Government 210: Constitutional Law I (Selected Sources)

Professor: Richard Morgan
Librarian: Ginny Hopcroft ( )
Fall 2007

Background for Legal Research

Texts of law cases are published in print and online. The traditional legal citation form is used in both formats to identify and locate individual cases. Law cases are consistently cited in this way:

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.

Law cases from a specific court (Supreme Court, for example) have been traditionally published together in large sets of volumes called law reporters. The above citations permit researchers to locate cases within the law reporter sets. In an online database of law cases the most precise searches use the citation, if known, although searching by litigants’ names is also effective. Citations often accompany case names in the texts of other cases or in law journal articles.

Finding Print Law Cases by Citation

Follow these steps to find a case in one of the traditional print law reporters:

Figure out which law reporter you need from the abbreviation in the citation - see the section on Law Reporters.
Find the library classification number for the law reporter cited - see the section on Law Reporters.
Locate the print law reporter 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. For Supreme Court cases, we have two law reporters. The text of the decision is identical in both. The United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition is usually preferred because of its supplemental annotations.

Finding Law Cases by Name

Steps for finding a case by name:

From the Indexes/Databases list, go to the LexisNexis Academic:Legal Research or to Westlaw Campus.
Select "Get a Case" in LexisNexis; in Westlaw Campus the search box is on the front page.
Type the names of the litigants; press enter.
Full text of the case with citation appears on the screen.
The case can be downloaded, printed, or emailed. Or use the citation to locate the case in print.
Bowdoin Library has Supreme Court, Federal District Court, Federal Appeals Court and State of Maine Supreme Judicial Court law reporters.

Finding Law Cases by Subject

Some strategies for finding caselaw on a subject:

Search LexisNexis Academic Legal tab in "federal and state cases" using the top search box. Enter a search phrase, such as "prayer and schools."
Look in one of the legal encyclopedias in the Library Reference Collection.
Search "Encyclopedias and Law Reviews" in Westlaw Campus.
Search the print index, Index to Legal Periodicals.

Law Reporters

United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition. Govt Doc KF 101 .A5 U5 Citation Form: 120 L. Ed. 2d. 467: Lawyers' Edition, 1754-1956;
Lawyers' Edition 2nd Series, 1956-1993;
Lawyers' Edition Third Series, 1994-:
These three Lawyers' Edition Series include the texts of decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court headnotes, legal analyses in the form of annotations, and summaries of counsel's arguments. Each series is comprised of 100 volumes and within each series the cases are arranged in chronological order.
United States Reports: Reports of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. Govt Doc Ju 6.8: Citation Form: 112 U.S. 2649: The United States Reports series publishes 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.

Indexes and Databases

LexisNexis Academic Online: Fulltext web database of law cases, statutes, law reviews and news.
Westlaw Campus Online: Fulltext web database of caselaw, statutes, law journals and reviews.
Index to Legal Periodicals Periodical Index Area: Yearly print subject index to law reviews. Also includes specialized indices at the back which list articles about specific cases or related to individual statutes.

Reference Books

Black's law dictionary : definitions of the terms and phrases of American and English jurisprudence, ancient and modern: Main Ref KF156 .B532 1991
The constitutional law dictionary: Main Ref KF4548.5 .C47 1985
Encyclopedia of constitutional amendments, proposed amendments, and amending issues, 1789-1995: Main Ref KF4557 .V555 1996
Encyclopedia of the American Constitution: Main Ref KF4548 .E53 2000
The Evolving Constitution: how the Supreme Court has ruled on issues from abortion to zoning: Main Ref KF4548 .L54 1992
Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States: KF8742.A35 O93 2005
The United States law week: Main Ref KF127.1 .U5
West's encyclopedia of American law.: Main Ref KF154 .W47 1998

Selected Web Sites

Oyez: http://www.oyez.org/
Findlaw: http://www.findlaw.com/
Legal Information Institute from the Cornell Law School: http://www.law.cornell.edu/
Judicial Branch Resources on GPO Access: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/judicial.html

This page created and maintained by Ginny Hopcroft. Last update: November 2007.

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