Using Legal Research Guides - Part One

Legal research guides can be useful in finding out how to do research in a particular legal subject area. Law librarians usually prepare research guides to help students, faculty, and legal professionals to find the law as quickly and easily as possible.

A good research guide can help you in two ways. First, it can tell you which print or online secondary and primary sources are most often used in researching a particular area of the law. If you are looking for a treatise on civil procedure, a guide may direct you to Moore’s or Wright & Miller. If you are looking for Canadian primary law, a guide may direct you to the relevant federal or provincial reporter. Second, a guide can help you with the actual mechanics of research, i.e., not just where to look but how to manipulate the resources. A good example is our research guide on Connecticut Legislative History that takes you step by step through the process of finding relevant materials.

This library has many useful research guides that can be accessed through the library’s main page. Just click on the Library Research Guides link and you will be taken to a page that lists all of our research guides. Our guides are prepared by our reference librarians and are updated on a regular basis. In particular, you should check out the two excellent guides on doing Connecticut and Federal Legislative History. Insurance law students should look at the Insurance Law Collection guide to see what we have available. We also have a very thorough guide on Indian Law. Our research guides can also help you get the materials you need through interlibrary loan. If you can’t remember our interlibrary loan policies, you can consult that research guide.

Can’t find the guide you need on our web site? No problem. Most academic law libraries maintain their own legal research guides. Tune in next week to find research guides from other law libraries.

Lee Sims