Legal Research: How to Find & Understand the Law

Take the law into your own hands

Do you have legal questions at home or work or as part of law-related coursework? Legal Research is the go-to book when you need the right answers fast. You'll learn simple research methods and standard legal writing styles that will help you quickly and efficiently:

• locate statutes, regulations, and case law


• ensure your research is current, and


• organize results into a legal memorandum for school, work, or court.

Completely modernized for the 20th edition, Legal Research covers both traditional research approaches and techniques for answering legal questions online. The examples and easy-to-understand instructions will help you master essential legal research tools in a snap, including:

• legal encyclopedias, periodicals, and treatises


• annotated and unannotated codes and statutes


• published state and federal court cases


• case digests and Shepard's Citations, and


• online search engines, free legal websites, and blogs.

Importantly, you'll also learn to narrow your results so you won't drown in an information flood when researching reliable, user-friendly online websites or in the local law library stacks.