Casemaker® — Free Online Legal Research System Coming Soon to All WSBA Members

by Ron Ward, WSBA President 
 
I'm absolutely thrilled that as part of the Board of Governors' commitment to enhance member benefits, the WSBA will provide a new free benefit to all members this year — Casemaker.

Casemaker is an online legal research system providing access to state and federal materials. Launched by the Ohio State Bar Association in 1999, the system is marketed only to bar associations. There are currently 20 member state bar associations, including our neighbors Oregon and Idaho. Other members are Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Vermont. Michigan case law is also available to all lawyers who are members of Casemaker Consortium states. Each member bar shares its library with all the other member bars. We believe Casemaker will fill or usefully supplement the research demands of many members.

We anticipate that Casemaker will be available to all WSBA members (including judicial, honorary, and inactive members) this May. We're eager to bring it to WSBA members as soon as possible, but time is needed for Casemaker to create the Washington database, and for the WSBA to develop an online application that will enable members to access Casemaker quickly and easily through the WSBA website. Casemaker will be in a password-protected section of the website, although WSBA members will be permitted to give their paralegals access to Casemaker using members' user IDs and passwords.

Through Casemaker, members will have searchable access to all Washington case law and statutes, the case law and statutes (and in some instances other information) from the other state members of the Casemaker Consortium, U.S. Supreme Court cases from 1935, 9th Circuit cases from 1990, limited coverage of other federal circuit and district court cases, and the U.S. Code. Content may expand over time, as additional states join the consortium, additional federal materials are offered, and/or specialty databases are added.

A task force under the leadership of Chair Charlie Wiggins worked diligently to thoroughly examine and evaluate the various systems that the WSBA might offer members at no or low cost. The task force recommended, and the Board of Governors approved, Casemaker based on its ability to provide basic, searchable, hyperlinked Washington state materials, access to federal materials and information from other states, and a basic cite-checking system, at a reasonable cost to the Bar. In addition to Charlie Wiggins, Governor Katie O'Sullivan; attorneys Gail Gorud, Deborah Kelly, and Robert Rembert; and WSBA staff attorney Doug Ende served on the task force. I certainly appreciate their service, and I'm sure that many WSBA members will thank them for years to come.

For additional information, including the list of materials planned to be included in the Washington state Casemaker library, please see the WSBA website (www.wsba.org), or call the WSBA Service Center at 800-945-WSBA or 206-443-WSBA.

Casemaker is a registered trademark of Lawriter.