Docket Alarm helps attorneys like you find the legal information you need, faster. Only with more knowledge about cases and lawsuits can you analyze outcomes for a true competitive advantage for your practice.

Our Founder and Managing Director Michael Sander is delivering search tips to help you optimize your search even more using Docket Alarm. Here’s some helpful info about how to search for a case by its subject matter using the tool.

Search Tip: Find a case of a particular type even when there is no good case type field

Sometimes you want to search for a case by its subject matter, but there is no good case "type" or "nature of suit" field that captures this. Examples of specific subjects may include, Legal Malpractice, Trade Secret, and other lawsuits based on a specific statute. Normally, you would search with the

type

or

nos

field, but in these cases, there isn't enough detail in the case type field to really help you find what you're looking for. Enter the

documenttext

search field. This field will find dockets that have documents that mention a particular word. So for example searching

documenttext:("legal malpractice")

will find all dockets that have documents that mention this phrase. This is a decently good way to find cases that have issues that are only mentioned in underlying documents.

You can also combine the two forms of searching. So, if you wanted to really cover all your bases with legal malpractice, for example, you would search for:

documenttext:("legal malpractice") or type:(legal w/2 malpractice)