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This Week in the Law Library ...
This week in the Law Library we’re welcoming our LLM students, reviewing basic legal research skills, and getting ready for Fall Semester.
Welcome LLM Students!
We are excited to welcome our 12th cohort of LLM students to the College on August 12th! LLM Welcome Week will rund from August 12 - 16th.
LLM Law Library Orientation
August 14, 2024
2:oopm - 3:30pm
Room 240
LLM Success Guide
Check out our LLM Success Guide for information on how Law Library services and resources can help you succeed during your time at UC Law.
Preparing for Law School!
Orientation takes place August 19 - August 23. Orientation will consist of in-person programming taking place at the law school. Unless otherwise noted, all of Orientation Week is mandatory and is only open to incoming students. Incoming students will want to check out the New Student Orientation page on the College of Law Intranet.
5 More Resources to Help Prepare for the Year Ahead
The resources below are available through the Law Library’s study aid subscriptions. For more information on accessing our study aids, view our Introduction to Study Aids video and our 1-L Study Aids page on the 1-L Survival Guide.
This book, available through the West Academic study aid subscription, provides an in-depth examination of these critical topics: The Case Method and its relationship to Socratic-style questioning and effective legal analysis. Semester-long strategies for learning how to "think like a lawyer" by getting the most out of reading opinions, attending classes, outlining, and preparing effectively for exams. How to read cases with a focus on legal issues, legal principles, and judges' rationales for adopting and applying those principles. How to prepare case briefs and use them to prepare for class. The major types of legal argument, with many illustrations drawn from actual cases. Using class discussions as opportunities to practice legal analysis, based on annotated excerpts from actual first-year class discussions. Preparing for exams by outlining course materials and practicing exam-taking skills. An approach for analyzing exam questions and writing effective exam answers that display legal analytical skills, with illustrations drawn from actual essay exam questions and annotated answers.
Critical Reading for Success in Law School and Beyond (with Video) by Jane Grise
This book, available through the West Academic study aid subscription, identifies the reading strategies used by expert legal readers and presents the strategies in a systematic sequence. Reading cases and statutes is challenging for students and attorneys. However, everybody can learn critical reading strategies and become effective legal readers and advocates. Readers will learn: (1) the purpose for reading cases, (2) how to read with focus, (3) case structure and important civil and criminal procedure terms, (4) techniques for understanding complex text, (5) strategies for identifying the parts of a case, (6) how to brief a case, (7) legal analysis skills such as analogical reasoning and case synthesis, and (8) strategies for reading statutes. The second edition adds chapters that address reading on screens and techniques for reading bar prep materials. The second edition also has a seventeen part video series with PowerPoint slides. Each video introduces a reading strategy, provides helpful tips, includes a short student exercise, and gives students the opportunity to self-assess their proficiency.
The Guide to Belonging in Law School by Russell McClain
This book, available through the West Academic study aid subscription, accomplishes two discrete goals. First, it requires readers to engage in an authentic, rigorous, mini-law school semester involving reading, studying, five Socratic classes (through the connected website), exam preparation, and exam writing. Second, the book provides a foundation for students from marginalized groups to recognize and manage both subtle and explicit barriers that can impede their progress.
Expert Learning for Law Students by Michael Hunter Schwartz; Paula J. Manning
This book, available through the Lexis Nexis Digital Library study aid subscription, is a reorganization and rethinking of this highly regarded law school success text. It retains the core insights and lessons from prior editions while updating the materials to reflect recent insights such as mindset theory, attribution theory, chunking for use, and interleaving learning. The text includes exercises and step-by-step guides to engage readers in the process of becoming expert learners—including specific strategies for succeeding in law school.
