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How to do legal research in 3 steps

Knowing where to start a difficult legal research project can be a challenge. But if you already understand the basics of legal research, the process can be significantly easier — not to mention quicker.

Solid research skills are crucial to crafting a winning argument. So, whether you are a law school student or a seasoned attorney with years of experience, knowing how to perform legal research is important — including where to start and the steps to follow.

What is legal research, and where do I start? 

Black's Law Dictionary defines legal research as “[t]he finding and assembling of authorities that bear on a question of law." But what does that actually mean? It means that legal research is the process you use to identify and find the laws — including statutes, regulations, and court opinions — that apply to the facts of your case.

In most instances, the purpose of legal research is to find support for a specific legal issue or decision. For example, attorneys must conduct legal research if they need court opinions — that is, case law — to back up a legal argument they are making in a motion or brief filed with the court.

Alternatively, lawyers may need legal research to provide clients with accurate legal guidance . In the case of law students, they often use legal research to complete memos and briefs for class. But these are just a few situations in which legal research is necessary.

Why is legal research hard?

Each step — from defining research questions to synthesizing findings — demands critical thinking and rigorous analysis.

1. Identifying the legal issue is not so straightforward. Legal research involves interpreting many legal precedents and theories to justify your questions. Finding the right issue takes time and patience.

2. There's too much to research. Attorneys now face a great deal of case law and statutory material. The sheer volume forces the researcher to be efficient by following a methodology based on a solid foundation of legal knowledge and principles.

3. The law is a fluid doctrine. It changes with time, and staying updated with the latest legal codes, precedents, and statutes means the most resourceful lawyer needs to assess the relevance and importance of new decisions.

Legal research can pose quite a challenge, but professionals can improve it at every stage of the process . 

Step 1: Key questions to ask yourself when starting legal research

Before you begin looking for laws and court opinions, you first need to define the scope of your legal research project. There are several key questions you can use to help do this.

What are the facts?

Always gather the essential facts so you know the “who, what, why, when, where, and how” of your case. Take the time to write everything down, especially since you will likely need to include a statement of facts in an eventual filing or brief anyway. Even if you don't think a fact may be relevant now, write it down because it may be relevant later. These facts will also be helpful when identifying your legal issue.

What is the actual legal issue?

You will never know what to research if you don't know what your legal issue is. Does your client need help collecting money from an insurance company following a car accident involving a negligent driver? How about a criminal case involving excluding evidence found during an alleged illegal stop?

No matter the legal research project, you must identify the relevant legal problem and the outcome or relief sought. This information will guide your research so you can stay focused and on topic.

What is the relevant jurisdiction?

Don't cast your net too wide regarding legal research; you should focus on the relevant jurisdiction. For example, does your case deal with federal or state law? If it is state law, which state? You may find a case in California state court that is precisely on point, but it won't be beneficial if your legal project involves New York law.

Where to start legal research: The library, online, or even AI?

In years past, future attorneys were trained in law school to perform research in the library. But now, you can find almost everything from the library — and more — online. While you can certainly still use the library if you want, you will probably be costing yourself valuable time if you do.

When it comes to online research, some people start with free legal research options , including search engines like Google or Bing. But to ensure your legal research is comprehensive, you will want to use an online research service designed specifically for the law, such as Westlaw . Not only do online solutions like Westlaw have all the legal sources you need, but they also include artificial intelligence research features that help make quick work of your research

Step 2: How to find relevant case law and other primary sources of law

Now that you have gathered the facts and know your legal issue, the next step is knowing what to look for. After all, you will need the law to support your legal argument, whether providing guidance to a client or writing an internal memo, brief, or some other legal document.

But what type of law do you need? The answer: primary sources of law. Some of the more important types of primary law include:

• Case law, which are court opinions or decisions issued by federal or state courts
• Statutes, including legislation passed by both the U.S. Congress and state lawmakers
• Regulations, including those issued by either federal or state agencies
• Constitutions, both federal and state

Searching for primary sources of law

So, if it's primary law you want, it makes sense to begin searching there first, right? Not so fast. While you will need primary sources of law to support your case, in many instances, it is much easier — and a more efficient use of your time — to begin your search with secondary sources such as practice guides, treatises, and legal articles.

Why? Because secondary sources provide a thorough overview of legal topics, meaning you don't have to start your research from scratch. After secondary sources, you can move on to primary sources of law.

For example, while no two legal research projects are the same, the order in which you will want to search different types of sources may look something like this:

• Secondary sources . If you are researching a new legal principle or an unfamiliar area of the law, the best place to start is secondary sources, including law journals, practice guides , legal encyclopedias, and treatises. They are a good jumping-off point for legal research since they've already done the work for you. As an added bonus, they can save you additional time since they often identify and cite important statutes and seminal cases.
• Case law . If you have already found some case law in secondary sources, great, you have something to work with. But if not, don't fret. You can still search for relevant case law in a variety of ways, including running a search in a case law research tool.

Once you find a helpful case, you can use it to find others. For example, in Westlaw, most cases contain headnotes that summarize each of the case's important legal issues. These headnotes are also assigned a Key Number based on the topic associated with that legal issue. So, once you find a good case, you can use the headnotes and Key Numbers within it to quickly find more relevant case law.

• Statutes and regulations . In many instances, secondary sources and case law list the statutes and regulations relevant to your legal issue. But if you haven't found anything yet, you can still search for statutes and regs online like you do with cases.

Once you know which statute or reg is pertinent to your case, pull up the annotated version on Westlaw. Why the annotated version? Because the annotations will include vital information, such as a list of important cases that cite your statute or reg. Sometimes, these cases are even organized by topic — just one more way to find the case law you need to support your legal argument.

Keep in mind, though, that legal research isn't always a linear process. You may start out going from source to source as outlined above and then find yourself needing to go back to secondary sources once you have a better grasp of the legal issue. In other instances, you may even find the answer you are looking for in a source not listed above, like a sample brief filed with the court by another attorney. Ultimately, you need to go where the information takes you.

Step 3: Make sure you are using ‘good’ law

One of the most important steps with every legal research project is to verify that you are using “good" law — meaning a court hasn't invalidated it or struck it down in some way. After all, it probably won't look good to a judge if you cite a case that has been overruled or use a statute deemed unconstitutional. It doesn't necessarily mean you can never cite these sources; you just need to take a closer look before you do.

The simplest way to find out if something is still good law is to use a legal tool known as a citator, which will show you subsequent cases that have cited your source as well as any negative history, including if it has been overruled, reversed, questioned, or merely differentiated.

For instance, if a case, statute, or regulation has any negative history — and therefore may no longer be good law — KeyCite, the citator on Westlaw, will warn you. Specifically, KeyCite will show a flag or icon at the top of the document, along with a little blurb about the negative history. This alert system allows you to quickly know if there may be anything you need to worry about.

Some examples of these flags and icons include:

• A red flag on a case warns you it is no longer good for at least one point of law, meaning it may have been overruled or reversed on appeal.
• A yellow flag on a case warns that it has some negative history but is not expressly overruled or reversed, meaning another court may have criticized it or pointed out the holding was limited to a specific fact pattern.
• A blue-striped flag on a case warns you that it has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court or the U.S. Court of Appeals.
• The KeyCite Overruling Risk icon on a case warns you that the case may be implicitly undermined because it relies on another case that has been overruled.

Another bonus of using a citator like KeyCite is that it also provides a list of other cases that merely cite your source — it can lead to additional sources you previously didn't know about.

Perseverance is vital when it comes to legal research

Given that legal research is a complex process, it will likely come as no surprise that this guide cannot provide everything you need to know.

There is a reason why there are entire law school courses and countless books focused solely on legal research methodology. In fact, many attorneys will spend their entire careers honing their research skills — and even then, they may not have perfected the process.

So, if you are just beginning, don't get discouraged if you find legal research difficult — almost everyone does at first. With enough time, patience, and dedication, you can master the art of legal research.

Thomson Reuters originally published this article on November 10, 2020.

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How to Conduct Legal Research

September 21, 2021

Conducting legal research can challenge even the most skilled law practitioners.

As laws evolve across jurisdictions, it can be a difficult to keep pace with every legal development. Equally daunting is the ability to track and glean insights into stakeholder strategies and legal responses. Without quick and easy access to the right tools, the legal research upon which case strategy hinges may face cost, personnel, and litigation outcome challenges.

Bloomberg Law’s artificial intelligence-driven tools drastically reduce the time to perform legal research. Whether you seek quick answers to legal research definitions, or general guidance on the legal research process, Bloomberg Law’s Core Litigation Skills Toolkit has you covered.

What is legal research?

Legal research is the process of uncovering and understanding all of the legal precedents, laws, regulations, and other legal authorities that apply in a case and inform an attorney’s course of action.

Legal research often involves case law research, which is the practice of identifying and interpreting the most relevant cases concerning the topic at issue. Legal research can also involve a deep dive into a judge’s past rulings or opposing counsel’s record of success.

Research is not a process that has a finite start and end, but remains ongoing throughout every phase of a legal matter. It is a cornerstone of a litigator’s skills.

[Learn how our integrated, time-saving litigation research tools allow litigators to streamline their work and get answers quickly.]

Where do I begin my legal research?

Beginning your legal research will look different for each assignment. At the outset, ensure that you understand your goal by asking questions and taking careful notes. Ask about background case information, logistical issues such as filing deadlines, the client/matter number, and billing instructions.

It’s also important to consider how your legal research will be used. Is the research to be used for a pending motion? If you are helping with a motion for summary judgment, for example, your goal is to find cases that are in the same procedural posture as yours and come out favorably for your side (i.e., if your client is the one filing the motion, try to find cases where a motion for summary judgment was granted, not denied). Keep in mind the burden of proof for different kinds of motions.

Finally, but no less important, assess the key facts of the case. Who are the relevant parties? Where is the jurisdiction? Who is the judge? Note all case details that come to mind.

What if I’m new to the practice area or specific legal issue?

While conducting legal research, it is easy to go down rabbit holes. Resist the urge to start by reviewing individual cases, which may prove irrelevant. Start instead with secondary sources, which often provide a prevailing statement of the law for a specific topic. These sources will save time and orient you to the area of the law and key issues.

Litigation Practical Guidance provides the essentials including step-by-step guidance, expert legal analysis, and a preview of next steps. Source citations are included in all Practical Guidance, and you can filter Points of Law, Smart Code®, and court opinions searches to get the jurisdiction-specific cases or statutes you need.

Searching across Points of Law will help to get your bearings on an issue before diving into reading the cases in full. Points of Law uses machine learning to identify key legal principles expressed in court opinions, which are easily searchable by keyword and jurisdiction. This tool helps you quickly find other cases that have expressed the same Point of Law, and directs you to related Points of Law that might be relevant to your research. It is automatically updated with the most recent opinions, saving you time and helping you quickly drill down to the relevant cases.

How do I respond to the opposing side’s brief?

Whether a brief is yours or that of the opposing party, Bloomberg Law’s Brief Analyzer is an essential component in the legal research process. It reduces the time spent analyzing a brief, identifying relevant authorities, and preparing a solid response.

To start, navigate to Brief Analyzer available from the Bloomberg Law homepage, within the Litigation Intelligence Center , or from Docket Key search results for briefs.

Simply upload the opposing side’s brief into the tool, and Brief Analyzer will generate a report of the cited authorities and arguments contained in the brief.

You can easily view a comparison with the brief and analysis side by side. It will also point you directly to relevant cases, Points of Law, and Practical Guidance to jump start your research.

[ How to Write a Legal Brief – Learn how to shorten the legal research cycle and give your legal brief a competitive advantage.]

How to optimize your search.

Crafting searches is a critical skill when it comes to legal research. Although many legal research platforms, including Bloomberg Law, offer natural language searching, terms and connectors (also called Boolean) searching is still a vital legal research skill and should be used when searching across court opinions, dockets, Points of Law, and other primary and secondary sources.

When you conduct a natural language search, the search engine applies algorithms to rank your results. Why a certain case is ranked as it is may not be obvious. This makes it harder to interpret whether the search is giving you everything you need. It is also harder to efficiently and effectively manipulate your search terms to zero in on the results you want. Using Boolean searching gives you better control over your search and greater confidence in your results.

The good news? Bloomberg Law does not charge by the search for court opinion searches. If your initial search was much too broad or much too narrow, you do not have to worry about immediately running a new and improved search.

Follow these tips when beginning a search to ensure that you do not miss relevant materials:

• Make sure you do not have typos in your search string.
• Search the appropriate source or section of the research platform. It is possible to search only within a practice area, jurisdiction, secondary resource, or other grouping of materials.
• Make sure you know which terms and connectors are utilized by the platform you are working on and what they mean – there is no uniform standard set of terms of connectors utilized by all platforms.
• Include in your search all possible terms the court might use, or alternate ways the court may address an issue. It is best to group the alternatives together within a parenthetical, connected by OR between each term.
• Consider including single and multiple character wildcards when relevant. Using a single character wildcard (an asterisk) and/or a multiple character wildcard (an exclamation point) helps you capture all word variations – even those you might not have envisioned.
• Try using a tool that helps you find additional relevant case law. When you find relevant authority, use BCITE on Bloomberg Law to find all other cases and/or sources that cite back to that case. When in BCITE, click on the Citing Documents tab, and search by keyword to narrow the results. Alternatively, you can use the court’s language or ruling to search Points of Law and find other cases that addressed the same issue or reached the same ruling.

[Bloomberg Law subscribers can access a complete checklist of search term best practices . Not a subscriber? Request a Demo .]

