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April 2006Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Casemaker**But Were Afraid to Askby Barbara J. Konior The WSBA recently contracted to make available Casemaker, an online research database that WSBA members can access 24 hours a day, seven days a week with no additional fees. Casemaker provides members with access to: • Washington's Case Law and Statutes
How do I sign on? To use Casemaker, go to www.wsba.org and click on the Casemaker logo in the right-hand column. Once on the Casemaker homepage, check out the links on the right-hand column. You'll find the "Casemaker News" link, which provides you with information and current news. You'll also find links for a PowerPoint Tutorial, Quick Reference Guide, User Guide, and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). All of these links will assist you in learning how to access the materials available in Casemaker. After reviewing the various links, use your browser to click back or click on the "Casemaker Login" link. Now you are ready to sign on to Casemaker. To sign on, you need your WSBA number and password. Password information was mailed to every WSBA member several months ago. If you did not receive a letter or misplaced it, simply e-mail casemaker@wsba.org or call the WSBA Service Center at 800-945-WSBA (9722) or 206-443-WSBA (9722) for password information. Once you sign in, you can change your password to something you can easily remember by clicking the "Change Password" button. Click the Casemaker button to enter the Library Contents page. What data is included? For those who are new to online legal research, picture yourself looking at a map with different rooms for each of the different libraries. If you want to do legal research involving Washington law, you would simply go into the room where the Washington library books are shelved, find the volume you are looking for, pull the book off the shelf, and look at the case. In Casemaker, you go into the room by clicking on the words "Washington Library." A screen appears that provides you with the books (datasets) available in this library. Each manila-colored bar represents the individual dataset under each heading provided from Case Law down through the Administrative Code. Before moving forward, it is useful to know what is contained within each library. A Current Content link is provided at the bottom of each library page. There is no sense looking for a 1994 9th Circuit opinion when the federal library database has opinions from 1995 (partial) and beyond. Click on the "Current Content" link on the Washington database page. The left-hand column provides the basis of the dataset and the right-hand column the currency of the data. Please note: unpublished cases are not included in the Washington library. How do I search for a case? Returning to the previous screen with the itemized contents of the Washington library, each manila bar provides a link to the data contained within. There are options to either search or browse the data. Only the search option is available for Washington case law. When you click the search button, the screen displays a light-blue tabbed box. The blue tab is for a basic search. Adjacent to this tab is an advanced search tab. To maneuver between the searches, just click the appropriate tab. If you just have search terms, use the basic search space. The page provides you with basic search information and a link for additional search logic information. The advanced search box provides fields for citation, case name, word proximity, date, and word-form searches in addition to a space for search terms. Citations are entered in the Citation field in the following formats: 54 Wash. 34 A space is required between the volume and abbreviations for Washington (Wash. and Wn.) and another before the page number of the case. A space is also required between the abbreviations for Washington (Wn.) and Appellate (App.), but not between the abbreviations for Washington (Wn.) and Second (2d). Case names may also be entered in the Citation field by clicking the small circle above the field adjacent to the words "Case Name." Enter case names by using one or both parties' last names. Spelling is critical. Casemaker searches only for exact matches. The abbreviation for versus (v.) must be omitted; a space between the names is all that is necessary. Docket Number and Syllabus are two other fields available. If you have only the Slip Opinion Number available, insert it in the Docket No. field. If you are unsuccessful, try using only the first five numbers of the docket number. For example, if 55097-7-I does not pull up the case, it is likely that Casemaker will find it only if you enter 55097. Once you have entered either the case names or the citation, click on the Search button at the bottom of the box. The next screen is your Search Results. If you do not have the case name or the citation, but know the year the case was decided and some key points of law discussed in the case, enter your search terms in the Full Document Search Query field and enter the beginning and end dates for the time of the decision in the Date Decided fields. For example, if you want to find a DUI case decided in 2005, enter DUI in the Full Document Search Query field and enter the dates 01/01/2005 and 12/31/2005 in the appropriate Date Decided fields. Search terms within the Full Document Search Query field should be entered using the Basic Search Logic provided, but your search may also be enhanced by using the Word Forms and Proximity fields. The Word Forms field provides prefix, suffix, and any word forms (thesaurus too) for your search terms. A word of caution though: