Research Guides: History, Law, Political Science: Law

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Guide to Legal Research

Welcome to the Law Research Guide! The information here will help direct you to key resources, important databases, and helpful reference works for your research.

Key Resources

Start here:

Nexis Uni
Nexis Uni™ (formerly LexisNexis Academic) features more than 17,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis®—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790.

Also try:

Academic Search Ultimate
Academic Search Ultimate from EBSCO offers academic journals, magazines, periodicals, reports, books and videos covering virtually every discipline from astronomy, anthropology, biomedicine, engineering, health, law and literacy to mathematics, pharmacology, women’s studies, zoology and more.
CCH AnswerConnect (formerly CCH IntelliConnect)
CCH AnswerConnect Tax Research offers federal and state tax news and information, tax codes, regulations, court cases, rulings, legislative documents, treaties, and IRS publications. Includes GAAP Online Library, Governmental GAAP Online Library, and GAAS Online Library. Usage Note: Requires registration. Click on "Subscribers: Log in here." on the top right..
Learn how to use this database: CCH AnswerConnect Support & Help
Criminal Justice (Gale OneFile)
Provides access to academic journals and magazines on topics in criminal justice and related fields, including law, law enforcement, security, forensic science, and homeland security.
Provided by TEL.

Search more databases containing information on law...

HeinOnline Free Collections
Search or browse these free full-text collections: Civil Rights and Social Justice; Gun Regulation and Legislation in America; Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law; LGBTQ+ Rights; and Open Society Justice Initiative.

Free Legal Research Websites

Caselaw Access Project The Caselaw Access Project (“CAP”) expands public access to U.S. law. Their goal is to make all published U.S. court decisions freely available to the public online, in a consistent format, digitized from the collection of the Harvard Law School Library.
Court Listener CourtListener is a free legal research website containing millions of legal opinions from federal and state courts. With CourtListener, lawyers, journalists, academics, and the public can research an important case, stay up to date with new opinions as they are filed, or do deep analysis using raw data.
LII - Legal Information Institute (Cornell Law School) Founded in 1992, Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute Is an excellent source for free legal information. It includes not only case law but also statutes, the Code of Federal Regulations, federal rules, the Uniform Commercial Code, state laws, and international law. It contains a legal encyclopedia and dictionary called WEX, which includes entries with links to various cases, statutes, and other legal sources as well as related terms. In addition, it includes the Constitution with an explanation link next to the various Articles and Amendments. These explanations cite a variety of legal sources and particularly relevant Supreme Court cases.