Secondary Legal Sources and Finding Tools
This research guide lists 1) general reference sources that provide basic descriptions, explanations and analyses of the law; and 2) finding tools to scholarly materials, legal Internet sites, and legal abbreviations.
 |
Guides to Legal Research
In addition to the following guides see sources in Overview of Legal Research: Legal Process that give an overview of the federal and California legislative, judicial and administrative process.
- General
- Finding the Law (Berring) 1995 (ref KF 240 B45 1995)
- Fundamentals of Legal Research (Mersky and Dunn) 2002 (ref KF240 J32 2002)
- Guide to the U.S. Federal Legal System: Web-Based Publically Accessible Sources (Feltes) 2005
- How to Find the Law (Cohen, Berring & Olson) 1989 (ref KG 240 C538 1989)
- Research Methodology (Harvard Law School Library) Provides a step-by-step framework for legal research and defines basic questions as well as basic types of sources.
- Legal Research: How to Find and Understand the Law (Elias & Levinkind) 2005 (ebook--HSU users only)
- Legal Research for the 21st Century (Berring) 2000 (Video 4415) Five videocassettes covering 1)Basics; 2)Case finding and the future of cases; 3)Citators and secondary source research; 4)Statutes, legislative history and administrative materials; and 5)Legal research on the internet and research strategies.
- Legal Research in a Nutshell (Cohen & Olson) 1996 (ref KF 240 C54)
- Legal Information: How to Find It, How to Use It (Olson) 1999 (ref KF 240 O365 1999)
- Virtual Chase: Teaching Legal Professionals How to Do Research (Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll)
- Web Guide to U.S. Supreme Court Research (Partin)
- Zimmerman's Research Guide: An Online Encyclopedia for Legal Researchers (Zimmerman) Topical guide to Internet sources of legal information. Keyword and phrase searchable.
- California
- California Law (Washburn School of Law)
- Henke's California Law Guide (Martin) 2002 (ref KFC 74 H46)
- Zimmerman's Research Guide: California (Zimmerman)
Legal Citation and Abbreviations
- Beiber's Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations (Prince & Bieber) 1993 (ref KF 246 B46 1993) Contains over 30,000 abbreviations to legal sets.
- The Bluebook: a Uniform System of Citation (Harvard Law Review Association) 1993 ( ref Kf 245 B58) The standard style manual for legal citation.
- Introduction to Basic Legal Citation (Martin--Cornell Law School) Style manual for legal citation that follows The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation.
- "Table of Abbreviations" in Black's Law Dictionary (ref KF 156 B53)
Dictionaries
- Black's Law Dictionary (ref KF 156 B53)
- Duhaime's Law Dictionary - written in plain language
- Everybody's Legal Glossary (Nolo) - contains plain-English definitions for more than one thousand legal terms
- Findlaw Legal Dictionary (Findlaw)
Directories
- Federal Regulatory Directory (Congressional Quarterly) Biennial (ref KF 5408 A15 F4) Comprehensive guide to federal regulatory agencies. Includes laws under which agencies derive their regulatory responsibilities.
- United States Government Manual (National Archives and Records Administration) Annual (print copy available in ref JK 421 A3) Directory of federal agencies. Entries include a short description of responsibilities, agency officials and contacts, reference to legislative acts which established an agency, and references to organizational statements in the Code of Federal Regulations.
Encyclopedias and Treatises
- Corpus Juris Secundum (West Group) 1998, with pocket supplements (KF 154 C6) Scholarly encyclopedia that attempts to explain legal principles and doctrine that apply throughout the United States. The source and focus ia almost exclusively on case law. Published in over 100 volumes and includes over 450 individual articles. Also includes separate Table of Statutes, Rules, and Regulations Cited (KF 154 C612)
- Encyclopedia of the American Constitution (Levy and Karst) 2000 (6 volumes) (ref KF 4548 E53 2000)
- Summary of California Law (Witkin) 2005, with pocket supplements (ref KFC 80 W5 2005) 16 volume treatise that represents a summary statement of California law. Includes references to statutory and case law, law reviews, and other secondary sources.
- Gale Encyclopedia of Everyday Law (HSU Users Only) (Phelps) 2003. "Encyclopedia of practical information on laws and issues affecting people's everyday lives."
- Legal Encyclopedia (Nolo) "Plain English" guide to legal information.
- Major Acts of Congress (Landsberg) 2004 (HSU users only) Encyclopedia that includes articles on major acts of Congress.
- Nolo's Encyclopedia of Everyday Law (Irving) 2005 (HSU users only)
- Oxford Companion to American Law (Hall and Clark) 2002 (ref KF 154 O96 2002)
- West's Encyclopedia of American Law (West Group) 1998 (ref KF 154 W47 1998) Multi-volume set designed to provide explanations of the law in "non-legal" language.
Internet Guides
- AllLaw.com
- American Law Sources Online (ALSO) (LawSource) Compilation of links to freely accessible on-line sources of law for the United States, Canada and Mexico.
- CataLaw
- FindLaw - includes LawCrawler, a search engine for law-related information on the web
- Guide to Law Online (Law Library of Congress) Annotated guide to sources of information on government and law available online
- Hieros Gamos
- Internet Legal Resource Group
- The Law Engine
- LawGuru. com - includes "Multiple Resource Legal Research" which allows one to search multiple legal resources from one interface
- Legal Engine
- Legal Information Institute (Cornell Law School)
- Legal Web Site Directory (Lexis-Nexis)
- MegaLaw: Lawyer's Window to the Web
- WashLaw: Legal Research on the Web (Washburn University School of Law)
- WWW Virtual Law Library (Indiana University School of Law)
- Yahoo's Subject Index - Law
Current Legislation and Policy
See also Environmental/Natural Resources Law Current Legistation and Policy.
- Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report (HSU users only) Covers developments in the U.S. Congress, including the status of bills, votes and amendments, and floor and committee activity from 1983 to the present.
- Congressional Research Service Reports (US Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service)
CRS produces approximately 1,000 new reports annually and updates others of a continuing nature. These reports attempt to clearly define an issue in its legislative context and may take many forms including policy analysis, economic studies, statistical reviews, and legal analyses. In additional to full reports shorter issue briefs are produced as well as other types of products. Only a small number of these reports are officially made available to the public on the Internet leaving other organizations to make them public. Useful guides to CRS reports include Guide to CRS Reports on the Web and Congressional Research Service Reports.
- Congressional Research Service Reports (University of North Texas Library) Search over 10,000 CRS reports by keyword or browse by subject.
- Open CRS (Center for Democracy & Technology) Indexes over 13,000 fulltext CRS reports available on the Open CRS site and other sites.
Indexes to Scholarly Literature
- Full Text Search of Law Journals on the Internet (University Law Review Project)
- Index to Legal Periodicals and Books (Inquire at the HSU Library Reference Desk for access) Indexes over 890 journals, law reviews, and other publications.
- LexisNexis
Academic: Legal (HSU users only)
The "Legal" section includes codes and cases at both federal and state levels and the fulltext to over 500 law review journals.
