Government 210: Constitutional Law I

U.S. Supreme Court

Professor: George Isaacson
Librarian: Ginny Hopcroft
Fall 2008

The purpose of this guide is to identify library sources that will help you with your assignments in constitutional law. Although these sources will be useful, you may have additional questions, so please feel free to contact Ginny Hopcroft (x3298 or ghopcrof@bowdoin.edu).

Court Cases

How To Read A Citation

Lawyers and law scholars use a specific form of bibliographic citation to identify law cases. To locate an individual law case, you need to know the case's citation. Law cases are consistently cited in this format:

Volume number / Abbreviation of Law Reporter Name / Page number

21 L. Ed. 2d 731


In the above example "21" is the volume, "L.Ed.2d" is the abbreviation for the law reporter (United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers Edition 2nd Series) and "731" is the page number.

It is not unusual for there to be more than one source for court cases.  For example, for the U.S. Supreme Court there is the official United States Reports (citation example: 349 US 294) and two commercial counterparts: United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers Edition (published by Lexis/Nexis; citation example: 99 L.Ed. 1083); and Supreme Court Reporter (published by Westlaw; citation example: 75 S.Ct. 753). Commercial versions contain helpful annotations, the official one does not.

Finding Law Cases By Citation

  1. Go online to either Westlaw Campus or Lexis/Nexis Academic and type the citation into the appropriate search box, or
  2. Using the citation, figure out which hardcover law reporter you need from the list below. Using the classification number, locate the reporter in the Govt. Doc stacks.

Finding Law Cases by Name

Although much case law is referred to by citation, sometimes you may only have the name of the case. Follow these steps when you only have the name of a law case:

  1. Go online to Westlaw Campus or LexisNexis Academic and type the names of the litigants into the appropriate search boxes.
  2. Full text of the case appears on the screen.

Finding Law Cases by Subject

  1. Look in one of the sources listed in the Reference Books section of this guide; or
  2. Search for references in articles in the Law Reviews section of this guide, or
  3. Browse the KeySearch section of Westlaw Campus (left-hand side) or search Westlaw Campus or Lexis/Nexis Academic by keyword

Law Reporters and other Sources for Cases

Please note: the sources below vary in the amount of interpretive annotations they provide. Even within a single source, earlier volumes may not include annotations or they may be very brief. Generally, the commercial sources will provide more supplemental information than the official source. It is important to consult more than one source for a case if you would like a full range of interpretive annotations.

United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition. (Commercial edition from Lawyer's Cooperative of LexisNexis)
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. (Official Record of Decisions)
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.
Main 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
Lexis Nexis Academic
Fulltext subscription database of federal and state cases, statutes, law reviews and news. For law cases, select "legal" tab next to red "general" button; use left hand list to find federal and state cases.
Westlaw Campus
Fulltext subscription database of caselaw, statutes, law reviews and news. To find cases use the Law tab, not the News & Business tab.

Law Reviews

  • Westlaw Campus -  for law reviews, type search terms inside the Search box(es) and select Journals and Law Reviews below it (you must select All Journals and Reviews or an individual state).

    Tip: it's often more efficient to limit your search to the title field, e.g., ti(environment! and innovat!) - the "!" symbol searches variants such as innovate, innovation... -or- if you're combining a couple of terms, to search for them close to one another, e.g., "constitutional law" /20 "speech" (constitutional law within 20 words of speech).
  • Lexis/Nexis Academic (be sure you are using the Legal tab in the upper-left corner)
    -  for law reviews, click on Law Reviews from the left-hand menu; see searching tips for Westlaw (proximity searching in L/N is "constitutional law" w/20 "speech").
  • Index to Legal Periodicals (Main Periodical Index section, H-L Library)
    - library has 1926-1994 only; an index to legal periodicals and books; arranged by subject and author, also has very useful Table of Cases section.

Reference Books

Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation
Main Ref Y 1.1/3: KF4527 .U54

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

West's encyclopedia of American law.
Main Ref KF154 .W47 1998

Relevant Web Sites

This page created and maintained by Ginny Hopcroft. Last update: September 2008.