In what is certain to be a noisy development, Google has quietly added state and federal case law and patent searching to its Google Scholar search service. Also included is the How Cited citator service.
The Google Scholar welcome screen presents three new radio buttons allowing you to search either Articles, Articles and Patents or Legal Opinions and Journals. Bizarrely for Google, you have to choose and can’t search all at once. Go to Google Scholar Advanced Search (and scroll to the bottom) to further limit case law searching.
See ResourceShelf and Internet for Lawyers for a more in-depth look at this new service.