One of the most difficult tasks I find in scoping or transcribing is looking up case cites. Does anyone have suggestions on a good, comprehensive Web site to validate these?
Settelmeyer vs. Charns, Rennick v. Motors or Dowen v. Russ (all phonetic) are the ones I am searching for on this job, but the question is in general.
I always search Google, using the plus sign between names. And then if I have any context clues that might go along with the case that could identify it, I'll put another plus sign and one of those key words to see if I can narrow it down.
I did a transcript for a new contract regarding Medicare. I've not done any medical-type litigation before, so I was sweating bullets. I was able to get one case name figured out, and then most of the other ones were cited in the same literature. Obviously lawyers do that a lot, so once you can find one case, the others seem to be easier to track down.
As a legal assistant for a large law firm I did a lot of looking up case cites. West Law would be too expensive for you to get (but won't hurt to check the cost). There is another one, but I can't think of the name, and it is fairly cheap. They are tax deductible.
If you have a law library near you, all is accessible to you for free - you just have to know how to use them. If I can find the name of the one cheap case law website I will let you all know.
There is Martindale-Hubbell which looks like it is part of LexisNexis. I've been told about West Law, and it also was mentioned as expensive. I will check it out though. You never know what they might say.
I was hoping there was a site that I have overlooked in my Googling.