Research Guides Home: Legal Research Resources for Non-Law Students: Introduction

Introduction

This Guide provides an overview of resources that are available to the Duquesne University community rather than being restricted to just the Duquesne Kline Law School. Please use the tabs on the left or bottom of the screen to navigate through the Guide.

Overview

Here are some good resources to get you started with legal research:

How to Research a Legal Problem: A Guide for Nonlawyers
From the American Association of Law Libraries
Laws and Legal Research
A reference guide from NOLO, an organization that produces materials on legal topics aimed at a consumer (i.e. non-lawyer) audience
Legal Research
An overview guide from the Legal Information Institute
Law: A Beginner's Guide Series
A series of research guides from the Law Library of Congress
LLSDC's Legislative Source Book
A series of research guides produced by the Law Librarians' Society of Washington DC. More in-depth than the other resources on this list. Provides particularly good coverage of federal legislative and regulatory issues.

Library of Congress' Guide to Law Online

"The Guide to Law Online, prepared by the Law Library of Congress Public Services Division, is an annotated guide to sources of information on government and law available online. It includes selected links to useful and reliable sites for legal information."--Library Website

Guide to Law Online

The U.S. has a federal system of government, meaning that there are separate federal and state governments that share law-making authority for the same geographic territory. Both the state and federal systems have three branches of government: legislative, judicial, and executive. Each branch is a unique source of law.

In evaluating legal authority, a researcher must consider if that authority is mandatory or persuasive. Researchers must also be able to identify primary and secondary sources of law. Primary sources of law issue from a law-making body and are, in essence, "the law itself." Primary authority can be either mandatory or persuasive. Secondary sources comment on or explain the law. Secondary sources are always persuasive, rather than mandatory, authority.

For More Information:

An Overview of Key Concepts Relating to the American Legal System
From Lexis Nexis

Here are some databases that are available to you from the Duquesne Center for Legal Information (DCLI), aka the law library:

HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
HeinOnline provides access to many secondary sources--especially journal articles--as well as some primary law materials.
HeinOnline Overview Guide
Fastcase (In Library Use Only) This link opens in a new window
Fastcase provides access to both state and federal primary law materials. It contains a limited citator. Fastcase also provides access to a set of treatises called that Loislaw treatises.
Support and Tutorials | Scope of Coverage
Law360 | LexisNexis This link opens in a new window
Law360 is a news resource. It provides information by practice area or jurisdiction. You must use this resource in the law library.
Advanced Search Guide
Proquest Legislative Insight This link opens in a new window
"ProQuest Legislative Insight is a Federal legislative history service that makes available thoroughly researched compilations of digital full-text publications created by Congress during the process leading up to the enactment of U.S. Public Laws.

The following document types may be included in a legislative history: bills, reports, documents, hearings CRS reports, committee prints, Congressional Record sections), Presidential Signing Statements, and Statutes.

Legislative Insight includes only documents related to the passage of a law, so hearings, reports, bills, etc., that are not part of a legislative history are not included in this data base. For those other materials, please use ProQuest Congressional."--Database Provider's Description
Restricted to Duquesne University students and faculty.
Quick Start LibGuide | Help

Before you begin any research project, you should try to make a habit of writing out the issue or issues that you intend to research. Being able to articulate your research goals is important.

There are various ways of keeping track of your research and taking notes. Do what works best for you. That might be a written checklist or research log, or some other method. It may well be a combination of methods.

University of Illinois Libguide
Provides examples of a research plan worksheet, a research log, and a research checklist
Power Notes
Power Notes is a research tool that you can install as a Chrome extension. It enables you to save and annotate links to web resources, including links to resources in Westlaw and Lexis+. Users can also move around their stored links and then print them, in an outline form, as a Word document that can be further edited. Although Duquesne Kline does not currently subscribe to Power Notes, users are allowed create one project in Power Notes for free or they may subscribe individually.

Basic Legal Citation
A free online resource from the Cornell Legal Information Institute that provides you with basic information about legal citation practice.

Last Updated: August 30, 2023