How can legal research help with drafting or strategy?

Before drafting a motion or brief, search for examples of what firm lawyers filed with the court in similar cases. You can likely find recent examples in your firm’s internal document system or search Bloomberg Law’s dockets. If possible, look for things filed before the same judge so you can get a quick check on rules/procedures to be followed (and by the same partner when possible so you can get an idea of their style preferences).

Careful docket search provides a wealth of information about relevant cases, jurisdictions, judges, and opposing counsel. On Bloomberg Law, type “Dockets Search” in the Go bar or find the dockets search box in the Litigation Intelligence Center .

If you do not know the specific docket number and/or court, use the docket search functionality Docket Key . Select from any of 20 categories, including motions, briefs, and orders, across all 94 federal district courts, to pinpoint the exact filing of choice.

Dockets can also help you access lots of information to guide your case strategy. For example, if you are considering filing a particular type of motion, such as a sanctions motion, you can use dockets to help determine how frequently your judge grants sanctions motions. You can also use dockets to see how similar cases before your judge proceeded through discovery.

If you are researching expert witnesses, you can use dockets to help determine if the expert has been recently excluded from a case, or whether their opinion has been limited. If so, this will help you determine whether the expert is a good fit for your case.

Dockets are a powerful research tool that allow you to search across filings to support your argument. Stay apprised of docket updates with the “Create Alert” option on Bloomberg Law.

Dive deeper into competitive research.

For even more competitive research insights, dive into Bloomberg Law’s Litigation Analytics – this is available in the Litigation tab on the homepage. Data here helps attorneys develop litigation strategy, predict possible outcomes, and better advise clients.

To start, under Litigation Analytics , leverage the Attorney tab to view case history and preview legal strategies the opposition may practice against you. Also, within Litigation Analytics, use the Court tab to get aggregate motion and appeal outcome rates across all federal courts, with the option to run comparisons across jurisdictions, and filter by company, law firm, and attorney.

Use the Judge tab to glean insights from cited opinions, and past and current decisions by motion and appeal outcomes. Also view litigation analytics in the right rail of court opinions.

Docket search can also offer intel on your opponent. Has your opponent filed similar lawsuits or made similar arguments before? How did those cases pan out? You can learn a lot about an opponent from past appearances in court.

How do I validate case law citations?

Checking the status of case law is essential in legal research. Rely on Bloomberg Law’s proprietary citator, BCITE. This time-saving tool lets you know if a case is still good law.

Under each court opinion, simply look to the right rail. There, you will see a thumbnail icon for “BCITE Analysis.” Click on the icon, and you will be provided quick links to direct history (opinions that affect or are affected by the outcome of the case at issue); case analysis (citing cases, with filter and search options), table of authorities, and citing documents.

How should I use technology to improve my legal research?

A significant benefit of digital research platforms and analytics is increased efficiency. Modern legal research technology helps attorneys sift through thousands of cases quickly and comprehensively. These products can also help aggregate or summarize data in a way that is more useful and make associations instantaneously.

For example, before litigation analytics were common, a partner may have asked a junior associate to find all summary judgment motions ruled on by a specific judge to determine how often that judge grants or denies them. The attorney could have done so by manually searching over PACER and/or by searching through court opinions, but that would take a long time. Now, Litigation Analytics can aggregate that data and provide an answer in seconds. Understanding that such products exist can be a game changer. Automating parts of the research process frees up time and effort for other activities that benefit the client and makes legal research and writing more efficient.

[Read our article: Six ways legal technology aids your litigation workflow .]

Tools like  Points of Law ,  dockets  and  Brief Analyzer  can also increase efficiency, especially when narrowing your research to confirm that you found everything on point. In the past, attorneys had to spend many hours (and lots of money) running multiple court opinion searches to ensure they did not miss a case on point. Now, there are tools that can dramatically speed up that process. For example, running a search over Points of Law can immediately direct you to other cases that discuss that same legal principle.

However, it’s important to remember that digital research and analytical tools should be seen as enhancing the legal research experience, not displacing the review, analysis, and judgment of an attorney. An attorney uses his or her knowledge of their client, the facts, the precedent, expert opinions, and his or her own experiences to predict the likely result in a given matter. Digital research products enhance this process by providing more data on a wider array of variables so that an attorney can take even more information into consideration.

[Get all your questions answered, request a Bloomberg Law demo , and more.]

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Legal Research Strategy

Preliminary analysis, organization, secondary sources, primary sources, updating research, identifying an end point, getting help, about this guide.

This guide will walk a beginning researcher though the legal research process step-by-step. These materials are created with the 1L Legal Research & Writing course in mind. However, these resources will also assist upper-level students engaged in any legal research project.

How to Strategize

Legal research must be comprehensive and precise.  One contrary source that you miss may invalidate other sources you plan to rely on.  Sticking to a strategy will save you time, ensure completeness, and improve your work product. 

Follow These Steps

Running Time: 3 minutes, 13 seconds.

Make sure that you don't miss any steps by using our:

• Legal Research Strategy Checklist

If you get stuck at any time during the process, check this out:

• Ten Tips for Moving Beyond the Brick Wall in the Legal Research Process, by Marsha L. Baum

Understanding the Legal Questions

A legal question often originates as a problem or story about a series of events. In law school, these stories are called fact patterns. In practice, facts may arise from a manager or an interview with a potential client. Start by doing the following:

• Read anything you have been given
• Analyze the facts and frame the legal issues
• Assess what you know and need to learn
• Note the jurisdiction and any primary law you have been given
• Generate potential search terms

Jurisdiction

Legal rules will vary depending on where geographically your legal question will be answered. You must determine the jurisdiction in which your claim will be heard. These resources can help you learn more about jurisdiction and how it is determined:

• Legal Treatises on Jurisdiction
• LII Wex Entry on Jurisdiction

This map indicates which states are in each federal appellate circuit:

Getting Started

Once you have begun your research, you will need to keep track of your work. Logging your research will help you to avoid missing sources and explain your research strategy. You will likely be asked to explain your research process when in practice. Researchers can keep paper logs, folders on Westlaw or Lexis, or online citation management platforms.

Organizational Methods

Tracking with paper or excel.

Many researchers create their own tracking charts.  Be sure to include:

• Search Date
• Topics/Keywords/Search Strategy
• Citation to Relevant Source Found
• Save Locations
• Follow Up Needed

Consider using the following research log as a starting place: 

• Sample Research Log

Tracking with Folders

Westlaw and Lexis offer options to create folders, then save and organize your materials there.

• Lexis Advance Folders
• Westlaw Edge Folders

Tracking with Citation Management Software

For long term projects, platforms such as Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley, or Refworks might be useful. These are good tools to keep your research well organized. Note, however, that none of these platforms substitute for doing your own proper Bluebook citations. Learn more about citation management software on our other research guides:

• Guide to Zotero for Harvard Law Students by Harvard Law School Library Research Services Last Updated Sep 12, 2023 300 views this year

Types of Sources

There are three different types of sources: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary.  When doing legal research you will be using mostly primary and secondary sources.  We will explore these different types of sources in the sections below.

Secondary sources often explain legal principles more thoroughly than a single case or statute. Starting with them can help you save time.

Secondary sources are particularly useful for:

• Learning the basics of a particular area of law
• Understanding key terms of art in an area
• Identifying essential cases and statutes

Consider the following when deciding which type of secondary source is right for you:

• Scope/Breadth
• Depth of Treatment
• Currentness/Reliability

For a deep dive into secondary sources visit:

• Secondary Sources: ALRs, Encyclopedias, Law Reviews, Restatements, & Treatises by Catherine Biondo Last Updated Apr 12, 2024 4863 views this year

Legal Dictionaries & Encyclopedias

Legal dictionaries.

Legal dictionaries are similar to other dictionaries that you have likely used before.

• Black's Law Dictionary
• Ballentine's Law Dictionary

Legal Encyclopedias

Legal encyclopedias contain brief, broad summaries of legal topics, providing introductions and explaining terms of art. They also provide citations to primary law and relevant major law review articles.  

Here are the two major national encyclopedias:

• American Jurisprudence (AmJur) This resource is also available in Westlaw & Lexis .
• Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS)

Treatises are books on legal topics.  These books are a good place to begin your research.  They provide explanation, analysis, and citations to the most relevant primary sources. Treatises range from single subject overviews to deep treatments of broad subject areas.

It is important to check the date when the treatise was published. Many are either not updated, or are updated through the release of newer editions.

To find a relevant treatise explore:

• Legal Treatises by Subject by Catherine Biondo Last Updated Apr 12, 2024 3878 views this year

American Law Reports (ALR)

American Law Reports (ALR) contains in-depth articles on narrow topics of the law. ALR articles, are often called annotations. They provide background, analysis, and citations to relevant cases, statutes, articles, and other annotations. ALR annotations are invaluable tools to quickly find primary law on narrow legal questions.

This resource is available in both Westlaw and Lexis:

• American Law Reports on Westlaw (includes index)
• American Law Reports on Lexis

Law Reviews & Journals

Law reviews are scholarly publications, usually edited by law students in conjunction with faculty members. They contain both lengthy articles and shorter essays by professors and lawyers. They also contain comments, notes, or developments in the law written by law students. Articles often focus on new or emerging areas of law and may offer critical commentary. Some law reviews are dedicated to a particular topic while others are general. Occasionally, law reviews will include issues devoted to proceedings of panels and symposia.

Law review and journal articles are extremely narrow and deep with extensive references. 

To find law review articles visit:

• Law Journal Library on HeinOnline
• Law Reviews & Journals on LexisNexis
• Law Reviews & Journals on Westlaw

Restatements

Restatements are highly regarded distillations of common law, prepared by the American Law Institute (ALI). ALI is a prestigious organization comprised of judges, professors, and lawyers. They distill the "black letter law" from cases to indicate trends in common law. Resulting in a “restatement” of existing common law into a series of principles or rules. Occasionally, they make recommendations on what a rule of law should be.

Restatements are not primary law. However, they are considered persuasive authority by many courts.

Restatements are organized into chapters, titles, and sections.  Sections contain the following:

• a concisely stated rule of law,
• comments to clarify the rule,
• hypothetical examples,
• explanation of purpose, and
• exceptions to the rule  

To access restatements visit:

• American Law Institute Library on HeinOnline
• Restatements & Principles of the Law on LexisNexis
• Restatements & Principles of Law on Westlaw

Primary Authority

Primary authority is "authority that issues directly from a law-making body."   Authority , Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).   Sources of primary authority include:

• Constitutions
• Statutes 

Regulations

Access to primary legal sources is available through:

• Bloomberg Law
• Free & Low Cost Alternatives

Statutes (also called legislation) are "laws enacted by legislative bodies", such as Congress and state legislatures.  Statute , Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).

We typically start primary law research here. If there is a controlling statute, cases you look for later will interpret that law. There are two types of statutes, annotated and unannotated.

Annotated codes are a great place to start your research. They combine statutory language with citations to cases, regulations, secondary sources, and other relevant statutes. This can quickly connect you to the most relevant cases related to a particular law. Unannotated Codes provide only the text of the statute without editorial additions. Unannotated codes, however, are more often considered official and used for citation purposes.

For a deep dive on federal and state statutes, visit:

• Statutes: US and State Codes by Mindy Kent Last Updated Apr 12, 2024 3245 views this year
• 50 State Surveys

Want to learn more about the history or legislative intent of a law?  Learn how to get started here:

• Legislative History Get an introduction to legislative histories in less than 5 minutes.
• Federal Legislative History Research Guide

Regulations are rules made by executive departments and agencies. Not every legal question will require you to search regulations. However, many areas of law are affected by regulations. So make sure not to skip this step if they are relevant to your question.

To learn more about working with regulations, visit:

• Administrative Law Research by AJ Blechner Last Updated Apr 12, 2024 601 views this year

Case Basics

In many areas, finding relevant caselaw will comprise a significant part of your research. This Is particularly true in legal areas that rely heavily on common law principles.

Running Time: 3 minutes, 10 seconds.

Unpublished Cases

Up to  86% of federal case opinions are unpublished. You must determine whether your jurisdiction will consider these unpublished cases as persuasive authority. The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure have an overarching rule, Rule 32.1  Each circuit also has local rules regarding citations to unpublished opinions. You must understand both the Federal Rule and the rule in your jurisdiction.

• Federal and Local Rules of Appellate Procedure 32.1 (Dec. 2021).
• Type of Opinion or Order Filed in Cases Terminated on the Merits, by Circuit (Sept. 2021).

Each state also has its own local rules which can often be accessed through:

• State Bar Associations
• State Courts Websites

First Circuit

• First Circuit Court Rule 32.1.0

Second Circuit

• Second Circuit Court Rule 32.1.1

Third Circuit

• Third Circuit Court Rule 5.7

Fourth Circuit

• Fourth Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Fifth Circuit

• Fifth Circuit Court Rule 47.5

Sixth Circuit

• Sixth Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Seventh Circuit

• Seventh Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Eighth Circuit

• Eighth Circuit Court Rule 32.1A

Ninth Circuit

• Ninth Circuit Court Rule 36-3

Tenth Circuit

• Tenth Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Eleventh Circuit

• Eleventh Circuit Court Rule 32.1

D.C. Circuit

• D.C. Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Federal Circuit

• Federal Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Finding Cases

Headnotes show the key legal points in a case. Legal databases use these headnotes to guide researchers to other cases on the same topic. They also use them to organize concepts explored in cases by subject. Publishers, like Westlaw and Lexis, create headnotes, so they are not consistent across databases.

