Persons new to legal research will likely, at some point, hear or encounter references to Shepard's or Shepardize. Here is a definition from Dictionary.USLegal.com
Shepardize Law and Legal Definition
Shepardize is a legal research method of locating reports of appeals decisions based on prior precedents from Shepard's Citations, books which list the volume and page number of published reports of every appeals court decision which cites a previously decided case or a statute. Shepard's volumes are organized by:
* State and Regional citators
* Federal citators
* Specialized practice area citators
* Other citator products including Shepard’s Acts and Cases by Popular Names
These volumes are updated every month with supplemental booklets. Shepard's Citations are used to find appeals decisions which either follow, distinguish or deviate from prior case law. Shepard's Citations are also available for online legal research.
Nexis Uni provides a Shepardize tool for statutes, regulations and cases
