Looking for a Particular Fact Pattern?
- American Law Reports (ALR) annotations can be gold mines of information. See especially ALR Federal and ALR Federal 2d Series.
- Lexis Advance and Westlaw (more complete on Westlaw).
Looking for a law review articles?
- Start with GOOGLE SCHOLAR, but you may want to fine tune your results with a periodical index such Legal Resource Index (LRI) on Westlaw or Index to Legal Periodicals & Books Full Text (ILP), which is now part of EBSCO Legal Collection, instead of or in addition to searching full-text law review articles on Lexis Advance & Westlaw.
- Index by subject, so you will find articles that lack the keywords you used in a full-text search.
- Index searches may yield fewer but more relevant lists of article—more precise results.
- Install & connect to Case VPN to use most Case Law Library database subscriptions.
- Check the “terms of use” links on subscriptions to determine if you may use for academic purposes only.
- EBSCO LEGAL COLLECTION (OhioLINK -- research databases -- Legal Collection)
- HEIN ONLINE LAW JOURNAL LIBRARY
Federal Statutes?
- U.S.C. = United States Code (official, but not timely). Used primarily for citation purposes, not for research.
-
U.S.C.A. = United States Code Annotated (unofficial; includes references to cases). Westlaw.
-
U.S.C.S. = United States Code Service (unofficial; includes references to cases). Lexis Advance.
Update print U.S.C.A. & U.S.C.S. using pocket parts and supplements. Lexis and Westlaw online are updated automatically. Check the currentness of the code section you are using online.
Federal Regulations Research?
- See the following Case Western Reserve Law Library Research Guide:
- Federal Regulation Research
- Reminder: Federal Regulations Abbreviations & Information
- CFR = Code of Federal Regulations.
- FR or Fed. Reg. = Federal Register. Published daily; updates the CFR.
- LSA = List of CFR Sections Affected. Use the LSA to find FR updates to specific CFR sections.
- Proposed & final regs in the Federal Register often include have preambles with useful background information.
Need Proposed, Amended or New Federal Court Rules?
- United States Courts website: Federal Rules of Practice & Procedure.
- Appear in advance sheets of:
- Supreme Court Reporter
- Federal Reporter 3d
- Federal Supplement
- Federal Rules Decisions
- United States Code Congressional and Administrative News (U.S.C.C.A.N.)
Constitution of the United States Research
- CRS Annotated Constitution
- Includes analysis and interpretation of the Constitution and annotations of cases decided by the U. S. Supreme Court through August 26, 2017.
- This version of the Constitution is a useful starting place for constitutional research.
Model Federal Jury Instructions (forthcoming)
Legislative Histories
- SOURCES OF COMPILED LEGISLATIVE HISTORIES database on HeinOnline: based on the looseleaf publication Nancy P. Johnson, Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories: A Bibliography of Government Documents, Periodical Articles, and Books.
- All compilations for major laws are included in the database with some minor exceptions.
- The sources for these compilations include congressional documents, legal periodicals, treatises and looseleaf services.
- Rick McKinney, Commercial Legislative Histories of U.S. Laws on the Internet.
- This list includes those of Westlaw, Lexis Advance and HeinOnline.
- It also links to free Legislative Histories of Selected U.S. Laws on the Internet.
If there is no pre-compiled legislative history for your statute, you may want to use a research guide to walk you through the process. Check the CWRU Law Libraries research guides.
- You may be able to find a list of all the elements of your particular law by using the Legislative Histories, Bills & Laws feature of the ProQuest Legislative Insight subscription database.
- ProQuest Legislative Insight is the research database to provide information about the elements of a legislative history on a specific act, if a pre-compiled list is not already available in the sources listed above.
- ProQuest Congressional
- ProQuest Congressional Hearings
- ProQuest Regulatory Insight (new)
When all else fails and you cannot find current information about resources you need to use, try:
- Zimmerman’s Research Guide