The University of Alabama School of Law
The University of Alabama School of Law
Legal encyclopedias are great places to start when looking for general background or to find a few citations to well-established primary authority. While there are some jurisdiction specific titles, such as Florida Jurisprudence or Texas Jurisprudence, most jurisdictions don't have their own specific titles.
To access the legal encyclopedia through Westlaw, look for the "Secondary Sources" tab located just below the search bar. After clicking on it, it'll lead you to a different page, where you should look for the "By Type" section, where you will find "Jurisprudence and Encyclopedias." There you will find a variety of legal encyclopedias, including all the state encyclopedias that Westlaw has access to and materials such as "American Jurisprudence."
In Lexis+, if you look at the "Explore" box and in the "Content" tab and you'll find "Secondary Materials." After clicking on it, look for the "Content Type" section and select "Treatises, Guides, & Jurisprudence." This will lead you to a page that will have "National," "Federal," and "State" materials. Unlike Westlaw, this page includes materials such as Treatises and Guides so it may be more difficult to navigate and find information if you don't know which states have a legal encyclopedia or what is included in the federal materials section.
Many practitioners rely on either Black's Law Dictionary through Westlaw or Ballentine's Legal Dictionary through Lexis. These are excellent resources to use to find terminology, including formal legal doctrines and synonyms.
Similar to legal encyclopedia's, you'll want to select the "Secondary Sources" tab, where you'll find a list of "Tools & Resources" on the right hand side of the page. One of the options is "Black's Law Dictionary," where you'll be able to enter search up the legal definition of terms or phrases. You can also always type "Black's Law Dictionary" in the search bar, where you can see it in the "Content Pages" section before hitting enter, along with "Black's Law Dictionary - Historical."
On Lexis+, look for "Secondary Materials" again and select it. You'll find a link titled "Dictionaries" in the "Content Type" field. Here, you will find a handful of dictionary options, including the most popular on Lexis, "Ballentine's Law Dictionary."
American Law Reports (A.L.R) are arranged similarly to casebooks, they have articles that take a lead case on a given issue and gather subsequent and similar cases under it. You will likely want to use A.L.R.s for broad overviews of an area of law and citations to cases, as well as for jurisdictional differences, including circuit splits, majority/minority rules, and other jurisdictional variations.
After selecting the "Secondary Sources" tab, look at the "By Type" section and select "American Law Reports." From there, you can select from a list of topics that have their own unique report, or, if you don't know which to pick, you can do a keyword search in the search bar at the top of the page. Below is a picture of the list of topics that you can choose from.
Go to "Secondary Materials," then look at the "National" section and select "American Law Reports." As you can see from the picture below, the A.L.R. search found on Lexis+ will be more difficult to search than that of Westlaw if you aren't sure what you are looking for.
Treatises are works that discuss a legal practice area, offering expert interpretation and opinion in addition to analysis and citations of relevant primary authorities. They come in several varieties, so the use and authority of treatises will vary accordingly. They are useful for their in-depth discussion of complex legal issues and analysis of legal rules and decisions. You should use them to get a good overview of an area of law that you are not familiar with, or one which may be highly complicated.
After selecting "Secondary Sources," look for the "By Type" section and select "Texts & Treatises." You will be redirected to a page that has a list of just under 2,500 titles, which is a lot. You can use the filter to the left of the screen to narrow by keyword, jurisdiction, etc. to find what you are looking for.
You can either select "Secondary Materials" and follow it to another page where you can then select "Treatises, Guides & Jurisprudence" in the "Content Type" section, or, you can look just below "Secondary Materials" and select "Treatises & Guides." Either way, you will be led to a page that has "National," "Federal," "State," and "Practice Area" lists of treatises, guides and jurisprudence. From there, you can either do a keyword search in the search bar at the top of the page or try and narrow your results by jurisdiction or practice area.
Legal periodicals is a broad category that includes academic law journals, bar journals, and legal news sources and can be used for overviews and background of legal issues, especially recent developments and changes in the law. You can find legal periodicals on both Westlaw and Lexis, though each site may have their own exclusive sources, however, Google Scholar has indexed academic legal periodicals.
Select the "Secondary Sources" tab, then "Legal Newspapers & Newsletters" in the "By Type" section. There you will find a list of almost 400 different newspapers and newsletters that you can filter through using the filters on the left hand side of the screen.
For Lexis+, you're going to want to look to left side of the screen and look for "Legal News Hub." After clicking this link, you will be taken to a new page that covers breaking news and developments in the law and the legal industry. Once on this page, you'll likely want to select "All Sections," which is located at the top of the page, just under the Lexis+ logo. This will allow you to explore 4 different publications by a variety of topics.
