The State Bar Association of North Dakota Winter 2015 Gavel Magazine | Page 26

SBAND members get
access to Casemaker
as a part of their
bar membership.
However, maybe
you haven’t had the
chance to sit down
and discover how easy
to use and powerful
Casemaker really is.

You get access to all 50 state and federal
databases, not just North Dakota and the
Eighth circuit. You can search statutes,
rules, session laws, attorney general
opinions and more as well. For each
state and the federal government, you
will find cases, statutes, acts, court rules,
administrative codes, and much more.
There are over 25 million documents in
the Casemaker library. Casemaker data
is updated daily and always current. A
Colorado user said, “A month ago I left
a large firm where I used Westlaw. I am
impressed at how much horsepower
Casemaker has!”
How do you navigate all of this data?
The key feature of Casemaker is the
search bar. The search bar stays with you
at all times – no matter where you are
in Casemaker. Type your search query
in the search bar and Casemaker will
respond giving you what you need when
you need it. Rather than searching just
case law you can search all of Wyoming’s
databases using this search bar and the
jurisdiction menu. The jurisdiction menu
is accessed by clicking on the box located
between the blue search button and the
white search box. The box defaults to say
All States and has a downward pointing
blue arrow. Click on this and a pop up
window will appear allowing you to
select as many or as few jurisdictions as
you would like. Anything you type in
26

THE GAVEL

the search bar from this point will search
the jurisdictions you selected – and not
just case law - you will find results from
statutes and other materials as well.
The Search box is equipped with
auto correct capabilities for mistyped
citations. For example, if you enter the
citation 270ne2d46 in the search box,
it will recognize the lack of spacing,
punctuation, and capitalization in the
citation and correct it to 270 N.E.2d 436.
However, you must properly abbreviate
your reporters. Casemaker goes by Blue
Book citation guidelines for citation
abbreviations. If you are unsure how to
form your query, you can click on the
blue search tips link under the search
button to find a list of common operators
and examples to guide you in forming
your search.
If you are finding too many cases, you
can narrow your search at any time.
After clicking on View all Cases you
will notice on the left side of the screen
a variety of ways to further narrow your
search. For example, you can narrow by
state, court, date, and of course keyword.
Casemaker will automatically filter
your results after you have made your
selections.
Now you have found your case, and you
wonder if that case is still good law. There
are two ways to see if a case is good law.

One way is to view the case, then click
on the citing references tab at the top of
the case. The citing references tab lists
off all the cases that cited the case you
are looking at. From here you can read
the cases that cited the case in question
and make your own conclusions as to any
negative treatment. The other method
is Casecheck+, which is an add-on
product for Casemaker. Casecheck+
shows you instantly if a case is still good
law. Simply look for a green thumbs up
symbol if there is no subsequent negative
treatment or a red thumbs down symbol
is there is subsequent negative treatment.
Casecheck+ is also available for a small
monthly fee.
Perhaps you are looking at a statute and
wondering what, if any, cases have cited
it. Simply click on the Annotator tab.
The Annotator tab will show you a list of
cases which have mentioned the statute
you are viewing. What if you need to see
how the statute looked two years ago?
Then simply click on the Archive tab,
and you will see previous versions of the
statute.
Casemaker also provides you with
organizational tools that will help your
research go more smoothly. If you are
working for a specific client, the client
feature is a convenient way of keeping
track of the hours spent, searches made,
and documents viewed for that client.