There are several automated services you can use to review your work and make sure you don`t miss out on important resources. Learn more about automated letter verification services. Note, however, that these services do not replace your own in-depth research. Treatises are books on legal subjects. These books are a good place to start your research. They provide explanations, analyses and citations on the most relevant primary sources. Treatises range from overviews of individual topics to in-depth treatment of broad areas. Each major legal database has its own tank, the two most popular being Keycite on Westlaw and Shepard`s on Lexis. Legal encyclopedias offer excellent insight into various legal topics.
For example, if you`re not sure what a secure transaction is, or if you`re not sure about the difference between condos and co-ops, a legal encyclopedia will give you a solid, basic understanding. It will also provide you with quotes on primary authority that may be helpful. To research a particular problem within a jurisdiction, having your own jurisdictional legal encyclopedia is a good place to start. If the jurisdiction does not have its own legal encyclopedia or if you would like a national overview, contact the two general encyclopedias, American Jurisprudence 2d and Corpus Juris Secundum. For example: The number to the left of the subject, in our example [3], is the header number. To quickly find the section of the decision that contains the legal statement, simply find the paragraph that begins with the title number. Reading the titles and using them correctly can save you a lot of time, as you may not have to read the whole case to determine if it is relevant or relevant to your search. Legal research must be comprehensive and accurate. A contrary source that you miss may invalidate other sources you want to rely on. If you stick to one strategy, you save time, ensure completeness, and improve your work result.
A legal question often arises in the form of a problem or story about a series of events. In law school, these appear as factual samples. In practice, this can be done in the form of a manager`s assignment or an interview with a potential client. First, do the following: There are three types of sources: primary, secondary, and tertiary. In legal research, you mainly use primary and secondary sources. We will explore these different types of sources in the following sections. Once you`re ready to start your research, you need to track your work. Recording your searches ensures that you don`t miss any sources and can explain your search strategy what you may be asked to do. Researchers can keep journals in print, in files on Westlaw or Lexis, or in another online citation management platform. The citations serve three purposes: (1) case validation, (2) better understanding, and (3) additional research. Some platforms like Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley, or Refworks can be useful if you`re working on a long-term project that requires a lot of research. These are good tools to keep your search well organized.
Please note, however, that none of these platforms replace your own Bluebook quotes. Learn more about citation management software in our other research guides: We usually start with primary law research here. If there is a control law, the cases we look for later will interpret that law. Also, you can quickly and easily find cases related to the legal part you are interested in when you use an annotated law. Access to primary sources of law is possible through: In many areas of law, particularly those that rely heavily on common law principles, finding relevant case law will be an important part of your research. American Law Reports (ALR) contains feature articles on narrow topics in law. ALR articles, called annotations, provide context, analysis, and citations on relevant cases, statutes, law review articles, and other notes. If there is an ALR article, it can be one of the best tools to quickly find primary law on a narrow legal issue.
The guiding principles show the most important legal points in a case. Legal databases use these guidelines to guide researchers to other cases on the same topic and to organize concepts that are examined on a case-by-topic basis. Publishers like Westlaw and Lexis create top notes so that they are not consistent across databases. This resource is available in Westlaw and Lexis: The North Eastern Reporter also includes court decisions from Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts and Ohio. Judicial decisions of the Connecticut Supreme Court can be found in both the official Connecticut Reporter (the quote is Conn.) and the Atlantic Regional (commercial) Reporter (the quote is A.). Other business journalists include the South Western Reporter (SW) and the Southern Reporter (So.). These and other journalists are included in the later subchapter on the legal citation. Regional journalists were created to reduce the number of different publications that a law library had to accommodate in order to be complete.