Casetext Announces New Features

Casetext recently announced several new features designed to make finding cases more efficient. Casetext is a free resource that anyone can use. Law students who will be working this summer in positions where they will have limited access to Westlaw or Lexis Advance may find this website especially useful.

On Casetext, users can read the full text of cases, including cases from the U.S. Supreme Court, federal circuit courts, federal district courts, state supreme courts, and state appellate courts. These cases are annotated by attorneys and other members of the legal community. Casetext is a particularly helpful tool to use during the early stages of research when searching for relevant cases. 

One of the new features recently introduced is Summaries from Subsequent Cases. This feature provides brief excerpts from subsequent court cases that summarize the case you are currently reading, which will save you time by helping you quickly determine whether a case is relevant. 

Another helpful new feature is Key Passages, which identifies passages of the case that have been quoted by other cases or articles. This feature can help you determine what portions of the case you should consider paying particular attention to while reading it. 

You can read more about all of the new features, including those mentioned above in this blog post, here.

If you would like to learn more about other free or cost-effective legal resources like Casetext, please see our previous blog post on Alternative Legal Research Databases and the Gallagher Guide about Low-Cost Legal Research Services on the Web.