You cannot use its search engine or follow any link without being online. It is more akin to a phonebook in which you look up the address for a library than it is to the library itself. Judge for yourself. Several times a day, it goes out and searches all the free sites on the Internet where courts post their opinions. It then matches those opinions to each subscriber's preferences and delivers what amounts to an electronic advance sheet.
Subscribers select from a menu of jurisdictions and practice areas.
The service includes opinions from all federal and all but a handful of state appellate courts. Each day, it notifies you of new cases that fit your selections. For each case, Oliver's tells the area of law, case name, appellate court, and major issues. To obtain the full text, click on a link and you are taken to the opinion at the site where it was posted. This requires special software, called BackWeb, which Oliver's provides free.