On point
For your work
Legal Research Tools for Solo Attorneys Who Bill Their Own Hours
For the solo who is the associate, the partner, and the librarian: plain-English research with cited authorities and holdings, priced for one.
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In one paragraph
Legal research tools for solo attorneys give a one-lawyer practice the case law and statute research that used to require an expensive Westlaw or Lexis seat. Casesearch lets a solo ask a question in plain English and get cited precedents with plain-language holdings and a still-good-law signal, self-serve from 39 dollars per month at launch, so research does not eat your margin.
Last updated July 2026
CASESEARCH · RESEARCH
Federal + state
|
Try:
Reading opinions
Finding the authorities that answer your question...
Controlling statute
The controlling statute is surfaced alongside the case law so you read the code and the precedents together.
Plain-English answer
Research memo
- Question
- Short answer
- Authorities
Casesearch shows you the sources. Always read the full opinion and verify citations before you rely on them.
$39/mo
Solo plan at launch, no annual contract and no sales call. Not on sale yet, waitlist open.
$499/mo
What Paxton AI lists for a single seat as of July 2026, for comparison.
Free via many bars
Fastcase or vLex comes bundled with a lot of state bar memberships. Check yours first.
Rule 1.1 cmt. 8
The ABA technology-competence comment most states have now adopted.
Why it fits
Solo practitioners who handle their own research and cannot spread a big research bill across a firm.
Built for one
A 39 dollar per month solo plan instead of a sales-gated enterprise contract.
Less time per question
Plain-English search means you reach on-point authority without the Boolean syntax.
Trust your own brief
A good-law signal and visible sources let a solo verify every citation before filing.
See it live
Run a real question yourself
Pick an example or type your own. The console runs the same way the product does, no signup needed.
CASESEARCH · RESEARCH
Federal + state
|
Try:
Reading opinions
Finding the authorities that answer your question...
On point
Controlling statute
The controlling statute is surfaced alongside the case law so you read the code and the precedents together.
Plain-English answer
Research memo
- Question
- Short answer
- Authorities
Casesearch shows you the sources. Always read the full opinion and verify citations before you rely on them.
Check your state bar before you buy anything
A lot of solos pay for research they already have. Many state bar associations include Fastcase or vLex with membership, and the benefit is easy to miss because it lives on a member-benefits page nobody reads. Before you sign up for any research tool, log into your bar account and look. If the bundled tier covers your practice area and jurisdiction, that may be the whole answer.
Where the bundled benefit tends to fall short is depth of the citator and the search experience itself. Bar-provided tiers are frequently the entry version of the product, and the signal that tells you whether a case is still good law is exactly the feature vendors reserve for paid tiers. If you are relying on a free tier, know which of those two things you are missing and build your verification habit around the gap.
The honest framing: we would rather you use the benefit you already paid for and add a second tool for the plain-English search than pay twice for overlapping coverage. If you want the fuller cost picture across the market, we broke it down in how much legal research software costs.
Do you need Westlaw to practice law as a solo?
No, and the number of solos practicing well without it is the proof. Court opinions are public records. What an enterprise platform sells is coverage, editorial enhancement like headnotes and key numbers, and a mature citator, plus secondary sources like treatises that genuinely matter in some practices and not at all in others.
The question worth asking is which of those you actually use. A solo doing landlord-tenant, family, or criminal defense work in one state needs complete coverage of that state, a reliable good-law check, and speed. A solo doing complex commercial litigation across jurisdictions, or one who leans on treatises and practice guides, gets more value from the big platforms and should probably keep one.
Where solos get burned is the middle ground: paying enterprise prices out of habit while using maybe a fifth of the platform. We went through this in detail in do you need Westlaw to practice law, and the per-seat math sits on legal research software pricing.
Keep the big platform if
You need treatises, national coverage, or a deep citator every week.
Drop to self-serve if
You work one or two states and mostly need on-point cases you can verify.
The verification duty is yours alone
A solo has no associate double-checking the brief and no library committee vetting the tools. That makes the competence question sharper, not softer. The ABA added Comment 8 to Model Rule 1.1 in 2012, framing technology competence as part of the general duty of competence, and most states have since adopted some version of it. The duty is not to use AI or to avoid it. It is to understand the benefits and risks of the tools you do use.
In practice that means one habit: never file a citation you have not opened and read. The sanctions cases that made the news all share the same structure, a plausible-looking citation that nobody pulled up. Mata v. Avianca, Inc., 678 F. Supp. 3d 443 (S.D.N.Y. 2023) is the canonical one, where Judge P. Kevin Castel imposed a 5,000 dollar Rule 11 sanction on June 22, 2023 after six fabricated cases reached a federal filing.
