Legal Research Sources: Home

Contain court decisions. Will almost exclusively be appellate or court of last resort level cases. We have three primary reporters: Supreme Court Reporter, Federal Reporter (US Court of Appeals), and Northwestern Reporter (IA, MI, MN, NE, ND, SD, WI). United States Reports is the title of the Fed. Govt's publication of US Supreme Court Decisions.

West Key Notes and Nexis Uni Headnotes are distinctive subject heading systems. Preceding the text of each decision the publisher includes the "notes" or subject headings where this decision is categorized. Digests are indexes to corresponding reporters arranged alphabetically by these notes or headings. Thus the Supreme Court Digest entry for "Civil Procedure" will list all decisions using that Key Note in the Supreme Court Reporter. Federal Practice Digest includes Federal Reporter as well as other federal courts.

Shepard's Citations allows you to look up cases by citation and it will list other cases that have cited this case. It also uses symbols to indicate the validity of the your initial decision (i.e. has it been overturned). Print volumes correspond with sets of reporters. Nexis Uni provides current Shepard's citation analysis (Shepardizing).