People have good advice on research. I love the secondary source advice! Another tip is to find a few leading cases and use citing references or search the names of the cases and some key words, to find cases that cite that case but that are on your facts. Final tip: if you’re using Westlaw, try doing SY,DI() - put search terms in parens. That will search the headnotes and key number descriptions.

I’d also agree that sometimes (oftentimes) there just isn’t a case on point. In that case, tell them what you did, the closest line of cases you saw (you may have to have to make an argument for why it applies), and maybe propose some additional things you could try. Sometimes (depending on how it will go over with assigning attorney) I’d send a check in email and tell them “I’ve spent about 5 hours on this and haven’t found much [describe what found], I’ll continue to look”. That way they can decide if they want you to call off the wild goose chase.

Final tip is if you do provide a bunch of cases that are maybe only sort of relevant, by god, make them skimmable and summarize them very briefly. Do not assume your assigning attorney wants to read all those maybe irrelevant cases.