Headnotes are organized by subject into an outline that allows you to search by subject. This outline is known as a "digest of cases." By browsing or searching the digest you can retrieve all headnotes covering a particular topic. This can help you identify particularly important cases on the relevant subject.

Running Time: 4 minutes, 43 seconds.

Each major legal database has its own digest:

• Topic Navigator (Lexis)
• Key Digest System (Westlaw)

Start by identifying a relevant topic in a digest.  Then you can limit those results to your jurisdiction for more relevant results.  Sometimes, you can keyword search within only the results on your topic in your jurisdiction.  This is a particularly powerful research method.

One Good Case Method

After following the steps above, you will have identified some relevant cases on your topic. You can use good cases you find to locate other cases addressing the same topic. These other cases often apply similar rules to a range of diverse fact patterns.

• in Lexis click "More Like This Headnote"
• in Westlaw click "Cases that Cite This Headnote"

to focus on the terms of art or key words in a particular headnote. You can use this feature to find more cases with similar language and concepts.  ​

Ways to Use Citators

A citator is "a catalogued list of cases, statutes, and other legal sources showing the subsequent history and current precedential value of those sources.  Citators allow researchers to verify the authority of a precedent and to find additional sources relating to a given subject." Citator , Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).

Each major legal database has its own citator.  The two most popular are Keycite on Westlaw and Shepard's on Lexis.

• Keycite Information Page
• Shepard's Information Page

Making Sure Your Case is Still Good Law

This video answers common questions about citators:

For step-by-step instructions on how to use Keycite and Shepard's see the following:

• Shepard's Video Tutorial
• Shepard's Handout
• Shepard's Editorial Phrase Dictionary
• KeyCite Video Tutorial
• KeyCite Handout
• KeyCite Editorial Phrase Dictionary

Using Citators For

Citators serve three purposes: (1) case validation, (2) better understanding, and (3) additional research.

Case Validation

Is my case or statute good law?

• Parallel citations
• Prior and subsequent history
• Negative treatment suggesting you should no longer cite to holding.

Better Understanding

Has the law in this area changed?

• Later cases on the same point of law
• Positive treatment, explaining or expanding the law.
• Negative Treatment, narrowing or distinguishing the law.

Track Research

Who is citing and writing about my case or statute?

• Secondary sources that discuss your case or statute.
• Cases in other jurisdictions that discuss your case or statute.

Knowing When to Start Writing

For more guidance on when to stop your research see:

• Terminating Research, by Christina L. Kunz

Automated Services

Automated services can check your work and ensure that you are not missing important resources. You can learn more about several automated brief check services.  However, these services are not a replacement for conducting your own diligent research .

• Automated Brief Check Instructional Video

Contact Us!

  Ask Us!  Submit a question or search our knowledge base.

Chat with us!  Chat   with a librarian (HLS only)

Email: [email protected]

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Classes  View  Training Calendar  or  Request an Insta-Class

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This guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License .

You may reproduce any part of it for noncommercial purposes as long as credit is included and it is shared in the same manner. 

• Last Updated: Sep 21, 2023 2:56 PM
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Legal Research Fundamentals

• Research Strategy Tips
• Secondary Sources

The Different Types of Case Law Research

Popular case law databases, using secondary sources, any good case, from an annotated statute, ai and smart searching.

• Statutory Research
• Legislative History
• Administrative
• People, Firms, Witnesses, and other Analytics
• Transactional
• Non-Legal Resources
• Business Resources
• Foreign and International Law Resources This link opens in a new window

Generally, there are two types of case law research:

• Determining the case law that is binding or persuasive regarding a particular issue. Gathering and analyzing the relevant case law. 
• Searching for a specific case that applies the law to a set of facts in a particular way. 

These are two slightly different tasks. However, you can use many of the same case law search techniques for both of these types of questions. 

This guide outlines several different ways to locate case law. It is up to you to determine which methods are most suitable for your problem. 

When selecting a case law database, don't forget to choose the jurisdiction, time period, and level of court that is most appropriate for your purposes.

Note: Listed above are the databases that law students are most likely to use. It's possible that, once you leave law school, you will not have access to the same databases. Resources such as Fastcase  or Casetext may be your go-to. For any database, take the time to familiarize yourself with the basic and advanced search functions. 

Check out the Secondary Sources tab for information about how to locate a useful secondary source. 

Remember: secondary sources take the primary source law and analyze it so that you don't have to. Take advantage of the work the author has already done!

What do we mean by 'any good case'? 

A case that addresses the issue you care about. We can use the citing relationships and annotations found in case law databases to connect cases together based on their subject matter. You may find such a case from a secondary source, case law database search, or from a colleague.

How can we use one good case? 

1. Court opinions typically cited to  other cases to support their legal conclusions. Often these cited cases include important and authoritative decisions on the issue, because such decisions are precedential. 

2. Commercial legal research databases, including Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg, supplement cases with  headnotes . Headnotes allow you to quickly locate subsequent cases that cite the case you are looking at with respect to the specific language/discussion you care about. 

3. Links to topics or Key Numbers. Clicking through to these allows you to locate other cases with headnotes that fall under that topic. Once you select a suitable Key Number, you can also narrow down with keywords. A case may include multiple headnotes that address the same general issue.

4.  Subsequent citing cases.  By reading cases that have cited to the case you've started with, you can confirm that it remains "good law" and that its legal conclusions remain sound. You can also filter the citing references by jurisdiction, treatment, depth of treatment, date, and keyword, allowing you to focus your attention on the most relevant sub-set of cases.

5. Secondary sources! Useful secondary sources are listed in the Citing References. This can be a quick way to locate a good secondary source. 

NOTE: Good cases may come in many forms. For example, a recent lower court decision might lead you to the key case law in that jurisdiction, while a higher court decision from a few years back might be more widely-cited and lead you to a wider range of subsequent interpretive authority (and any key secondary sources). 

What is an annotated statute?

An annotated statute is simply a statute enhanced with editorial content. In Lexis and Westlaw, this editorial content provides the following: 

Historical Notes about amendments to the statute. These are provided below the statutory text (Lexis) or under the History tab (Westlaw). 

Case Notes  provided either at the bottom of the page (Lexis) or under the Notes of Decisions tab (Westlaw). These are cases identified by the publisher as especially important or useful for illustrating the case law interpreting the statute. They are organized by issue and include short summaries pertaining to the holding and relevance are provided for each case.  

Other Citing References  allow you to locate all other material within Lexis and Westlaw that cite to the statute. This includes secondary sources (always useful) and all case law that cites to that specific section. You can narrow down by keywords, jurisdiction, publication status, etc. In Lexis, click the Shepard's link. In Westlaw, click the Citing References tab.

Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg are all actively developing tools to lead you to cases more quickly. These include: 

Westlaw's recommendations and WestSearch Plus. These will show up in the "Suggestions" option that appears when you start typing into the search bar. 

Lexis Ravel View. When you search the case database in Lexis and click on the Ravel icon, you will see an interactive visualization of the citing relationships between the first 75 cases that appear in your results list, ranked by relevance.

Bloomberg's "Points of Law" feature in the Litigation Intelligence Center also allows users to visualize the citing relationships among cases meeting their search criteria.

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11 Finding and Using Case Law

Learning goals.

After reading this chapter, you will be able to

• Identify and use many search techniques to find relevant case law.
• Identify and use free, non-subscription platforms to find relevant case law.
• Conduct case law research more confidently and efficiently.

Where Do You Find Cases?

Most people conduct case law research online. Several websites provide free access to case law: Google Scholar , state and federal court websites, Library of Congress (only United States Reports), the Government Printing Office website (federal court opinions), Findlaw , Justia , and Caselaw Access Project . Fastcase is available through some state law libraries (i.e. the State of Oregon Law Library website ) and with state Bar Association membership. Keep in mind that freely available websites and platforms will have few or no tools to help with searching, and some provide cases only from certain jurisdictions or for certain date ranges.

Commercial platforms such as Casetext, Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg will provide more editorial enhancements to increase your efficiency and effectiveness in finding results.

A note about print sources

Some academic and public law libraries still have case reporters in print. Case reporters are multi-volume sets that publish case law for different jurisdictions. Each state has reporters for their courts. Regional reporters publish cases for states in a certain geographic region. For example, the Pacific Reporter series publishes state cases from Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

Federal cases are published in West’s Federal Supplement (U.S. District Court), West’s Federal Reporter (Federal Court of Appeals), West’s Supreme Court Reporter (U.S. Supreme Court decisions), Lexis’s United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers’ ed. (U.S. Supreme Court decisions), and United States Reports (official version of U.S. Supreme Court decisions). The citations you see for cases refer to the volume number, the reporter name, the page number, the court and date of the decision.

How Do You Find Cases?

Finding case law is an important part of your research process for most legal issues. You probably practiced case law research frequently in first year legal research and writing courses. However, most students feel that they need additional practice because they want more confidence in their results and more efficiency in their searches. This chapter will focus on practicing different methods of finding cases:

• Using secondary sources.
• Using statutory annotations.
• Using one good case.
• Using an index (West’s Topic and Key Number system, Lexis’s Case Notes system).
• Using natural language and terms and connectors (Boolean) searching.

Using Secondary Sources

Chapter 9 discusses different types of secondary sources and how to use them to learn background information about your legal issue and find primary sources of law. To reiterate, when you are starting your research and reading secondary sources, you might come across citations to cases important to that legal topic or issue. You might have noted some cases at that point; but if not, you can circle back to secondary sources to find citations to cases that seem important now that you know a bit more about your issue.

Use Statutory Annotations

If you found an important statute in your research, you probably looked at the annotations to the statute to start finding cases. (See Chapter 10 ).

Use One Good Case

If you found a citation to a relevant case in a secondary source or a statute, you can use that case to find other cases. There are several ways to use a good case to find more cases:

• Look at the cases cited in the good case.
• On Westlaw or Lexis, use the headnote tools in the good case to find other cases.
• On Westlaw or Lexis, use the citators (Key Cite and Shepards) in the good case to find other cases.
• On Google Scholar, use the Cited By and How Cited links to find other cases.

Practice Activity

For the trademark issue, use google scholar to find any relevant cases. Compare your results to the cases you find on a subscription platform such as Westlaw or Lexis.

Use an Index

Westlaw and Lexis have indexing systems that allow you to use legal topics and sub-topics to find cases. On Westlaw, the Topic and Key Number system indexes all U.S. case law; on Lexis, the Topics system provides that service.

You can use the index in a few ways:

• In a case headnote, look at the corresponding index terms or Key Numbers and click on the links to find other cases categorized under that index term or number.
• On Westlaw, find Key Numbers under the Content Types tab and either browse or term search in that list of Key Numbers.
• On Lexis, find the Topics tab and search or browse.
• Use the Key Number or Topic as a search term when you are doing Boolean searching (see below discussion of Boolean searching).

Use Natural Language and Boolean Searching

Most students are adept at using natural language to search for cases. An example of a natural language search is what constitutes trademark infringement on a beer label? Search algorithms have improved, so most platforms you use for searching will produce relevant results. However, most law librarians and legal research and writing professors will advise you to use multiple methods and tools to ensure that your results are both thorough and accurate. In this section, you will learn more about using terms and connectors (also called Boolean language) to search effectively for cases. Boolean searching may seem time-consuming and awkward at first, but with practice, it will become easier.

Boolean Searching

When you encounter a website or research platform, look for a “search help” link, which will inform you of search language and other search tips for that platform. Although the connectors will vary in meaning based on the website or platform you are using, the following are some common terms and connectors:

The connectors are processed in a specific order in your searches. After the connector OR, proximity connectors are processed from narrowest “” to broadest, AND. Sometimes, you need to use parentheses to change the order. For example, frisk! OR search! /3 seiz! should be expressed like this to run properly:  frisk! OR (search! /3 seiz!).

Suggested Activity:

In this activity, you will practice creating a Boolean (terms and connectors search) on the issue of trademark infringement in the context of beer labels and names. Try this search on several platforms, compare results, then revise your searches to try different combinations of terms.

Student added discussion and reflection questions

• Which case searching method do you feel most comfortable with?
• Have you used one type of searching method more than other in your research?
• What type of searching method is the most frustrating for you? Why?

Contribute a discussion or reflection question to this section.

Advanced Legal Research: Process and Practice Copyright © by Megan Austin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Between 9:00 PM EST on Saturday, May 29th and 9:00 PM EST on Sunday, May 30th users will not be able to access resources through the Law Library’s Catalog, the Law Library’s Database List, the Law Library’s Frequently Used Databases List, or the Law Library’s Research Guides. Users can still access databases that require an individual user account (ex. Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg Law), or databases listed on the Main Library’s A-Z Database List.

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Case Law Research Guide

Introduction.

• Print Case Reporters
• Online Resources for Cases
• Finding Cases: Digests, Headnotes, and Key Numbers
• Finding Cases: Terms & Connectors Searching

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• On Bloomberg
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Every law student and practicing attorney must be able to find, read, analyze, and interpret case law. Under the common law principles of stare decisis, a court must follow the decisions in previous cases on the same legal topic. Therefore, finding cases is essential to finding out what the law is on a particular issue.

This guide will show you how to read a case citation and will set out the sources, both print and online, for finding cases. This guide also covers how to use digests, headnotes, and key numbers to find case law, as well as how to find cases through terms and connectors searching.

To find cases using secondary sources, such as legal encyclopedias or legal treatises, see our Secondary Sources Research Guide . For additional strategies to find cases, like using statutory annotations or citators, see our  Case Law Research Tutorial . Our tutorial also covers how to update cases using citators (Lexis’ Shepard’s tool and Westlaw’s KeyCite).