Law School Success in a Nutshell by Ann Burkhart; Robert Stein
This book, available through the West Academic study aid subscription, canswers questions students have as they begin their studies. What is a tort? Hornbook? Should I join a study group? It also explains and gives examples of the best methods for studying and for taking exams. It provides questions and model answers from actual law school exams. The Nutshell also provides information about the types of legal practice that are available to you when you graduate. And it describes the opportunities that will be available to you during your second and third years of law school, such as law journals, law clinics, internships, joint degree programs, and study abroad.
Summer Legal Research Tips
Previously, we looked at:
Initial steps to take when you get a summer research project
Start by identifying the resources available to you at your place of summer employment and ask questions. Develop a research plan. Read more about developing a research plan on our Research Strategy & Documentation guide.
Then you may need to do background research about your issue before jumping into primary sources such as statutes and case law. A good secondary source can explain the law around your issue and cite you to primary sources. It can save you a lot of time and effort! Learn more about researching in secondary sources in our Researching Secondary Sources Guide or watch our videos on finding and searching within the various secondary source types.
Researching statutes in annotated codes
If your issue is statutory, you want to use an annotated code. An annotated code is a great research tool because it offers editorial enhancements such as: (1) cross references to related statutes and regulations; (2) more detailed historical notes, secondary source references; (3) if it is a Thomson Reuters code you will get topic and key number references to help you find cases; and (3) the case annotations.
Once in an annotated code, use the statutory finding tools like indexes, tables of contents, parallel reference tables, and the popular names table to find the statutory sections you need.
Updating and validating statutes
Update and validate your statutes by making sure that you are working with the most current version of a statute when researching a current issue and using Shepards and KeyCite to validate your statute and to identify any pending legislation that may impact your statute.
Historical and Superseded Codes
You can research historical codes using HeinOnline, Govinfo.gov, Bloomberg Law, Fastcase, Lexis, and Westlaw. You can also compare statutes on Lexis and Westlaw and be sure and always check the effective dates of statutes.
Sometimes a researcher is asked to find statutes from multiple jurisdictions on a particular topic. Take advantage of compiled statutory surveys such as (1) Lexis and Westlaw 50-state surveys; (2) Subject Compilations of State Laws on HeinOnline; (3) State Law Charts on Bloomberg Law and Smart Charts on VitalLaw; and (4) National Conference of State Legislatures. Read more about statutory surveys in our 50-State Surveys Guide.
Each headnote in a case published in Westlaw is assigned a topic and key number. These topic and key numbers can be used to find more cases on the same subject. Click on the link for the topic and key number assigned to the headnote in which you are interested and Westlaw will run a search and bring up all cases in their system that have been classified under that topic and key number. To find other cases that cite a particular headnote, click on the “Cases that cite this headnote” link located below the headnote summary of the point of law. Cases that cite a headnote consist of the citing references that specifically address that particular point of law in the case. Lexis headnotes are still organized by broad topics and then progressively subdivided by narrower subjects, but Lexis headnote subjects tend to be broader concepts than the Westlaw key numbers. Also, Lexis headnotes do not editorialize, they actually lift language straight from the text of the case.
Find more cases on a topic by clicking on the topic links assigned to the headnote. In Lexis, the topic links are above the headnote. More Like This Headnote appears at the end of a headnote, and gives you the ability to find cases that have headnotes that closely match the language or meaning of a headnote in your case. To find more cases that discuss the same point of law, click “Shepardize – Narrow by this Headnote.” This will show you all cases that cite to this case that reference the same issue as that headnote.
Using Citators to Validate Cases and Find More Cases
There are two main case law citators to verify the status of your case – on LexisNexis, it is Shepards and on Westlaw it is Keycite. Keyciting and shepardizing are also a method for finding other cases and secondary sources relevant to your topic. There are differences between the citator symbols used by Westlaw and Lexis, but as a general rule, in either Westlaw or Lexis cases with a red flag or red stop sign may no longer be good law and should not be relied upon without doing further research. Similarly, cases with a yellow flag or yellow triangle should be used with caution because they may have been distinguished by other court rulings. Remember, that you need to take into account the jurisdiction of your case and the cases citing your case in order to determine if your case is still good law. Do not rely on the symbols completely. This week we will briefly cover researching administrative law.
