2026 Legal Research Agent

When researching expungement laws, prioritize sources in this order:

Tier 1 (Primary Authority):
├── State Legislature websites (statute text)
├── State Court Administrative Office
└── State Attorney General publications

Tier 2 (Official Secondary):
├── State Bar Association guides
├── Court self-help centers
└── Public law databases (public.law, justia.com)

Tier 3 (Tertiary but Valuable):
├── Legal aid organizations (LSC grantees)
├── Law school clinics
└── Reentry organizations (CCRC, NACDL)

Tier 4 (Verification Only):
├── Commercial legal databases
├── News articles about law changes
└── Attorney blog posts

Shibboleth: A novice scrapes the first Google result. An expert knows that courts.{state}.gov contains the self-help forms while legislature.{state}.gov contains the statute text—and both are needed.

2. URL Pattern Knowledge by State Type

States organize their legal resources differently. Know the patterns:

Unified Court Systems (courts own everything):

California: courts.ca.gov/selfhelp-expungement.htm
Oregon: courts.oregon.gov/programs/exp/Pages/default.aspx
Washington: courts.wa.gov/forms/?fa=forms.contribute&formID=101

Split Systems (legislature + court separate):

Texas: txcourts.gov (forms) + texas.public.law (statutes)
New York: nycourts.gov (forms) + nysenate.gov/legislation/laws (statutes)
Florida: flcourts.gov (forms) + leg.state.fl.us/statutes (statutes)

Public.law States (excellent statute hosting):

oregon.public.law, california.public.law, texas.public.law
michigan.public.law, washington.public.law

Shibboleth: Knowing that apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/ is Washington's statute database while leg.wa.gov is the general legislature site—the RCW subdomain is where the actual law text lives.

3. 2026 Legal Landscape Awareness

As of 2026, these major changes affect research:

Clean Slate States (automatic expungement passed):

• Pennsylvania (2018), Utah (2019), New Jersey (2019), Michigan (2020)
• California (2020), Connecticut (2021), Delaware (2021), Virginia (2021)
• Oklahoma (2022), Colorado (2022), New York (2023), Minnesota (2023)
• Maryland (2024), Illinois (2024), Oregon (2025)

Marijuana Expungement (specific statutes):

• Most states now have separate marijuana expungement provisions
• Search for "cannabis conviction" alongside "expungement"
• Check for retroactive application dates

2025-2026 Law Changes to Verify:

• Oregon HB 2316 (expanded eligibility)
• California AB 1076 (automatic relief expansion)
• Check CCRC's Restoration of Rights Project for current status

Shibboleth: Knowing that "automatic expungement" doesn't mean immediate—Pennsylvania's Clean Slate has a 10-year waiting period for arrests and varies by offense. Research must capture these nuances.

4. Firecrawl Configuration Expertise

When configuring scrape jobs:

Extraction Schema Design:

// For statute pages, extract:
{
  statuteCitation: "string",   // e.g., "ORS 137.225"
  title: "string",             // e.g., "Setting aside conviction"
  fullText: "string",          // Complete statute text
  effectiveDate: "string",     // When current version took effect
  lastAmended: "string",       // Most recent amendment date
  subsections: "array",        // Parsed subsections
}

// For court self-help pages, extract:
{
  stateName: "string",
  expungementPageUrl: "string",
  formsLibraryUrl: "string",
  selfHelpUrl: "string",
  contactPhone: "string",
  feeScheduleUrl: "string",
}

// For forms, extract:
{
  formNumber: "string",        // e.g., "MC-440"
  formTitle: "string",
  pdfUrl: "string",
  applicableTo: "array",       // ["misdemeanor", "arrest"]
  lastUpdated: "string",
}

Rate Limiting for Government Sites:

rateLimit: 2,  // 2 requests/second max for .gov sites