Home : Legal Encyclopedia : Legal research

Legal Encyclopedia - Legal research

Table of contents

2.1.1 Key Internet Sources
2.1.2 Useful Offnet (or Subscription - $) Sources

legal research: an overview

The purpose of legal research is to find "authority" that will aid in finding a solution to a legal problem. Primary authority are the rules of law and are binding upon the courts, government, and individuals. Examples, are statutes, regulations, court orders, and court decisions. They are generated by legislatures, courts, and administrative agencies. Secondary authority is commentary on the law that does not have binding effect but aids in explaining what the law is or should be. The resources available to find legal authority are vast and complicated leading many law schools to require students to take a class in legal research. See Legal education

Finding tools enable a researcher to find and interpret legal authority. Initially many researchers turn to tools that provide summaries of a particular area of the law. Some examples are legal encyclopedias, treatises, and the American Law Reports (http://west.thomson.com/alr/) (ALR). Law reviews and legal periodical articles provide interpretation of the law as well as detailed articles on particular legal topics. These interpretations may be found through indexes such as the Index to Legal Periodicals (http://www.hwwilson.com/Databases/legal.htm). Restatements provide detailed summaries of what the law generally is or what the restatement writers believe the law should be. The citations to other authority and annotations provided in legal encyclopedias, treatises, American Law Reports, law reviews, and legal periodicals are an important element of their value in the research process.

There are also a number of specialized finding tools that enable one to search for relevant materials in primary authorities. The index volumes for statutes and regulations compilations provide a quick guide to relevant rules and regulations. There are also privately published version of statutes that are annotated. Case reporters contain the decisions in cases that have been deemed important enough to publish. Case digests enable a researcher to look up a particular area of the law and find a list of case decisions that are "reported" in relevant case reporters. If one has the common name of a law (e.g., The Lanham Act (http://www.law.uconn.edu/homes/swilf/ip/statutes/lanham43.htm)), a popular name table can provide a quick reference to where the law can be found in the statute compilation. There are also conversion tables that allow one to link a statute to the bill from which it developed and the commentary surrounding it's approval. Shepard's Citations (http://www2.lib.udel.edu/subj/godc/resguide/shep.htm) provides references to when cases and law review articles were cited by another source.

Computer databanks have provided the legal profession with quick and efficient tools to do research. LEXIS (http://www.lexis.com/) and WESTLAW (http://web2.westlaw.com/signon/default.wl?fn=_top&rp=%2fsignon%2fdefault.wl&vr=2.0&rs=WLW5.09&bhcp=1) provide databases that have case reporters, statutes, legal periodicals, law reviews and various secondary authorities. State and specialty law collections pulling together diverse types of authority are now appearing on CD-ROM and the Internet.

menu of sources

Other References

Key Internet Sources

LII: Basic Legal Citation (http://www.law.cornell.edu/citation/)

Useful Offnet (or Subscription - $) Sources

Good Starting Point in Print: Christina Kunz et al., The Process of Legal Research: Successful Strategies (http://www.aspenpub.com/), Aspen Publishers (4th ed. 1996)
LII Disk Materials (http://www.law.cornell.edu/disks96.html)

Need An Employment Law Attorney?

First Name Last Name Email Address State

Legal Issue

Employment Law Click to select a Legal Issue

Were your rights violated?

Please Describe the Injury

close this window

Employment Law Information

Click to View Our Legal Resources

Employment Law Legal Issues

Looking for a District of Columbia Employment Law lawyer? Get in touch with one of our District of Columbia Employment Law lawyers now.

LegalView.info is sponsored by law firms with offices in many states. This website contains information created by others or supplied through open forums; the sponsoring law firms are not responsible for the accuracy of this information. Your access to this site does not constitute a legal attorney-client relationship. The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements. To access important information concerning the sponsors and their commitment to the ethical practice of law, click here.

The participating law firms are as follows: Anapol Schwartz (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Cherry Hill, New Jersey; Media, Pennsylvania; Reading, Pennsylvania; Wheeling, WV). Cohen, Placitella & Roth (Red Bank, New Jersey; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). J. F. Humphreys (Charleston, West Virginia). Lopez McHugh (Newport Beach, California; Philadelphia, PA; and Moorestown, NJ). Click here for more information about these law firms.

Some of our partner firms do not accept some types of cases. For details on these case exceptions, click here.

20120516-213513

Close (x)

Looking for an Attorney?

Please type your question:

First Name:
Last Name:
E-mail:
Phone Number *
() -

State * Legal Issue *

Employment Law Click to select a Legal Issue

Close (x)

Find Legal Help for Your Employment Law Case - Submit Your Information Below

Do you need legal assistance with your Employment Law case?
LegalView may be able to help.

Submit your information below for a free, no-cost evaluation.

We'll submit your information to one of our partner firms.
LegalView's partners represent clients throughout the United States, for a very wide range of legal issues. Submit your information now, to see if one of LegalView's partners can help!

* Indicates Required Fields

First name *

Last name *

Email Address *

Phone Number *
() -

State *

Legal Issue * Employment Law Change

Was There an Injury?

Please Describe The Injury

Please State Your Question *

DISCLAIMER and STATEMENT OF NON-CONFIDENTIALITY

By submitting this form, you agree that completing the above is not intended to create an attorney-client relationship.

Disclosure

Legal WebTV Network LLC, LegalView.com, and LegalWebMedia.com are group advertising sponsored by the attorneys identified here. It is not a lawyer referral service. If you submit information on this website, LegalWebMedia.com will submit your information to the law firms that pay for this group advertising and to respond to your requests for information concerning legal services in their assigned local areas. If there is no sponsoring firm in your state, your inquiry will be submitted to one of the sponsoring law firms on a predetermined, rotating basis. If the sponsoring law firm accepts your case, it will associate with licensed attorneys practicing in your state, if required; the sponsoring law firm may also contact other law firms to see if they may be able to assist.

The information provided by the LegalView.com and LegalWebMedia.com websites is for advertising and informational purposes and should not be considered as legal advice from the sponsoring attorneys. The websites contain general information and may not reflect current legal developments, verdicts, or settlements. LegalView.com contains information created by others or supplied through open forums; the sponsoring law firms are not responsible for the accuracy of this information. Any person viewing or receiving information from these websites should not act or refrain from acting on the basis of any such information without first seeking appropriate legal advice from an attorney in your area. Legal WebTV Network, LLC expressly disclaims any liability with respect to actions taken or not taken by the recipient based on any or all of the information or contents contained in these websites.

Any information sent to Legal WebTV Network LLC through this website is done using standard Web encryption techology. LegalView.com will exercise all reasonable care, within technological limits, to protect the confidentiality of any information submitted via Internet e-mail or through this website. By accessing this website, you may be seeking an attorney to represent you or legal advice. However, none of the sponsoring attorneys represent you yet.

The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.

Any transmission of information, whether via Internet e-mail or through the website, is solely for evaluation purposes by the sponsoring law firms and their associates. The transmission of any information to any attorney sponsoring advertising on LegalView.com or LegalWebMedia.com does not create an attorney-client relationship between the sender and any recipient. An attorney-client relationship can only be created by a written, signed-fee agreement entered into with an attorney. The sponsoring attorneys will treat your information as a confidential communication for the purpose of obtaining legal services or legal advice.

For more information about the sponsoring law firms, please click here.

This form is secure and encrypted. More information about secure forms and your privacy here.