Legal Research Guide

This is a legal research guide created to meet the legal research needs of paralegal students. This guide will assist students with: understanding legal sources, locating legal sources, legal research techniques, and citing sources.

Legal research requires an understanding of the different types of laws and legal authorities, along with an understanding of the purposes of each type of legal source. This guide helps to provide an overview of this information. 

Some research tips!

• Determine your research goal before starting to research!
  • is it a question of state or federal law?
  • what is the jurisdiction?
  • what is the issue of law?
• Get informed about the subject area before you start to dive deep into research.
  • A secondary source can be helpful for this!
• Determine the best search keywords to retrieve the correct resources.
• Determine the best resource/.
  • There are certain resources that are more helpful than others. For example, annotated codes contain the statute's text like the unannotated codes to, but annotated codes also have citations to other related sources (cases, regulations, and secondary sources). 
• Research until you find all of the relevant law for the legal issue, and make sure it is good law!

Law libraries are amazing resources for legal research because law libraries have additional legal databases and secondary materials. While legal professionals tend to utilize law libraries the most, there are public law libraries that are open to the general public. Law libraries typically have access to either: WestLaw, LexisNexis, or Bloomberg Law. Also, law libraries may have access to the Pacer system (an electronic database of case information). Law librarians are unable to provide legal advice or interpretation, but can help to search and locate resources.