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Legal research, case law, and citations, explained
Plain-English guides to finding and researching case law, reading and checking citations, understanding stare decisis and precedent, confirming a case is still good law, and avoiding AI hallucinated cases.
Vincent AI vs Legora Pricing: Seat Minimums, Real Costs and Which Firms Can Buy Each
Neither vendor publishes a price, but the reported figures and the seat minimums tell you most of what you need. At five lawyers one of these is not for sale to you; at fifteen they are close, and the decision becomes about the job.
Read articlePaxton AI Review: Is a $499 Seat Worth It for a Small Firm?
Paxton is the most expensive published seat in legal AI, and the price is built around medical chronologies rather than research. Where that math works, where it is a large overpay, and why the annual plan is half the monthly one.
Read articleVincent AI vs CoCounsel: Pricing, Accuracy Benchmarks and Which to Buy
Both products sat for the Vals Legal AI Report, the only independent benchmark either has entered. CoCounsel won every head to head row, but the headline averages cover different task sets, and neither vendor publishes a price you can read.
Read articleVincent AI Review: Pricing, Corpus and Who Should Buy It
vLex publishes no price for Vincent AI, so most reviews stop at the feature list. The same engine sells inside Clio Work at a reported 199 dollars per user per month, standalone since April 2026. A strong research tool with a real coverage advantage and a real citator gap.
Read articleClio Work Review: Is $199 a Month Worth It for a Small Firm?
Clio Work is reported at 199 dollars per user per month, and since April 2026 a solo can buy a single seat. It earns out if you draft as much as you research. It is poor value if your job is finding the on-point case, because you are funding a whole workspace to use its search box.
Read articleClearbrief Alternatives for Small Law Firms
Clearbrief publishes 300 dollars per user per month, or 3,600 a year per lawyer. Before you sign or walk away, split the job in two: finding authority you do not have, and proving what is already on the page. Clearbrief only does the second, and the cheapest honest answer to the second is often a citator you already pay for.
Read articleLegora Alternatives for Small Law Firms
Legora publishes no price and third parties report a ten seat minimum, so a firm under ten lawyers cannot buy it at any budget. Here are the four alternatives that will sell you a single seat, what each one publishes, and how to pick by the task that eats your week.
Read articleBest Legal Research Free Trial for Solo Attorneys and Small Firms
Start the two week midpage trial and a seven day Westlaw Advantage trial together, and run the same five questions from your own matters through both. The order to do it in, what a subscription actually costs a small firm after the trial, and the one test most people skip.
Read articleBest Google Scholar Alternatives for Case Law Research
People leave Google Scholar over the citator, not the coverage. This sorts the alternatives by which specific limitation is biting: no way to check a case is good law, state law before 1950, missing state trial courts, or search that needs boolean syntax. With the vendors' own published prices.
Read articleCorpus Juris Secundum Cost: CJS and Am Jur 2d Pricing for Solo and Small Firms
Thomson Reuters renders its store prices client-side, so almost nothing written about these two sets carries a figure. We rendered both pages and read them off: what the complete C.J.S. and Am Jur 2d sets cost, why the monthly plan works out $45,327 more than buying outright, and what a small firm should do instead.
Read articlePractical Law Pricing: Trial Terms, Quote Levers and Whether Your Westlaw Plan Already Covers It
We read the Practical Law plans-and-pricing page in all four segment variants and none of them carries a dollar figure. Here are the negotiation levers Thomson Reuters did put in writing, the trial cap almost nobody mentions, and why no Westlaw tier includes Practical Law.
Read articleWestlaw Advantage with CoCounsel Essentials: Pricing and Who Should Buy the Bundle
Thomson Reuters sells Westlaw Advantage and Westlaw Advantage with CoCounsel Essentials on identical commercial terms with one difference: only one of them publishes a price. Here is what the bundle adds, how to make a rep quote the delta, and the 10-attorney rule that stops most people buying at the published rate.
Read articleWestlaw Classic vs Westlaw Edge: Pricing and Whether the Upgrade Is Worth Buying
Thomson Reuters now redirects the Westlaw Classic product page into the Edge page, so you cannot read what the cheaper tier includes before a sales call. Here is what you give up, what the step actually costs, and the three cases where it pays for itself.
Read articleLex Machina vs Trellis: Legal Analytics Pricing, Coverage and Which to Buy
These two are not really rivals: one covers the federal civil docket by quote, the other covers state trial courts at a published rate, single state and metered. The half of the court system your practice lives in decides it.
Read articleHarvey AI vs CoCounsel: Pricing, Free Trial and Which Legal AI to Buy
We requested both vendors' pricing URLs and both return 404s. Reported per-seat figures for Harvey disagree by more than four times. Here is what is actually published, including the CoCounsel multi-year discounts nobody quotes.
