Source: https://library.law.virginia.edu/ajm-blog/category/research-tips/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 06:58:46+00:00

Document:
“Hey, you’re in law school—what do you think about the Supreme Court?” Chances are you fielded a version of this question from relatives and friends over break. If your response started with “well, in 1945 in International Shoe…” or “Erie says…,” keep reading to find out how to update your discussion points to the current Term’s cases in time for your J-term and Spring classes.
Ahoy! For Professor Rutherglen’s Admiralty J-term course, get on board with the issues raised in Air and Liquid Systems Corp. v. DeVries, docket no. 17-1104, about products liability for exposure to asbestos in ship equipment.
Show off what you learn about tax exemptions and the Railroad Retirement System in Federal Income Tax with Professor Yin or Professor Hayashi and Professor Doran’s Employee Benefits Law after taking a look at BNSF Railway Co. v. Loos, no. 17-1042.
Come into Professor Nachbar’s J-term course with a prime example of The Firm and Cyberspace from Apple Inc. v. Pepper, no. 17-204.
Assess the Southern Poverty Law Center and Cato Institute’s amici arguments about the impact of fines, fees, and forfeitures on the criminal justice system in Timbs v. Indiana, no. 17-1091, and share with your classmates in Professor Harmon’s Criminal Procedure Survey and Professor Shin’s Law and Public Service.
Get a preview of Wildlife Law the week before Professor Hynes’ J-term course by listening to the parties in Herrera v. Wyoming, no. 17-532, argue whether Crow Tribe members have treaty rights to hunt for food in the Bighorn National Forest.
Brief yourself on the circuit split over suits against companies for misstatements in tender offers before the Court and your Securities Regulation classes with Professor Kitch and Professor Vollmer address it in Emulex Corporation v. Varjabedian, no. 18-459.
If you’re taking Administrative Law with Professor Bamzai or Professor Duffy, follow one of the Term’s most-watched cases Department of Commerce v. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, no. 18-557, related to adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. Oral argument is February 19.
There are many resources available to help you get up to speed on these cutting-edge legal controversies. Apply your lawyer-in-training analytical skills directly to the case filings and lower court’s opinion—filings submitted after SCOTUS went electronic in November 2017 are on the Court’s website; for earlier filings go to SCOTUSblog. Also head to the Court’s site to follow oral arguments in audio (posted the Friday after) and written transcript (posted the same day). Find and track what experts say about the case through Google News, blogs like SCOTUSblog, and practice-area blogs discoverable in Justia’s BlawgSearch.
You can also head to our subscription databases for news on SCOTUS cases (and any lower court cases that interest you). Bloomberg Law is a one-stop-shop for learning about current cases. If you haven’t already registered, use the link in our list of databases. Its news is written for lawyers, covers cases in depth, and is updated frequently. Browse news specific to practice areas and set up alerts to receive headlines or keyword-specific results by going to Browse > News > Bloomberg Law News. To stay on top of the major federal and state cases across practice areas, head to U.S. Law Week. Lexis’ Law360 similarly specializes in legal news and is available in the Lexis database and in a browsable interface via LawWeb.
To find articles about your case, try keyword searching party names, terms like “court,” “judge,” or “justice,” and issue-specific words. Keep in mind that you know more about the law than the general public, so non-law news outlets’ articles will not have legal terminology. When your search in a subscription database generates a set of relevant articles, schedule email alerts of future articles with your keywords by clicking the bell symbol at the top of the results page. Are you getting hundreds of results? Narrow to the most relevant ones by using Boolean terms and connectors in your search—click the question mark in Bloomberg Law’s searchbox for a list of them and head to Westlaw and Lexis’ advanced search screens for guided forms. If you have questions about the databases, stop by or email us at refdesk@law.virginia.edu.
This is a PSA for students interested in private ordering and “how neighbors settle disputes.” If extralegal systems such as cattle-trespass norms, industry-based arbitration services, and organized crime are up your alley, then the case of Aitken, and Others v. Wilson and Bannatyne—from the Law Library’s collection of Scottish Court of Session Records—might provide some grist for your next paper. You can review the case documents here.
“In most of the parishes and country villages in Scotland, particularly in the village of Elsrighill, and others in its neighbourhood, there hath been, for time immemorial, what is called the Birly court. All the small proprietors, portioners, and tenants, are members of this court, and they, every two years, or oftener, elect three of their own number, who are stiled Birlymen, and one called the birly officer.
Aiken is a fun read and provides interesting material for scholarly analysis. The documents in our collection even include handwritten notes describing the court’s unreported decision. (According to those notes, Wilson and the sheriff won because, as one judge put it, “Birly courts [are] known in this country but [are] only arbitrators.”) If you think Aitken might fit with your research interests, be sure to check out this case.
 See, e.g., Barak D. Richman, Norms and Law: Putting the Horse Before the Cart, 62 Duke L.J. 739 (2012).
 Robert C. Ellickson, Order Without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes (1991).
 See, e.g., Lisa Bernstein, Private Commercial Law in the Cotton Industry: Creating Cooperation Through Rules, Norms, and Institutions, 99 Mich. L. Rev. 1724 (2001).
