I hope that this was an enlightening discussion.
One take away should be that how you formulate that the search really matters.
Another take away should be that even if you find some cases that are in the in the ball park, you need to keep searching – that is to say, to re rework you search query – and see what other cases are out there for you to discover.
You might also consider browsing the Headnotes of one or more of the best cases you found and see if any of the Headnotes deal with your issue. If so, consider doing a Topic and Key Number search to find more good cases.
And, of course, you can KeyCite or Shepardize your findings to see if your case(s) has been cited in other cases.
If you would like a quick review, here is a link to a Georgetown Tutorial on Finding Cases: Citations and Topics – http://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/case_law_tutorial/3
And, a note, about the tutorial. For demonstration purposes, the natural language search and the terms and connectors and expanders search found the same case. That is not necessarily going to happen every time!
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And, one more item. I want to mention PACER – Public Access to Court Electronic Records – https://pacer.uscourts.gov/
“The Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) service provides electronic public access to federal court records. PACER provides the public with instantaneous access to more than 1 billion documents filed at all federal courts.” From the website.
You can find in PACER federal docket information and the filed documents in most cases. It is not entirely free. The website has been recently redesigned. Here is a link to Bob Amborgi’s post.
