Using Law Reviews

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by Tom Hemstock, Electronic Services Librarian

Created May 2010

Contents:

Introduction | Citation to an Article Available | No Citation Available | Other Search Options

 

A printer friendly link is available at the bottom of the page 

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 Why?
Law review and journal articles are an excellent starting point. Detailed, well footnoted articles can explain complex points of law and offer a mine of useful citations to primary sources. Law review articles can also provide persuasive authority from leading academic stars. Additionally, many law reviews have a practical focus that is useful to practitioners as well as academic audiences.
How?
Scenario: I have a citation to an article.
You’ve found a citation to a law review article and now need a copy. There’s a good chance Westlaw or LexisNexis contains a copy, but it may not. The library subscribes to dozens of electronic databases so it is not efficient to search each one individually. This is where the Find Articles link is helpful. By entering the title of the journal (not the article title) you can find what databases contain this title.
Example: I need an article from the 1985 in Student Lawyer
Step One:
Go to Find Articles on the library webpage.
Step Two:
Enter Student Lawyer as the title
Step Three:
Click to the database that contains the results.
 
Possible Problem: The title I am looking for doesn’t show up!
Solutions: Check spelling or switch the menu to “contains” instead of “starts with”. Sometimes even a small typo or a slightly confused title (Student Lawyer vs Monthly Student Lawyer for example) can quickly solve the problem. Or sometimes the journal is simply not available at the law school. In this case, see our Inter Library Loan page for details on how to request the article.
Scenario Two: I need to find articles on topic X.
Step One:
Search for articles using indexes such as Legaltrac. An index can help your search by focusing your results, providing search terms, and relying on the organization of professional indexers. Start with a narrow search and expand your terms to find all articles. Helpful cross references will also assist in your search.
Click here for a full listing of indices available at the Library.
Step Three:
Full text searching. Searching full text in HeinOnline, LexisNexis, or Westlaw is a powerful option. To limit the number of results, try searching in only certain fields such as author or title, and adding restrictions such as date or excluding certain words. Remember that LexisNexis and Westlaw generally only cover 1980 to date, while HeinOnline will contain older issues. Use Find Articles to find out all the databases that cover the title you are interested in.
Click here for a full listing of databases available at the Library.
Other Search Options
Google Scholar searches a number of scholarly databases. For example JSTOR is integrated into Google Scholar. You will only be able to access some articles when on campus (IP address range) but it will be seamless and you will not realize you are searching in a Law School sponsored database.
Many recent journals and law reviews are also available online for no cost. A Google search (try using Advance Search to limit to .edu addresses and search for a specific phrase) will turn up many results.