Locating Legal Cases and Legal Case Weight

Finding Cases

Written opinions are often published in print and online forms. A print decision would be found published in chronological order in books called reporters. Online there are both free and fee-based websites and databases which also carry written decisions such as:

• Google Scholar


• The deciding court's website


• Westlaw or Lexis

Many cases are never published electronically, and even less are published in print.

Nearly all supreme court cases are published, but only a small percent of lower court opinions are published. Some states "hide" their trial court opinions, and very few trial court opinions are even online. Rare exceptions, like Florida, however, publish trial court decisions.( Read more... )