Web Voyager
From our Newspapers
Web Voyager
By Ellen Highland Fernandez
Webmaster@cpubco.com
Learning the Law from the Web
Do you want to know your legal rights or are you looking for a
lawyer? Where to you turn? To the World Wide Web of course! This
column will list some places where you can go to get more
informed. These sites will not replace a lawyer, but will help
you to understand the law better and be able to converse with
your lawyer on a more scholarly level.
The web has tons of law related sites. If you have a specific
interest area, you might want to start with
Yahoo's Law Search.
Another good starting point is the search engine
"Law Crawler".
FindLaw
is a comprehensive law library. It includes Law Reviews, World
Wide Sites with Legal Information, US Government Sites, U.S.
Constitution, U.S. Code, and Supreme Court Opinions. It also
includes Foreign & International Resources
Country Pages, International Law, and International Trade.
FindLaw's Supreme Court Opinions consists of a searchable
database of Supreme Court decisions since 1893.
For a good overview of the law, check out Cornell Law School's
Law Topics . It
contains a discussion of the law, including recent decisions. The
18 primary categories include Law of Commercial Transactions,
Intellectual Property, Taxation, Constitutional Law, Individual
Rights, Family Law, Employment Law, Accident and Injury
Compensation and Prevention, and Criminal Law and Criminal
Procedure.
The Internet Legal Resource Guide is a
categorized index of 3,100 select web sites in 238 nations,
islands, and territories, as well as locally stored web pages and
other files. It emphasizes the United States. It includes all law
reviews & journals on the web and links to law research tools.
Another resource guide is The World Wide Web Virtual Library Law
Index
"LawRunner: A Legal Research Tool"
offers advanced query templates to facilitate usage of complex
query parameters.
Legal forms to print out can be found at The Electronic Legal
Source . The forms maintained at this
site are divided into the categories of Litigation and
Transactional Forms.
The Electronic Legal Source also includes a Law Dictionary where
you can look up definitions to law terminology.
If you are looking for a lawyer or want to check the credentials
of a lawyer, go to the Martindale Hubbel Attorney Search
where you can locate a
lawyer, other legal personnel, or a law firm by name. You can
also locate a lawyer by area of practice, location, or language.
I did a search, by name, of a local lawyer and received the
following information about him. I got the name and contact
information for his law firm, his position, his areas of
practice, case information, bar admission date, education, date
of birth, and other tidbits.
When you have exhausted your search and are ready for some legal
relaxation go to Outrageous Lawsuits
. The site includes links to
"Lawyer Jokes" and "Dumbest Things Ever Said In Court".
Regional Law
For a collection of local government Codes of Ordinances from
around the United States go to
www.municode.com/database.html. West Virginia, however is
not currently included.
For those specifically interested in West Virginia, here are some
sites which will interest you.
The West Virginia State constitution is at
www.harbornet.com/rights/w-virgin.txt. A daily summary of
state laws passed by the West Virginian State legislature is
posted at www.wvlc.wvnet.edu/legisinfo/sum.html. State
Supreme court opinions are found at
/www.state.wv.us/wvsca/Opinions.htm. Tax forms are online
at www.state.wv.us/wvsca/Opinions.htm. The state's main
page can be found at www.state.wv.us/.
As you voyage down the cyber-path, you are encouraged to send me your ideas for topics you would like to see discussed and to share your favorite links. Send correspondence to me at:
e-mail: Webmaster@cpubco.com, via post: Web Voyager, Ellen H. Fernandez, PO Box 2000,
Clarksburg, WV 26302, or through our web site. Phone: 626-1466.
EDITOR'S NOTE Ellen Highland Fernandez is the Webmaster for Clarksburg
Publishing Company's site and her column appears on the first and third Sundays every month in
the Sunday Exponent-Telegram
Clarksburg Publishing Company, P.O. Box 2000, Clarksburg, WV 26302 USA
Copyright © Clarksburg Publishing Company 1997