Promising a comprehensive legal research tool at an affordable price, a new legal research site, eLaw, launched yesterday.  Although the service provides access to case law and statutes for all 50 states, it is available only to attorneys in New York and New Jersey.

My guess is that the geographic limitation is because eLaw uses the Casemaker database. Casemaker is marketed primarily as a member benefit for state and local bar associations. That means a lawyer can subscribe to it only through a bar association affinity program.

As it happens, the two states in which eLaw is offering access to Casemaker are two states whose bars do not. New Jersey offers its members Fastcase and New York offers Loislaw. Thus, eLaw provides lawyers in those states a “back door” into Casemaker.

I have not tried eLaw yet. Subscriptions start at $25 a month, according to the site. Subscriptions can be bundled with eLaw’s other products, Dates & Dockets, a docket-monitoring and e-filing service for New York and New Jersey, and Bench & Bar, an online version of Lawyers Diary and Manual.

eLaw includes federal and state cases, as well as statutes, court rules, attorney general opinions, state administrative rules and select municipal codes.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.