Legal Encyclopedias - Print Format

This lesson is about Legal Encyclopedias in print format. As one of the main types of secondary resources for legal research, Legal Encyclopedias can be useful for a variety of basic legal research tasks. This lesson will give you an overview of legal encyclopedias, explain how they are used in legal research, and run through a couple of hypotheticals. The lesson focuses on one of the two legal encyclopedias covering American Law in general - American Jurisprudence 2d (Am. Jur. 2d) - and gives some examples of state legal encyclopedias.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:

1. Recognize when one might want to use a legal encyclopedia in legal research.
2. Describe the features of Am. Jur. and briefly explore state legal encyclopedias.
3. Use print legal encyclopedias for legal research tasks.