Law and Legal Research Starter

"About the Bluebook: Basic information about the Bluebook, including where to find copies in the Library.
Bluebook Layout: A tour through the most important Bluebook sections for beginning law students.
Citing Cases: How to cite federal and state cases.
Citing Statutes: How to cite federal and state statutes, and how to use the Bluebook's blue pages to help you cite and find your statute.
Citing Other Resources: Basic citation formats for books and treatises, constitutions, the judicial record and Internet resources.
Tidbits: Important notes about the Bluebook that beginning students should know, including a summary of underlining."

Individuals, Criminal Actions, Corporations, Municipalities, Volume Numbers, U.S. Supreme Court, State Reporters, Case Citation Videsos: First Page of Decision, Introduction to Pinpoints, Parallel Pinpoints, Common Errors, U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Courts of Appeals, U.S. District Courts, Highest State Courts, Lower State Courts, Courts in Parallel Citations, Date of Decision

"The format for citations to legal materials is different from the format for scholarly citations to books and periodicals in general. This handout is a terse guide to legal citation in the USA."

WHAT AND WHY?
» Introduction
» Purposes of Legal Citation
» Types of Citation Principles
» Levels of Mastery
» Citation in Transition
» Who Sets Citation Norms

"A citator, or citation service, is a legal reference tool that shows where a legal authority such as a case opinion, a statute, or a regulation has been cited by later authorities such as other court opinions. This helps determine the status of the legal authority you are researching (in other words, whether it is still good law) and helps you find related information on the same topic."

Guide to legal research using Shepard’s Citations in print from LexisNexis in a pdf file.

"The Shepard's Citations Service provides a comprehensive case citation and treatment history to verify the validity of case law, statutes, agency opinions, and other legal documents. Only case law is covered in LexisNexis Academic.

Shepardizing™ is the practice of using the Shepard's Citations Service to validate a citation.

When you Shepardize® a case, LexisNexis provides a report showing every opinion where that case has been referenced, all treatments of the case, and, most importantly, whether or not the case is "good law." If the case has been overruled, it is considered "bad law" and may no longer be cited as a legal precedent."

"ALWD is a non-profit professional association of directors of legal reasoning, research, writing, analysis, and advocacy programs from law schools throughout the United States, Canada and Australia. ALWD has more than 200 members representing more than 150 law schools."

"The ALWD Citation Manual is a consistent, flexible, and relatively easy to understand and use professional system of citation for legal materials. It is filled with examples of citation forms. One of the simpler, yet long overdue changes from the Bluebook, is that the ALWD Citation Manual contains one system for all legal documents, making no distinction between law review articles and other types of writing.
ALWD is dedicated to supporting and improving the ALWD Citation Manual. To that end, this website provides various support materials for both the first and second editions of the citation manual. The information on this Web site, particularly including the information about state rules included in the expanded appendices, is available for use not only by ALWD members, but also by other legal writing faculty, students, practicing attorneys, judges, and members of the general public."