CanLII vs Fastcase

CanLII is a nonprofit service offering free online access to Canadian judicial decisions and legislative documents. Its collections include court judgments, decisions from many federal and provincial administrative tribunals, consolidated statutes and regulations, and annual statutes across Canadian jurisdictions. Search supports full text, title, citation and note-up queries, with filters, facets and sorting. RefLex links cited decisions and legislation available on CanLII. The Commentary collection includes secondary legal materials such as books, journals, articles and reports, while CanLII Connects hosts community case commentary and summaries. Registered myCanLII users can save and organize research in folders and set alerts. Search+ accepts natural-language research questions and returns results with contextual extracts and relevance indicators; it requires a free myCanLII account and has a daily usage limit. CanLII serves legal professionals and the general public. Its terms prohibit systematic downloading of published documents, including through crawlers, plug-ins, extensions and connectors. CanLII says personal information is kept in a secure computer environment with restricted access and that it strives to store it in Canada. Search+ queries and interactions are stored locally in the browser for history and are not retained in CanLII's systems.

Fastcase is an online legal research system providing access to cases, statutes, regulations, court rules, and bar publications. Its research tools include the Interactive Timeline and Authority Check, while Bad Law Bot uses citation analysis to flag negative treatment when it recognizes it. Fastcase says its libraries are updated daily, with most appellate cases added 24 to 48 hours after release by a court. Free mobile applications provide access to the research database, and more than 80 national, state, and county bar associations offer the service as a free member benefit. The pricing page lists a free option and a daylong premium trial with unlimited printing. Appellate costs $65 a month; Premium costs $95 a month. A Clio integration lets attorneys track research time with Clio's timer and save research entries to matters. The service lists coverage across federal courts, all 50 states, and the District of Columbia, and describes solutions for small and solo firms as well as larger organizations.