Ohio Legal Research

This is a compilation of Ohio legal research resources.

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Ohio Law

Ohio Supreme Court

The Ohio Supreme Court has many great resources for lawyers, including the ability to search Ohio Supreme Court and Ohio Appellate Court decisions and announcement.

Here is the Court's schedule for oral argument.

Ohio Courts of Appeal

The Ohio Supreme Court maintains a list of Appellate Court Websites. (http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/District_Courts/default.asp). All appellate court decisions are also available on the Ohio Supreme Court's website.

Ohio Trial Courts

Many trial courts also have websites. The Ohio Supreme Court keeps a fairly comprehensive list. http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/Web_Sites/courts/default.asp.

The Ohio Clerk of Courts Association (http://www.occaohio.com/) also has a clickable map (http://www.occaohio.com/map.htm) which makes a nice starting point for finding Ohio courts on the internet.

Likewise the Ohio Association of Municipal Court Clerks (http://www.oamcc.com/) provides a page of links (http://www.oamcc.com/links.htm).

Ohio Statutes, Codes, Ohio Session Laws, and Rules of Court

At Anderson's, Ohio Revised Code and Ohio Administrative Code: (http://onlinedocs.andersonpublishing.com/)

At Ohio Supreme Court, Rules of Civil Procedure, Rules of Appellate Procedure, Rules of Evidence, and others: (http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/Rules/)

Local Rules of Common Pleas Courts: (http://www.columbuslawlib.org/links.asp?cmd=OtherCounties)

Legislative Service Commission, follow up on the status of pending legislation: (http://www.lsc.state.oh.us/)

Ohio City Ordinances at http://clelaw.lib.oh.us/Public/Misc/Muni_Ct.html#Ord or directly to the Columbus, Ohio City Code at (http://ordlink.com/codes/columbus/index.htm)

Ohio Departments, Agencies, and Local Governments

The State of Ohio Front Page (http://www.state.oh.us/) provides access to all branches of state government and many state agencies. Especially useful are:

Directory of Agency Websites (http://www.state.oh.us/ohio/agency.htm).

Directory of professionals licensing information (https://license.ohio.gov/), including physicians at the Ohio Medical Board (http://www.state.oh.us/med/).

Corporate registration information at the Secretary of State's office (http://www.state.oh.us/sos/). Hint: Look under Inquires for Business at the Secretary of State main page.

Insurance company principal place of business and agent information at the Ohio Department of Insurance (http://www.ins.state.oh.us/).

Ohio Attorney General decisions from 1994 to present: (http://www.ag.state.oh.us/opinions/agopinio.htm)

Columbus Libraries

Ohio Supreme Court Law Library Catalog

Capital Law School Library Catalog

Ohio State University (including the College of Law)

Columbus Metropolitan Library

Franklin County Law Library


State Law Outside Ohio

State Courts on the Internet

At Findlaw.com, links to state courts, statutes and government resources.

Court Rules

The Law Library Resources Exchange, has a nice, comprehensive list of State and Federal Court Rules.

State Statutes, Constitutions, Legislation and City Codes

The unsung Scruffy maintains my favorite list of full-text state statutes and legislation.

State Secretaries of State

The roster of the National Association of Secretaries of State, links to Secretary of State Web sites for all 50 states.

County Government

The National Association of Counties (NACO) provides a clickable map leading to county websites anywhere in the country.


Federal Law

U.S. Code

At U.S. House of Representatives Internet Law Library, search the entire United States Code

Code of Federal Regulations

At National Archieves, search the entire Code of Federal Regulations

United States Supreme Court

Find Law, keeps all U.S. Supreme Court cases since 1893.

At The Oyez Project, listen to recordings of oral arguments before the United States Supreme Court in historically cases. This site is rich with other U.S. Supreme Court information as well.

Federal District and Circuit Courts

Federal Court filings are generally available from PACER. PACER is a fee based system which requires registration for a password. More information is available at the PACER service center.
Each court participating in PACER will have its own login address. Additionally, there is a national Party/Case Index.

