Ohio Law - Free Websites & Sources

Some major sources for free case law include:

Map of Ohio Appellate Court districts.Ohio is a non-unified court system, similar to the federal court system. Appellate court decisions are only binding on Ohio state courts within the geographical area of the district.

If you are looking for commentary as to why a rule was changed:

To search more local cases, use the Record Search on the Summit County Clerk of Courts web site.  You can search by case type – civil, criminal or domestic relations. This site works well if you already have the case docket number or the names of your party.There is no subject or keyword search.

Go to the Akron Municipal Court web page and click on Records. You can search for civil, criminal, parking and traffic cases but you need the name of a party to search on the site.

If you have Lexis or Westlaw, you can set up alerts to get emails of new Ohio court cases from the Ohio Supreme Court, a particular district, or on a particular issue.  Also try:

What is an unreported case?

• An unreported case is a case not published in the official reporters
• The official reporters were – Ohio State Reports (Ohio St., Ohio St.2d, Ohio St.3d); Ohio App. Reports (Ohio App., Ohio App.2d, Ohio App.3d, Ohio Misc., Ohio MIsc2d). 
•  Effective July 1, 2012, the Supreme Court of Ohio designated the Supreme Court website as the Ohio Official Reports for opinions of the Courts of Appeals, and Court of Claims.  [See Rules for the Reporting of Opinions, Rule 3.2.]

Weight of unreported cases?

• Before 2002, unreported opinions merely persuasive, even if from same district
• Eff. May 2, 2002 – no distinction between reported vs. unreported.  “Weighted as deemed appropriate by the court.”, can cite as legal authority.

  See Rules for the Reporting of Opinions Rule 3.4.]

   

Ohio Supreme Court

In an effort to make the judicial system more accessible to the public, the Supreme Court of Ohio in early 2004 began using streaming video technology to broadcast all oral arguments and select Court programs and events live on the Internet. You can also access archive content as far back as March 2004.