Beginning Your Legal Research
The sources used for legal research are divided into two main categories—primary sources and secondary sources. Primary sources of law can include court decisions, statutes, and regulations. Secondary sources of law describe the law, discuss a legal problem, or analyze and comment on legal questions. Secondary sources of law can include legal dictionaries, encyclopedias, law review articles and journals, treatises, and restatements.
If you are unfamiliar with the legal topic or idea that you are researching, it is helpful to review secondary sources first for guidance.
Primary Sources of Legal Research
“Primary Sources of Law” from Locating the Law: A Handbook for Non-Law Librarians by SCALL is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License
Secondary Sources of Law: Law Review Articles and Journals
Law review articles and journals are very helpful secondary sources which analyze and critique legal topics and also point to primary sources. Law review journals are typically edited by law students, and contain articles written by professors, attorneys, and law students. Many law reviews focus on new and emerging areas of law.
Law review articles can be accessed through the following links:
- American Bar Association- provides free full-text online law review and journal searches for hundreds of law journals.
- HeinOnline Law Journal Library (subscription database)
- Legal Collection via EBSCOhost (subscription database)
- Law Reviews at Nexis Uni (subscription database)
- DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
- Law Technology Today/American Bar Association
- Law Review Commons
Secondary Sources for Legal Research: Legal Dictionaries
Legal Dictionaries
Legal dictionaries provide brief definitions for legal terms.
Print legal dictionaries can be found at Sycamore Library.
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Black's Law Dictionary
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Call Number: KF156 .B53 2024Publication Date: 2024Black's Law Dictionary is the most widely used legal dictionary in the U.S. The 2024 edition contains over 70,000 legal terms, each clearly and precisely defined in plain English, and more than 4,800 scholarly and judicial quotations on legal terms.
Electronic Legal Dictionaries
The following dictionaries are free, online dictionaries.
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Nolo's Free Dictionary of Law Terms and Legal DefinitionsPlain-English definitions of legal terms.
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The Law DictionaryFree Online Legal Dictionary featuring Black's Law Dictionary, 2nd Ed.
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Plain Language Law DictionaryOver a thousand common legal terms defined in simple, everyday language.
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Wex – LII’s Legal Dictionary and EncyclopediaWex is a free legal dictionary and encyclopedia sponsored and hosted by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. Entries are researched and drafted by Cornell Law students. Browse by legal definition or search by keyword.
Secondary Sources for Legal Research: Legal Encyclopedias
Legal Encyclopedias
Legal encyclopedias are very useful—they provide general information about an area of law that may be unfamiliar, and they are a way to find citations to cases and other helpful materials. The two most well-known general legal encyclopedias are American Jurisprudence, 2d (AmJur) and Corpus Juris Secundum (C.J.S.).
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American Jurisprudence 2dSystematic outline of legal doctrine, with citations to relevant case law.
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Corpus Juris Secundum: A Complete Restatement of the Entire American Law as Developed by All Reported CasesSystematic outline of legal doctrine, with citations to relevant case law; somewhat dated, and not as clear as American Jurisprudence.