Basic Case Citation

A case citation is a reference to where a case (also called a  decision  or an  opinion  ) is printed in a book. The citation can also be used to retrieve cases from  Westlaw  and  Lexis . A case citation consists of a volume number, an abbreviation of the title of the book or other item, and a page number.  

The precise format of a case citation depends on a number of factors, including the jurisdiction, court, and type of case. You should review the rest of this section on citing cases (and the relevant rules in  The Bluebook ) before trying to format a case citation for the first time. See our Bluebook Guide for more information.

The basic format of a case citation is as follows:

Parallel Citations

When the same case is printed in different books, citations to more than one book may be given. These additional citations are known as  parallel citations .

Example: 265 U.S. 274, 68 L. Ed. 1016, 44 S. Ct. 565.

This means that the case you would find at page 565 of volume 44 of the  Supreme Court Reporter  (published by West) will be the same case you find on page 1016 of volume 68 of  Lawyers' Edition  (published by Lexis), and both will be the same as the opinion you find in the official government version,  United States Reports . Although the text of the opinion will be identical, the added editorial material will differ with each publisher.

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Case law research tutorial.

Update History

Revised 4/22 (CMC) Updated 10/22 (MK) Links 07/2023 (VL)

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• © Georgetown University Law Library. These guides may be used for educational purposes, as long as proper credit is given. These guides may not be sold. Any comments, suggestions, or requests to republish or adapt a guide should be submitted using the Research Guides Comments form . Proper credit includes the statement: Written by, or adapted from, Georgetown Law Library (current as of .....).
• Last Updated: May 24, 2024 9:20 AM
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How Do I: Do Legal Research?: Case Law

• Legal Citations
• Citation of court opinions
• Citation of statutes
• Citation of regulations
• Articles and books
• Legal Forms
• Legal Advice

Federal Courts

• Nexis Uni™ This link opens in a new window Lets you search for a federal case by legal citation, on a specific topic, by a particular judge, or during a certain period of time. more... less... Nexis Uni™ has an intuitive interface that offers quick discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
• Google Scholar Search published opinions of U.S. federal district, appellate, tax and bankruptcy court cases since 1923; and U.S. Supreme Court cases since 1791.
• US Supreme Court official site Text of U.S. Reports from 1991 (502 U.S. __) to the present, including opinions, orders, and other materials; opinions from 2009 to the present; briefs; and transcripts/audio of arguments.
• US Circuit Courts of Appeal Links to official websites for Circuit Courts.
• US District Courts Links to opinions from some, but not all, District Courts (West Virginia is not included right now), some back to April 2004.
• Legal Information Institute (LII) - Cornell University Provides no-cost access to U.S. Supreme Court opinions.
• Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) An electronic public access service that allows users to obtain case and docket information online from federal appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts, and the PACER Case Locator.

State Courts

• Nexis Uni™ This link opens in a new window Lets you search for a state case by legal citation, on a specific topic, by a particular judge, or during a certain period of time. more... less... Nexis Uni™ has an intuitive interface that offers quick discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
• Google Scholar Search published opinions of U.S state appellate and supreme court cases since 1950.
• National Center for State Courts - Sate Court Web Sites Judicial branch links for each state, focusing on the administrative office of the courts, the court of last resort, any intermediate appellate courts, and each trial court level.
• West Virginia Judiciary - official site Opinions from the Supreme Court of Appeals, and information on the state judicial system.

What is "case law"?

Case law--also called 'opinions' or 'decisions'--comes from the written resolution of the issues in dispute, and is written by a judge or judges. It is not a jury verdict. (Juries decide facts; judges decide law.) Cases come from courts: trial courts, intermediate appellate courts, and appellate court of last resort, often called the “Supreme Court.” There are also specialized federal courts (Bankruptcy, Tax, Military Appeals, etc.) On the state level reported, or published, opinions generally come from the appellate courts, not the trial courts. On the federal level, some trial court (District Court) cases are reported. But, in a jury trial, there is nothing to “report” except a verdict.

Just to complicate things, for various reasons not all opinions from federal district and appeals courts are "published" in the official reporters. They may still be available in LexisNexis, WestLaw, or West's Federal Appendix , but are not generally considered to have precedential value.

Courts in the United States adhere to stare decisis , which means that courts respect and usually follow the precedent of previous decisions. However, a court does not have to follow a decision that is not binding precedent. Generally courts will follow the decisions of higher courts in their jurisdiction. Therefore the effect of a court's decision on other courts will depend both on the level of the court and its jurisdiction. A decision by the United States Supreme Court is binding precedent in all courts.

For example, a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit would not be binding on the United States Supreme Court or courts from another circuit. However, it would be binding in all lower courts of the 4th Circuit (Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia).

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Legal Research Techniques for Finding Relevant Case Law

• Aug 8, 2023
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Legal research is a systematic finding or ascertainment of law on an identified topic or in a given area. Additionally, it is a legal inquiry into the existing scholarship to advance the science of law.

Case law research and analysis is a prerequisite in the process of legal research. The method of acquiring this skill starts as soon as one embarks upon the journey of learning, studying, exploring and most importantly applying the law in a practical scenario.

Reading a case law, comprehending the rationale behind the decision and relating it to the present case to build a compelling and coherent argument is a skill every lawyer not only aspires to acquire. In order to become proficient and accomplished in their chosen profession, every lawyer must be skilled in finding relevant case laws through different means. One can learn several legal research techniques to find relevant case laws in legal databases.

Read on to find out several tools and techniques of Legal Research.

What are the different types of Legal Research?

Different types of research are crucial in case law research as they provide varied perspectives and information. Legal research helps identify relevant statutes, regulations, and precedents.

By utilizing these different research methods, researchers can obtain a comprehensive understanding of the legal landscape and make well-informed arguments or decisions in case law research. There are several legal research methodologies available for researchers to pursue their research.

1. Descriptive & Analytical Research

Descriptive research methodology focuses more on the “what” of the subject than the “why” of the research question. It is a description-based methodology that studies the characteristics of the population or phenomenon. The analytical research, however, uses the facts and information available to make a critical evaluation.

2. Qualitative & Quantitative Research

Qualitative legal research is a subjective method that relies on the researcher’s analysis of the controlled observations. In Quantitative Legal Research, one collects data from existing and potential data using sampling techniques like online surveys, polls, & questionnaires. The researcher can represent the outcomes of the quantitative study numerically.

3. Doctrinal & Empirical Research

In doctrinal legal research, the researcher analyses the existing statutory data to find the relevant answer to “What is the Law?” However, in empirical research, the researcher creates new data using several data collection methods and uses statistical tools to analyze it.

What is the Case Law Technique in Legal Research?

Case laws are the primary sources, i.e., the most original source, used in all legal research methodologies.

The case law technique in legal research methodology studies judicial opinions or decisions, and it is the technique of finding relevant legal precedents and principles. This is more challenging than it sounds because finding applicable case laws from legal databases is confusing and time-consuming, if the researcher is not well-versed with the tools.

Like legislation, case law can also be challenged and consequently change over time, as per the changing needs of the society. An earlier decision does not guarantee that it will always remain the law of the land.

Therefore, a lawyer must be skilled at finding, reading, and ascertaining the relevance, applicability and legal standing of any case law at a given point of time. . Thus, the importance of case law technique in legal research is quite significant as there can be no legal research without delving deep into judicial decisions.

How to Do Legal Research for Case Laws?

Before the time of the web, legal databases were in the form of multi-volume bulky books and digests. Researchers had to locate the cases manually with the help of case citations which was extremely time consuming. Though these periodicals are still available, online legal databases have overpowered them owing to their easy accessibility and time-saving tendency.

The Offline Tools for Legal Research

The researcher can locate case laws using the citations in printed law reporters. For example, the citation of a case is AIR 2017 SC 57, here the name of the Law Reporter in which the case law is published is AIR (All India Reporter), the year of the judgment is 2017, SC (Supreme Court) is the name of the Court, and the page number of the printed reporter on which the judgment can be found is 57.

The format of citation differs for every law reporter. Thus, the first step for locating the proper case law using citation is to decode the name of the law reporter.

The law reporters also categorize all the case laws. Thus, if the researcher does not know the case citation, they can find the case law as per its category.

The Online Tools for Legal Research

Using online tools for finding case laws is relatively easy. Even if the researcher does not know the name, citation, or year of the judgment, they can still find the same or similar judgments, thanks to these online tools’ intelligent features.

The only drawback is the majority of these tools require a heavy subscription fee which is not ideal for everyone.

What are the Methods of Locating Relevant Case Laws?

A researcher can locate relevant case laws if they know either of the following:

The identity of the case in law reporters, usually denoted in a combination of words & numbers.

For example: (1973) 4 SCC 225; AIR 1973 SC 1461

Case number

The official number the Court gives to a particular case.

For example: W.P.(C) 135 OF 1970

Name of the Parties

Either party’s name can be used for finding the case law.

For example: Petitioner’s name- Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalvaru

Respondent’s name- State of Kerala

Jurisdiction

A researcher can filter their finding by deciding which Court’s judgment they want to look for.

A researcher can refer to various statute-based legal databases while finding a case law pertaining to a particular statute.

For example: The Labour Law Reporter publishes judgments specifically related to the Labour Laws of India.

How to Find Relevant Case Laws in India?

The offline tools.

The Supreme Court Reports (SCR) are the only authorized Indian law report series, and Supreme Court decisions should be cited from here whenever possible. However, Supreme Court Reporters are about four years behind in publishing the cases. Because of the long delay in the publication of the SCR. Therefore, it is entirely acceptable to cite a few unauthorized reports in academic and judicial work.

All India Reporter (AIR) is often cited in preference to the SCR, and in the Indian courts it has the status of an authorized series. The Law Library has the AIRs in print.

Online Tools

• Supreme Court of India at main.sci.gov.in . All the latest judgments by the Supreme Court of India are available here.
• Judgment Search Portal at judgments.ecourts.gov.in/pdfsearch/index.php : You can find the old Supreme Court Judgments here by entering any related keyword. It can be the citation of the case, name of the parties, case number, nature of the case, etc.
• SCC Online at www.scconline.com : India’s premier legal database with access to complete coverage of the Supreme Court, all High Courts, Tribunals and Commissions, Statutory Material and many foreign jurisdictions’ and International material. Individual registration is required to use this online legal database .
• AIROnline at www.aironline.in : Again, a subscription-based legal database which covers the judgments of all Supreme Courts, all High Courts, Tribunals and Commissions. The subscribers can find the case laws through citations, individual words, or exact phrases.
• Manupatra at www.manupatrafast.com : Indian case law coverage includes full-text decisions from the Supreme Court, all High Courts, the Federal Court, Privy Council and many tribunals. It covers judgments from the inception of each Court. The legislations covered include bare acts, amending acts, repealed legislation, subordinate legislation and bills from all jurisdictions. The primary material is grouped by topic; the secondary material comprises annotated legislation and commentary.
• Indian Kanoon at indiankanoon.org contains unreported decisions and is more up-to-date by a few days than the unreported cases on Manupatra or SCC Online. It goes back further (for example, Supreme Court cases started in 1947 in Kanoon and 1950 in Manupatra).

If you are looking for very recent decisions or if it is optional to access a reported version of the case, use Kanoon. Citation, party names, keywords, Court, date range etc., can search it. Researchers can also browse Indian Kanoon by Court and year. Indian Kanoon is also free!

However, Indian Kanoon tends to provide fewer parallel citations than Manupatra. It relies on user-generated content, lacks official verification, may contain outdated or inaccurate information, and sometimes does not provide comprehensive access to all relevant legal materials and judgments.

The approach to case law research has changed globally and in India due to technological advancement. According to statistics, roughly 33.9% of lawyers begin their research by using Google. Because Google is a generic search engine, the search results may sometimes be vague. Hence, case law databases or search engines that are tailor-made for lawyers emerge.

Lawctopus Law School’s Legal Research & Writing Course helps law students and legal professionals in understanding a crisp way to conduct Legal Research of different techniques and the right way to use legal databases.

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Legal Research

• Statutory Law
• Regulations
• Secondary sources
• Citing Legal Resources

Case Law Resources

• Caselaw Access Project The Caselaw Access Project (CAP), maintained by the Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab, includes "all official, book-published United States case law — every volume designated as an official report of decisions by a court within the United States...[including] all state courts, federal courts, and territorial courts for American Samoa, Dakota Territory, Guam, Native American Courts, Navajo Nation, and the Northern Mariana Islands." As of the publication of this guide, CAP "currently included all volumes published through 2020 with new data releases on a rolling basis at the beginning of each year."
• CourtListener Court Listener is a free and publicly accessible online platform that provides a collection of legal resources and court documents, including court opinions and case law from various jurisdictions in the United States. It includes PACER data (the RECAP Archive), opinions, or oral argument recordings.
• FindLaw Caselaw Summaries Archive FindLaw provides a database of case law from the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, as well as several state supreme courts. It includes U.S. Supreme Court Opinions, U.S. Federal Appellate Court Opinions and U.S. State Supreme, Appellate and Trial Court Opinions. Search for case summaries or by jurisdiction.
• FindLaw Jurisdiction Search FindLaw provides a database of case law from the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, as well as several state supreme courts. It includes U.S. Supreme Court Opinions, U.S. Federal Appellate Court Opinions and U.S. State Supreme, Appellate and Trial Court Opinions. Search for case summaries or by jurisdiction.
• Google Scholar for Case Law Google Scholar offers an extensive database of state and federal cases, including U.S. Supreme Court Opinions, U.S. Federal District, Appellate, Tax, and Bankruptcy Court Opinions, U.S. State Appellate and Supreme Court Opinions, Scholarly articles, papers, and reports. To get started, select the “case law” radio button, and choose your search terms.
• Justia Justia offers cases from the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, and U.S. District Courts. Additionally, you may find links to many state supreme court and intermediate courts of appeal cases. Content includes U.S. Supreme Court Opinions, U.S. Federal Appellate & District Court Opinions, Selected U.S. Federal Appellate & District Court dockets and orders and U.S. State Supreme & Appellate Court Opinions.

