This Week in the Law Library ... August 4, 2025

This week in the Law Library we’re getting ready for Fall Semester and reviewing more basic legal research skills for summer.

We are only a few weeks away from fall semester. Maybe you're wondering what to do with your remaining summer. Below is advice for prepping for fall semester:

Steven Chung, How Should Law Students Spend the Remainder of Their Summer Preparing for Law School?, Above the Law (July 31, 2024)

What Classes Will You Take as a 1L and Why Is Class Time Important?, Lawschool Toolbox Blog (July 14, 2025)

We are excited to welcome our next cohort of LLM students to the College next week! LLM Welcome Week will run from August 11 - 15. Orientation takes place August 18 - August 22. 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.

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.

1L of a Ride by Andrew J. McClurg

This book, available through the West Academic study aid subscription, covers topics such as pre-planning, top student fears, first-year curriculum, the Socratic and case methods of teaching, effective class participation, top habits of successful students, essential study techniques, legal research and writing, exam strategies, maintaining well-being, and much more. Combines anecdotes, comments from law students, empirical research, and authentic samples of signature documents from the 1L experience, including exam questions, Socratic dialogue, and student case-briefs, class notes, and course outlines. McClurg is an award-winning professor who has taught at six different law schools.

Coming to Law School: How to Prepare Yourself for the Next Three Years by Ian Gallacher

This book, available through the Lexis Nexis Digital Library study aid subscription, demystifies law school and the process of studying the law. The book shows how study skills such as case briefing, taking notes in class, and preparing exam outlines are interrelated and how an incoming student can practice them before coming to law school, making the transition from prospective to actual law student easier and as painless as possible. The book also contains information about many practical issues, including the law school process, how to do well in a summer job, and taking the bar exam.

Finding Your Voice in Law School

This book, available through the Lexis Nexis Digital Library study aid subscription, strategies for succeeding in law school and beyond. Many college graduates aren’t prepared for the new challenges they will face in law school. Intense classroom discussion, mock trials and moot courts, learning the language of law, and impressing potential employers in a range of interview situations—it sounds intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Finding Your Voice in Law School offers a step-by-step guide to the most difficult tests you will confront as a law student, from making a speech in front of a room full of lawyers to arguing before a judge and jury. It also explains how to lay a strong foundation for your professional reputation.Communicating effectively—with professors, at social gatherings, with supervisors and colleagues at summer jobs, and as a leader of a student organization—can have a lasting impact on your legal career.

Get a Running Start: Your Comprehensive Guide to the First Year Curriculum

This book, available through the West Academic study aid subscription, covers all the major concepts taught in each of the courses most commonly offered in the first year of law school: criminal law, torts, civil procedure, constitutional law, property, and contracts. Features include: an introductory chapter offering advice on how to structure a successful preparation and study process starting with the summer before law school and running straight through exams; insiders’ advice from successful law students and recent graduates on class preparation, course selection, career development, and managing the stress of law school; short lessons that provide readers with an introduction to the major concepts for a day or week of law school classes in 10-15 minutes; complete course coverage that will allow readers to get a global overview of a first-year law course in the span of an afternoon.

A Weekly Guide to Being a Model Law Student by Alex Ruskell

This book, available through the West Academic study aid subscription, gives law students weekly checklists explaining the skills necessary to successfully navigate their first year of law school. Each chapter provides a checklist of things to do that week, such as briefing cases, going over notes, outlining classes, or doing practice questions. When a new concept is introduced, this book clearly explains the concept and its purpose and provides examples. It also includes a bank of over 100 short, medium, and long practice questions in six first year subjects.

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
• Using one case to find more cases
• Using citators for research and to validate your cases

This week we will briefly cover researching administrative law.

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.

The official publication of Federal rules is the Code of Federal Regulations that is published annually by the Government Printing Office. The CFR is divided into 50 subject matter titles. Each of the 50 titles are republished each year on a staggered, quarterly basis. Titles 1-16 are revised as of January 1, titles 17-27 are revised as of April 1, Titles 28-41 are revised as of July 1, and Titles 42-50 are revised as of October 1. Each title is divided into chapters usually bearing the name of the issuing agency. Each chapter is further subdivided into parts which cover specific regulatory areas. Large parts may be subdivided into subparts; all parts are organized in sections, and most citations to the CFR will be provided at the section level.

Rules that are immediately effective are integrated into the “Electronic Code of Federal Regulations” also known as the e-CFR. The e‐CFR is an unofficial editorial compilation published by the Office of the Federal Register and the Government Printing Office. It is the most up-to-date version of the CFR.

So how do you find regulations?

If you are following the research process, hopefully your secondary source would have given you some citations to regulations when talking about your issue. For example, if we were researching a Fair Labor Standards Act issue of overtime for outside sales employees, we would find references to the applicable regulations in the secondary source, FLSA Employee Exemption Handbook.

Your annotated code also may refer you to relevant CFR sections. In Westlaw codes, you can find this under Context and Analysis. In Lexis Codes, it is under Research References. If you are using online sources on Lexis or Westlaw, you can conveniently jump to the hyperlinked CFR citations. Once you have a citation to a specific CFR section, you can retrieve the section by citation in Lexis and Westlaw just like you would any other document. You can also retrieve it by citation in HeinOnline and you can retrieve it by citation for free at the e-CFR or govinfo.gov.

If you don’t have a citation from a secondary source or the annotated code, you might also want to look at finding regulations by subject. The CFR has an index. You can access this index on Govinfo.gov and on HeinOnline. Lexis and Westlaw also have CFR Indexes but they are not the same index as the one that the Government Printing Office provides. To access the index on Westlaw, simply go to the CFR, look off to the right under Tools and Resources, and select the CFR Index. To access the index on Lexis, begin typing CFR Index in the big search box.

When using either the GPO Index or the indexes on Lexis or Westlaw, one helpful hint is to start by looking under the agency or sub-agency.

Remember that you can also do keyword searching for regulations. When searching administrative regulations on Lexis or Westlaw, you can add a little precision to your search by using fields and segments.

You can find more information on researching administrative law in our Federal Administrative Law guide and our administrative law videos.

Posted August 4, 2025 by Susan Boland

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