ROSS Legal Research for Google Chrome™

Ever read legal information online and wonder, “is this supported by case law”? Now, you can find out at the click of a button. For free.

Today, we released a free browser extension that makes it simple to find case law support for text found anywhere on the web. Simply highlight text, right click, and find decisions that express the concept you’ve searched.

We run your language through our Find Similar Language tool, which uses semantic search to find relevant judicial opinions.

You can also use the browser extension to verify the currency of legal information. Want to know if a holding from a case is still good law? Highlight, right click, and see if it has been overturned using the ROSS citator.

Not only does this tool provide better context for quotations from case law; it also enhances blog posts, journal articles, book chapters, emails, legislation, and PDFs you open in your browser.

Why we’re doing this

At ROSS, we believe that everyone should have free access to the law — in theory and in practice. 

With more and more valuable legal information available on the internet, American lawyers and others are more easily (and cheaply) able to conduct legal research to inform themselves, to practice law, and to advocate for others. This is a great thing for our democracy.

But — and get ready for something of an understatement — not all information on the internet is accurate or up to date. This is a problem.

Our solution: the ROSS browser extension allows you to connect any text on the internet to up-to-date American case law. You can read cases that discuss the concepts you’re interested in. You can find out if a legal holding that is law in Michigan holds true in New York. You can see if the cases you’re reading have been overturned or criticized. For free.

After you add the extension to Chrome and have tried it out, let us know if you find the extension useful or if you’ve found other ways of using it in your workflow. Our R&D team would love to hear from you.

While you’re here, below we have compiled a few of our favourite no- and low-cost secondary sources and directories. Read them, use them, and see how the ROSS Chrome extension can enhance them.

Directories of journals

1. Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/)
2. Directory of Open Access Journals (https://doaj.org/)
3. SSRN, including the Legal Scholarship Network (https://www.ssrn.com/index.cfm/en/lsn/)
4. Law Review Commons (https://lawreviewcommons.com/)

Collections of textbooks

1. https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/law
2. https://www.cali.org/the-elangdell-bookstore

Legal Dictionaries

1. Wex from the Legal Information Institute (https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.html)