Federal & State Administrative Law Research
Any time you have a statutory issue, you may need to find any applicable administrative regulations and update those regulations. You will also want to consult administrative adjudications. Administrative agencies generate rules and regulations, much like a legislature generates statutes. These administrative rules and regulations help further interpret a statute. Additionally, agencies may conduct hearings and issue decisions concerning matters that fall under their jurisdiction, much like a court. Finally, agencies may also investigate and enforce violations. Rules that are immediately effective are integrated into the “Electronic Code of Federal Regulations” also known as the e-CFR. The official publication of Federal rules is the Code of Federal Regulations that is published annually by the Government Printing Office. You can find regulations by looking at references from secondary sources and your annotated code. You can find regulations by subject by using the CFR Index which can be found on Govinfo.gov and on HeinOnline. Lexis and Westlaw also have their own CFR Indexes.
Administrative law in the states operates similarly to the federal system, although there will be some differences in terminology, agencies and agency structures, and rulemaking requirements. Most states have a state publication similar to the Federal Register (but not necessarily published daily) and that can be called a register, bulletin, or journal. Most states also have an administrative code. A good resource to find state registers and state codes is the website of the Administrative Codes and Registers (ACR) Section of the National Association of Secretaries of State. They link to each state’s “register,” code, and manual.
You can find more information on researching administrative law in our Federal Administrative Law guide, Ohio Legal Research Guide - Administrative Sources, and our administrative law videos.
Finding Compiled Legislative Histories
If you have a statutory issue but no or very little case law interpreting the statute, you may need to look at legislative history. Legislative history research involves trying to establish legislative intent by looking into the documents produced as a law goes through the legislative process. The types of documents you might look at when doing legislative history research will include bill versions, amendments, committee reports, committee hearings, committee prints, and debates. The first step in doing legislative history research is to figure out which public law added the statutory language you need to interpret. Remember that statutes can be amended so if you are trying to determine what the legislature intended when they passed a law, you need to know which law incorporated your language. Your code should have a chronological list of the laws making up a code section and that list should be directly underneath the text of the statute. Once you have determined which public law added your language, look for a compiled legislative history, using: (1) ProQuest Legislative Insight, or (2) HeinOnline US Federal Legislative History Library, or (3) GAO Federal Legislative Histories on Westlaw, or (4) Arnold & Porter Legislative Histories on Westlaw.
Resources for Finding Legislative History that Isn't Already Compiled
Sometimes there is no compiled legislative history for you to use and you have to compile your own. One of the best ways to find legislative history documents not already gathered by someone else is to use the ProQuest Congressional database. This is different from the ProQuest Legislative Insight. You can find the link for this database under the Research Tools & Databases on the Law Library’s webpage. Within ProQuest Congressional, the easiest way is to search by Public Law Number. To get to that search screen click the Congressional Publications link in the top left corner of the page. Then select Search by Number. If you have the public law number or Statutes at Large citation for an enacted law, use those. If you have a bill number for a law that was not enacted, use that.
Lexis
In addition to the selected compiled legislative histories, Lexis also has individual legislative history documents. Search in the Federal Legislative Bill History, Committee Reports, and Congressional Record.
Westlaw
You can also find individual legislative history documents on Westlaw. Instead of clicking on the US GAO Federal Legislative Histories or the Arnold & Porter Legislative Histories, search the Legislative Histories — Congressional Reports, Congressional Record, U.S. Congressional Testimony, and historical public laws.
Congress.gov
You can look up more current legislation on Congress.gov. Clicking on the Actions gives a chronology of everything that happened to the bill in reverse chronological order. There are links to some but not all documents. The more recent your bill or public law, the more likely you are to find links to documents.
Check out our guide on Federal Legislative History for more information and resources!
Posted August 12, 2024 by Susan Boland