30 October 2009
KeyCite Limits – Clear All
When using KeyCite on Westlaw you'll often find cases that have been cited many times. Roe v. Wade, for example, has nearly 20,000 citing documents. The only feasible way to deal with so …
21 October 2009
Searching HeinOnline
HeinOnline is one of our favorite resources here in the Law Library. It offers PDF versions of many great legal resources. While many students and faculty are familiar with HeinOnline and its content, …
08 October 2009
Legal Abbreviations
Legal citation is full of legal abbreviations. A number of these are easily recognized by legal researchers (P.2d, F.Supp, U.S., etc); however, many others are completely foreign (A.N., EWiR, W.L.R.,). You'll probably encounter …
01 October 2009
New Shepard’s Signal
LexisNexis has recently released a new Shepard's Signal for statutes. The red encircled exclamation point you may encounter when shepardizing a statute indicates "that citing references in the Shepard's Citations Service contain strong …
24 September 2009
Religion Case Reporter
The Law Library has recently acquired access to the Religion Case Reporter - "the only publication in the United States devoted exclusively to reporting and indexing judicial opinions addressing the interaction between law …
18 September 2009
LexisNexis Headnotes
Headnotes, found at the beginning of cases in both Westlaw and LexisNexis, are a valuable research tool. Because of their long life and their impact on legal research and the legal profession, West's …
10 September 2009
Choosing a Paper Topic
One of the things I talked about in the Academic Legal Research training today was choosing a topic for a case note or seminar paper. There are lots of different ways to go …
04 September 2009
Academic Legal Research Training
Writing a case note or comment? Need to get started on a seminar paper? Can't find the right topic? Research for an academic paper can be a bit different than typical legal research. …
19 August 2009
Legal Research in PDF
Each year I offer legal research training to the various journals here at the law school. We generally focus on where to find PDF versions of the various sources commonly needed for source …
05 August 2009
LexisNexis Related Content
The CM Law Library blog points out that LexisNexis has just released its "Related Content" feature, which appears to be the competitor to Westlaw's "Results Plus." When you access a case in LexisNexis, …
30 June 2009
Casemaker v. Fastcase
I've blogged before about alternatives to Lexis and Westlaw for legal research. Two alternatives, Casemaker and Fastcase, are provided as member benefits through many state and local bar associations. The Utah Bar Association …
26 June 2009
Natural Resources Law
The Law Library has recently acquired access to the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation Digital Library. This database contains over 2,000 scholarly articles dealing with natural resources law that the Foundation has published …
24 June 2009
Summer 2009
The Law Library is relatively quiet with most of you away at your summer externships and clerkships. As you well know, due to the economy Summer 2009 is quite different than summers past. …
19 June 2009
Treatises
Today a colleague and I had a lunch meeting with a group of attorneys in Salt Lake to discuss legal research. One of them kept pointing out that law students need to realize …
15 June 2009
Bar Study
With bar exam prep in full swing I thought I'd mention that the Law Library has several resources to help with your bar study. Last year we acquired Rigos Bar Review Series, which …
10 June 2009
Judicial Clerkships
For those of you interested in pursuing a judicial clerkship (and with the economy the way it is that may be a lot of you) Above the Law is reporting that the Clerkship …
04 June 2009
Wikipedia
Last month over at the Volokh Conspiracy, guest blogger Ira Matetsky had an interesting series of posts about Wikipedia. Matetsky is a New York litigation attorney and a Wikipedia administrator and member of …
02 June 2009
Federal Judicial Nominations
Yale Law Library has recently created a new database that tracks federal judicial nominations. The site includes information on federal judicial nominees from the 103rd Congress to the present. The Yale Law Library …
