LibGuides: Law Subject Guide: US Legal Research

Starting Legal Research

To get legal research off to a quick start, always start with secondary sources. Law review articles, books or treatises, legal encyclopedias and law dictionaries give you analysis, context and explanation of your legal research topic. Secondary sources provide footnotes full of citations to key primary laws (cases, statutes and regulations) and additional secondary sources on a topic.

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Select "Law Reviews" in the Guided Search Box.
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Select Secondary Sources (top of middle column), then Law Reviews and Journals under Types.

A search of law reviews is the key first step.

Law Review Commons
The largest collection of free and open law review scholarship
Free Full-text Online Law Review/Journal Seach (American Bar Association)

Black's Law Dictionary

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Use Westlaw to access Black's Law Dictionary: select Secondary Sources from top of middle column, then Black's Law Dictionary, under Related Content, far right column.

Search for Books and Ebooks
Use the main search box on the library homepage to search for books, e-books, reference materials, journal articles, news, government documents, and more. Use the check boxes on the left-hand side of the screen to narrow your results.

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Select Secondary Sources from top of middle column, then, under Type, Texts and Treatises

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Select Secondary Sources, then American Jurisprudence 2d or American Law Reports

Wex Legal Encyclopedia

Citing Legal Resources Using Standard Legal Citation

ALWD Guide to Legal Citation
Not available at Babson. Introduced in 2000, this guide has become more popular and a bigger challenger to the Bluebook's dominance.
Basic Legal Citation: What and Why?
Learn about the Bluebook and its newer competitors. Explains the theory behind legal citation and how to read citations.
Bluebook Table II: Foreign Jurisdictions
Citing Judicial Opinions....in Brief (LII Basic Legal Citation video tutorial)
Introduction to Basic Legal Citation (Legal Information Institute)
Online guide which incorporates the Bluebook as well as ALWD Guide.
Reading Legal Citations (Boston College Law Library)

The Bluebook by Harvard Law Review (Compiled by); Columbia Law Review (Compiled by); University of Pennsylvania Law Review (Compiled by); Yale Law Review (Compiled by)
Call Number: General Reserves KF245 .B58 2015
ISBN: 0692400192
Publication Date: 2015-06-25

Legal Research and Writing

Law School Basics by David Hricik
ISBN: 1889057061
Publication Date: 2016-07-19
Includes chapters on legal research and legal writing.
The Lawyer's Guide to Writing Well by Tom Goldstein; Jethro K. Lieberman
ISBN: 0520288432
Publication Date: 2016-01-08
Point Taken by Ross Guberman
ISBN: 0190268581
Publication Date: 2015-09-01
Step by step guide to write like the world's best judges.
Point Made by Ross Guberman
ISBN: 0199943850
Publication Date: 2014-04-04
Step by step guide to writing like the world's best lawyers.

Information for Submitting Articles to Law Reviews & Journals (SSRN)
From SSRN (Social Science Research Network)
Really Basic Rules for Writing Good Papers in Law School (SSRN)
This extremely brief guide is intended to help students write good papers in law school. It covers paper structure, substance, and style. (Requires sign up for free account to SSRN)

Citing Legal Resources Using MLA or APA Style

Federal Case Law

Decisions of courts, or case law, establish precedent. Case law is one source of legal authority, along with statutes and regulations. Before you rely on a case, be sure to update case law to be sure another case has not overruled it.

Levels of Federal Courts image

To find relevant case law on a topic, start with a secondary source, and mine the footnotes for citations to other sources, including cases, on your topic, Once you have looked at secondary sources, you can also search case law.

Case Law Citations Explained
After you have located case citations using a secondary source, this guide can help you decipher the case citation.

Federal Cases

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Find Federal Cases in Westlaw: Select Cases. Then select the Federal Court or Federal Circuit you need. You can also select All Federal Cases.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Select Cases, then Federal Cases.

Case Law Access Project Search
Search federal and state case law for free.

If a more recent case questions or even overrules the case you located, citators (Keycite in WestlawNext or Shepard's in Nexis Uni) will let you know. Citators also serve as a research tool - identifying additional cases on your topic.

Performing Citation Searches (Nexis Uni)
How to Shepardize a case and explanation of Shepard's Signal Indicators.
Checking Citations in Keycites (Westlaw)

Federal statutes are laws passed by the US Congress.

How Federal Laws Are Made
How does an idea become a bill and eventually a federal statute?

Identify citations to federal statutes through secondary sources. Full text searching of statutes online can be difficult because of the specialized legal jargon used.

United States Code Annotated (USCA)
Use this annotated version of the US Code to access statutes organized by title, chapter and section.
Office of Law Revision Counsel - United States Code
Free version of the US Code which does not include explanatory annotations.

Federal Regulations

What are Federal Regulations?
How to Find Federal Regulations

Federal regulations, administrative rules, are codified or organized by topic in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The Federal Register, updating the CFR, is published daily.

The Rulemaking Process
What is the Code of Federal Regulations?
What is the Federal Register (FR)?
The Reg Map
Explanation of steps in informal rule making process.

Identify regulations through secondary sources or annotated statutes.

Finding Federal Regulations
Recommended research guide.
How to Trace Federal Regulations (Library of Congress)
Guide to conducting federal regulatory research.

Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)

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Use Westlaw to find the Code of Federal Regulations. Select Regulations, then Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) on the next page.

e-CFR
Electronic version of the Code of Federal Regulations

Federal Register

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Use Westlaw to find the Federal Register. Select Proposed & Adopted Regulations. Select Federal Register on the next page.

The Federal Register
The Daily Journal of the United States Government.

State Law

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Select "State Materials" tab to view resources available for all 50 states through Westlaw.

National Survey of State Laws
Want to see how state laws vary? View charts which collect each state's law on a topic.

For State Court cases, use the links below:

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Select "State Materials" tab, click on state.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Select "Cases" then "State Cases". Enter your state jurisdiction.

Case Law Access Project (CAP)
The Caselaw Access Project (“CAP”) expands public access to U.S. law. Our goal is to make all published U.S. court decisions freely available to the public online, in a consistent format, digitized from the collection of the Harvard Law Library.

For information about State Court structure, see the links below:

State Courts v. Federal Courts: The Dual Court System
State Court Structure Charts
Key features of each state's court organization with links to court's website.

Westlaw This link opens in a new window
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Select "State Materials" tab, select state you are researching.

State Legislative Websites
Topical Index: State Statutes (Legal Information Institute)
Collection of statutes from all states organized by topic.

Westlaw This link opens in a new window
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Select "State Materials" tab, then select the state you are researching.

Listing by Jurisdiction (Legal Information Institute)
Regulations organized by state.

Finding Court Statistics

TRAC: Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse
Reports on federal judicial case loads and prosecutions by federal agencies. Create custom statistical reports.
Court Statistics Project
Publishes state caseload data from the courts of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics
Annual report contains analysis, charts, and tables presenting data on the workload of the U.S. courts of appeals, district courts, and bankruptcy courts and of the federal probation and pretrial services system.
Easy Access to Juvenile Court Statistics
Developed to facilitate independent analysis of national estimates of delinquency cases processed by the nation's juvenile courts