Resources

By providing these links, I do not mean to suggest that you go out and research the law regarding your own case. That is your lawyer’s job and it is a little more complicated than it looks. More importantly, I am appalled at how much bad information is out there on the internet. If you do want to try to educate yourself further about how the law works, or how a case proceeds through the court system, and I do encourage that, the following links will provide good quality, accurate information.

Remember that each State makes many of its own decisions about the laws that apply to the cases within its borders, and that is very true of criminal law as well. There is a definite interrelationship between the law of any one State, the federal law from that jurisdiction and law from the United States Supreme Court, versus the law of other jurisdictions. Articles, blogs and chat rooms that presume to hold forth on the law generally are not really very helpful and may be quite misleading. With that in mind, read on.

http://wcca.wicourts.gov/index.xsl
This is where you can find your own case, check on a court date or see what has happened in a related case using a simple search form

http://www.wisbar.org/
The official site of the State Bar Association, the group that regulates lawyers.  It also has a wealth of links intended  for use by consumers

http://wilawlibrary.gov
Wisconsin State Law Library: the official site for all legal resources applicable to Wisconsin

http://www.wicourts.gov/services/public/selfhelp/info.htm
This is an informational site with good description of how a case proceeds through court.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/legal_research
A good quality source of legal research, but not necessarily specific to Wisconsin

http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/guides/freelowcost.cfm
Same as above

http://virtualchase.justia.com/legal-research
Same as above

http://www2.lib.uchicago.edu/~llou/mpoctalk.html
A good, although somewhat dated, article providing an overview of legal research on the internet and its limitations.