Find Law has links to all Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal.

Find Law has links to Federal District Courts.

At Justia.com you will find US Court of Appeals Cases and Opinions.

Federal Court Rules

The Legal Information Institute at Cornell provides:
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
The Federal Rules of Evidence
The Rules of the U.S. Supreme Court

Federal Agencies and Departments

USA.gov is the official comprehensive government index.

At Tax Sites, a comprehensive index of tax and accounting resources.


Legal Mega Sites

All well known, comprehensive, legal "catalog" sites with thousands of links to articles, legislation, case law, government information, and legal information of all kinds.

Legal Meta Searches

Lawguru.com: (http://www.lawguru.com/research.html). Comprehensive collection of legal search engines. It is possible to search on over 500 such engines from this site.

Findlaw: (http://www.findlaw.com/). Comprehensive index of legal resources on the Web.

Law Crawler: (http://www.lawcrawler.com/index.html). Legal search data base.

University Law Review Project: (http://www.lawreview.org/). Allows full text search of legal journals on the Internet.


Investigation

Black Book Online: (http://www.crimetime.com/online.htm)

An amazing national collection of resources for finding information. Some of my favorites are:

Real Estate Information

Tax information about real estate is becoming widely available nationwide. See ((http://homepage.mac.com/researchventures/index.html))

In Ohio, many county auditors make real estate information available on the Web. (The County Auditors Associaion of Ohio (http://www.caao.org/) has a directory which is handy for locating Web addresses of Ohio Auditors.)

Finding Lawyers

Martindale-Hubbel: (http://lawyers.martindale.com). Search by name, by firm name, or by area of practice, or location..

Finding People

WhoWhere: (http://www.whowhere.com/): Find addresses, businesses, e-mail addresses (the usual)

InfoSpace: (http://www.infospace.com): The usual plus reverse lookup (find a person with a phone number).

Finding Businesses

Big Book: (http://www.bigbook.com/): Great Yellow Pages Directory

Medical Research

At Medscape: (http://medscape.com/). Excellent site devoted to medicine. Access to "the good stuff" requires a username and password which may be obtained free of charge. The "library" section is particularly useful. Search Medline for free! Also search Toxline, Drug Search (which provides information similar to the PDR), and a medical dictionary.

At National Library of Medicine, Pub Med: (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/). Free, fast Medlinesearch.


Legal Associations

Columbus Bar Association

The Columbus Bar Association website has information about attorney referral program, some legal links, the electronic version of its publication, Columbus Bar Lawyers Quarterly, and the CBA Directory of central Ohio lawyers.

Central Ohio Association for Justice

Website of the Central Ohio Association for Justice.

Ohio Association for Justice

The Ohio Association for Justice website serves as a clearing house of information for its members.

Ohio State Bar Association

The Ohio State Bar Association has a very good membership directory of Ohio lawyers and OSBA publications in searchable format. Members also have free access to CaseMaker, an electronic library with reported and unreported case law, verdict reporter, 6th Circuit decisions, Ohio Jury Instructions, and much more.

American Arbitration Association

The American Arbitration Association has rules and forms available.

American Association for Justice

The American Association for Justice has available some public information; however, only AAJ members can access most of this site. It is now possible to word search the AAJ site, including the major AAJ publications.

Uniform Law Commission

The Uniform Law Commission drafts uniform state laws such as the UCC. The University of Pennsylvania also makes some of the ULC work available on-line.


Internet and Technology

Web Site Searches

Dogpile: (http://www.dogpile.com): Simultaneously search Google, Yahoo, and Yandex at once.

News Group Searches

Google Groups: (http://groups.google.com/): Archive of news group discussions.

Software Searches

TUCOWS Internet Software: (http://www.tucows.com/). Get all the software you will ever need to navigate the Net.

Technology Help

ZDNet Computer Magazine: (http://www.zdnet.com/). Got a computer question? ZDNet reviews a wide range of computer hardware and software products.