Research Tips


Oct
16

As we all know, the November 2024 election is quickly approaching. In anticipation of this occasion, we’ve gathered some resources to help you learn and think about election law. Whether you want to find out more about the Voting Rights Act, Bush v. Gore, or ballot counting, the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library has you


Mar
29

In certain areas of law, it benefits states to have similar legislative approaches. Sometimes states pass virtually identical acts, known as uniform laws, to reduce the confusion caused by conflicting state statutes. But how do they decide what makes up these uniform laws, and how can we research them? The Uniform Law Commission (ULC) is


Jan
31

One of my longstanding favorite statutory research features offered by Lexis+ is the Subsection Report. Let’s explore how this tool works below! Comprehensive Report When you Shepardize a statute, you can view a comprehensive report of all the citing references for the statute by clicking the Shepard’s symbol or “Shepardize Document”. However, when you are


Apr
04

Nothing helps fight the anxiety of a job interview like preparation. If you are interviewing for a job at a law firm, you have a powerful ally on your side: legal analytics. You can use analytics to find helpful statistics on law firms or individual attorneys that can: (1) help you decide if that firm


Jan
24

As of early January, academic Westlaw Edge accounts transitioned to Westlaw Precision. This update brings some new research features as well as a new homepage layout: This post will cover a few easy ways to customize your Westlaw homepage to better suit your needs and help you get into your most-used resources faster. Changing the


Nov
01

One of the more difficult parts of legal research can be navigating the complicated structure of the government, especially if you are doing research involving administrative agencies.  Government manuals are underutilized resources that provide nuts-and-bolts details like organizational charts, staffing information, department histories, and more. They can save you a lot of time by compiling


Oct
18

At UNC, we have access to a wealth of resources on legal research and pedagogy, both in print and through our many digital collections. However, there are books that we find ourselves reaching for again and again, either as we answer reference questions or prepare for instruction. When it comes to these titles, our law


Sep
07

If you’ve taken a legal research class, you have probably heard a professor discuss the importance of state legal encyclopedias as a research tool. Why? They include jurisdiction-specific coverage of a wide range of legal topics. The information contained in an encyclopedia may be brief, but it will point you to the primary law on


Oct
20

If you’re looking to locate a primary law source — statutes, regulations, court records, etc. — in the library, you may wind up searching in the UNC libraries catalog. If you’ve done this in the past, you know it can be tricky to find the right resource. We’ve put together an instructional video with a

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