Education 250/Government 219: Education and Law

Professor: George Isaacson
Librarian: Ginny Hopcroft
Fall 2007

Law cases are not cataloged individually in the Library's catalog. Law cases are traditionally published together in sets of volumes called law reporters. They are now also published in electronic databases. The traditional legal citation form is used in both print and electronic collections to identify and locate cases. To locate a case in print, you must know the law reporter name (i.e., Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Editon) and the case citation, which tells you volume and page. Law cases are consistently cited in this format:

Volume number / Abbreviation of Law Reporter Name / Page number

1 L. Ed. 2d. 1479

In the above example "1" is the volume, "L. Ed. 2d" is the abbreviation for the law reporter (United States Supreme Court Reports Lawyers' Edition 2nd Series) and "1479" is the page number. Citations usually accompany case names in the texts of case decisions and in law journal articles. With a citation, you can readily find the case in a print law reporter or in an online database.

Finding Print Law Cases by Citation
Follow these steps when you have a citation:

Figure out which law reporter you need from the abbreviation in the citation—see the section on “Print Law Reporters” below.
Note the library classification number for the law reporter from the “Print Law Reporters” section.
Locate the law reporter set in the Govt Doc stacks.
Find the individual case within the multiple volumes of the law reporter by locating the correct volume and page number.

Finding Law Cases by Litigant Name:

From the Indexes/Databases list, go to LexisNexis Academic “Legal” or to Westlaw Campus.
Select “Federal and State” in Lexis; in Westlaw Campus the search box is on the front page.
Type the names of the litigants. Press enter.
Full text of the case appears on the screen.
For research purposes, the format and annotations of the print law reporters may be preferred when available. Note the citation of the case and use the steps above for finding print law cases by citation.

Finding Law Cases by Subject:

Look in one of the legal encyclopedias in the Reference section under KF 154.
Find law review articles on the subject in LexisNexis or Westlaw Campus; the cases mentioned will be cited, so you can find them.
Search the print index, “Index to Legal Periodicals.”
Check the Cornell Law School web site: http://www.law.cornell.edu/

United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition.: Govt Doc KF 101 .A5 U5
Citation Form: 120 L. Ed. 2d. 467; Supreme Court decisions with supplemental annotations, headnotes and summaries.
United States Reports: Reports of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States.: Govt Doc Ju 6.8: 1790-1998
Citation Form: 112 U.S. 2649; Texts of official decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court with no supplemental material.
U.S. Supreme Court records and briefs [microform]: full opinion.: Govt Micro
Microfiche edition, 1969/70--present; In addition to full decisions for U.S. Supreme Court cases, this microfiche series provides the briefs and opinions of the individual justices.
Maine Reporter: Govt Doc Maine J 90.28 (Government Documents Collection), 1966-
Citation Form: 577 A. 2nd 765; Decisions from the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. For caselaw from other states, please see LexisNexis Academic or Westlaw.

LexisNexis Academic: Fulltext database of law cases, law reviews, and news.
Westlaw Campus: Fulltext database of caselaw, statutes, law journals and reviews.
Index to Legal Periodicals: 1926 to present. Printed index.
Periodical Index Area Yearly print subject index to law reviews. An especially useful feature is the separate index in the back of each volume which lists articles related to specific cases.

Legal Information Institute from the Cornell Law School: http://www.law.cornell.edu/
Findlaw: http://www.findlaw.com/
Reflaw: http://www.washlaw.edu/

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