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Choose a Search Form

• Get the Case retrieves any federal or state court case by citation or party names.
• Federal Case Law includes decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, District Courts, and Courts of Appeals
• State Case Law includes supreme and appellate courts of each state.
• Area of Law by Topic allows searches to be limited to very broad subject categories. Most categories contain only federal cases.

At the Search Form

• type Keyword Terms
• select a court. For State Case Law, you may select "All Courts." For Federal Case Law, you must select a type of court from the list.
• change Date range. "All Available Dates" usually works best, although exact dates may be used.
• use the More Options tab to search by plaintiff, defendant, judge, etc.

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Examples of Searching Options

Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972)

• This case can be found in Federal Case Law (source is "Supreme Court")
• Citation search: 408 U.S. 238
• Party name: furman v. georgia (this search retrieves the decision and 8 other documents containing motions regarding the case)
• Full text search: furman w/2 georgia (this search retrieves the case and 135 other cases that cited Furman v. Georgia. By changing Date to 1972, the search can be narrowed down to 7 other cases)

 Batsakis v. Demotsis, 226 SW2d 673 (Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, 1949)

• Citation search: 226 S.W.2d 673
• Party name: batsakis v. demotsis
• Full text search: batsakis w/2 demotsis (this search retrieved both the 1949 case and a 1954 case that cited Batsakis v. Demotsis)