This is why we show sources on every result rather than generating a confident paragraph. A tool that hands you a citation and a link to the opinion lets you discharge the duty in seconds. A tool that hands you prose does not. There is more on the failure mode in can you trust AI for legal research and avoiding AI hallucinated citations.
A research workflow that fits between client calls
Solo research rarely gets a clean block of time. It happens in the forty minutes before a hearing or after the last call of the day, which argues for a workflow you can pick up and put down without losing your place.
Start by writing the question as a sentence, not as keywords. "Can a landlord in Virginia keep the security deposit for ordinary wear and tear" is a better starting query than a string of connectors, and it forces you to state the jurisdiction and the actual issue up front. Run it, skim the returned holdings, and pick the two or three cases that are genuinely on point rather than opening fifteen tabs.
Then read those opinions properly, check the good-law signal on each, and note the pin cites while the case is still open. That last step is the one solos skip and then repeat an hour of work to recover. Our legal research tips for solo lawyers goes further into the habits that survive a busy docket.
Side by side
What a solo actually pays for legal research
Prices verified July 2026 from each vendor's public pricing page where one exists. Enterprise platforms quote per seat and negotiate, so treat those as ranges rather than list prices.
| Option | Typical solo cost | What you get | Catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| State bar benefit (Fastcase or vLex) | Included with bar dues in many states | Primary law, citation signals, decent coverage | Varies by state, and the bundled tier is not always the full product |
| Casesearch | $39 per month at launch, not yet on sale | Plain-English search, cited holdings, good-law signal | Research only, not a practice management system |
| Westlaw or Lexis solo plans | Roughly $1,500 to $3,000 per year per seat | The deepest coverage and the strongest citators | Sales-gated, usually an annual contract, priced per seat |
| Paxton AI | $499 per user per month, or $2,999 per year | AI drafting plus research across federal and 50-state law | The monthly rate is steep for one lawyer, so the annual plan is the real price |
| CourtListener and Google Scholar | Free | Large opinion archives and federal dockets via RECAP | No commercial-grade citator, so verification is on you |
Vendor pricing moves. We re-verify these figures periodically and date the page when we do. Check the vendor before you buy.
Frequently asked
Questions about legal research tools for solo attorneys
Do you need Westlaw to practice law?
No. Court opinions are public and no rule requires a specific research vendor. Westlaw and Lexis sell depth of coverage, editorial headnotes, strong citators, and treatises. A solo working one or two states can usually meet the same duty with complete state coverage, a good-law signal, and careful verification.
What is the cheapest legal research tool for a solo attorney?
Free options like CourtListener and Google Scholar cost nothing but lack a commercial citator. Many state bars include Fastcase or vLex with dues, which is the best value if your bar offers it. Among paid self-serve tools, launch prices start around 39 dollars per month, against roughly 1,368 to 5,184 dollars per year for a published enterprise seat.
Is free legal research good enough for a solo practice?
For finding cases, often yes. For confirming a case is still good law, usually not. Free databases carry opinions but rarely a full citator, so you are checking subsequent history by hand. That is workable for a light research load and risky under deadline pressure.
Can I use AI for legal research as a solo attorney?
Yes, if the tool shows its sources and you read them. The ethics problem is not AI, it is filing citations nobody verified. Use tools that return real cases with citations and links to the opinions, then open every case you plan to cite before it goes in a brief.
How much should a solo attorney spend on legal research?
Most solos land between zero and about 1,200 dollars a year. Check your bar benefit first, since it may cover the base need. Beyond that, spend based on research volume: a practice that researches weekly justifies a paid tool, while one that researches twice a year may not.
Does my state bar include free legal research?
Many do. A large number of state bar associations bundle Fastcase or vLex with membership dues. Coverage and tier vary by state, and the bundled version is often the entry product without the full citator, so confirm what your specific bar provides before relying on it.
Keep reading
Legal research software for small law firms
When you add a second and third lawyer.
Legal research software for paralegals
For the support staff doing the first pass.
Legal research software pricing
What every major platform actually costs.
Do you need Westlaw to practice law?
The long-form answer to the question above.
Legal research tips for solo lawyers
Habits that survive a busy solo docket.
Can you trust AI for legal research?
Where AI helps and where it invents things.
How much does Westlaw cost?
Verified pricing and what drives it.
Case law search
The core search, in plain English.
Explore more
Case law search
Court opinions search
Statute search
Precedent finder
Small law firms
Paralegals
Litigation teams
Law students
In-house counsel
Casesearch is a legal research tool, not legal advice. Always read the full opinion and verify citations before relying on them.
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Ask your next question in plain English
Get the cases, citations, and holdings that answer it in seconds. You read the opinion and verify. A research tool, not legal advice.