Legal Research

Key Resources: LexisNexis info FindLaw info

Secondary Sources

Summaries of Law

Legal Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

Guides and Tips

Getting the Full-Text of Laws

Types of Law

Statutory: Federal | State

Regulatory: Federal | State

Case Law: Federal | State

A leading legal research database, including the full-text of most U.S. laws and law review articles more details/tips

Be sure to use the US Legal tab to access the legal research tools.

Law Reviews (legal journals), Federal and State Cases, Federal & State Codes

Looking up laws: Searching by Legal Citations in LexisNexis

Look up cases: Searching for a specific case in LexisNexis

FindLaw (Legal Profesional)

A free website, FindLaw includes the full-text of many U.S. law codes and court opinions.

Access to the full-text of court opinions may require registering for a free account.

From the main site (findlaw.com), choose Legal Professional (http://lp.findlaw.com) to access the full-text of laws.

US Government Printing Office: Federal Digital System

FDSys includes the official full-text of a variety of federal laws (including the US Code, laws and regulations)

Thomas

Legislative research materials made available by the Library of Congress

Public Library of Law

Public access to law codes and selected court opinions (1997 - present) from all 50 states

Beyond Lexis: Legal Research Online

Guide to excellent online legal research tools, including many free and authoritative sites

Secondary Sources: Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

LexisNexis: Legal Reference

L/N provides several very useful titles under the Legal Reference section of the US Legal tab, including several legal dictionaries and the American Jurisprudence 2d encyclopedia of US law

Free Online Dictionaries

Glossary of Legislative Terms (California Legislature)

'Lectric Law Library's Legal Lexicon

Nolo.com Dictionary

Secondary Sources: Summaries of Law

Corpus Juris Secundum

Encyclopedia of U.S. law, entries include citations to significant cases more details

Available: Library Bookstacks: KF132.1 .C622

California Jurisprudence (Cal Jur III)

Encyclopedia of California Law, including references to major authorities (constitution, statutes, cases, and administrative decisions). Provides editorial summaries of each topic and discusses interaction between state and federal law.

Available: Library Bookstacks: KFC80 .C29

Summary of California Law (Witkin)

Encyclopedia of California law, provides a concise examination of every major subject of California law. Includes discussion of California statutes and cases as well as relevant precedents from other states and the federal system.

Available: Library Reference Collection: KFC80 .W5 2005

Secondary Sources: Law Reviews

LexisNexis

The LexisNexis Academic service provides access to the full-text of articles in dozens of law reviews.

The Law Reviews are only accessible by choosing the US Legal tab.

Tips for Law Review articles in LexisNexis:

Make sure to choose the US Legal tab and then Law Reviews

Law Review Articles are very long

Use the Email LexisNexis Email Icon or Save options instead of printing

Secondary Sources: Websites

Beyond Lexis: Legal Research Online

Guide to excellent online legal research tools, including many free and authoritative sites

FindLaw (Professional Site)

Includes California section

HG.org

Areas of Practice section includes links to excellent sites on specific areas (e.g. adoption, child abduction, education, taxation, etc.)

LII - Legal Information Institute (Cornell University)

"Law about" section includes links to federal and state statutes by topic, as well aguides to important legal areas (such as Family Law, Taxation, etc.)

Finding More Legal Research on the Web

Use a web search engine like Google to search for more sites on your topic. Remember to evaluate the website very carefully.

Tip - Most web search engines have a feature like Google's Advanced Search that allows you to limit by "domain." Limiting to the .gov domain ensures all of your results will come from federal and state government sites.