These publications are:
These are a unique form of secondary source that 'restate' common law rules as short statements, followed by illustrations and examples. These sections may be adopted by jurisdictions, and when this happens, the restatement gains similar authoritative weight as statutes or cases. You can find them in both Lexis and Westlaw, as well as PDFs of the restatements on HeinOnline. Additionally, you can use citation tools on both Westlaw and Lexis to determine if a restatement section has been cited, quoted, or adopted by a jurisdiction. If you can't find one of the older editions on one resource, it is always worth checking another because they may have it.
Select "Secondary Sources," then look at the "By Type" section for "Restatements & Principles of Law." There, you'll find a list of Publications of Law and Restatements. You can just scroll through the results to find the restatements or use the filters to the left of the screen to do a title search or search by topic if you know what you're looking for.
Select "Secondary Materials," then look for the "Content Type" section and select "Restatements." There you will find a list of the "Restatements of the Law" and below that you'll find the "Principles of the Law."
If you go to HeinOnline, you can look for "American Law Institute Library." After selecting that, you'll see an option for "Restatements & Principles of the Law." If you select this, you will be taken to a list of the restatements.
Uniform laws are similar to restatements in that they present a rule in the form of a statute which may be adopted by a jurisdiction by enacting it as it would any other statute. The can be used to interpret the law as adopted by the jurisdiction and to locate non-binding, persuasive authorities from other jurisdictions that adopted similar laws.
The best way to find uniform laws is to use the search bar. If you type "ULA" in the search bar but don't search it, you'll see a section called "Content Pages," which will have a link titled "Uniform Laws Annotated." If you select this link, you will be taken to a new page where you can look through a variety of legal topics, such as "Uniform Commercial Code," "Estate, Probate & Related Laws," or "Civil Procedure & Remedial Laws." You can also do a keyword search in the search bar.
In Lexis, the fastest way to find the uniform laws is to start typing in "ULCLAW," which should pull up a section titles "Sources" with a link titled "ULCLAW - Uniform Law Commission Model Acts." From there, once you select that link, you will be taken to a page that has a long list of uniform acts from various topics. You can also select "Statutes & Legislation" on the main page and you'll find the text box "Content Type" with the link "Model Acts and Uniform Laws." This will take you to a page where you can select the "Model Code of Evidence," "Model Penal Code," "ULCLAW - Uniform Law Commission Model Acts," and the "Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.)."
PLI Plus is an online library and research platform providing practice-focused expert analysis for attorneys and legal professionals. Users have access to "Answer Books," "Course Handbooks," "Forms & Checklists," "Periodicals," "Transcripts," and "Treatises." See below for descriptions of all of these resources. Bounds Law Library has a subscription that students can use by accessing the list of databases on our website.
Make sure that if you plan to use PLI you use the link on our website for our subscription, otherwise, you won't be able to use the site.
Continuing Legal Education (CLE) are mandatory credits that licensed attorneys must complete to continue their professional education after being admitted to the bar. Many of these materials are posted online and would be excellent resources for you to look at.
If you're using Westlaw, select the "Secondary Sources" tab and then you'll see a link to "CLE & Seminar Materials." This link will redirect you to a page that has materials filtered by publication, however, you can use the filter options on the left hand side of the screen to filter the results by title, jurisdiction, or topic to find materials that pertain more to your specific interest.
Using Lexis, select "Secondary Materials," then "CLE Course of Study Materials." You will then be able to search materials by "Practice Area."
Members of the American Bar Association (ABA) will be able to access a library of over 500 CLE programs. This resource is free to Student ABA Law Student Division members.
To access jury instructions using Westlaw, select the "Secondary Sources" tab and then the "Jury Instructions" link. From there, you'll be able to look for the specific set of instructions that you're searching for, either by scrolling or by using the filters on the left side of the screen.
Using Lexis, simply make sure you're in "Content," then select "Jury Instructions." Lexis has their instructions separated by Federal, State and Practice Area, simply find whichever subject or jurisdiction you're looking for.
On Bloomberg Law, select the "Litigation" tab, then "Litigation Resources." Unfortunately, Bloomberg doesn't have a link that you can use to find a list of jury instructions but they do have a search option for jury instructions, just look for the "Find Jury Instructions" box. If you input the jurisdiction that you are looking for it will pull up those instructions.
From the home page, make sure in the "Content Types" tab, then select "Statutes & Court Rules." You will be redirected to a page where you will be able to search for Court Rules by jurisdiction.
From the home page, select "Statutes & Legislation," then "Court Rules." You'll then be able to search for court rules by jurisdiction or practice area.
Select the "Litigation" tab, then the "Litigation Resources" link. Unfortunately, they don't provide a list of jurisdictions, however, they do have a search box labeled "Find Court Rules" that you can use to enter the jurisdiction you are looking for.
Most jurisdictions also have a website that you can check that will have the court rules. For example, the State of Alabama has their court rules here.
You should also make sure that you check to make sure there aren't local rules that you need to know. These are formal or informal rules or regulations, adopted and implemented at a local level, that govern the practical or procedural affairs of a local court.
For example, here are the local rules for the United States District Court Northern District of Alabama.