Fastcase is a low-cost but wide-coverage online legal research tool with a modern, intuitive interface. Fastcase is a relatively new player on the legal research scene, but has some features that rival the bigger research alternatives, especially if your practice isn’t too dependent on deep secondary sources and you’re comfortable with, you know, a modern internet interface.

Users who want to dive in with a search can enter a natural language or Boolean (terms and connectors — Fastcase takes both Lexis and Westlaw syntax pretty well) search or a document citation into the single search box on the research home page. (This feature, something we have come to expect in online searching thanks to Google, also appears in Westlaw’s new search UI, WestlawNext.)

Note that the first page lets you choose from several material types (on the left). For items that aren’t included in Fastcase’s own databases, these links point to third-party sites with the relevant content. This worked more seamlessly than I expected.

To dig a bit deeper, users simply click the “switch to advanced caselaw search” link right above the query box. The advanced search provides limiters like jurisdiction, date, and results display options (including sortability by several variables!) at your fingertips.

At the bottom of the Advanced Search page is an option for “Authority Check.” This tool spits out the number of times each result has been cited. Looking at the number of times a particular result has been cited both in “These Results” and “Entire Database,” provides a good sense for how important that case is based on your search query. For instance, if a certain case has a high “Entire Database” number of citations, but relatively few “These Results”  cites, that case might not be on point for the terms you are searching. Cases that have high numbers in both categories tend to be the pivotal cases from which that critical first spiderweb of your research citations will emanate.

The “Authority Check” feature is powerful — and pretty interesting in the fact that it gives you a very reliable sense of the relative importance of a case (presuming you have a decently-crafted search) without human intervention. Fastcases uses algorithms only for determining relevance and keyword similarity, which makes it different from Westlaw and Lexis, who famously imbue results with human input and that treasured “editorial content.”

On the main results page, textual results can be easily re-sorted by relevance, case name or decision date. Under the “Results” menu, you can choose to see only document titles, titles with the first paragraph, or titles with the most relevant paragraph (depicted here, which automatically highlights your search terms).

Clicking on a result brings up the document, with a side-bar of links to related documents and several print and delivery options. Users who feel lost without the little colored flags or stop signs can access Lexis and Westlaw’s citators (Shepard’s and KeyCite, respectively) via links at the top of the document page. Charges apply for using those citators, but it is handy to have them available directly from each Fastcase document.

You can save documents to “My Library.” Searches are also saved, and the advanced search remembers which jurisdictions you have recently accessed. Documents can be downloaded in Word, PDF or rich text formats.

The feature that best sets Fastcase apart from competitors is the “Interactive Timeline.” Search results are displayed here in a four-dimensional display (relevance on the y axis, date on the x axis, inner circle size for number of times cited in search results, and outer circle size for times cited total in Fastcase database) that gives an instant idea of which cases are most important. Those that show up high (on the y axis) are most relevant, and those in the biggest circles have been cited the most times. Mouse over any circle and a clickable case name and relevant paragraph are displayed.

This view is also helpful for analyzing the usefulness of your search query at a glance: if the inner circles are consistently very small compared to the outer circles, your search is probably not hitting the issue that these cases are usually cited for. This may be expected for certain issues, but is a good indicator you need to refine your search if you’re looking for seminal cases on a particular topic (because you would expect such cases to be cited heavily both in the search results and in the total database).

Overall, I’m very impressed with Fastcase, and am encouraging my law school to check it out so students can learn this tool in addition to Lexis/Westlaw. Fastcase’s minimal cost makes it a viable primary caselaw search for the smallest firms and solo practitioners, and many attorneys have access included in their statewide bar membership.

Pros:

• Low cost
• Clean, modern, functional user interface
• Good caselaw coverage, including all 50 states
• Save, print, email, or download documents easily
• Handy links to secondary source material, links to citators
• Sortable results speed up research
• Interactive Timeline makes finding the best cases easy at a glance
• Easy-to-use help materials and tutorials, as well as live chat and email support

Cons:

• Deep secondary sources not included
• Citators cost extra (requires use of Shepard’s or KeyCite)
• Links to third-party providers of some material may be confusing for some users
• Simple, fast, intuitive interface might throw off long-time Westlaw/Lexis users

Along with web-based legal research, Fastcase has developed a FREE legal research iPhone app. The app is free to any iPhone user, no Fastcase subscription is required to use this tool. More info on the iPhone app can be found over at Legal Geekery.

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