# Presentation: 277292

## 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](file:///lexis/legalresearch.html)_

## WWW Law Sites

- FindLaw
- _[http://www.](file:///findlaw/home.html)__[findlaw](file:///findlaw/home.html)__[.com/](file:///findlaw/home.html)_
- Yahoo!-type directory of law sites
- Contains a consumer-oriented section of sites
- LawCrawler legal search engine
- WWW Virtual Library--Law
- _[http://www.law.](file:///vlib/home.html)__[indiana](file:///vlib/home.html)__[.](file:///vlib/home.html)__[edu](file:///vlib/home.html)__[/v-lib/](file:///vlib/home.html)_
- Sites are reviewed before being included
- Can search or browse topically

## WWW Law Sites (cont.)

- Lexisone
- _[http://www.](file:///lexisone/home.html)__[lexisone](file:///lexisone/home.html)__[.com/](file:///lexisone/home.html)_
- 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.](file:///lii/index.html)__[cornell](file:///lii/index.html)__[.](file:///lii/index.html)__[edu](file:///lii/index.html)__[/index.html](file:///lii/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?