Legal Research

Preemption checking determines if an idea for a journal note or paper is original. This lesson identifies the sources to use and the process of conducting a preemption check.

This lesson is designed to provide students with both an overview of Michigan primary resources and a "how to" guide to researching various Michigan primary resources.

While the lesson aims to introduce the specifics of researching Michigan law to a researcher already familiar with the basics of legal research, it will also be helpful to students and professionals trying to understand those basics through the process of Michigan-specific research.

This lesson covers the Arkansas constitution, statutes, legislative history, cases, courts and court rules, and administrative materials. It was designed for those who have a general knowledge of researching primary legal sources.

This lesson will teach you how to use all the major legal citators - Shepard's in print, Shepard's on Lexis, KeyCite on Westlaw and BCite on Bloomberg Law - to locate additional useful cases when starting with one case or other document, and to find secondary resources such as law reviews when starting with a case or other document.

This lesson will instruct students about issues associated with California ballot measures including locating documents, identifying legislative intent, and examining legal challenges.

In the process of legal research, primary authority is the law in your jurisdiction, which comes directly from a legislative body, court, or administrative agency.

This lesson on South Carolina primary source materials covers the South Carolina Constitution; South Carolina state and local laws (Legislative); South Carolina administrative agency regulations and other executive materials (Executive); and, South Carolina appellate court rules and decisions (Judicial).

Louisiana is a mixed legal jurisdiction with strong ties to French and Spanish Civil Law. There are differences between the civil law practiced in Louisiana and the common law practiced in the other 49 states. Although some of those differences have been bridged, some of the secondary materials discussed in this lesson vary greatly from the secondary materials of other jurisdictions.

Designed to help bridge the gap between law school and law practice, this tutorial introduces students to commonly-used current awareness tools and alerting services. The lesson covers sources and strategies for finding topical newsletter services, blogs, email discussion lists, and scholarship repositories and instructs on how to use subscription alert services to keep up with the latest developments in a particular area of law.

This lesson is designed to familiarize students with Arizona's primary legal sources. It will also provide a basic understanding of how to use these sources in conducting legal research. No prerequisite knowledge is required to use this lesson.

This lesson is intended to familiarize the user with the range of documents produced by the Federal government, where they can be found, and how they can be used in a law practice.

This lesson will introduce you to all of the types of primary sources you will encounter when researching California law. Topics include the Constitution, Statutes and Codes, administrative law, court system, and researching cases in California. No prior knowledge of California legal materials is required.

This lesson will introduce you to the basic sources for finding primary law in Indiana, and how to use them.

This is a lesson on Kentucky primary and secondary legal research.

This lesson is a general introduction to resources and strategies for researching tribunals and truth commissions.

This lesson is intended to familiarize the user with Colorado secondary legal research materials. The lesson focuses on secondary source material including: Colorado Practice, treatises, periodicals, CLEs and form books. No prior knowledge of Colorado legal research is necessary to follow this lesson. While this lesson is aimed primarily at first year law students who will be learning about these materials for the first time, each section may be used independently to brush up on Colorado-specific legal research skills.

This lesson will give you some background about Regional Organizations, collections of countries, organized by region, engaged in collaborative work toward some common goal. You will learn to find the documents of some of the most important Regional Organizations on the web.

This lesson is intended to familiarize the reader with Georgia legal research materials and will focus on Georgia's secondary source material. You will learn about finding aids for researching secondary source materials and explore both hard cover and online tools to access secondary source materials.

This lesson provides an overview of the history and structure of the European Union, followed by an introduction to researching European Union documents, specifically EU treaties, regulations, directives, and opinions of the European Court of Justice. The European Union is a truly unique structure which represents over half a century of cooperation between select nations.

This lesson introduces the various types of secondary sources available to research Florida law.

This lesson provides instruction on conducting Utah legal research using both primary and secondary sources.

This lesson introduces Florida primary legal resources including the Florida Constitution, statutes, court decisions, Florida administrative law and Florida attorney general opinions.

This lesson will serve as an introduction to some of the secondary resources available in the field of California law.

This lesson is intended to familiarize the user with Colorado primary legal research materials.

The purpose of this lesson is to guide students who are not experienced in researching private international law. After providing some background on the definition and sources of private international law, this lesson will suggest the initial and follow-up steps that a researcher of a typical issue related to private international law generally should take.