This Week in the Law Library … Aug. 5, 2024
This week in the Law Library we’re getting ready for Fall Semester and reviewing more basic legal research skills for summer.
Preparing for Law School!
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:
Travid Whitsitt, How to Prepare for Law School, Vault (July 15, 2024)
LLM Welcome Week and Orientation
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. 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 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.
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.
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.
Legislative History Research
This week we’re going to take an initial look at legislative history research. 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 Plain Meaning Rule dictates whether or not you would want to do legislative history research. The Plain Meaning Rule states that if the language is plain on its face, you should not introduce evidence of legislative history. Do courts use legislative history? Despite many claims to the contrary, yes! See, for example, Abbe R. Gluck & Richard A. Posner, Statutory Interpretation on the Bench: A Survey of Forty-Two Judges on the Federal Courts of Appeals, 131 Harv. L. Rev. 1298 (2018).
Determine Which Law Added Your Language
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. This is sometimes called the credit field. For Federal statutes, these are your public laws. Annotated codes will also have a history section where they summarize the changes that various laws made to the statute. Once you have determined which public law added your language, you will be ready to take the next step.
Look for a Compiled Legislative History
Unfortunately, legislative history research is often a lot of work with very little reward. Federal legislative history research is generally easier than state legislative history research. One way to make it easier on yourself is to take advantage of work that someone else has already done — look to see if someone has created a compiled legislative history. The following are excellent sources of compiled legislative histories:
ProQuest legislative histories are comprised of fully searchable PDFs of full-text publications generated in the course of congressional lawmaking. Each history includes the full text of the public law itself, all versions of related bills, law-specific Congressional Record excerpts, committee hearings, reports, and prints. Also included are presidential signing statements, CRS reports, and miscellaneous congressional publications that provide background material.
HeinOnline US Federal Legislative History Library
In addition to the inclusion of comprehensive federal legislative histories published by the U.S. GPO and private publishers, this database also includes a unique finding aid based on Nancy Johnson’s award-winning work, Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories.
GAO Federal Legislative Histories on Westlaw
Comprehensive legislative histories for most U.S. Public Laws enacted from 1921 to 1995, and PL 104-191, as compiled by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, including the text of laws, bills, committee reports, Congressional Record documents, transcripts of hearings, and other documents in pdf format.
Arnold & Porter Legislative Histories on Westlaw
Very selective compilation of legislative histories available on Westlaw.
Posted August 5, 2024 by Susan Boland