using the "any word forms (thesaurus too)" selection is likely to produce a tremendously broad result. Using the tilde (~) before the individual search term for the thesaurus expansion and using the asterisk (*) before or after the root word for prefix and suffix expansion might provide a better result. Once you have entered the search criteria, you have the option of having the search results provided by rank, date-descending, or date-ascending order. Rank is determined by a computer algorithm that calculates the frequency of your search terms in the case. Date descending is the default. Next, click on the Search button at the bottom of the box. The next screen that appears is your Search Results. Each result listed provides the citation in blue. Click the citation and you will open the full text of the case. If you used search terms, they are in bold red print. Buttons are provided at the top of each case that allow you to move from result to result and from hit to hit. What is Casecheck? On the right-hand side of the screen, a column entitled Casecheck appears. Casecheck automatically provides links to any case that has subsequently cited the case you have chosen. Casecheck links are provided with the most recent case at the top of the list and any additional cases in chronological order. If you click on a Casecheck case link, Casemaker takes you directly to the section within the later decision where your original case is cited. By using Casecheck, you can determine if the decision in your original case cited was followed, modified, revised, or overruled. How do I print information from the library? To print a copy of the case you need without your search terms in bold red print, press the Casemaker "print doc" button at the top of the page. A print-ready version of the case appears. Next, use your browser to send the print-ready version to the printer. It is also possible to cut and paste information from a case into a separate Word document if you need only a section of a case or statute. If you are in a dataset and a case is cited within a case, a link is provided to the cited case if that case is available in the library. The Revised Code of Washington is not currently linked to the Washington Case Law library. How do I find a Washington statute? Open the Washington library page and click either the search or browse button on the manila bar for labeled Statutes & Session Laws. If you know the RCW title and chapter, you can simply use the browse button and click through until you find the statute you want. If you do not know where the statute might be regarding a particular topic, click on the Search button. Basic and advanced search options are provided, and the search logic and syntax are similar to the case law search criteria. Although the statutes are not annotated on Casemaker, there is a way to locate cases that cite the RCW you are looking for. If you have the statute citation you want to find cases for, click on the Search button on the manila bar for case law. Then type in the full RCW, such as "RCW 26.16.010," in the Full Document Search Query field. (Use quotations to eliminate Casemaker highlighting RCW and each of the numbers listed separately in a case.) The search results are all of the cases that cite RCW 26.16.010. In this example, more than 50 results are displayed. To reduce the number of cases to review (for example, if you are interested only in gifts that were given to the husband), click on the Revise Search button, then on the Advanced Search tab, and Casemaker still displays "RCW 26.16.010." Add a space and "gift*" so that your search would be: "RCW 26.16.010" gift* In this example, the results are lowered to 23 matching documents containing both the RCW cite and the word "gift" or "gifts." By going back and adding the word "money" to your search, the results are lowered to 10 matching documents that meet your search criteria. Is it possible to search several state libraries simultaneously? You can simultaneously search the current year's consortium state Supreme Court decisions. There is also a searchable National Ethics Opinions database. If you are in any library and want to return to the Casemaker Consortium Library Contents page, click on the Casemaker logo. The link labeled Nationwide Collections provides access to the Combined State Supreme Court decisions and the Combined National Ethics Opinions. Is there a federal database? Casemaker also provides a federal library with U.S. Supreme Court cases dating back to 1935 and a dataset of Circuit Court opinions. (Again, check the current contents page until you become familiar with the dataset. You may be searching for a case that is not available in Casemaker.) Should you cancel your contract with other legal database vendors? The WSBA is not suggesting that you cancel your contract with paid legal-database vendors. Casemaker's Washington case law is a work in progress. The database has been up and running for only a few months, and the WSBA is working diligently with the vendor to provide you with the most reliable information. We are working on correcting errors and an internal pagination problem. Knowing this, Casemaker can still be used as a first step in your legal research. It is quick; available 24 hours a day, seven days a week; and, best of all, there are no additional costs to WSBA members! Barbara J. Konior is currently a WSBA seminar development specialist. Prior to joining the CLE department, she worked as the Casemaker coordinator. She is a graduate of the Seattle University School of Law and worked for several years in the areas of real estate and corporate law and general civil litigation.
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