. . . if you want to cite to judicial law, you must pay to access the Reporter’s opinions.
Sounds crazy, but it’s true.
As a law student I wasn’t aware of the problem. But it frequently holds me back, now that I’m building online information systems. E.g., say some text on oregonlaws.org contains a citation to an opinion, such as
PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606, 859 P2d 1143 (1993)
. . . one of the most important Oregon cases; and of course law, owned by all of us.
To make the website more valuable to my visitors, I want to grab the text of that opinion and display it. Or, failing that, I’d like to simply hyperlink to it, online.
But neither of these are possible. The unique identifiers we’re provided to this public law: “317 Or 606”, “859 P2d 1143” — point to resources accessible only behind a pay-wall. If you’re skeptical, try googling for “859 P2d 1143” or “317 Or 606“. Zilch.
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http://universalcitation.org
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Check out google scholar – which is a free search program. Just enter the citation in the search box and your case will come right up – and you don’t have to pay Lexis or Westlaw.
http://scholar.google.com/advanced_scholar_search
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Hi there,
I really like this site. I am not an attorney, but enjoy reading about cases.
Just clicked on your links above and I must be missing something becase I was able to find the opinions (I think!).
Anyway, great site!
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Came up second on Google. Also, you can always hyperlink to the COA/SCt opinions from 1998 forward, but you have to know the case and what year or volume in which the case was published.
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The Judicial Department maintains a database of cases. Unfortunately it starts at 1998, but here’s the main page:
http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/Publications/
At least it’s something!
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It came up first on Google. Of course, you can always get it through FastCase.
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