After you have run a keyword search, use Fastcase to find the case cited most often in other cases containing your search terms.  Follow these steps to speed up your research:

1. Go to the “Advanced Caselaw Search” page. Enter your search terms.  For example: search and car

2. Next, move to the bottom of the Advanced Caselaw Search page. Under “Authority Check,” check the box next to “Show Number of Citations in Search Results.”

3. Click “Search.”

4. On the Results page, under “Authority Check,” click on “These Results.” This will resort your search results according to how often each case has been cited in other cases containing your search terms.

5. Now, the first case in the list is the case most frequently cited in other cases discussing your issue.

Questions?

Call us at 1-866-773-2782 (7AM-7PM Central Mon-Fri) or e-mail support@fastcase.com.

Next time you find yourself with a list of cases you need to print, try using Fastcase to pull and print them as one document.  Here’s how:

1.  From your homepage, click “Advanced Caselaw Search.”  Then, click the circle next to “Citation Lookup.”

2. Enter citations for up to 20 cases you’d like to print – separating the citations with commas.  Click “Search.”

3. Click the small printer with a “plus sign” to the left of each result; each “plus sign” will become a “minus sign” – this means that the cases are now in your print queue.

4. Open the Fastcase “Print” dropdown menu.  Click “View Print Queue” and to see a list of all the cases to be printed.

5. Select a preferred format for printing: Microsoft Word, Adobe Acrobat PDF, and Rich Text Form are available.

6. Click Print/Save and your computer will ask if you want to open the document.  Click “Open” or “OK.”  Your cases will open as one document with page breaks between cases.  Print as you would print any other document.

Questions?

Call 1-866-773-2782 (7AM-7PM Central) or email: support@fastcase.com.

Did you know that you can print up to 20 cases at a time?

1. Add documents to your print queue. Add documents to your print queue one of two ways.

From the results page: Each case on your results list has a Print Queue icon to the left of the screen. The Print Queue icon looks like a printer with a plus sign on it. Click on the Print Queue icon to add a case to your queue. When the case has been added, the plus sign on the icon will turn into a minus sign.

While browsing a case: Click on the Add to My Print Queue link at the top right of the screen.

2. Review your queue. To review your print queue, select View Print Queue from the Print menu. To remove the case from your print queue, click on the icon again.

3. Print. Once you have made your formatting selections, click the Print/Save button.  The cases listed on your print queue will begin downloading as a single document on your computer. Open the file using the appropriate program (e.g. MS Word, Adobe Acrobat, Word Perfect) and then print the document by selecting Print from the File menu.

Questions?

Call us at 1-866-773-2782 (7AM-7PM Central Mon-Fri) or e-mail support@fastcase.com.

Use Fastcase to create your own personal library of up to 10 favorite cases with just one click.  Once you have added cases to your library, you can access them easily anytime without searching.

• To add a case to your library, just click on the link labeled Add to My Favorites at the top right hand side of the screen.

• To access the cases in your library, just select Go To Favorite Documents from the My Library menu.

Bonus:  Did you know that Fastcase automatically saves the last 10 cases you have accessed automatically in your library?  To access this personalized case history, simply select Go to Recent Documents from the My Library menu.

Questions?

Call us at 1-866-773-2782 (7AM-7PM Central Mon-Fri) or e-mail support@fastcase.com.

E-mail a case

You asked for it and Fastcase delivered. In response to popular demand by our users, we recently rolled out our e-mail feature which allows you to e-mail a case to yourself or to your colleagues or clients. Just follow these simple steps:

1. When you are browsing a case, simply click on the Email Beta! link towards the upper right hand side of the page.

2. This will bring you to the E-mail Document Window.  Here you can enter in the recipient’s e-mail address. The e-mail address you used to register with Fastcase will always be filled-in by default, but you can click in the Send E-mail To: box and change the e-mail address to anything you like.

3. Click on the Send Email button. That’s it! The case you selected will be delivered shortly. The e-mail is will be addressed from support@fastcase.com and the case text will be in the body of the e-mail.