An interdisciplinary, international, full-text database of over 18,000 sources including newspapers, journals, wire services, newsletters, company reports and SEC filings, case law, government documents, transcripts of broadcasts, and selected reference works.

• PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) PACER is a nationwide database for accessing federal court documents, including case dockets. It covers U.S. District Courts, Bankruptcy Courts, and the U.S. Court of Appeals. Users can search for and access federal case dockets and documents for a fee.
• Ravel Law Public Case Access "This new Public Case Access site was created as a result of a collaboration between the Harvard Law School Library and Ravel Law. The company supported the library in its work to digitize 40,000 printed volumes of cases, comprised of over forty million pages of court decisions, including original materials from cases that predate the U.S. Constitution."
• The RECAP Archive Part of CourtListener, RECAP provides access to millions of PACER documents and dockets.

State Courts

• State Court Websites This page provides a list of various state court system websites by state.
• Pennsylvania Judiciary Web Portal The Pennsylvania Judiciary Web Portal provides the public with access to various aspects of court information, including appellate courts, common pleas courts and magisterial district court docket sheets; common pleas courts and magisterial district court calendars; and PAePay.
• Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Opinions

US Supreme Court

• US Reports he opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States are published officially in the United States Reports.
• US Reports through HeinOnline
• << Previous: Start
• Next: Statutory Law >>
• Last Updated: Apr 5, 2024 3:44 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.cmu.edu/legal_research

Legal Research: An Overview: Caselaw Searching

• Introduction
• Secondary Sources
• Courts, Case Reporters & Publication of Cases
• Mandatory v. Persuasive Authority
• Caselaw Searching
• Validating Your Research
• Statutory Codes
• Searching in the Codes
• Regulations
• Search Techniques

Caselaw Search Techniques

• Secondary Source Citations
• Headnotes/Topic & Key Number Systems
• Citing References
• Annotated Codes & Regulations
• Keyword Search
• Online Digests

As discussed in the Secondary Sources section of this research guide, secondary source citations to the leading cases on your topic can be invaluable to jump start your research.  Some sources, such as ALR articles, will identify a great depth of cases, and other sources, such as jury instructions, may only identify a handful.  Most secondary sources fall somewhere in between in their range of case citations.  

Once you have located an on point case, you can use other techniques discussed on this page, particularly headnotes and citing references, to find other relevant cases.

Headnotes typically are included at the beginning of cases, before the court's actual opinion.  Each headnote is a short summary of a single legal principle discussed in the case.  Headnotes are written by editors, not the court.  While headnotes are not part of the actual opinion, they are a valuable research tool.

Each headnote is assigned a legal topic / subtopic.  In Westlaw, these topics / subtopics are referred to as Key Numbers.  In Lexis, they are referred to as legal topics.  In Bloomberg, they are considered topics but are assigned an alpha.numeric designation.  To see the topic that each designation represents, click on the "Show Topic Path" link that follows the designations.  

The topics / subtopics correspond to those in the online digests discussed at that tab on this page.

Using the following approach, you can use one relevant case that you have found to find other relevant cases:

Once you have identified a relevant case, you can use the available citator to find cases that discuss and cite to your case.  As discussed in the Validating Your Research section, Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg all offer citator services identifying cases and secondary sources that reference your case.

One of the most effective way to use the citator is to start by identifing a relevant headnote.  Headnotes are discussed in more detail at the Headnotes/Topic & Key Number Systems tab on this page.  Both Westlaw and Lexis, include a feature that allows you to see what cases cite to your case for the legal proposition identified in the headnote.  If there are cases, that cite to the specific legal principle in the headnote:

​ Westlaw will include a link in that headnote to "Cases that cite this headnote" identifying how many cases cite to your case on the issue represented by that headnote.  

In Lexis , headnotes include a link to "Shepardize -- Narrow by this Headnote" which also identify how many cases cite to that headnote.  

Clicking on these links will take you to a list of cases that cite to your case for that legal proposition.  In both Westlaw and Lexis, there are filters at the left of the list that can be used to narrow your search results.

Another way to use the citator to find other relevant cases is to explore the other materials (cases, secondary sources, etc.) that cite to your case.  

When you are in a case in Westlaw , look at the tabs above the case name for "Citing References."  Explore the Citing References to see what cases and secondary sources have cited to your case.  When looking at cases that have cited to your case, you can use the filters at the left to narrow your search results by jurisdiction, depth of treatment (i.e. how detailed is the discussion of your case), by headnote topic, and by other factors.  In addition, there is a search feature at the left that allows you to keyword search within the search results.  

In Lexis , you can see a similar report of citing references, with similar features to narrow your search results, by clicking on the link to "Shepardize® this document" at the right of your case.  

In Bloomberg , the citing reference report is available by clicking on "BCITE ANALYSIS" at the right of your case and then selecting "Citing Documents."  You can also go directly into the citing cases in Bloomberg by selecting "Case Analysis."

When your topic involves a statute or a regulation, using annotated codes is a terrific starting point to identify relevant cases.  As discussed in the Statutes and Regulations sections of this research guide, annotated statutory and regulatory codes will identify cases that discuss and cite to the statute or regulation at issue.  

Each publisher of code annotations uses its own editors and algorithms to generate case references.  Accordingly, there will be some differences in the cases identified in the statutory annotations for each code publication.  

Moreover, the features for reviewing citing cases varies a bit between Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg.  For example, as discussed in more detail below, Westlaw can be used to filter cases both by jurisdiction and topic, and Lexis can be used to view cases that cite to subsections of statutes.  

Once you pull up a relevant statute or regulation, to review case annotations:

The case references are available at the "Notes of Decisions" and "Citing References" tabs.  While not including case law, the "Context & Analysis" tab provides references to secondary sources and other materials that discuss in-depth the statute/regulation at issue.  Accordingly, this tab should not be overlooked.

The "Notes of Decisions" provides a topical index to certain cases that discuss the statute or regulation.  Cases relating to each subtopic are linked to from the index.  It is a good starting point for finding cases relevant to a statute/regulation but does not include all citing references, as it tends to focus only on those with in-depth analysis relating to the identified subtopics. 

Select "Citing References" To see the full list of cases, secondary sources, and other materials that cite to the statute/regulation.  To just look at cases, select "Cases" from that list.  You will get the list of cases, and at the left, there will be options for filtering the results by jurisdiction, by publication status, and by whether or not the case was identified in the Notes of Decisions.

Citing References can be filtered by jurisdiction but Notes of Decision cannot.  However, within Citing References, there also are filters to select cases that are referenced in the Notes of Decision and to view the specific "Notes of Decision Topics" covered.  These filters can be used to hone in on cases within a particular jurisdiction covering a specific topic.  For example, if you were working with the above statute and wanted to see what topics within the Notes of Decisions were represented by cases from the 9th Circuit, you would go to the Citing References, and select "Cases."  From there you would go to the filter for "Jurisdiction," expand the menu for "Courts of Appeals," and select "Ninth Circuit Ct. App."  Then you would scroll down to the filter for "Referenced in Notes of Decisions," select "Yes", and click on the link to "Select NOD Topics."  That opens up a list of topics addressed by the cases from the 9th Circuit that were identified in the Notes of Decisions.  The filters and topics look like:

In Lexis -- The annotations are at the end of the document, after the statutory/regulatory language and history notes.  The annotations include "Case Notes," which is a topical index of certain cases that discuss the statute/regulation.  Following the case notes are "Research References & Practice Aids," which identifies related statutes, regulations and secondary sources that discuss the statute.  

Additionally, there is a link at the right of the document to "Shepardize® this document." Selecting that option will create a report of citing cases and other citing sources. Filters are available at the left of the reports to narrow your search results.  It is recommended that you look both to the "Case Notes" and to the Shepard's report to see all the case citations for a given statute/regulation.

Lexis also allows you to view citations to subsections of statutes and regulations.  This is very useful when you are working with a large statute/regulation and only portions of it are at issue.  To get to the case citations by subsection, first get into the Shepard's report for your statute/regulation.  From there, select "Citing Decisions," and you should see an option towards the top of the report for "Subsection reports by specific court citation."  This should look like:

Selecting subsections reports opens up a menu identifying the different ways courts have cited to your statute/regulation.  This includes references to specific subsections, when those subsections have been specifically cited.  Select the subsection that is most relevant for your research to open up a report of citing reference for that subsection. 

To see subsection references in secondary sources, follow the same process as detailed above but view "Other Citing Sources" (rather than "Citing Decisions" ) in the Shepard's report.

In Bloomberg -- To the right of the code/regulation section there is an icon to select "Smart Code™."  Selecting that opens up a link to "Launch Smart Code™." The Smart Code report will identify cases that cite to the statute/regulation and gives you options to filter the results.

Keyword searching is similar to the kind of searching you would do in Google -- just smarter.  When doing keyword searches for cases, it is not uncommon to get a large number of search results that are not particularly on point, especially if your search terms are quite broad or non-unique.  However, keyword searching is an important research skill and a good supplement to other research methods.

Some tips for effective keyword searching include:

Narrow your search to the relevant jurisdiction.

Generate a list of keywords relevant to your research question, including common synonyms for each of your keywords.

Use the keywords, including the synonyms, to craft your search.  Consider using the search builder techniques discussed in the Search Techniques section of this research guide.  That section identifies strategies for crafting effective searches and provides several sample searches to illustrate each technique.

Explore the advanced search features available in the search engine you are using to see if any of those features will assist in making your search more effective.

Some search engines give you overview type search results, almost as an introduction to the complete set of results.  It is useful to review the overview results, but be mindful also to look at the full listing of results.  See the  Search Techniques section of this research guide for more information regarding working with search results, including evaluating overview search results.

Once you have run your search, use the filters available in the search engine to refine your search, particularly if your search gave you more results than are practical for you to review.  Commonly used filters for cases include published / unpublished, jurisdiction, and court.

When reviewing search results, be mindful of your options for sorting results.  You should have the option to sort results by relevance or by date (most to least recent and visa versa).  You may also have the option to sort cases by most cited.  If you have more results than are practical for you to review, you may want to consider sorting by relevance and reviewing the first fifty or so results and then resorting by date (newest first) and also by most cited (if available) and reviewing the first 50 or so hits for each sort.  This will allow you to hone in on the most relevant, most current, and most prominent results.  

If your first search was not spot on (and it rarely is), refine your search.  The search results from your prior search(es) should provide some good clues on how to make your searching more effective.  For example, maybe you need to make better use of boolean techniques, or perhaps you need to adjust your keywords.

For more information on crafting effective searches and working with search results, see the Search Techniques  section of this research guide.

At its most basic, a digest organizes the universe of case law by topic.  The topics used in digests correspond to the topics used in headnotes, discussed in more detail in the Headnotes/Topic & Key Number Systems tab on this page.  In fact, digests typically are compilations of case headnotes.  

Within each broad digest topic, there usually are numerous subtopics, each with their own numerous subtopics.  For example, in the Westlaw digest, the topic "Constitutional Law" includes twenty eight broad subtopics, and each of these subtopics has anywhere from three to well over a hundred subtopics.  An on point digest topic / subtopic is a valuable research tool.  Digests were originally published in print.  Today, while print digests still exist, most researchers use them online.  Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg all have online digests.

The most common way to identify a relevant digest topic / subtopic, is from the headnotes of cases.  Headnotes appear at the beginning of cases.  Each headnote is a short summary of a single legal principle discussed in the case, and each headnote is assigned a legal topic / subtopic.  A relevant headnote can be used to access the corresponding legal topic / subtopic in the online digest, which will identify other cases discussing that same legal principle.

Digests can also be searched and browsed to determine relevant topics / subtopics.  The following will assist you with working with the online digests in Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg.

• << Previous: Mandatory v. Persuasive Authority
• Next: Validating Your Research >>
• Last Updated: Feb 2, 2024 1:31 PM
• URL: https://libguides.law.ucla.edu/researchoverview

© The Regents of the University of California. UCLA School of Law. All Rights Reserved.

Pritzker Legal Research Center

Researching case law, what do you need, where to find free case law online.

• Finding Cases
• Determining if Case Law is Still Good

Research Tip

Keep records of your work throughout the process.  Make notes of where you searched and your results from each step.  

This will keep you from having to repeat steps and will help you recall what search terms you used.  If you cannot find a definitive answer, you will be also able to report on what you did find and where you looked.

• Most authoritative statement of rule(s) from high court.
• Most recent reaffirmation of rule(s) from the binding lower courts.
• Which case most approximates your case facts? Do any highly analogous cases exist in other jurisdictions (especially if their overall legal principles are similar)? Typically, real world assignments do not precisely match precedents. The best lawyers are those who see connections between cases with superficial dissimilarities. 
• Which cases state the principles in the most advantageous way? In which cases does the position you represent win (e.g., the defendant, the movant, etc.)? 
• What trouble lurks in the cases that your opponent will exploit in attacking your arguments? 
• What trends can be identified in the cases (e.g., “no court has ever . . .”)? 
• What overarching principles can you synthesize into a framework to demonstrate to a court, even if the framework is not specifically articulated by courts? Are there related principles that may help support arguments you want to make? 

