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RIA Checkpoint
(Tax Law)
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Legal Citations
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Key Resources
A leading legal research database, including the full-text of most U.S. laws and law review articles
more details/tips
Tip - for laws and law reviews, make sure to choose the Legal tab
Law Reviews: Default search on Legal tab
Case Law (Court Opinions) available under Federal and State Cases
Statutory Law available under Federal and State Codes
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 requires 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.
Secondary Sources: Encyclopedias
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: Dictionaries
Secondary Sources: Law Reviews
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 Legal tab.
Tips for Law Review articles in LexisNexis
Make sure to choose the Legal tab.
Search type matters:
Terms and Connectors - narrower, exact phrase search, requires Boolean operators/connectors between terms
Natural Language (broader) - retrieves similar spellings (but may have extraneous results - i.e. three strikes retrieves information about labor strikes, not just three strikes laws
Sort results by Relevance
Law Review Articles are Very Long
Use the Email 
or Save 
options instead of printing
or Save options instead of printingSecondary Sources: Websites
FindLaw (Professional Site)
Includes California section
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.
Examples of Websites on Specific Legal Issues
Child Abuse Reporting
Child Welfare Information Gateway
(U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services)
Making a Report about Child Abuse
(Child Abuse Council of Santa Clara)
Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse and Neglect
by Susan K. Smith, Atty., Hartford and Avon, CT.
Elder Abuse
National Center on Elder Abuse
(Administration on Aging, U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services)
