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Fastcase coming Dec. 1

Issue October 2015

Starting Dec. 1, Massachusetts Bar Association members will have free, unlimited access to Fastcase -- one of the nation's most popular legal research services. Fastcase will provide MBA members with nationwide coverage from state and federal courts, state statutes and administrative regulations, as well as court rules, constitutions and other valuable libraries.

"One of the greatest benefits of belonging to the Massachusetts Bar Association is access to tools and services that strengthen an attorney's practice," said MBA Chief Legal Counsel and Chief Operating Officer Martin W. Healy. "We're pleased to enhance this benefit by providing MBA members free access to Fastcase -- one of the largest online legal research libraries, and the top-rated app for attorneys."

Fastcase will supplant Casemaker as of Dec. 1, and MBA members will be able to log into Fastcase in December through www.massbar.org, using their member IDs/emails and passwords. In addition to providing free and unlimited customer support from experienced reference attorneys, Fastcase will sponsor complimentary monthly training webinars and there will be short video tutorials on the site.

"We're very excited to welcome members of the MassBar to Fastcase," said Fastcase CEO Ed Walters. "We're just launching the new version of Fastcase 7 in a public beta, and Fastcase was just named the #1 app for lawyers in the ABA Tech Survey for the third year in a row. It's an exciting time, and we're going to continue working hard with the MassBar to provide the best for its members."

In addition to extensive law libraries, Fastcase also includes several unique features:

Data visualization. Only Fastcase includes the Interactive Timeline, a visual map of search results. Search results in text look all the same -- but when you map them, the best answers jump off the page.

Bad Law Bot. Fastcase includes Bad Law Bot, the world's first big data tool for negative treatment history. When your case has been cited with negative history, Bad Law Bot flags the case.

Mobile sync. The ABA's 2013, 2014 and 2015 Tech Survey showed that Fastcase's legal research apps for iPhone, iPad and Android devices are by far the most popular mobile apps for lawyers. Many MBA members already subscribe to Fastcase's mobile apps. With our new member benefit, when you sync your app on the desktop, you can save documents on your app to print later from the desktop, share research history across your devices or create mobile trial notebooks for tablet devices.

HeinOnline. Fastcase now integrates with HeinOnline, the largest library of law reviews in the world, with more than 2,000 American journals going back to the first page -- more than double the size of the law review catalog of traditional research providers. MBA members can search the HeinOnline catalog (which includes the Massachusetts Law Review) and view results for free. To read individual articles, members can subscribe to Hein at a discount. If you're already a subscriber to HeinOnline, you can access the journals without an additional purchase.

Annotated statutes. Fastcase's statutes include a free annotation service, so you can see how courts have interpreted statute sections. Scroll to the bottom of a statute section to view a list of citing cases.

Batch printing. You can use Fastcase's dual-column printing utility to print clean copies of cases in Word or PDF format, and you can batch print multiple cases, either in a single document, or as a .zip file with each document saved as a separate file. It's a quick and easy way to pull cases, in a format that you could show a judge, opposing counsel or a client.

To access the scope of Fastcase's coverage, visit www.fastcase.com/whatisfastcase/coverage.