Legal Research and Citation

AuthorKevin J. Fandl
ProfessionDirector of the Global Legal Education Institute
Pages99-116
Legal Research and
Citation
Chapter 6
99
I addressed legal reasoning and the inductive process in Chapter 4
and gave you a structure to follow to use legal research to guide
your client. This chapter will help you better understand exactly
how to use the vast array of legal research databases out there to
quickly and completely identify the cases you will need to com-
plete your analysis.
This chapter will begin with a look at paid legal research data-
bases. If you work in a large firm or university, you may have ac-
cess to these databases, and if so, I strongly suggest that you use
them. However, there are a number of free sources available today
that can be nearly as effective and, in some cases, even more effi-
cient in identifying relevant sources. I will discuss those as well.
Finally, I have included a brief overview of legal citation, which
you will need to have in your back pocket in order to properly
reference the sources that you identify in your legal research.
Paid Research Sources
LexisNexis. This is one of the two
“biggies” in the legal research busi-
ness. Lexis is a powerful search engine
and includes a comprehensive array of
cases, statutes, rules, regulations, and
100 CHAPTER 6
secondary sources. To use this database effectively, you must un-
derstand not only how to navigate to the right database within Lexis,
but also how to search within that database. We cannot cover every
aspect of Lexis in this short book, but a few basic search tips should
get you started in your discovery process.
If you have access to Lexis and would like to use it for your
legal research, here is a very rough introduction to the basic search
functions. You may find it necessary to go into more advanced search
functions, which you can easily learn about via the free Lexis tuto-
rials available online here: http://www.lexisnexis.com/tutorial/glo-
bal/globaltutorial_frameset.asp?locale=en_US&lbu=US&adaptation
=Academic&sPage=menu
Conducting a Basic Search in Lexis
Step 1: Once you open the database (www.Lexis.com), you will
see this main page.

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