This Week in the Law Library .... July 14, 2025

This week in the Law Library we’re looking at more bar exam resources; reviewing additional basic legal research skills for summer; and learning more about disability legal issues and the history of the disability rights movement.

Congratulations! You have made it through law school but now the bar exam looms. Don’t worry, the Law Library’s got your back. When you’ve caught your breath and you’re ready to start your bar studying, we have resources that can help. Check out our Bar Exam Research Guide.

The July 2025 bar exam will be held in three locations: Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland. 

Examinees will be tested at the following locations:

• Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati College of Law, 2925 Campus Green Dr., Cincinnati, OH 45221
• Columbus: Ohio Union, 1739 N. High St., Columbus, OH 43210
• Cleveland: Cleveland State University College of Law, 1801 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH 44115

Accommodations testing will be located at OSU Moritz College of Law (Drinko Hall, 55 W. 12th Ave., Columbus, OH 43210).

Learn more: Ohio Bar Exam

The Bar Exam is not a sprint, it’s a marathon so pace yourself! Check out this week’s Bar Exam Resource highlights below.

• Bar Exam Stress Relief & Wellness Tips: Our Top 10, Barbri (July 10, 2025)
• Sarah M. Bonner, Breaking the Test-Anxiety Loop: Using Self-Regulated Learning to Improve Bar Exam Performance, The Bar Examiner (Winter 2022-2023)
• Four Ways To Conquer Your Bar Exam Test Anxiety, JD Advising
• Self-Care During Bar Prep, Bar Exam Toolbox
• Sandra Thébaud, Addressing Bar Exam Stress: Practical Tips for Success, The Bar Examiner (Summer 2023)

Be sure and take a look at our previous July 7, June 30, June 23, June 16, June 9,  June 2, May 27 and May 19 posts on Bar Exam Resources.

Previously we covered:

• Basic tips to think about before starting a research project 
• Initial steps to take:
  • Identify 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.    
• Using secondary sources to jump start your research. Learn more about secondary sources with our Researching Secondary Sources Guide or watch our videos on finding and searching within the various secondary source types.
• The structure and organization of annotated codes.
• Using Statutory finding tools.like indexes, tables of contents, parallel reference tables, and the popular names table to find the statutory sections you need.
• Checking the currency of your code and making sure your statutes are still good law.
• Effective dates of statutes and historical codes.
• Statutory Surveys

This week we will begin covering how to find cases.

A good way to find cases is to use the references from your secondary sources and annotated code. Then, once you have one case, you can find more cases using that case. 

Headnotes are not actually part of the opinion,  so you should never cite to a headnote and do not rely on the headnote but always read the opinion.  Headnotes serve as useful research tools. Each headnote is numbered. You can click on the headnote number and be taken to the place within the opinion where the issue of the headnote is discussed. Headnotes summarize the issues of law addressed in the case. Headnotes can be used to find other cases on similar issues.

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. For example, if we had a headnote that was assigned the topic of Damages and the key number of 57.21 and we want to find more cases that talk about what is needed to prove a claim of Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, we can use the topic of Damages and the key number of 57.21 and look online to find more cases that discuss this same thing. If you want to see the topic and key numbers in Westlaw headnotes, you may have to click the grid view link at the top of where the headnotes begin. The key number assigned to a particular headnote is always the last and narrowest key number assigned. Click on the link for the topic and key number and Westlaw will run a search and bring up all cases in their system that have been classified under that topic and key number. Note that you may need to change your jurisdiction for the search because the system keeps the last jurisdiction chosen.

View a Westlaw Headnote example

Underneath a headnote, you may see a button or link that gives the number of cases citing that headnote. Clicking on that takes you to the KeyCite Citing References for the case that have been filtered by headnote.  This is another way to use headnotes from one case to find other cases on the issue discussed in your case's headnote.

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. We can 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. If we want a broader search, we can use the topic intermediate levels, for example, we could search Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress rather than the specific Elements beneath that. A search on any intermediate level will bring up results for all the more specific levels below it.

View an example of a Lexis Headnote

More Like This Headnote is a link that may appear 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.

Don’t forget that you can always find out more about researching cases in our Researching Cases Guide or watch our videos on finding cases.

Ann Magill, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons

About Disability Pride Month

Disability Pride Month is an annual worldwide observance holiday during the month of July. It promotes awareness of disability as an identity, a community, a culture & the positive pride felt by disabled people. President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law in 1990 and in July of that same year, the first Disability Pride Day was celebrated in Boston.

This month, the American Bar Association’s Commission on Disability Rights invites you to take part in the #BeCounted campaign. Many law schools, firms, courts, and legal employers do not collect data on disability status and many law students, lawyers, and judges choose not to disclose their disabilities due to fear of stigma, bias, and discrimination. The #BeCounted campaign encourages lawyers with disabilities across the country to add themselves to the ABA's U.S. map so that the profession can make measurable progress toward a more accessible legal profession.

5 More Resources to Promote Learning & Reaching Your Own Conclusions About Disability Legal Issues and History

• ADA 2025
  • Created by Administration for Community Living (ACL) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in 2020 this site celebrates the ADA by telling the story of how it became law, showcasing some of the progress we have made as a country toward achieving its promise, and most importantly, highlighting the impact of the ADA according to people with disabilities.
• ADAPT in Cincinnati
  • ADAPT Online History Museum is a collection of articles, videos, music, artifacts, ephemera and more represents over 30 years of history of a grassroots disability rights organization that is still active today. One of the albums covers May, 1986, when ADAPT went to Cincinnati for the APTA regional convention. Folks paid their fare, got on the bus to ride and were arrested. Others rolled out in front of APTA buses going 40 mph. Eventually some ADAPT folks were banned from the city. Three people served the longest sentence in the fight for lifts on buses.
• Museum of disABILITY History (Virtual Museum)
  • The Museum of disABILITY History is dedicated to advancing the understanding, acceptance and independence of people with disabilities. The Museum's exhibits, collections, archives and educational programs create awareness and a platform for dialogue and discovery.
• PBS, Pride Month and the Disability Rights Movement
  • This selection of documentaries looks at the history of the disability rights movement as well as the activists within the movement. You'll also learn about artists and storytellers whose works explore the diversity of disability experiences.
• Smithsonian National Museum of American History, EveryBody: An Artifact History of Disability in America
  • People with disabilities have been present throughout American history, but rarely appear in textbooks or shared public memories. This online exhibition helps us understand the American experience and reveals how complicated history really is.

Posted July 14, 2025 by Susan Boland

View Previous 2025 Blog Posts