This guide discusses researching case law using Lexis, Westlaw and Bloomberg Law, the commercial databases most frequently used in law firms.  However, there are many free options for conducting case law research online. 

See the Library of Congress's Guide for more information:

• How To Find Free Case Law Online - Library of Congress A research guide to help you locate free case law on the internet using Google Scholar, CourtListener, FindLaw, Justia, and Public Library of Law (PLoL).

This research guide was last revised and updated on 8/22/2019. 

• Next: Finding Cases >>
• Last Updated: Aug 22, 2019 1:57 PM
• URL: https://library.law.northwestern.edu/cases

Legal Methods

• Getting Started
• Introduction to Legal Research
• Secondary Sources
• Case Law Research
• Research with Citators
• Statutory Research
• Federal Legislative History
• Federal Administrative Law Research
• Electronic Legal Research
• Developing a Research Plan
• Tip - Subject Matter Service Research
• Legal Research and Writing Titles on West Academic Digital Library
• Legal Research and Writing Titles on LexisNexis Digital Library
• Legal Research and Writing Titles on Aspen Learning Digital Library

Reporters - Federal

The Law Library does not subscribe to the Federal Appendix, which includes cases from the U.S. Courts of Appeals that are not selected for publication in the Federal Reporter. These cases may be found in print in subject-specific looseleaf services and online via commercial databases and court websites.

Using the Digests

• Using the Digests by Westlaw

The Digest Research Process consists of four steps:

• Locating the correct digest set for the type of research you are doing
• Locating relevant topics and key numbers within the digest
• Reading the case summaries under the topics and key numbers
• Updating your research to make sure you find summaries of the most recent cases

Note: the Law Library does not have all the digests for all the other regional reporters. If a reporter does not have a corresponding digest, use the General or Decennial Digest series, or, if available, an individual state digest.

Reporters - State

The West National Reporter System organizes state court cases by region of the country. The map indicates the states that are included in each of the regional reporters.

Cases from Pennsylvania State appellate courts are found in the Atlantic Reporter:

• Atlantic Reporter, 3d (2010-date) 
• Atlantic Reporter, 2d (1939-2010)
• Atlantic Reporter (1895-1938)  

The other regional reporters and their abbreviations:

The Law Library also has the official reporters for the Pennsylvania appellate courts:

• Pennsylvania Reporter
• Pennsylvania State Reports (Supreme Court)
• Pennsylvania Superior Court Reports
• Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Reports
• Pennsylvania District & County Reports
• << Previous: Secondary Sources
• Next: Research with Citators >>
• Last Updated: Jun 3, 2024 11:46 AM
• URL: https://libguides.law.widener.edu/legalmethodsbasiclegalresearch

Northern Illinois University College of Law David C. Shapiro Memorial Law Library

• University Libraries
• David C. Shapiro Memorial Law Library

Basic Legal Research

• Using Digests to Find Case Law
• Welcome to Basic Legal Research!
• Commonly Used Legal Terminology
• Court Systems & Legal Authority
• Fact Pattern Analysis
• Secondary Legal Sources
• Understanding Case Citations
• Case Law Reporters

Introduction to Case Digests

Using a print digest, what digests are available at niu.

• Statutes & Codes
• Illinois Administrative Materials
• Federal Administrative Materials
• Terms and Connectors Searching
• Creating/Determining the "Best" Online Search
• Integrating Print & Online Resources
• Updating Your Research Using Shepard's & KeyCite
• Illinois Legislative History
• Federal Legislative History
• Appendix: Illinois Materials
• Appendix: Sample Bluebook Citations
• Appendix: Study Aids

Most digests are published by West/Thomson Reuters and use the West Topic and Key Number System. This system allows the researcher to research similar cases in any jurisdiction that is covered by a West digest or has cases published in a West reporter. Because the topic and key number system from the print digests and reporters is also used in West's online system, knowing how to locate case law in print, and understanding how the information is organized, can lead to better online research results.  Sometimes when online research is unsuccessful browsing through a print digest will help the researcher end up in the right place.

Digests (both print & online) allow you to:

• Locate case law on particular areas of law
• Browse the sub-topics included in a particular subject area by using the extensive Note and Topic Analysis (outline)
• Locate cases when all you have is a case name, by using the Table of Cases
• Locate cases that have defined a particular word or phrase, by using the Words and Phrases volumes
• Select an appropriate digest. (See "What Digests are Available at NIU?" on this page.)  
• Use the Descriptive Word Index volumes to translate your ideas or issues into the topics and key numbers used in the digest. (See "What are Topics and Key Numbers?" on this page.)  
• The main volumes of the digest are arranged alphabetically by topic. Locate the Topic(s) you found in the Descriptive Word Index. Within that Topic, locate the key number (the number that was in bold in the Descriptive Word Index).  
• At the beginning of each Topic there will be a Scope Note and Topic Analysis, which are short and long outlines placed before all the case annotations begin. It is helpful to scan through these outlines to locate related information which you may not have been referred to by the Descriptive Word Index.  
• Always check the pocket part or free-standing supplement to the main volume to discover if any new information has been added.  
• Locate, and then read, the full text of the cited cases. You must always read the full text of an opinion before citing it in any document. Never rely just on the annotations in the digest as your only source of information. The citation to the case is found at the end of each annotation. You can then find the case online.  
• When reading the cases, pay particular attention to the topic and key numbers found in the headnotes. Take note of any topic and key numbers you have not already seen that seem promising for your research.  
• Return to the digest with these topics and key numbers to locate additional case law on your subject.

Note that this is not a complete list of digests. Most states have individual digests and several of the regional reporters have corresponding digests. There are also subject-specific digests (e.g., bankruptcy, education law). All of these can be found online in Westlaw.

• West's Illinois Digest 2d (Illinois Collection, KFI 1257 .I52) covers all reported Illinois Appellate (intermediate appellate and Illinois Supreme Court) cases as well as any reported Federal and U.S. Supreme Court decisions that arose in Illinois. This is the only print digest that is currently updated in the Law Library. It is also available online.  
• West's Federal Practice Digest 3d (located outside of the library in the North Wing, KF 127 .W43) covers all reported decisions of federal cases at all levels (District, Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court). It is no longer updated in print, but is available online.  
• West's American Digest System (11th Decennial Digest, South Wing, KF 141 1996) covers cases from all fifty states and all federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. This is a very useful source when you need to locate cases from multiple jurisdictions that deal with the same issue. While the set is no longer updated in print, it can still be used as a starting point for cross-jurisdiction research. It is also available online.
• << Previous: Case Law Reporters
• Next: Statutes & Codes >>
• Last Updated: May 2, 2024 12:02 PM
• URL: https://libguides.niu.edu/basic-legal-research

© 2024 Board of Trustees of Northern Illinois University. All rights reserved.

Basic Legal Research Guide: Case Law

• Getting Started
• Dictionaries
• Encyclopedias
• Law Reviews
• Restatements
• Statutes and Codes
• Administrative Law
• Illinois Resources
• Research Strategy

Accessing Cases in Print

Please note that the Law Library is no longer updating any state law reporters in print. The Law Library is retaining reporters from states besides Illinois on the 5th floor of the Library. Regional reporters and digests are located from call numbers KF 35 .A7 ( Atlantic Reporter ) through KF 135.S8 ( Southern Reporter ); state reporters and digests (if we own them) can be found with the non-Illinois state law materials (call numbers KFA through KFW ). See the map below for the location of the regional reporters and digests and state reporters in relation to the stairwell.

Federal case law reporters and the Federal Practice Digest are still being updated in print; all sets can be found on the 4th floor of the Law Library. See the map below for their location in relation to the stairwell.

About the National Reporter System

Cases are published in chronological order based on the date they were decided, and not by subject. Unfortunately, however, the research projects you receive usually will be asking you to research a legal issue (i.e., a subject). Therefore, you need an index to the reporter system. This is where the West American Digest System  and the  Topic and Key Number system come in handy. West publishes unofficial reporters as part of its National Reporter System  with the goal of including every reported case from every jurisdiction. For state cases, West publishes seven regional reporters, which each include cases from several states. West publishes a map that shows which states are covered in each regional reporter. Note that these do not always make geographic sense; for instance, Oklahoma and Kansas are listed as "Pacific" states.

About the West Key Number System

• Searching with Key Numbers in Westlaw Edge - Quick Reference Guide

Cases are published in chronological order based on the date they were decided and not by subject. However, the research projects you receive usually will be asking you to research a legal issue (i.e., a subject). Therefore, you need an index to the reporter system. The West Key Number System  provides an indexing function for all published cases, enabling a researcher to locate cases by subject from any court in any jurisdiction. The system also acts as an abstracting service, providing researchers with short summaries of the points of law discussed in the indexed opinions. 

The Key Number System subdivides the law into over 450 broad legal  Topics , which are then further subdivided into Key Numbers , which are assigned to specific legal issues within the broader Topics. Topics and Key Numbers are consistent throughout West's System; the same subject arrangement is applied to all cases from every jurisdiction, so that if you find a case from one jurisdiction that discusses a legal issue you are researching, you can use the Topic and Key Number for that issue to find other cases from other jurisdictions that discuss the same issue. The "Searching with Key Numbers" guide (above) provides more detail.

West employs attorneys who read each case, identify the point(s) of law discussed, summarize the point(s) of law in a headnote (a paragraph summary of the point of law) using consistent legal terminology. At least one Topic and Key Number are assigned to each headnote. These headnotes will appear in a West  digest under the appropriate Topic and Key Number and at the beginning of each case as it appears in a West reporter. 

Therefore, headnotes act as the bridge between the Key Number System and cases: you can use the headnotes from a case you've identified and look for similar cases on the same topic. Alternatively, you can start with the Key Number System, look up your subject by Topic and Key Number, and then find cases by reviewing the language of the headnotes you find.

About Cases

Cases are opinions written by judges that resolve disputed legal issues (as opposed to disputed factual issues ). Researching cases is important because of the doctrine of stare decisis  or precedent . Under the principle of stare decisis , courts are bound to follow the rulings of law from previously decided cases in the same jurisdiction when facing similar cases currently before the court. For the legal researcher, reviewing cases from a court will help determine how the court will rule if given a similar factual situation. In the U.S. system, the only published cases you will find are from intermediate appellate courts and supreme courts. Most trial court decisions are not published.

Cases are published in chronological order in reporters . There are two different categories of reporters that you need to know:  official reporters , which are usually published by a government entity, and unofficial reporters , which are published commercially (usually by either West or Lexis). 

To find a case in a reporter, you will need to know its citation . A case citation includes the name of the case, the volume number of the reporter containing the case, the abbreviation for the reporter, the first page of the case, and the year of the decision. For example:

P.G.A. v. Martin , 532 U.S. 661 (2001).

To find the text of this case in print, you would go to volume 532 of the United States Reports (the official reporter of the U.S. Supreme Court) , then page 661. The U.S. Supreme Court decided the case in the year 2001. To find it online, you would search by the citation.

You will often see multiple citations to the same case when the case is reported in multiple reporters (called  parallel citations ).  Table T.1  of  The Bluebook  lists the reporters (both official and unofficial) for every jurisdiction in the United States. For example, the P.G.A. v. Martin  case below is reported in three reporters in the following order: the United States Reports (the official reporter of the U.S. Supreme Court),  the  Supreme Court Reporter   (West's unofficial reporter), and the  Lawyers' Edition   (Lexis's unofficial reporter).  

P.G.A. v. Martin , 532 U.S. 661, 121 S.Ct. 1879, 149 L. Ed. 2d 904 (2001).

How to Read a Case

At the top of the reporter page (see below), you will see the citation to the case, including any parallel citations (citations to the same case in other reporters). Then you will see a short summary of the case (the syllabus ), which includes an indication of how it got to the court that has issued the opinion, and the holding(s) on the point(s) of law. After the syllabus, you will see the headnotes discussing the point(s) of law in the case in the order in which they appear in the opinion, as well as the Topics and Key Numbers that can be used to find other cases on the same legal issue(s). Next is the actual text of the opinion.

One important note: The headnotes and summary are NOT written by the court; they are written by West editors. Therefore, you should never cite to a case based on what you've read in the syllabus and headnotes; you must read the case and cite to the language written by the court.

For additional insights, Prof. Orin Kerr's article " How to Read a Legal Opinion: a Guide for New Law Students " explains what judicial opinions are, how they are structured, and what to look for when reading them.

Using Citators

Citators  perform three functions for legal researchers. A citator will tell you if the case you've found is still "good law," or if subsequent decisions have weakened its authority or overruled it altogether. A citator can also provide citations to other cases and secondary sources that discuss the same legal issue as in the case you've found. Finally, a citator can provide you with case history (references to other proceedings in the same case).

Each subscription research service has its own citator. In Lexis, the citator is called Shepard's . Westlaw's citator is called KeyCite . Bloomberg Law's citator is called BCite . The following presentations will show you how each citator works. Westlaw also has a "Quick Reference Guide" (PDF) for using KeyCite (see below).

If you have access to multiple citators, it's a good idea to check your case in each citator, because citator results will often include different cases, different secondary sources, and different interpretations of subsequent cases that have cited to your case.

Lawyer's Nightmare: DOL Blames Westlaw for Skimpy Brief - this Law360 article demonstrates the hazards of relying on the results of just one research platform/citator.

