Trial Courts of New York (State & City)

Hard Copy at BLS Library

Prepared for Advanced Legal Research, Spring 1999 by

Vicki Szymczak, Electronic Information Specialist and Adjunct Professor of Law

Resource	Official?	Coverage	Blue Book	Shepards	Access
Misc Reports (Subin Rm., 3fl)	Yes	NYS and NYC Trial Courts 1892 B 1955	Misc.	New York Misc. Citations New York Supplement Citations	Decennial Digest Abbots New York Digest
Misc Reports 2d (Subin Rm., 3fl)	Yes	NYS and NYC Trial Courts 1956 B present	Misc. 2d	New York Misc. Citations New York Supplement Citations	Decennial Digest West New York Digest 3 & 4
New York Supp. (Subin Rm., 3fl)	No	NYS and NYC Trial Courts 5/1888 B 1/1938	N.Y.S.	New York Misc. Citations New York Supplement Citations	Decennial Digest Abbots New York Digest
New York Supp. 2d (Subin Rm., 3fl)	No	NYS and NYC Trial Courts 1938 to present	N.Y.S. 2d	New York Misc. Citations New York Supplement Citations	Decennial Digest West New York Digest 3 & 4

New York Law Journal (Circ Desk and Micro)	*	NYC Trial Courts and NYS Trial Courts 1888 B present	N.Y.L.J., [date of paper], at [page] ([court], [date of decision]	Not Applicable	**New York Law Digest Annotator (1937-present)
New York City Housing Reporter (Circ. Desk)	No.	NYC Housing Court 1983 B present (BLS only has from 1994, abstracts only)	N.Y. City Housing Ct. Rep.	Not Applicable	Internal Case Finder
Opinions of the NYS Attorney General 3 NY	Yes.	1940 B present	TBA	Not Applicable	Internal Index
Opinions of the NYS Comptroller 3 NY	Yes.	1980 B present	TBA	Not Applicable	Internal Index

Trial Courts of New York (State & City)

Online

Resource	Database ID	Coverage	Search Tips
Westlaw	NY-CS on software or at http://www.westlaw. com at State materials> New York> Cases	Supreme and Misc. Courts of Record including some city court reports. !888 B present (varies by court)	a) You can use the use the court field to isolate trial court decisions:co(low) This field restrictor will only separate the Court of Appeals from all courts under it. You will still get all Alower@ courts using this restrictor. b) Try limiting your search to the synopsis and digest fields: sy,di(asbest! and Aworkers compensation@ and expos!) c) Use topic and key numbers when possible and combine them with keywords to get a more precise result: 413k527 and asbest

Lexis	NY;MS2D on software or at http://www.lexis-nexis.com/lawschool In explore directory>states legal>New York>Courts>New York Supreme, Miscellaneous Cases, Family, County Courts	7/1882 (1 Misc.) to present. UPDATE: Within 24 hours of receipt from court.	Use segments to help limit your results. Two good segments when searching for topical materials are headnotes and syllabus: syllabus(asbest! and workers compensation)
New York Law Journal B Web Site	http://www .nylj.com	Prints decisions from all levels of court but is particularly noted for lower court decisions not published elsewhere. The web site version of this publication limits itself to 1) searchable database on the 4 appellate departments and 2) A weeks worth of decisions published in hard copy. Subscriptions to search other parts of their archive are not being accepted again until they have built a better database.

New York Law Journal - Westlaw	NYLJ on software or at http://www.westlaw. com at Legal News > Legal Newspapers > New York Law Journal	Prints decisions from all levels of court but is particularly noted for lower court decisions not published elsewhere 4/2/90 B present UPDATE:7 days after publication date.	a) To limit you search to the section of the periodical reporting cases, use the pr field: pr(court +3 decisions). b) Using the op field you can search only the opinions and case summaries in the paper: op(asbest! and expos!) c) Using the ci field, you can pull up everything printed on a single day: ci(5/4/98).
New York Law Journal on Lexis	NY;NYLJ or at http://lawschool.lexis-nexis.com/ In Explore>States Legal > New York > Secondary Sources > New York Law Journal	Prints decisions from all levels of court but is particularly noted for lower court decisions not published elsewhere. 9/1/89 to present UPDATE: within 9 days of publication.	a) Use the section segment to limit your search to the portion of the paper devoted to publishing decisions: section(court decisions)
Housing Court Decisions	http://tenant.net/Court/ Hcourt This is an unofficial site, but is maintained by two NYC tenant attorneys.	1996 to present UPDATE: Site is updated weekly, it is unclear how often the cases are updated.	Basic search engines that uses keywords. No boolean logic. Phrases must be exact (i.e., security deposit) After retrieving the months that have cases meeting your search term, use, open the months file, use the find command in your browser to identify the particular case containing your keyword(s).

New York State Court of Claims	http://www. nyscourtofclaims.state. ny.usThis government web site provides abstracts of cases only, but, it is one of the few places you can find case information from this court.	UPDATE: Unclear but the last update to the cases was done in December, 1997. Jurisdiction includes cases brought against the state and the MTA.	By date only. No search capability.
Opinions of the Attorney General	http://www.oag.state.ny.us/lawyers/opinions/ opinion.html	1995 B 1998 UPDATE: Not available. AG opinions are issued in response to requests by State agency officials and local government attorneys.	Access to cases is through the use of indexes. There are 2 indexes. The statutory index provides access to opinions focusing on specific statutes for their conclusion. The subject index identified opinions through subjects.
State Comptroller=s Office B Legal Opinions	http://www.osc.state.ny.us/divisions/press_office/legal.htm	1995 B present These are decisions from the Comptroller=s Office which is typically concerned with monetary matters and the budget.	There is no search mechanism at this web site.