Subject Guides: Political Science: Legal Research

Recommended Legal Research Websites

LC Guide to Law Online
Prepared by the Law Library of Congress Public Services Division, an annotated guide to sources of information on government and law available online. It includes selected links to useful and reliable sites for legal information.
Legal Information Institute (LII)
Cornell Law School provides full text access to federal and state legal materials, including case law, statutes and constitutions.

Google
Effectively search Google for government information. Type in your search term followed by site:gov to search only government sites or limit your search to a specific website by following your search term with site:(agency).gov (replace agency with the actual name, such as justice.gov for the Department of Justice).
FindLaw.com
FindLaw is a search engine for legal information that includes many useful business law items including links to common business legal forms and information particularly useful to small business.
Hieros Gamos
Collection of business Law resources and links.

Legal Research Databases

HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Database of legal resources, including laws, regulations, some trials and court reports, treaties, monographs, and a variety of other materials covering United States and foreign law. Coverage includes private and public international law, intellectual property and legal history. Includes full text image-based searchable database of legal periodicals. Database coverage for each periodical is from the beginning issue to the most current allowed under contract. New and updated material added frequently.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Nexis Uni provides access to more than 15,000 news, legal and business sources, including: print and online journals, television and radio broadcasts, newswires and blogs; local, regional, national and international newspapers with deep archives; extensive legal sources for federal and state cases and statutes, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 1790; and business information on more than 80 million U.S. and international companies and more than 75 million executives.
ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window ProQuest Congressional offers a comprehensive collection of congressional documents from 1789 to the present. Congressional hearings offer a unique perspective on all aspects of U.S. social, economic, and political history by presenting differing views from representatives of all societal sectors, including business, industry, labor, education, health, criminal justice, and government.

Find Case Law

Use Google Scholar to find the full-text of a case by name or citation. Enter at least one of the party names (Ex: Faragher v. Boca Raton or Faragher) or citation (524 US 775) in the search box. Select the "Case law" radio button from below the search box (and then limit by jurisdiction if you know it).

On the Nexis Uni home page select Cases to search for a case by jurisdiction and party name, citation, or keyword.

HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Database of legal resources, including laws, regulations, some trials and court reports, treaties, monographs, and a variety of other materials covering United States and foreign law. Coverage includes private and public international law, intellectual property and legal history. Includes full text image-based searchable database of legal periodicals. Database coverage for each periodical is from the beginning issue to the most current allowed under contract. New and updated material added frequently.

Court Locator Map

The following map shows the geographic coverage areas of the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals. You can access court links by clicking here.

Legal Citation

Examples of Case Law Citation:

Citing Legal Materials in APA Style - Sample citations for common types of legal materials from California State University, Stanislaus.
Cornell's LII provides examples of case citations by jurisdiction
Georgetown Law School's guide to The Bluebook and basic concepts of legal citation.

Prince's Bieber Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations by Mary Miles Prince
Call Number: Reference Collection -- 1st floor: KF246 .B46 2009
ISBN: 9780837716251
Publication Date: 2009-10-01
Use to decipher legal abbreviations.
Prince's Dictionary of Legal Citations by Mary Miles Prince
Call Number: Reference Collection -- 1st floor: KF246 .P73 2017
ISBN: 9780837740386
Publication Date: 2017-01-01
The Complete Guide to Citing Government Information Resources by Debora Cheney
Call Number: Research Help Desk -- 1st floor: J9.5 .G37 2002
ISBN: 088692586X
Publication Date: 2002-01-01
A comprehensive guide to citing government documents at all levels -- U.S. federal, state, and local; IGO; and foreign -- and in all formats.

Find Articles

Law reviews are scholarly journal publications, usually edited by law students in conjunction with faculty members, and are valuable for the depth in which they analyze and critique legal topics, as well as their extensive references to other sources, especially primary sources (cases and statutes). Full-text access to law review articles is available through the following:

Google Scholar

HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window

Supreme Court Yearbook

Supreme Court Yearbook
Provides in-depth coverage and analysis of every decision from the nation's highest court since the 1989-1990 term

Subject Compilations of State Laws

Subject Compilations of State Laws
Comprehensive source for identifying articles, books, government documents, loose-leaf services, court opinions and Internet sites that compare state laws on hundreds of subjects. Coverage is from 1960 to present.

National Survey of State Laws

National Survey of State Laws by Leiter, Richard A. (Ed.)
Call Number: Reference Collection -- 1st floor: KF386 .N38 2019
ISBN: 9780837741048
Publication Date: 2019
This reference work provides an overall view of some of the most-asked about and controversial legal topics in the United States: abortion, the right to die, gun control, prayer in public schools, marijuana, marriage, personal income tax, drunk driving, capital punishment, right to work, lemon laws, leases and other agreements, child custody, legal ages, and many other areas. Presented in chart format, NSSL allows users to make basic state-by-state comparisons of current state laws.

Legal Encyclopedias

Gale Encyclopedia of American Law
Call Number: Reference Collection -- 1st floor.: KF154 .W47 2011
ISBN: 9781414436845
Publication Date: 2011-01-21
Explains legal terms and concepts in everyday language.

WEX Legal Encyclopedia
Wex provides definitions and explanations of legal topics including:

The Oxford Companion to American Law by Kermit L. Hall (Editor); Joel B. Grossman (Editor); James W. Ely (Editor); N. E. H. Hull (Editor); David S. Clark (Editor)
Call Number: e-book
ISBN: 0195088786
Publication Date: 2002-05-02
This Companion offers a one-volume, alphabetically arranged, encyclopedia introducing the main lines of American law, from the institutions, people, events, and cases to the doctrines and concepts.

Lucy Scribner Library

Political Science: Legal Research