CRM Research Guide

Primary Legal Resources

If your topic deals with a statute (legislation), use the annotated code via Lexis/Westlaw

• U.S.C.A. (Westlaw), U.S.C.S. (Lexis)

If your topic involves cases (court decisions), use a citator to make sure the case is still good law (Shepard's on Lexis or KeyCite on Westlaw)

Use a legal treatise on topical areas of the law (e.g. constitutional law, criminal law, etc.)

e-CFR -- for updated versions of federal rules/regulations

federal agencies -- links to 440 federal agencies

Executive Orders

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/

CFR, Title 3 -- signed Presidential documents, including Executive Orders 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quick Sources for Journal Articles

Google Scholar  can provide a quick, though basic, overview of a legal research topic. When you access as a CWRU (law) patron, results will include articles from both HeinOnline and JSTOR. 

HeinOnline offers full-text content from a variety of sources, in PDF format.

• historical and current U.S. government documents, such as the U.S. Code (unannotated), federal regulations (Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations); U.S. Supreme Court opinions; and selected federal administrative decisions.
• Selected foreign content from Canada and the United Kingdom. (See also, CanLII and BAILII)
• United Nations library (including the United Nations Treaty Series and additional United Nations materials). See also the United Nations website and UN documents.
• Topical "libraries" such as Intellectual Property and Immigration. (See also topical secondary sources (law reviews and journals) via Lexis or Westlaw.
• Hague Academy, Harvard International, Philip Jessup, and additional international law content
• Selected foreign journal content.

Annotated Codes

When researching U.S. federal statutes or U.S. state statutes, you can usually find the full-text online.

For in-depth research, consult the annotated code versions via Lexis (U.S. Code Service and selected state annotated codes) or Westlaw (U.S. Code Annotated and selected state annotated codes).

Municipal (city) codes are often available online -- ask a reference librarian for assistance.

Major Treatises

Another research "shortcut" for U.S. legal research is to use a legal treatise by topic.

For most legal subjects, there is usually a treatise on the topic on either Lexis or Westlaw.

• Written by experts.
• Regularly updated.
• Provide the relevant primary legal authorities and
• Additional context and depth of treatment

SSRN

SSRN  provides free, full-text access to scholarly papers while they are still "at press" (in print form), as well as working papers which may never be published in traditional, print format. Thus, legal researchers (and others) can access scholarly, multidisciplinary articles on various topics (including, but not limited to law).

Digital Commons (Bepress)

Digital Commons offers institutions, including at least 50 law school, an opportunity to post full-text content from faculty publications, student-edited journals, in-house publications, and orphan periodicals (journals that may not not feasible for for-profit publications).

For example, our law library hosts the following publications on behalf of the law school.

• Faculty Publications
• Student-Edited Journals: Law Review, Journal of International Law, Health Matrix, Canada-U.S. Law Journal, and the Journal of Law, Technology and the Internet
• In Brief and The Newsletter of the Center for Professional Ethics
• Cross-Disciplinary Journals: Societies Without Borders and The International Journal of Ethical Leadership
• Selected (old) law school videos
• Ohio Oil and Gas Commission's decisions and documents

Search Results (Online Catalogs)

Search results can be filtered before you search, or after you search.

For example, when you search the online catalog,  you can do an advanced search and limit by date, language, or specific field (author, title, or Library of Congress subject heading). Search results are retrieved by relevance (by algorithm), but that can be retrieved by reverse chronological order (reverse date).

You can also limit the search results, after they are retrieved, by these options.

Search Results (Lexis and Westlaw)

To obtain better results from "law reviews and journals":

- while searching all law review and law journal content, try the ATLEAST# command -- results will only include law journal/review articles that mention that word or phrase at least that many times or more.

Sample search: ATLEAST25("war crime") AND ATLEAST20("command responsibility") -- no blank spaces and you can adjust the #s. 

or

- pick topical law journal options (such as criminal law, intellectual property)