Below are vendor-produced materials on citators: a PDF Guide to using KeyCite in Westlaw, and video tutorials on using Shepard's in Lexis and BCite in Bloomberg Law.

• Checking Cases in KeyCite - Quick Reference Guide

BCite from Bloomberg Law - Law School Team on Vimeo .

Subject Guide

CALI LibTour - West's Digests

As part of its LibTour podcast series, CALI created this brief introduction to the West American Digest System . Follow the link below to the podcast.

• CALI LibTour Podcast - West's Digests

How to Cite Cases - Examples

Rule B10 (Bluepages) of The Bluebook (21st edition) covers how to cite cases in non-academic legal documents.  The Bluebook , however, notes that practitioners should be aware of local court rules and specifies on p. 3,"Make sure to abide by any citation requirements of the court to which you are submitting your documents."  Table BT2 of the Bluepages contains an index of jurisdiction-specific citation rules. See the " Illinois Resources " tab of this guide for specific information on citing cases, statutes, and regulations in Illinois court documents.

There are many variables involved in citing cases, so you will probably have to check one of the sub-parts of a rule to determine how to cite your particular case. The following example is the first one included in rule B10 (rule B10.1) (Bluepages) (see p. 11)

Engel v. Vitale , 370 U.S. 421, 430 (1962) ("The Establishment Clause, unlike the Free Exercise Clause, does not depend upon any showing of direct governmental compulsion . . . .").

The components of the citation are, in order: the name of the case; the published or unpublished source in which the case can be found; a parenthetical indicating the court and year of decision; other parenthetical information, if any; the case's subsequent history, if any. For the case name, omit all parties other than the first party listed on each side of the "v." per rule B10.1.1 (Bluepages) . In the above citation, note that the first page of the case is listed, as well as the specific page referred to (pinpoint citation) per rule B10.1.2 (Bluepages) . Per rule B10.1.3 (Bluepages) , when citing decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, or a state's highest court, do not include the name of the deciding court, as in the above example.

Table T6  (p. 304) lists abbreviations for case names and institutional authors in citations.

This example for a federal appellate court case is listed in rule B10.1.3 (Bluepages) (see p. 13):

Envtl. Def. Fund v. EPA , 465 F.2d 528, 533 (D.C. Cir. 1972).

The Bluebook  notes that the Bluepages retain the tradition of underlining certain text, although italics are equivalent (see p. 6).

Rule 10 (Whitepages) (see p. 95) contains the rules for citing cases in academic works. Some examples The Bluebook provides are:

Meritor Sav. Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 60 (1986).

In this example, the case was published in volume 477 of the U.S. Reports (the official reporter of the U.S. Supreme  Court). The case starts on p. 57, but the cited information appears on p. 60. The case was decided in 1986.

Ward v. Reddy, 727 F. Supp. 1407, 1412 (D. Mass 1990). 

In this example, the case was published in volume 727 of the Federal Supplement (a West reporter that contains selected decisions of the U.S. District Courts). The case starts on p. 1407, and the cited information appears on p. 1412. The case was decided by the District Court of Massachusetts in 1990. 

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US Case Law

The United States Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. Lower courts on the federal level include the US Courts of Appeals, US District Courts, the US Court of Claims, and the US Court of International Trade and US Bankruptcy Courts. Federal courts hear cases involving matters related to the United States Constitution, other federal laws and regulations, and certain matters that involve parties from different states or countries and large sums of money in dispute.

Each state has its own judicial system that includes trial and appellate courts. The highest court in each state is often referred to as the “supreme” court, although there are some exceptions to this rule, for example, the New York Court of Appeals or the Maryland Court of Appeals. State courts generally hear cases involving state constitutional matters, state law and regulations, although state courts may also generally hear cases involving federal laws. States also usually have courts that handle only a specific subset of legal matters, such as family law and probate.

Case law, also known as precedent or common law, is the body of prior judicial decisions that guide judges deciding issues before them. Depending on the relationship between the deciding court and the precedent, case law may be binding or merely persuasive. For example, a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is binding on all federal district courts within the Fifth Circuit, but a court sitting in California (whether a federal or state court) is not strictly bound to follow the Fifth Circuit’s prior decision. Similarly, a decision by one district court in New York is not binding on another district court, but the original court’s reasoning might help guide the second court in reaching its decision.

Decisions by the US Supreme Court are binding on all federal and state courts.

US Federal Courts

Reported opinions from the us federal courts of appeals.

• Federal Reporter, 2nd Series (F.2d) (1924-1993)
• Federal Reporter, 3rd Series (F.3d) (1993-present)

Opinions From the US Federal Courts of Appeals

• US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
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• US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
• US Court of International Trade
• US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review
• Bankruptcy Reporter (B.R.) (1980-present)
• Federal Reporter, 2nd Series (F.2d) (1924-1932)
• Federal Supplement (F. Supp.) (1933-1998)
• Federal Supplement, 2nd Series (F. Supp. 2d) (1998-present)
• Connecticut
• District of Columbia
• Massachusetts
• Mississippi
• New Hampshire
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
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• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
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• Emergency Court of Appeals (1942-1974)
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Case Law Research: Citators/Updating Cases

• Introduction
• Abbreviations
• Find Cases in Print This link opens in a new window
• Methods of Finding Cases
• Citators/Updating Cases
• Search Tips

Is it Still Good Law?

The law is constantly changing with new cases being decided everyday, so making sure that the cases that you cite in your research are still good law is very important. You also need to understand how the points of law in your case are being treated by other courts. Citators help you do this by showing the history of a case, and how it has been treated in subsequent decisions. Indicators such as red flags and stop signs are used to help identify points of law that may have received negative treatment from higher courts. 

Citators have the added benefit of helping locate secondary sources, such as encyclopedias, treatises, and law review articles, that can enhance your understanding of the case and further your research into a topic. 

Lexis Advance, WestlawNext, and Bloomberg Law each offer their own citator tools. Lexis offers Shepard's and Westlaw offers KeyCite . Bloomberg offers a program called BCite . Check out some of the links on this page for more information detailing how to use each one. 

KeyCite (Westlaw)

KeyCite is available through WestlawNext, and can be used to locate the history and citing references for cases, as well as statutes, regulations, and administrative decisions. 

Checking Citations in KeyCite : a handy guide to using KeyCite.

Online KeyCite Training

Shepard's (Lexis Advance)

Shepard's is the citator service used in Lexis Advance. It also provides access to case history and subsequent treatment.  "Shepardizing" has become shorthand for checking to see if a case is still good law. 

Shepardizing: make sure you cite good law

BCite (Bloomberg) screencast

How Can I Determine if My Case is Good Law?

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• Advanced Legal Research- Research Step by Step

Advanced Legal Research- Research Step by Step: Hypo

• Familiarity Ranking 1
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• Familiarity Ranking 3
• Familiarity Ranking 4

Your supervising attorney just assigned you legal research for a case she's working on. She is meeting with the client again on Thursday, June 6th, so you have to have all of your research done by then.

Your supervising attorney would like you create a research trail with all of the different resources you used and what you learned about the case from each resource. Please turn that in after class.

Your client has been charged with Criminal Trespass in the Second Degree in Oregon (ORS 164.245) for doing the following:

Roberta Jones is an avid animal lover and she recently began volunteering with the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon (FCCO). FCCO is an organization that spays and neuters feral cats. FCCO provides live traps for the feral cats, instructions on how to familiarize and trap cats, and the spaying and neutering services. Volunteers find a colony of cats, make appointments at the clinic, receive traps, then catch the cats and bring them to the clinic. This is called Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR).

Ms. Jones found a cat colony in Woodlawn Park in NE Portland and went about feeding the cats to develop familiarity with them. The cats were more active at night and Ms. Jones began going after sundown to feed the cats. Notice on the park entrances clearly states that the park closes at sundown. The first time she fed the cats at night a police officer found her and escorted her off the premises. She returned for 8 more nights to feed the cats and police escorted her from the premises 3 of the 8 times telling her that she was not to be in the park after dark and on the final day that she shouldn't feed the cats because the food was also bringing other animals to the park, like rats and raccoons, that could be hazardous to people in the park and the residents surrounding the park.

On the 9th night, Ms. Jones took four traps to try and catch the feral cats. Police found her and arrested her for criminal trespass in the second degree.

Ms. Jones believes spaying and neutering the cats is in the best interest of society as it reduces outdoor cat populations. It is also in the best interest of the cats since with lower populations they have enough resources to survive. Additionally, Ms. Jones believes several of these cats have been abandoned by owners, a crime under ORS §167.340, since several of the cats in the colony have collars but are obviously not being taken care of. By trapping these animals Ms. Jones believes the owners who abandoned the cats can be found and prosecuted.

Your supervising attorney would like to know more about criminal trespass in Oregon and whether Ms. Jones has any defenses to the charge.

Write a memorialization of the facts. (Who, What, Where, When, Legal Issues)

How familiar are you with this area of law?

What is your research question?

Create a research plan for this problem. What specific resources are you going to use to research? What is your desired outcome?

What search terms will you use to try and find your answers?

You are ready to start researching: Move on to the Familiarity Ranking 1 tab.

Summation of Facts

• Summation of Facts Example
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What Is Discovery in a Court Case?

Discovery is when both sides gather and show their evidence before trial.

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This process ensures fairness since both parties are aware of what evidence the other has.

In a court case, one of the key points is evidence that is collected. In legal terms, this is called discovery.

Discovery is the “formal process of exchanging information between the parties about the witnesses and evidence they’ll present at trial," according to the American Bar Association .

Here's what else to understand about this important legal term.

What Is Discovery?

Discovery occurs before a trial begins, when each side needs to put forth evidence or request documentation the other party has in their possession.

“Discovery in court is forcing the opponent to show all of their pieces or all of their cards on the table,” says Julia I. Vázquez, a clinical professor of law and director of the Community Lawyering Clinic at Southwestern Law School.

According to the ABA, discovery is designed to prevent one side from being ambushed in court, when there's no time to obtain answering evidence.

Types of discovery can include depositions and documents. Timing may vary as well. For example, a family law case will have a different timeline than an eviction case or a small claims case, Vázquez says. But the general deadline is typically 30 days before the trial.

Rules can also vary by state and location. Vázquez encourages people to seek out a legal clinic or a local law library as a resource if they cannot afford an attorney . She adds, “I usually liken it to a game of chess or some other game where the other side is either hiding the pieces or not showing you all the pieces.”

What Is the Purpose of Discovery?                  

Discovery ensures fairness since both parties are aware of what evidence the other has.

“From the court’s perspective, it really is to save time but also to encourage settlement,” Vázquez says.

It adds context to the details of the court case, Vázquez says.

For example, if someone fell in a store, that person can ask for security footage or witness statements that show someone knew there was a huge hole in the middle of that aisle.

“You thought you had a slam-dunk case and then you got these documents that dramatically challenge the whole theory of your case, you might be more inclined to settle,” Vázquez says.

Discovery can sometimes take a long time, cautions Aaron Bundy, founding partner at Bundy Law, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with multiple locations. That's because attorneys may have objections, which can create delays.

“These cases are just spinning their wheels in this discovery slog,” Bundy says. “It’s the perfect storm.”

What Are Misconceptions About Discovery?

One misconception about discovery is that individuals can request anything and everything.

“There (are) limits to discovery,” Vázquez says. People cannot ask for irrelevant information. The court will also balance whether something is so burdensome that the other side cannot produce it.

Another assumption is that people can simply wait until court to engage in the discovery process. But that’s not how it works, Vázquez says. “If someone doesn’t respond, that could entitle the other person to make statements that are established as true.”

Another misconception is that it’s optional, Bundy says. “You have to participate in the process,” Bundy says. “If you don’t do discovery right, you could still lose.”

What Does Hiring a Lawyer Cost?

Ashley Merryman March 1, 2024

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Trump Has Few Ways to Overturn His Conviction as a New York Felon

The judge in Donald J. Trump’s case closed off many avenues of appeal, experts said, though his lawyers might challenge the novel theory at the case’s center.

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By Ben Protess ,  William K. Rashbaum and Jonah E. Bromwich

“This is long from over,” Donald J. Trump, the former president and current felon, declared on Thursday, moments after a Manhattan jury convicted him on 34 counts of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal.

Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, is banking on the jury not having the final word on the case. He has already outlined a plan to appeal a verdict that on Friday he labeled “a scam.”

But even if the former — and possibly future — president could persuade voters to ignore his conviction, the appellate courts might not be so sympathetic. Several legal experts cast doubt on his chances of success, and noted that the case could take years to snake through the courts, all but ensuring he will still be a felon when voters head to the polls in November.

And so, after a five-year investigation and a seven-week trial, Mr. Trump’s New York legal odyssey is only beginning.

The Trump Manhattan Criminal Verdict, Count By Count

Former President Donald J. Trump faced 34 felony charges of falsifying business records, related to the reimbursement of hush money paid to the porn star Stormy Daniels in order to cover up a sex scandal around the 2016 presidential election.

The former president’s supporters are calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, though that is highly unlikely. In a more likely appeal to a New York court, Mr. Trump would have avenues to attack the conviction, the experts said, but far fewer than he has claimed. The experts noted that the judge whose rulings helped shape the case stripped some of the prosecution’s most precarious arguments and evidence from the trial.

The appeal will be a referendum on the judge, Juan M. Merchan, who steered the trial through political and legal minefields even as Mr. Trump hurled invective at him and his family. Justice Merchan, a no-nonsense former prosecutor, said that he was keenly aware “and protective of” Mr. Trump’s rights, including his right to “defend himself against political attacks.”

