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 …
Trying to read an article or blawg post and having trouble focusing on the text? Or want a clean copy of what you’re reading without intrusive ads or banners? Or want to translate a page to English or see who else is talking about an image you found? Here are a few browser features that …
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 …
As the Biden administration begins—and the news fills with a flurry of presidential activities—now is a great time to brush-up on authoritative sources for presidential documents and materials. Presidential materials include executive orders, proclamations, memorandum, directives, signing statements, and assorted other documents like speeches and announcements. There are four authoritative government resources publishing these documents: …
Considering a clerkship? Preparing for an interview? Read on to learn how the field and segment search options in both Westlaw and Lexis can help you target your searches to identify material that can assist in interview prep! What is Field and Segment Searching? Field and segment searching refers to the Advanced Search options available …
If you’re anything like me, you have a reading list that feels as though it is a mile long. I track all sorts of to-be-read titles on my list – recommendations from friends, books with stellar reviews in the New York Times, and new releases from my favorite authors. But there is also a spot …
It’s one of the first minor annoyances every first-year law student faces: creating the § in a Word document. There are ways to get around learning this skill, such as copying and pasting the section symbol from elsewhere or writing out the word “section.” However, for legal writing purposes, it is probably best to know …
In yesterday’s Carolina Blawg post, I posited what seemed to me to be the most reasonable theory as to why it was appropriate to cite the U.S. Code with the year 2018. An attentive reader has noted that there is an equally strong – perhaps even stronger – justification. This argument also exposes an interesting …
How would you properly cite a section of the official U.S. Code today, January 6, 2020? As lawyers and law students no doubt realize, the answer is more complicated than it may appear. This post will offer advice and reasoning about how to go about choosing the year to append to the title number, abbreviation, …
Lexis Advance recently redesigned its homepage to streamline search functions. The search bar and content type box remain in the same place, but they have hidden the “advanced search” link under a “more options” tab. Advanced search is one of the more powerful tools available to a legal researcher on Lexis. Options on this page …