4 Tips for Effective Internet Research in the Information Age

By Stephanie Meharg, CP

A typical case research assignment begins for me something like this: Stephanie, please find for me everything you can on this company, or industry, or potential expert, or lawyer, or judge.  I think they might be somewhere out west, maybe Arizona.  Now you know what I know. Go!

So where is a busy paralegal to turn when faced with this assignment?   Most companies have a website these days, most experts are affiliated with a university, there’s www.martindale.com for attorneys, Google, Wikipedia, Bing, and EVERYONE has a Facebook account.  Easy right?  Not always.  People, need I remind you that this is the information age.  There is a TON of stuff out there.  Finding what is relevant and useful in a vast sea of  “everyone’s got an opinion and a computer” is pretty daunting.  You can easily find yourself running in circles.  So where do you start?

1. Start with what you know (and what you know you don’t know).

Whether you are searching the internet, the law library, Lexis/Nexis, Westlaw, or your own e-discovery database(s) the answer is always the same: start with what you know.  Let’s say you’re looking for a company.  Maybe you even know the name (or, more likely, part of a name).  Maybe you even know what industry it is.  It might be in Arizona.  I always start with a simple Google search.  Eighty percent of the time I get lucky.

In Google, the most visited website always comes up first.  I have often found what I need by going further down the list.  However, if a simple search returns more than one page of results, it’s probably too broad, and should be reworded.

2. Learn to use search operators and Advanced Searches

When you are searching free sources, such as Google or Bing, you can still use Boolean logic as you would with commercial databases like Lexis and Westlaw.  Little words like “AND,” “OR,” and “NEAR” can help you narrow or expand your search results.  In Google, rather than using “NOT” to exclude a word or site, use a dash (-) before the word.  i.e.   Bananas and Apples -Oranges

Enclose specific names in quotation marks i.e. “Affordable Care Act.”  This is especially useful for popular names of legislation and terms of industry.

See https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/136861 for more helpful search operators in Google.

Most search engines also have a form search or advanced search feature. You can find it by typing “Advanced Search” in the search bar. 

3. Don’t discount websites just because they are popular

Sites like YouTube can be a great place to start.  I have found TV interviews with potential experts, news reports, and amateur video of incidents.

4. Keep a list

If you find a site useful, keep a list, either in your favorites or in a separate document.  In addition to the above, here is a list of some of the sites I have found useful:

http://academic.research.microsoft.com/

http://scholar.google.com/

http://judgepedia.org/index.php/Main_Page

https://pcl.uscourts.gov/search

http://www.coordinatedlegal.com/SecretaryOfState.html

http://www.hoovers.com/

http://www.uscourts.gov/court_locator.aspx

Even in the information age, we still have to accept the fact that not everything is online and freely available to us with a few clicks of a mouse.  A reference librarian or clerk’s office can often be very helpful in finding information.  Don’t be afraid to ask the seemingly stupid question.