Reverse Deception: Organized Cyber Threat Counter-Exploitation (52 page)

FindLaw.com

FindLaw.com
(
www.findlaw.com
) is really two distinct websites: one site for nonlegal professionals seeking legal help and advice, and another site for legal professionals. For the purposes of legal research, use the professional site. The site is very well organized and provides access to popular federal resources, including the following:

Branches of the government (executive, judicial, and legislative)

Government agencies

Executive agencies

Independent agencies

Quasi-official agencies

Boards and commissions

Federal resources indexes

Federal laws, such as the US Constitution, US Code, Federal Register, and Code of Federal Regulations

US Courts of Appeals, including the Supreme Court, the first through eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeals, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals

FindLaw’s state resources cover all 50 states plus the US territories: American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Of course, you can also search case opinions by court or legal topic, such as “cyber law.”

FindLaw also offers guides to nongovernmental websites and public interest groups.

Justia.com

Justia.com
(
www.justia.com
) is a legal media and technology company focused on making legal information, resources, and services easy to find on the Internet. The site provides free case law, codes, regulations, legal articles, and legal blog databases, as well as community resources.

Justia.com
is unique for its use of Google technology to index the Supreme Court database and other legal content sections of the website. Anyone who is reasonably good at searching with Google will find
Justia.com
very comforting because their interfaces are virtually the same. The familiar user interface and search relevance have streamlined the user experience.

Justia.com
leverages Google’s reporting capabilities and tools to gain insight into what its legal research users are searching for and are interested in. This has enabled the site developers to build out sections of the website based on user activity.

The website is especially good at presenting various areas of the law that you might not otherwise consider when conducting research, such as international law (treaties) and the laws of other nations. It is also an excellent resource for locating blogs, other web forums, and social media with a legal focus.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar (
scholar.Google.com
) is a great resource if you are looking for background information to broaden your understanding or contextualize your reasoning. Google Scholar is very easy to use, and it performs very broad searches of scholarly literature to come up with answers. It also uses Google’s technology to deliver the most relevant choices first. You can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts, and court opinions from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities, and other websites.

Nolo.com

Nolo.com
(
www.nolo.com
) provides a wealth of information on how to find and understand the law. Most other websites presume you’re in the legal profession and already know what you are doing. So if you are completely new to legal research,
Nolo.com
is a smart place to begin. The site prides itself on communicating in plain English and providing great explanations of legal terms and concepts. The layout is also very clean and easy to navigate.

Nolo.com
also provides exceptionally clear guidance on how to do legal research. The fundamentals of legal research are constant; therefore, mastering (or at least understanding) the fundamentals is essential and should pay dividends in your collaboration with your lawyer.

Common Legal Terms

The following is a brief list of key terms you are likely to come across when conducting legal research on federal or state statutes (
www.nolo.com/legal-research
):

Annotated codes
   These incorporate state or federal statutes with summaries of cases that have interpreted the statutes. Annotated codes are typically available only in law libraries or on legal websites that charge a fee.

Bill
   When a statute is introduced before the Congress or state legislature, it is known as a bill. Once it is passed by both houses and the president or a state governor, it becomes a law. It is then published according to its bill number in a publication called Session Laws or State Statutes at Large.

Bill number
   In the interest of clarity, bills are referred to by an alphanumeric designation. The first two letters indicate the specific wing of the legislature that introduced the bill, such as HB (House Bill) or SB (Senate Bill). This designation is followed by a space and a number that identifies a particular bill, such as HB 1380.