases. Search the entire site or a single state.
Switchboard.com (www.switch board.com) Search
for a missing witness. Locate a lost heir. Get the e-mail address
of opposing counsel. Find a long-lost law school pal. Map the
route to an unfamiliar courthouse. Match a phone number to its
owner through reverse lookup. Search for a business. Telephone
and e-mail directories abound on the Web, but Switchboard
consistently remains one of the best.
Science.gov (www.science.gov) From tort to IP to
biotech and beyond, lawyers can attest that scientific research
is often an important aspect of law practice. Such research
became easier in January when the federal government launched
this gateway to science and technology information. A
collaboration among 14 scientific and technical organizations
from 10 major science agencies, the site indexes more than 1,000
government resources-technical reports, journals, databases,
websites, and fact sheets- all available free.
Robert J. Ambrogi is a solo lawyer in
Rockport, Massachusetts, and author of the book, The Essential
Guide to the Best (and Worst) Legal Sites on the Web. He tracks
new and intriguing legal websites through
www.legaline.com/lawsites.html.