Mark Zauderer, a veteran New York litigator who sits on a committee that screens applicants for the same court that will hear Mr. Trump’s appeal, said that Justice Merchan avoided pitfalls that often doom convictions.

“This case has none of the usual red flags for reversal on appeal,” Mr. Zauderer said. “The judge’s demeanor was flawless.”

Even if Justice Merchan’s rulings provide little fodder, Mr. Trump could challenge the foundation of the prosecution’s case. Mr. Trump’s lawyers note that Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, used a novel theory to charge Mr. Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

In New York, that crime is a misdemeanor, unless the records were faked to conceal another crime. To elevate the charges to felonies, Mr. Bragg argued that Mr. Trump had falsified the records to cover up violations of a little-known state law against conspiring to win an election by “unlawful means.”

Mr. Trump’s conspiracy occurred during his first run for the White House. When Mr. Trump arranged to buy and bury damaging stories about his sex life, including a porn star’s story of a tryst, he was trying to influence the 2016 election, Mr. Bragg said.

In an appeal, Mr. Trump’s lawyers are expected to argue that Mr. Bragg inappropriately stretched the state election law — a convoluted one, at that — to cover a federal campaign. And they could claim that the false records law itself does not apply to Mr. Trump’s case.

“I certainly don’t think there has been a prosecution of falsifying business records like this one,” said Barry Kamins, a retired judge and expert on criminal procedure who teaches at Brooklyn Law School. “This is all uncharted territory, as far as an appellate issue.”

None of this criticism will surprise Mr. Bragg, a career prosecutor who has shown himself to be comfortable with innovative applications of law. Mr. Bragg’s head of appeals, Steven Wu, a fast-talking, Yale-trained litigator, attended much of the trial. When the verdict was read, he was sitting in the second row, to Mr. Bragg’s right.

It is now Mr. Wu’s job to ensure that Mr. Trump does not escape his conviction.

Over a lifetime spent in legal gray areas, Mr. Trump has developed a knack for delaying or dodging criminal consequences. Just as law enforcement authorities would appear to close in on him, and his adversaries assumed he was on the ropes, Mr. Trump would prevail.

In his four years as president, Mr. Trump survived two impeachments, a federal investigation and a special counsel inquiry. In his post-presidential life, he has been indicted four times in four different cities, but three of those cases are mired in delays, thanks in part to the U.S. Supreme Court.

He was, to foes and friends alike, “Teflon Don.”

But now, just like every other criminal defendant in New York, the deck is stacked against him. Appeals courts typically frown upon overturning jury decisions, barring some glaring error or misconduct.

Justice Merchan will sentence Mr. Trump on July 11, just days before he attends the Republican National Convention to be anointed as the party’s presidential nominee. The judge could sentence him to as long as four years in prison, or impose only probation.

The sentencing will start a 30-day clock for Mr. Trump to file a notice of appeal. That notice is just a legal stake in the ground. Mr. Trump will then have to mount the actual appeal at the New York State’s Appellate Division, First Department. The panel of appellate court judges most likely would not hear arguments until next year, and might not issue a decision until early 2026.

And that won’t necessarily be the final say. Mr. Trump or Mr. Bragg’s office could ask the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, to review the decision.

Mr. Trump might also have a final option: the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Trump, who already tried and failed to move the case to federal court, could try again if he were elected.

It would be a long shot. Procedurally, it is exceedingly difficult for a state defendant to reach the Supreme Court without exhausting state appeals.

“This is a garden-variety state court conviction,” Mr. Zauderer said. “I don't see a plausible path to the Supreme Court.”

Yet the court has appeared sympathetic to Mr. Trump in one of his other criminal cases. And in an appearance on Fox News on Friday, the Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, argued that the justices should take up Mr. Trump’s cause .

“I think that the justices on the court — I know many of them personally — I think they’re deeply concerned,” said Mr. Johnson, a Trump ally. “I think they’ll set this straight, but it’s going to take a while.”

At his news conference at Trump Tower on Friday, Mr. Trump outlined a blueprint for his appeal, airing a litany of grievances about Justice Merchan , whom he called “a tyrant.”

“He wouldn’t allow us to have witnesses or have us talk or allow us to do anything,” Mr. Trump claimed, adding that witnesses were “literally crucified by this man who looks like an angel, but he’s really a devil.”

Those accusations were false. Justice Merchan did not prohibit Mr. Trump from calling witnesses, though he did limit the testimony of a defense expert who was set to testify about election law but ultimately never took the stand. (Justice Merchan determined that the expert’s testimony about the law would intrude on the judge’s own responsibility.)

Mr. Trump also claimed that Justice Merchan effectively prevented him from testifying in his own defense. The judge, he said, would have allowed prosecutors to question him about his past legal troubles, and “everything that I was ever involved in.”

That was a significant exaggeration.

Defendants routinely premise appeals on a judge’s decision about how much prosecutors may cross-examine them. They also often argue that judges have allowed evidence beyond the scope of the charges. But Justice Merchan refused to let the prosecution enter a variety of damaging evidence about Mr. Trump, including accusations that he sexually assaulted women.

Both of those issues were at the heart of the Court of Appeals’s recent decision to overturn the sex crimes conviction of Harvey Weinstein, the former Hollywood producer. Yet Mr. Kamins, who was one of the lawyers who handled Mr. Weinstein’s appeal, said they would not carry the day for Mr. Trump.

Justice Merchan, who began every trial day with a “good morning” for Mr. Trump, did occasionally scold him for misbehaving in the courtroom, or violating a gag order that barred attacks on witnesses and jurors. But the judge did so outside the presence of the jurors.

When the porn star, Stormy Daniels, was on the stand, and Mr. Trump muttered “bullshit,” the judge waited for the jury to leave before summoning a defense lawyer to the bench. “I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don’t want to embarrass him,” the judge told Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer, Todd Blanche.

Justice Merchan bent over backward when Mr. Trump repeatedly violated the gag order.

“Mr. Trump, it’s important to understand that the last thing I want to do is to put you in jail,” he said. “You are the former president of the United States, and possibly the next president.”

Justice Merchan also reined in the prosecution’s efforts to lower the legal bar for convicting Mr. Trump. In his instructions to the jury about how to apply the law to Mr. Trump’s case, the judge refused to include suggestions from prosecutors that would have made a conviction all but certain.

Still, no judge is perfect. At times during the trial, Justice Merchan appeared to lose his temper, castigating the defense for arguments he saw as frivolous or repetitive.

And Mr. Trump’s lawyers are expected to challenge Justice Merchan’s decisions to keep the trial in Manhattan, where the former president is deeply unpopular, and to bless Mr. Bragg’s theory of the case.

The law required Mr. Bragg to show that Mr. Trump caused a false entry in the records of “an enterprise.” Mr. Trump’s lawyers might argue that no such enterprise was involved. The documents, they believe, belonged to Mr. Trump personally, not his company.

The second crime — the election law conspiracy — provides another possible avenue for Mr. Trump’s lawyers. The legal theory underpinning the prosecution included not only untested law, but a complex combination of statutes, one tucked inside another like Russian nesting dolls.

This theory required Justice Merchan to provide the jury with byzantine legal instructions.

“The more complex the jury instructions, the more likely they are to bear appellate issues,” said Nathaniel Z. Marmur, a New York appellate lawyer. “And these are some of the most complex instructions one could imagine.”

Long before the appeal is decided, Mr. Trump’s political fate will have been set. In the single day since the jury convicted him, campaign donations have poured into his coffers, and Mr. Trump cast Election Day as the “real verdict.”

His opponent, President Biden, said that the conviction alone would not thwart a Trump presidency .

“There’s only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box,” he said.

Ben Protess is an investigative reporter at The Times, writing about public corruption. He has been covering the various criminal investigations into former President Trump and his allies. More about Ben Protess

William K. Rashbaum is a Times reporter covering municipal and political corruption, the courts and broader law enforcement topics in New York. More about William K. Rashbaum

Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state criminal courts in Manhattan. More about Jonah E. Bromwich

Our Coverage of the Trump Hush-Money Trial

Guilty Verdict : Donald Trump was convicted on all 34 counts  of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened his bid for the White House in 2016, making him the first American president to be declared a felon .

What Happens Next: Trump’s sentencing hearing on July 11 will trigger a long and winding appeals process , though he has few ways to overturn the decision .

Reactions: Trump’s conviction reverberated quickly across the country  and around the world . Here’s what voters , New Yorkers , Republicans , Trump supporters  and President Biden  had to say.

The Presidential Race : The political fallout of Trump’s conviction is far from certain , but the verdict will test America’s traditions, legal institutions and ability to hold an election under historic partisan tension .

Making the Case: Over six weeks and the testimony of 20 witnesses, the Manhattan district attorney’s office wove a sprawling story  of election interference and falsified business records.

Legal Luck Runs Out: The four criminal cases that threatened Trump’s freedom had been stumbling along, pleasing his advisers. Then his good fortune expired .

The University of Chicago The Law School

College essays and diversity in the post-affirmative action era, sonja starr’s latest research adds data, legal analysis to discussion about race in college admissions essays.

Editor’s Note: This story is part of an occasional series on research projects currently in the works at the Law School.

The Supreme Court’s decision in June 2023 to bar the use of affirmative action in college admissions raised many questions. One of the most significant is whether universities should consider applicants’ discussion of race in essays. The Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard did not require entirely race-blind admissions. Rather, the Court explicitly stated that admissions offices may weigh what students say about how race affected their lives. Yet the Court also warned that this practice may not be used to circumvent the bar on affirmative action.

Many university leaders made statements after SFFA suggesting that they take this passage seriously, and that it potentially points to a strategy for preserving diversity. But it’s not obvious how lower courts will distinguish between consideration of “race-related experience” and consideration of “race qua race.” Sonja Starr, Julius Kreeger Professor of Law & Criminology at the Law School, was intrigued by the implication of that question, calling the key passage of the Court’s opinion the “essay carveout.”

“Where is the line?” she wrote in a forthcoming article, the first of its kind to discuss this issue in depth in the post- SFFA era. “And what other potential legal pitfalls could universities encounter in evaluating essays about race?”

To inform her paper’s legal analysis, Starr conducted empirical analyses of how universities and students have included race in essays, both before and after the Court’s decision. She concluded that large numbers of applicants wrote about race, and that college essay prompts encouraged them to do so, even before SFFA .

Some thought the essay carveout made no sense. Justice Sonia Sotomayor called it “an attempt to put lipstick on a pig” in her dissent. Starr, however, disagrees. She argues that universities are on sound legal footing relying on the essay carveout, so long as they consider race-related experience in an individualized way. In her article, Starr points out reasons the essay carveout makes sense in the context of the Court’s other arguments. However, she points to the potential for future challenges—on both equal protection and First Amendment grounds—and discusses how colleges can survive them.

What the Empirical Research Showed

After SFFA , media outlets suggested that universities would add questions about race or identity in their admissions essays and that students would increasingly focus on that topic. Starr decided to investigate this speculation. She commissioned a professional survey group to recruit a nationally representative sample of recent college applicants. The firm queried 881 people about their essay content, about half of whom applied in 2022-23, before SFFA , and half of whom submitted in 2023-24.

The survey found that more than 60 percent of students in non-white groups wrote about race in at least some of their essays, as did about half of white applicants. But contrary to what the media suggested, there were no substantial changes between the pre-and post- SFFA application cycles.

Starr also reviewed essay prompts that 65 top schools have used over the last four years. She found that diversity and identity questions—as well as questions about overcoming adversity, which, for example, provide opportunities for students to discuss discrimination that they have faced—are common and have increased in frequency both before and after SFFA.

A Personally Inspired Interest

Although Starr has long written about equal protection issues, until about two years ago, she would have characterized educational admissions as a bit outside her wheelhouse. Her research has mostly focused on the criminal justice system, though race is often at the heart of it. In the past, for example, she has assessed the role of race in sentencing, the constitutionality of algorithmic risk assessment instruments in criminal justice, as well as policies to expand employment options for people with criminal records.

But a legal battle around admissions policies at Fairfax County’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology—the high school that Starr attended—caught her attention. Starr followed the case closely and predicted that “litigation may soon be an ever-present threat for race-conscious policymaking” in a 2024 Stanford Law Review article on that and other magnet school cases.

“I got really interested in that case partly because of the personal connection,” she said. “But I ended up writing about it as an academic matter, and that got me entrenched in this world of educational admissions questions and their related implications for other areas of equal protection law.”

Implications in Education and Beyond

Starr’s forthcoming paper argues that the essay carveout provides a way for colleges to maintain diversity and stay on the right side of the Court’s decision.

“I believe there’s quite a bit of space that’s open for colleges to pursue in this area without crossing that line,” she said. “I lay out the arguments that colleges can put forth.”

Nevertheless, Starr expects future litigation targeting the essay carveout.

“I think we could see cases filed as soon as this year when the admissions numbers come out,” she said, pointing out that conservative legal organizations, such as the Pacific Legal Foundation, have warned that they’re going to be keeping a close eye on admissions numbers and looking for ways that schools are circumventing SFFA .

Starr envisions her paper being used as a resource for schools that want to obey the law while also maintaining diversity. “The preservation of diversity is not a red flag that something unconstitutional is happening,” she said. “There are lots of perfectly permissible ways that we can expect diversity to be maintained in this post- affirmative action era.”

Starr’s article, “Admissions Essays after SFFA ,” is slated to be published in Indiana Law Journal in early 2025.