Important Legal Resources
(Yes, even in your non-law library)
A Continuation

Mark Gooch
The College of Wooster Libraries
mgooch@wooster.edu
Federal Depository Library Conference
October 16, 2001
General Legal Reference Resources
* Black's Law Dictionary
* West's Encyclopedia of American Law
* Bieber's Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations
* A current guide to legal research 
* Fundamentals of Legal Research--Jacobstein and Mersky (currently 7th ed.)
* The Process of Legal Research--Kunz (currently 5th ed.)
Directories of Lawyers
* Martindale-Hubbell Lawyer Locator
* http://www.martindale.com/
* Search by name, location, area of practice

* West Legal Directory
* http://directory.findlaw.com/
* Part of the FindLaw site
* Search by name, location, area of practice

Reading a Citation
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602 (1966)
* The red part identifies the name of the case
* The green shows the volume number, reporter abbreviation and page number of the case
* The purple indicates the parallel citation for the case
* The blue indicates the year of the decision
From How to Read a Legal Citation by Ellen M. Quinn 
http://www.law.csuohio.edu/lawlibrary/lawpubs/citation.html
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe
* Available in many general academic libraries
* Includes a Legal Materials Component
* Source for annotated cases and statutes
* Citations can lead to other relevant resources
* Search for cases by legal topic
* Law review articles
* Citations can lead to relevant cases or resources
Finding Materials in 
Academic Universe
* Use the Guided Search Options
* Limit terms to Headnotes or Syllabus fields for topical research
* Use Plaintiff or Defendant fields for partial case name searches
* Spacing/punctuation are important for citation searches
* Example: search and seizure and Ohio
WWW Law Sites
* FindLaw
* http://www.findlaw.com/
* Yahoo!-type directory of law sites
* Contains a consumer-oriented section of sites
* LawCrawler legal search engine
* WWW Virtual Library--Law
* http://www.law.indiana.edu/v-lib/
* Sites are reviewed before being included
* Can search or browse topically
WWW Law Sites (cont.)
* Lexisone 
* http://www.lexisone.com/
* Requires registration (free) to access some sections
* Can browse topically and also by type of source
* Cornell's Legal Information Institute (LII)
* http://www.law.cornell.edu/index.html
* Good starting point for key legal materials        by practice area
NOLO Press Books
* Publisher of  "self-help" law books
* Are designed for Pro Se individuals
* Having trouble with the neighbor's dog?

Thanks...


                              Questions?