Tip: To ensure that Fastcase e-mails are not caught by your junk e-mail or spam filters, add support@fastcase.com to your list of trusted senders.

Live Chat

At Fastcase, our mission is to help you work smarter, not harder. Our live customer support is an important part of this mission and Live Chat is one of the best ways to take advantage of this service.

It works just like an instant-messaging program and allows you to get personalized help while multi-tasking at the same time. What’s more, Fastcase customer support associates can even send you links to search results, cases, and more via Live Chat making it one of the most efficient ways to get assistance.

To access Live Chat, just select Live Help from the Help menu at the top of the screen. A Live Chat window will open on your screen. Here you can type-in your question and wait for a Fastcase customer support associate will respond.

Live Chat is available from 8 a.m to 8 p.m Central time Monday through Friday.

Questions?

Call us at 1-866-773-2782 (7AM-7PM Central Mon-Fri) or e-mail support@fastcase.com.

Fastcase helps you search smarter by allowing you to jump to the most relevant paragraph in a case with one click.  When browsing a case, just press the M key.  Alternatively, you can click on the Jump to the most relevant paragraph link at the top of the screen.  You will automatically be directed to the paragraph of the case that is most relevant to your search terms.  Use this feature to move through your search results more efficiently and focus on the cases that are important to you.

Note: This feature is currently only enabled when using Internet Explorer.  It is not enabled in other browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome or Apple Safari at this time.

Questions?

Call us at 1-866-773-2782 (7AM-7PM Central Mon-Fri) or e-mail support@fastcase.com.

When you are getting started on a new research project, it is usually a good idea to start with a broad search query and then narrow your query until you get an acceptable number of results. Use these tips to make sure you are not inadvertently excluding decisions that address your topic.

1. Use synonyms. Try including common synonyms for the keywords in your query.  For example, if one of your search terms is car, include automobile and vehicle in your search as well.

Instead of: “fourth amendment” & car

Try: “fourth amendment” & car or “fourth amendment” & vehicle or “fourth amendment” & automobile

1. Use the wildcard operator.  By truncating a search term down to the root of the word and adding an asterisk at the end, your search with automatically pick-up multiple forms of the word including plurals. For example, a search for contract* will pick-up all of the following terms:

Contractor, contracting, contracts, contracting, contracted, etc.

1. Avoid quotation marks. Rather than putting a phrase in quotation marks, try constructing a query using keywords in the phrase connected with the within operator.  This will reduce the chances that you are excluding cases that use slightly different words.

Instead of: breach of contract

Try: breach w/3 contract because this picks up phrases like breached its contract, breach of the contract, etc.

Questions?

Call us at (866) 773-2782 (7 a.m.-7 p.m. Central Mon-Fri) or e-mail support@fastcase.com.

You may already know that Fastcase automatically tracks your last 10 searches.  But have you ever wished that you could access even older searches?  How about naming your searches and organizing them in folders by topic?  You can easily accomplish all of these tasks using your web browser.

1. While on the Results screen, press Control + D.   (Mac users, use Apple + D instead).  This will cause a small window to appear on your screen.

• In IE: “Add a Favorite.”
• In Firefox: “Page Bookmarked.”
• In Chrome: “Bookmark.”

2. The window will prompt you to name your bookmark.  Name your bookmark according to your search topic, e.g., “Miranda Fifth Amendmen

3. Next, follow the prompts in the bookmark window to create a new bookmark folder for your search.  (Hint: Try creating folders for particular clients or briefs, e.g., “Merits Brief” or “Smith Arbitration.”)

4. To return to your bookmarked search results later, find the bookmark folder you created using your browser.  When you click on the bookmark, your search results will automatically reappear.

(Hint: Make sure you are logged in to Fastcase before accessing your bookmarks).

Questions?

Call us at 1-866-773-2782 (7AM-7PM Central Mon-Fri) or e-mail support@fastcase.com.