Legal Research

This lesson introduces the student to the doctrine and processes involved in interpreting state and federal statutes. Statutes are a critical part of every substantive area of the law, so this is important background for every student, legal professional, lawyer and judge.

This lesson introduces students to subject specific treatises, a type of secondary resource particularly helpful when conducting legal research in an unfamiliar area of law.

This lesson covers secondary resources useful for Texas-specific research including the state legal encyclopedia, state treatises, state practice materials, state form books, and state legal periodicals. Popular resources such as Texas Jurisprudence III and Dorsaneo's will be covered. This lesson also contains information on searching Texas library catalogs and research guides.

This lesson is a general introduction to resources and strategies for researching tribunals and truth commissions.

This lesson will provide an understanding of the language, mechanics, and process of conducting research of U.S. treaties: the major sources of treaty texts (both official and unofficial), major indexes and finding tools, resources for updating treaties, and a basic strategy for treaty research.

This lesson will show you the basic tools for finding United Nations materials. It first gives an overview of how the United Nations is organized. It includes descriptions of each of the principal organs of the U.N. and an overview of the United Nations document numbering system. It then shows online tools for United Nations research: the U.N.'s website; the Official Document System; and the U.N. Digital Library.

This lesson will take you through the process of updating statutes. It is an advanced lesson that builds on concepts developed in the CALI lessons, Introduction to State and Federal Statutes and Codification. This lesson assumes a basic understanding of statutes including how they are created and codified.

This lesson will teach you how to use all the major legal citators - Shepard's in print, Shepard's on Lexis, KeyCite on Westlaw and BCite on Bloomberg Law - to locate additional useful cases when starting with one case or other document, and to find secondary resources such as law reviews when starting with a case or other document.

This lesson is intended as an introduction to the use of the Restatements of the Law. In this lesson students will learn what the Restatements of the Law are and why one would use them for legal research, their major features, how to search them, and how to use them to find cases.

This lesson provides instruction on conducting Utah legal research using both primary and secondary sources.

This lesson teaches students how to use online citators to confirm that a case is still "good law"--meaning, the case still represents existing law. This lesson focuses on the online citators of Shepard's on Lexis+ and KeyCite on Westlaw. The lesson assumes students know how to use digests and how to create a research strategy.

This lesson explains how to research Vermont state law. Topics include cases, statutes and legislative history, administrative law, as well as legal ethics and current awareness resources. Using a hypothetical research problem, the lesson walks through efficient ways to find answers.

This lesson is an introduction to researching Virginia law using secondary sources.

This lesson is designed to introduce students to Washington's primary law: cases, statutes, and regulations. Although the lesson can be used as a standalone tool, it can also be used to supplement other forms of instruction such as classroom lectures or demonstrations. The questions provide students with ongoing feedback as they learn.

This lesson provides an overview of the branches of the U.S. government and how each branch makes law.

This lesson provides a general review of legal research and an introduction to Wyoming primary and secondary resources.