The best way to search by legal issue or topic in the Law Review journals, is to use the ADVANCED search and set more parameters to the search.
You can search using the topic and a set term for the type of law issue - bill, executive order, public law, court case, etc.
xxxx AND court cases
xxxx AND executive order
Where xxxx represents an appropriate topic; e.g.:
“constitutional law” AND court cases
immigration AND executive order
If the results are too broad, add more terms to narrow them.
You can also use the descriptor term assigned to articles about specific cases:
xxxx AND DE "Actions & defenses (Law) -- Cases"
Use ProQuest to research all major subject areas, including business, health and medical, social sciences, arts and humanities, education, science and technology, and religion. The collection includes a variety of materials and is appropriate for all researchers.
For coverage from newspapers and magazines, your best bet is to go to ProQuest and EBSCOhost (linked above). Note: Newspapers may just report on a case and not give the court’s opinion.
Try the following style of search(es):
Smith AND Jones AND court
or, somewhat more specific
Smith AND Jones AND "court case"
Add any additional information you may have (attorney’s name, date, whatever). Also, if the case is a criminal one, it’s likely to be State v. Jones, People v. Smith, or something similar.
Don’t use v. or vs. because you never know which one was used and whether it was used with or without a period. The disadvantage to newspaper and magazines accounts is that they don’t usually have the text of the judge’s decision.
For more general information, you can search by company name or person with these two broader terms
xxxx AND lawsuits
xxxx AND litigation
Use ProQuest to research all major subject areas, including business, health and medical, social sciences, arts and humanities, education, science and technology, and religion. The collection includes a variety of materials and is appropriate for all researchers.
Changes to the law and regulations are extensively reported in the news. The best way to find articles about any proposed changes to the law or regulation is to refer to it by the bill number, prop (proposition) number, or CFR (Code of Federal Regulation) number. It is always a good idea to include the state if it is not a federal bill or regulation. Keyword searches are often more difficult to narrow down.
Examples:
in EBSCOhost:
(Prop 64 OR proposition 64) AND California AND marijuana
same sex marriage AND California AND (law OR legislation)
in ProQuest:
("Prop 64" OR "proposition 64") AND California AND marijuana
"same sex marriage" AND California AND (law OR legislation)
For finding the text of a court case, we rely on the sources below. Start with the case name and the court of jurisdiction. Lower courts usually have at least a case index online for recent years. To get the details of a case or an opinion, these courts may charge a fee.
When researching a case that has been appealed, it is sometimes easier to start with the appeal of the case and work you way backwards to the earlier opinions because each appeal will have the citation to the earlier case.
Online court case histories/indexes usually prompt you for the names involved in the case. Put in the least amount of unique information in a last name, first name order for people and by company name for corporations.
