The Legal Research Game: Fee or Free Edition

Choosing the most appropriate sources for your research need is a crucial part of of research strategy. Differentiating between free or fee-based electronic legal research sources is important for efficient and cost-effective research, as is recognizing when it is beneficial to use print legal research sources. This exercise assumes that the user has a basic knowledge of legal research sources and will focus on the decisions you may need to make when choosing among freely available websites, fee-based electronic databases, and print resources.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:

1. Identify research tasks best suited for electronic or print resources.
2. List several authoritative, free web-based legal research resources.
3. Explain how to evaluate the quality of free resources.
4. Discuss factors to consider in selecting the most cost-effective resource.