Plain English, compiled into a query you can audit
Most research tools ask you to translate your case into their syntax before they'll help. CaseSearch takes the sentence and does the translation itself — mapping the facts onto the governing statute, the controlling keywords, and a semantic reading of the conduct at issue.
Then it shows you the result. You can read the query, correct it, tighten it, or throw it out and write your own. The plain-English input is a starting point, not a black box.
Boolean when you want it — never when you don't
Open the filter builder and the compiled query becomes editable structure: a semantic clause, grouped conditions on statute, keyword, court, date and legal issue, matched with AND or OR, with any condition invertible to EXCLUDE. Free-text Boolean sits alongside it for the searches you already know how to write.
Filters can be copied, pasted, and saved, so a query you got right once is a query you can run again.
The terms that actually appear in your results
Underneath every result set is the pool of terms drawn from the cases themselves — statutes, legal issues, courts, parties and places — each carrying the number of cases it would leave you with. Drag one into a filter group to narrow. You are choosing from what is there, not guessing at what might be.
Procedural posture on the face of the list
A result list of citations tells you nothing about whether a case is worth an hour. Every CaseSearch result carries its procedural history as a sequence — what was filed, what was decided, and how it came out — alongside the court, the date, and whether the opinion was published.
You can tell which cases matter before you open any of them.
Read the holding before you read the opinion
Open a case and the disposition, posture, judge and parties are stated at the top. Below them, the opinion is broken into the parts you were going to look for anyway: the issues and how each was resolved, a timeline of the underlying events, the facts and evidence relied on, and the authorities cited.
A pro se plaintiff sued his former employer and a vendor for alleged antitrust violations and racketeering stemming from a dispute over patent rights. The Second Amended Complaint alleged Sherman Act §1 violations, §2 monopolization, RICO violations, and declaratory relief. The court held the employee agreement was not a conspiracy, no unreasonable restraint of trade was pleaded, and no antitrust injury, monopoly power, or RICO predicate acts were shown — finding further amendment futile.
The original opinion is always one tab away
Summaries are for triage. When the language matters — and in a memo to your board or a letter to opposing counsel, it always does — the signed opinion is there in full, page for page, ready to read, download or print. Nothing you rely on is something you have to take on faith.
Research that survives the session
Research lists
Group the cases you're keeping, attach your own note to each one — why it's relevant, which holding controls, how it applies — and come back to a set that still makes sense in three weeks.
Saved searches, sharing, export
Save a query and rerun it as new opinions land. Share a search or a list with co-counsel. Export any list to PDF when the research needs to leave the platform and land in a memo.
Five million federal opinions, 1800 to present
Supreme Court, courts of appeals, district and specialized federal courts — searchable by statute, court, date, party, place and legal issue. Built around the questions in-house teams actually get asked: