Legal Research

This is an introductory lesson on federal and state statutes to acquaint first-year law students with this important form of law. The lesson focuses on the basic structure of statutes and the sources in which they appear. It doesn't describe how to research statutes, but you'll learn statutory research much more easily if you understand this material first.

The four forms of federal statutory publications are slip laws, session laws (or advance session laws), Codes, and Annotated Codes. As a researcher, you will most frequently use an Annotated Code for accessing federal law. It is, however, important to understand each stage of federal legislative publication and the implications for research.

This lesson is designed to give you an introduction to the intricacies of federal statutory publication. You should understand how the different forms are interconnected as well as the differences between them by the completion of this lesson.

This lesson will introduce you to how codes are created, how they're organized, how they're published, and what it all means for your legal research. It is intended for first-year law and graduate students, or anyone who needs a refresher on the basics of this topic.

This lesson assumes that you are familiar with how statutes are passed and how they're first published, either from your own knowledge or from the CALI Lesson "Introduction to State and Federal Statutes."

For one of the questions in this lesson, you should have your Bluebook or ALWD Citation Manual handy.

This lesson is intended to teach you the basic approaches to finding statutes. It is assumed that you are already familiar with the forms of statutory publication when you run this lesson. See the lessons "Introduction to State and Federal Statutes" or "Forms of Federal Statutory Publication" or "Codification" if you need to review these matters first.

This lesson will take you through the process of updating statutes. It is an advanced lesson that builds on concepts developed in the CALI lessons, Introduction to State and Federal Statutes and Codification. This lesson assumes a basic understanding of statutes including how they are created and codified.

This lesson introduces the student to the doctrine and processes involved in interpreting state and federal statutes. Statutes are a critical part of every substantive area of the law, so this is important background for every student, legal professional, lawyer and judge.

This exercise will provide the student with a detailed introduction to using the digests to find case law. Example pages from the West reporters and digests are provided and hypothetical research issues are demonstrated to show how these books are used.

This lesson teaches students how to use online citators to confirm that a case is still "good law"--meaning, the case still represents existing law. This lesson focuses on the online citators of Shepard's on Lexis+ and KeyCite on Westlaw. The lesson assumes students know how to use digests and how to create a research strategy.

This exercise begins with some general background questions to help students place administrative agencies within the greater Constitutional scheme. These questions also address the various powers agencies wield, and the ways they are created. Then the exercise examines sources that offer specific details on individual agencies; it goes on to briefly discuss procedural rules, policy statements, and the process of promulgating regulations.

This lesson will cover how to conduct legal research about the constitutions of individual states, online and in print.

Through this introductory lesson, students will learn how federal laws are made and about the federal legislative process. Students will also learn about the various types of documents that are created as a proposed bill works its way through Congress. These documents comprise the legislative history of an enacted law.