Legal Reference Resources and Internet Guides
This research guide lists legal reference resources that provide guidance in use of legal materials and general introductions to the law. Also listed are major guides to legal materials on the Internet.
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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)
- Legal Research: How to Find and Understand the Law (Elias & Levinkind) 2002 (ref KF 240 .E35 2002)
- 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)
- Locating the Law: A Handbook for Non-Law Librarians (Southern California Association of Law Libraries) 2009. Includes chapters on California legal resources
- 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
- 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.
- Common Abbreviations (Sacramento County Public Law Library)
- 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
- Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary (Nolo) - contains plain-English definitions for more than one thousand legal terms
- Law 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
- American Jurisprudence 2d (LexisNexis Academic/Lawyers' Cooperative Publishing Company) Search by keyword or browse alphabetically by article title (HSU Users Only) One of two major scholarly legal encyclopedias on American law--state, federal, criminal, civil and procedural. The 400 articles collect, examine, and sumarize the broad principles of American law and provide direct leads to supporting cases, related annotations, forms, proofs, and trial techniques.
- Corpus Juris Secundum (West Group) 1998, with pocket supplements (KF 154 C6) One of two major scholarly legal encyclopedias that explain legal principles and doctrine that apply throughout the United States. The source and focus is 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."
- Nolo's 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.
- 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.
- 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
- PublicLegal (Internet Legal Resource Group)
- The Law Engine
- LawGuru. com
- 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)
- Yahoo's Subject Index - Law