 See, e.g., Curtis J. Milhaupt and Mark D. West, The Dark Side of Private Ordering: An Institutional and Empirical Analysis of Organized Crime, 67 U. Chi. L. Rev. 41 (2000).
 Andrew Crosbie, Information for Andrew Aitken Portioner of Elsrighill, David Brown and James Richardson, Tenants there, present Birlymen for the Town of Elsrighill, and William Elder, Wright there, Birly Officer, John Cuthbertson, Portioner there, John Lawson, Farmer there, and John White of Howburn, Pursuers; against John Wilson, Portioner of Elsrighill, and John Bannatyne, Sheriff-Substitute of Lanark, Defenders (Jan. 18, 1780) (Box 4, Scottish Court of Session Records, University of Virginia Law School Library).
 “Redd the marches” refers to fixing boundaries. See Redd, v.2, Oxford English Dictionary, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/160193 (last visited Feb. 8, 2018) (“To delineate or fix exactly (a border or boundary); to mark or set the borders of (a place). Chiefly in to redd the marches. . . .”); March, n.3, Oxford English Dictionary, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/113952 (last visited Feb. 8, 2018) (“The boundary of an estate; a boundary dividing one property from another; a tract of land between two properties.”).
 The phrase “pit stones” refers to boundary-stones. Pit, Dictionary of the Scots Language, http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/pit_n_v2 (last visited Feb. 8, 2018).
 Poind, Oxford English Dictionary, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/146603 (last visited Feb. 8, 2018).
 William Craig, Information for John Bannatyne, sheriff-substitute of Lanark, defender, against Andrew Aitken, portioner of Elsrighill, and others, pursuers (Nov. 15, 1779) (Box 4, Scottish Court of Session Records, University of Virginia Law School Library).
1. Stay calm and check secondary sources.
Not understanding a research assignment at the beginning is perfectly normal. Take some breaths—you’ll be fine!
Do some preliminary research just to get your footing in a new area.
Try the internet, or even better: try treatises, practice guides and law review or bar journal articles.
2. Ask questions. And that includes asking us!
Ask the attorneys with whom you’re working to fill you in on the context of a research assignment, to recommend sources and to let you know about cost constraints.
Ask librarians at your firm about resources available for different types of projects.
Still having trouble getting started? Call or email us—we’re happy to help in the summer!
The Reference Desk: (434) 924-7465 or refdesk@law.virginia.edu.
3. Learn about your jurisdiction.
Before getting too deep into your research, make sure you understand the court system or administrative agencies that might be involved.
Are there decision-makers that have more authority than others? Are there agencies that might govern your facts?
Jurisdiction-specific treatises or practice guides can be a big help.
4. Go free to start your research.
There are plenty of free legal resources you can use to start your research.
Google Scholar is great for free case research; Cornell LII is good for free, easy access to statutes.
Use the free resources for your broad, initial searches; and subscription resources once you have narrowed down your research goals.
5. Give yourself time to THINK about the information you are finding.
Start thinking early. Exactly what type of information do you need to answer your research question? Cases? Statutes? Regulations? A combination? Would a good secondary source, like a practice guide, be sufficient?
A few extra minutes mulling over your research every so often may be exactly what it takes for something to click.
6. Use Westlaw and/or Lexis and/or Bloomberg Law to your advantage.
Lexis Advance and Bloomberg Law offer free access for law students all summer. Your firm may also give you Westlaw access.
Know the strengths of each database so that you can use them most effectively. We generally view WestlawNext as best for basic case, statute or law review searching; Bloomberg Law as good for federal docket searching and current awareness; and Lexis Advance as an acceptable substitute for WestlawNext’s general legal research if you do not have WLNext access.
Use the databases’ free 1-800 reference attorney help lines.
Consult your organization’s librarians for the ins-and-outs of their specific subscriptions and ask them if there are other databases available that might be even better for your project.
7. Look for Advanced Search screens.
Advanced searching is available in most databases and gives you more precision in your research.
Getting too many results or results that aren’t quite right in your initial searches? Find out how to do advanced searching in any database you use so that you can better target what you need.
Shepardize or Keycite cases and statutes to check for appeals to higher courts, citations in subsequent cases or recently passed legislation.
Expand your research results beyond keyword searching by using the citing references both Westlaw and Lexis provide to cases, statutes, or regulations as another tool for finding relevant cases, articles or other resources.
9. Keep track of your research trail (sources you’ve checked, searches you’ve run, whether you’ve updated the law) and organize the documents you find.
Organizing your research is not only more efficient, so that you don’t duplicate your efforts, but may also help you think about alternative research approaches if you get stuck.
Use the WestlawNext or Lexis Advance folders to organize your research findings.
Treat everything you turn over as the best representation of the work you were able to do with the time and information you had.
Ensure that you truly shine this summer by giving yourself time to carefully proofread your work before turning it in.
Thursday, April 17 at noon or Friday, April 18 at noon.
Get ready for summer success! Learn the law library’s top ten tips to help you tackle research assignments at your summer job. The Thursday and Friday sessions are the same, so pick the time that works for you. Bring your lunch if you’d like.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.