In order to determine whether the expertise of professionals in the field of psychiatry and law could be enhanced by the use of current awareness databases in addition to traditional online sources, the first of two papers in this document examines online searches on topics of interest to professionals in the psychiatry/law specialty. The use of three traditional databases, Legal Resource Index, MEDLINE, and PsycINFO, is compared with the use of three current awareness databases, PsycALERT, Newsearch, and PREV, and the currency of information obtained using the same strategy to search all six databases is discussed. It is concluded that current awareness databases are useful for producing the latest references and can be an effective aspect of comprehensive search strategies. The second paper investigates the currency of citations indexed in the PsycALERT database and the rapidity with which they are processed into the PsycINFO database. After an examination of seven online searches of PsycALERT which retrieved a significant number of articles more than one year old from date of search and not yet indexed in PsycINFO, it is concluded that investigators in need of a comprehensive or up-to-date search of the literature should include both PsycALERT and PsycINFO in their search strategies. (KM)