Distinguishing Features
Dockets
Bloomberg Law gives you access to an impressive number of court dockets. You can choose to search dockets from a particular court under the Select Sources menu in the main search box, or in the Litigation Intelligence Center under the Browse menu.
Company Profiles
Prior to venturing into the legal research realm, Bloomberg was known for its news and business resources. These features are included within Bloomberg Law, giving you access to very detailed company and people profiles to enrich your legal research.
Practice Centers
Bloomberg Law has Practice Centers for Antitrust, Banking & Finance, Bankruptcy, Corporate, E-Discovery, Environmental & Safety, Health, Labor & Employment, Patents & Trade Secrets, Privacy & Data Security, Securities, Tax, Tech & Telecom, and Trademarks & Copyright. These Practice Centers bring together information from across the Bloomberg Law platform to facilitate research in these specific areas. Features of the Practice Centers include specialized searches and lists of pertinent laws and regulations, opinions and dockets, books, treatises, law reports, and more.
Search Bar
The search bar is the main searching format for Bloomberg Law. As you type in your search, the search bar creates a list of search suggestions for you. Based on your search terms, it will also list the most cited court opinions, and will suggest companies and people related to your search as well. You also of course have the option of finishing your search string in the search bar and clicking <GO>.
Choose the Select Sources drop-down menu to narrow your search. This will give you the option to select sources by content type or jurisdiction.
A note on search results: Although most databases return search results in relevance order, some search results in Bloomberg Law appear in reverse chronological order, meaning that the top hits are not necessarily those most relevant to the search you performed.
Browse
From the Browse menu on the left side of the screen, you have the option to search:
- All Legal Content
- Practice Centers (resources by topic)
- Litigation Intelligence Center (court opinions, dockets, judicial analytics, etc.)
- Laws & Regulations
- Secondary Sources
- Practitioner Tools
- Corporate & Transactional (EDGAR, SEC, and other information)
- News
- Business Intelligence Center (templates and tools for businesses)
The search or browse options that appears when you select each option under the Browse menu will vary. Sometimes you will get an expandable tree of resources to browse, for example types of regulations under Laws & Regulations. In other instances, such as Litigation Intelligence Center, you will be directed to a page of relevant materials to search or browse.