Read articleVincent AI Pricing and Cost: The Number vLex Will Not Publish
We requested the vendor pricing URLs ourselves and they return 404s. Here is what is actually knowable about Vincent AI cost, why the bar association benefit does not include it, and the published rates to anchor a quote against.
Read articleBest Casetext Replacement in 2026: What Former Subscribers Switched To
Casetext was three products in one login: a free archive, CARA, and SmartCite. Work out which one you actually used every week and the decision takes five minutes. Honest pricing, including where we lose.
Read articleAI Legal Assistant: What a Legal AI Assistant and an AI Paralegal Actually Do
The phrase became a category without ever getting a definition. Here is what these tools genuinely complete today, which tasks they fail at, and the five questions that separate a real product from positioning.
Read articlevLex Fastcase: What Your Bar Association Benefit Includes
Most US lawyers get this free through their bar, and most assume Vincent AI comes with it. It usually does not. What the benefit actually includes, and how to check yours.
Read articleHarvey AI Review: Is Harvey AI Worth It, and What It Costs
Harvey publishes no rate, no trial and no signup, so the only route in is a sales call. Here is what that means for a firm your size, and how to evaluate a tool you cannot test.
Read articleLexisNexis Free Trial: 2 Days on Protege vs 7 Days on Westlaw
Two days is the shortest published trial in legal research, against seven on Westlaw and fourteen on Bloomberg Law. Here is how to spend it, and what to confirm in writing before the clock starts.
Read articleAI for Small Law Firms: What to Buy First and What to Skip
Most AI advice for law firms is written for a two hundred lawyer firm with a procurement process. Here is the version for a firm where the managing partner also runs payroll.
Read articleCan Lawyers Use AI for Legal Research? Yes, With Conditions
No US jurisdiction bans AI legal research. What courts punish is a citation that reached a filing without anyone opening the case, and the 2026 record shows exactly what that costs.
Read articleWestlaw Free Trial: 7 Days, No Credit Card, What You Get
Thomson Reuters gives you seven days and takes no payment details. That is long enough to make a good decision only if you know what you are testing before the clock starts.
Read articleTrial Court vs Appellate Court: What Each One Decides
A trial court decides what happened. An appellate court decides whether the law was applied correctly, on the record that already exists. That split determines what you can cite and which research tool you need.
Read articleVincent AI vs Lexis+ AI: Which Legal Research AI to Buy
Neither vendor publishes a per-seat rate, so the feature grids are close to useless. What actually separates them is trial length, citator depth, and whether your bar already pays for one of them.
Read articleLexis Protégé vs CoCounsel: Which Legal AI Should You Buy?
On features these two have converged almost completely. What still separates them is which library the AI reasons over, which citator you retrain on, and which quote you can sanity check.
Read articleCoCounsel vs Westlaw: Is CoCounsel Included in Westlaw?
Thomson Reuters sells a tier that puts Westlaw inside CoCounsel and another that puts CoCounsel inside Westlaw. Which is which, what each costs, and how to tell which one you actually need.
Read articleWestlaw Advantage vs Westlaw Edge: Which Tier Should You Buy?
Thomson Reuters now sells three Westlaw research tiers, and the gap between them is agentic AI, not case law. What each one adds, what the published rates are, and how to pick.
Read articleIs Westlaw Worth It for a Small Firm? An Honest Breakdown
At a published 256 to 400 dollars a seat, Westlaw is a real line item. When it earns that, when it does not, and the unbundled stack that does the same two jobs for less.
Read articleHow to Look Up Federal Court Cases: A Practical Guide
Federal opinions are free if you know where to look. A working guide to govinfo, CourtListener, and PACER, what each covers, what PACER costs, and when to pay for more.
Read articleIs LexisNexis Worth It for a Solo Attorney? An Honest Breakdown
A full LexisNexis contract is often more platform than a solo needs. When Lexis is genuinely worth it, when it is not, and the unbundled stack that does the same two jobs for far less.
Read articleLexisNexis vs Fastcase: Which Legal Research Tool for a Small Firm?
One is a quote-only incumbent, the other is free to many lawyers through their bar. How LexisNexis and Fastcase compare on coverage, citators, and cost, and the stack most small firms should actually run.
Read articleKeyCite vs Shepard's: Which Citator Catches More Bad Law?
The two main US citators disagree with each other more than most researchers expect. What each signal actually means, what the independent accuracy study found, and what to use if you cannot afford either one.
Read articleBloomberg Law Pricing: What a Subscription Costs and What Is Included
The figure every directory repeats for Bloomberg Law traces to a 2010 bar bulletin. Here is where it came from, why the all-inclusive structure matters more than the headline rate, and which practices actually come out ahead on it.
