Some Legal Resources on the Web
Colorado Real Estate Journal, April 14, 2004
This article discusses some legal research tools and resources available on the internet, and describes some sites that real estate professionals might want to add to their collection of "favorites." Law-related sites on the web vary greatly in quality and utility, and some of the ones that look good don't actually work all that well. The links are bad, or the search tools are difficult. Like other internet resources, information may not be well substantiated or up to date. However, there is a wealth of law-related information that can be pulled out of the ether without leaving the office, which can either be a time saver or a time sink, depending on both the web site and the user. Among the things you can find are articles discussing legal topics, "hard" data such as tax information, statutes and court rules, forms, law review articles, and checklists.
Using the internet to form a basic understanding of an area of the law with which one is unfamiliar can be a great way to save time and money and to help organize thoughts and be better prepared to consult with an attorney and evaluate his or her suitability for the task. Using the internet (or the office supply store or library) as a substitute for competent legal counsel, or to "be your own lawyer" is a bad idea.
Law is a "primary profession" that cannot be duplicated or mimicked by someone who has not been to law school. This is not a self-serving or egotistical statement, it's just a fact. The other two primary professions are medicine and engineering. You wouldn't perform an appendectomy on your child if you weren't a doctor. You wouldn't design your own bridge without an engineering degree. And, no matter how smart you are or how sophisticated in business, you can't be your own lawyer if you aren't a lawyer. But you can be a more-informed consumer of legal services, and the Internet can help you get there.
First, in our own back yard, is the oldest bar association web site in the country, which debuted in 1995. The Colorado Bar Association web site, www.cobar.org, has a large amount of information available to non-members, including pamphlets on various legal topics, an excellent list of law-related web sites, frequently asked questions, an attorney directory, and links. One of the links is to the Colorado statutes and court rules. This site is provided by LexisNexis and permits word searches.
You might want to book mark one or two "meta sites" that serve as portals to other law-related information on the web. The largest one is "Hieros Gamos," which includes more than 50,000 links, 11,000+ automatic searches, 10 free self-listing databases, all the governments of the world (including audio access), business guides, on-line audio CLE, every organization remotely pertaining to law, 200 practice areas, discussion groups, journals, etc. etc. Virtually everything related to law is organized and accessible within three levels. The address is www.hg.org. Another very useful site is FindLaw, www.findlaw.com. This site is exceptionally well organized, with topics arranged into the following categories: Legal Subject Index, Law Schools, Law Reviews, Legal Publishers, Library Information, Legal Associations and Organizations, Continuing Legal Education, News and Reference Material, Statutes and Laws, Judicial Opinions and Case Law, U.S. Federal Government Resources, State Government Resources, International Resources, Consultants and Experts, Law Firms and Lawyers, Legal Forms, and Other General Indexes. It also has "LawCrawler," an intelligent agent based system for searching legal sites throughout the Internet. The LawCrawler allows visitors to search only sites that contain legal information, leading to better search results and time saved for legal researchers.
Legal forms can be downloaded from or viewed on the internet, sometimes without charge. Some sites have free basic forms and charge a fee for others. One such site is www.lectlaw.com/form. Either the free or "premium" forms can be a good starting point for thinking about what to put into a particular kind of legal document. Although they purport to be customized for particular states, it would not be advisable to rely heavily on that claim. In terms of time and money resources, getting forms this way is much more efficient than visiting a law library, or even having an old document scanned and reformatted. For actual copies of contracts that have been filed with the SEC or in court, check out The University of Missouri Contracting and Organizations Research library, at http://cori.missouri.edu, or go to the SEC website, EDGAR, http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml. The Colorado Real Estate Commission Approved forms can be accessed online at http://www.dora.state.co.us/real-estate/contracts/contrcts.htm. Some of them are marked as "writeable" but they have a tendency to change back if you make changes, and to cause a lot of frustration, unless you have Adobe software that you purchased, not just the reader.
Researching case law online is a little difficult to do without paying a fee, but there are ways to do it without subscribing to a research service. Westlaw offers a "pay as you go" plan to anyone with a credit card. That address is http://creditcard.westlaw.com/. The Colorado Supreme Court Library allows users to access a limited Westlaw database at no cost for up to 30 minutes a day. Lexis and more comprehensive Westlaw searches can be done for a fee that starts at $5 per minute. The most inexpensive subscription legal research service is VersusLaw, www.versulaw.com..
