In some instances, these sites also provide access to decisions of intermediate appellate courts, but in several states those opinions are available at separate sites. Any published list of Internet sites dates quickly, but several Internet resources for finding state court opinions are updated regularly. The advantage of this approach is that the unlinked entries clearly indicate when opinions from a particular court are not available. The Internet court sites are most valuable as sources for obtaining the text of specific recent opinions known by name, date, or docket number. Searching for court opinions by subject, either from an individual state or through a multistate search engine such as Washburn's, may lead to a few relevant cases that can be used as beginning points in research, but it is no substitute for more comprehensive coverage in print or in online commercial databases.
Coverage varies significantly from state to state.
As competitors, however, both systems make sure that they keep up with each other's improvements in a particular market. Both systems provide several means of access to state case law. One can search a particular state's courts or access a database combining those decisions with cases from the federal courts in the state. These more comprehensive databases may contain cases in which the federal courts apply or interpret state law, but they also include every Supreme Court case and every case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the state. In most instances, it is probably best to limit research at first to state court cases.