Read articleHarvey AI Pricing: What a Seat Costs and Who Can Actually Buy It
Harvey does not publish a rate, so every figure in circulation is a third-party report. What buyers have disclosed, why the reported range spans a factor of ten, and why the product is probably not available to a small firm at all.
Read articleWhat Is Westlaw Edge? Westlaw AI Features, Pricing, and Alternatives
Westlaw Edge added KeyCite Overruling Risk and Litigation Analytics in 2018, and its generative work now lives in Westlaw Precision and CoCounsel. What each does, the reported pricing, and who should look at a self-serve alternative instead.
Read articleHow to Find Appellate Court Decisions: Free and Paid Ways to Search
Where to find published appellate opinions for free, how to search the thirteen federal circuits, the published-versus-unpublished rule that decides what you can cite, and how to confirm a decision is still good law.
Read articleLegal Research Subscription: What It Costs and What You Actually Need to Pay For
Most US lawyers already have a free research library through their bar and never activate it. What each tier really costs, the contract terms that bite at renewal, and the one question that decides whether you need to pay at all.
Read articleAI Legal Research Tools: What Works, What They Cost, and What Gets You Sanctioned
AI finds the on-point case from a plain-English question and still invents citations when it is not grounded. Which tools do which job, what each actually costs, and the verification workflow that keeps you out of a sanctions order.
Read articleHow to Switch From Casetext: The 2026 Migration Guide
Casetext retired on April 1, 2025. How to split the two jobs it did, check the free citator your bar may already include, pick a self-serve replacement, and move what you can.
Read articleHow Much Does CoCounsel Cost? CoCounsel Pricing for Solos and Small Firms
CoCounsel has no published price. What Thomson Reuters actually discloses, why the Westlaw bundle doubles your real cost, the reported per-seat ranges, and how to negotiate the quote.
Read articleLexisNexis Cost Per Month: LexisNexis Pricing for Solos and Small Firms
LexisNexis is quote-only, so every figure online is an estimate. The reported small-firm ranges, what the AI add-on does to your bill, and how to negotiate against a Westlaw quote.
Read articleWestlaw Pricing: Westlaw Subscription Cost for Solos and Small Firms
What a Westlaw subscription actually costs in 2026, why the price is never published, the reported small-firm ranges, out-of-plan search charges, and the cheaper alternatives worth stacking.
Read articleCan ChatGPT Do Legal Research? What It Gets Right and Where It Fails
Why ChatGPT invents cases, how many lawyers have been sanctioned for filing them, what the tool is genuinely good at in legal work, and how to use AI research without getting sanctioned.
Read articleState vs Federal Case Law: Which One Governs Your Case
The difference between state and federal case law, which court binds yours, how the Erie doctrine makes federal judges apply state law, and when you can cite another state.
Read articleWhat Is Case Law? A Plain-English Guide for Non-Lawyers
What case law is, how published court opinions create binding rules, how it differs from statutes, and how to read and use a case in research.
Read articleWhat Is Stare Decisis? The Doctrine of Precedent Explained
What stare decisis means, why courts follow precedent, the difference between binding and persuasive authority, and when courts overrule earlier decisions.
Read articleHow to Cite a Case: Reading and Writing Legal Citations
How to cite a case in Bluebook form, how to read a case citation (volume, reporter, page, year), and how to add a pin cite so a reader lands on the exact point.
Read articleHow to Find Case Law: Free and Paid Ways to Find Cases
How to find case law by citation, by topic, and in plain English, using free sources like Google Scholar and CourtListener alongside paid research platforms.
Read articleHow to Research Case Law: A Step-by-Step Method
A repeatable method for researching case law: frame the issue, search, read the holding, expand to related authority, then verify it is still good law.
Read articleHow to Shepardize a Case: Checking If a Case Is Still Good Law
How to Shepardize a case with Shepard's on Lexis or KeyCite on Westlaw, how to read negative treatment signals, and confirm a case has not been overruled.
Read articleBinding vs Persuasive Precedent: How to Tell Them Apart
Binding vs persuasive precedent explained: which courts must follow which decisions, how jurisdiction and hierarchy decide authority, and how to weigh persuasive cases.
Read articleAI Hallucination in Legal Cases: What Happened and How to Avoid It
Why AI hallucinates legal cases, what the Mata v. Avianca sanctions and the Stanford study showed, and how to protect yourself by verifying every citation at its source.
Read articleWestlaw vs LexisNexis: An Honest Comparison for 2026
Westlaw vs LexisNexis compared on coverage, KeyCite vs Shepard's, pricing, and AI features, plus where an affordable plain-English alternative fits for solos and students.
Read articlePut it into practice
Ask your next legal question in plain English and get on-point precedents with summaries, holdings, and citations you can check. Transparent pricing, cancel anytime.