Guide for Substantial and a Supervised Analytical Writing (SAW) Research

For more information contact Julie Graves Krishnaswami, Julie.krishnaswami@yale.edu

This student guide for SAW research shows you how to use library resources, as well as legal databases to perform a number of tasks, including the following:

• where to go for more research help
• selecting a topic
• performing a preemption check
• research management

This guide is written with the assumption that you have a working knowledge of both Westlaw and Lexis.  In most databases, you have the option of using either the Terms & Connectors (Boolean) search method or the Natural Language search method.  To arrange for individual or group instruction on Westlaw, contact Holly, the West academic account manager at for the Yale Law School, at: holly.rush@thomsonreuters.com.  For help with LexisNexis, contact the Lexis representative, Meredith, at: meredith.shuman@lexisnexis.com.  For a Bloomberg password and help with the Bloomberg database, contact Pamela Haahr at: oribe@bloomberg.net.

For library research, or assistance with legal research in general, you have various options:

1. Describe your research topic and we can assign you a personal librarian based on subject specialty from here: http://library.law.yale.edu/research/appointment.
2. Visit the reference desk: http://library.law.yale.edu/reference  or contact us through email: lawref@pantheon.yale.edu  or instant message us from the library’s website: http://library.law.yale.edu/
3. Take Advanced Legal Research, an advanced exploration of the specialized methods and sources of legal research in some of the following areas: administrative law; case finding; computer-assisted research; constitutional law and history; court rules and practice materials; foreign and international law; legislative history; and statutory research.  Students will use their own research topic to create a pathfinder for this course. Contact Julie Graves Krishnaswami at julie.krishnaswami@yale.edu for more information about ALR.

For advice on research management, contact Jason Eiseman at jason.eiseman@yale.edu or visit our research management guide at: http://library.law.yale.edu/research/research-management-and-citation

SELECTING A TOPIC

WORK OF FACULTY
Yale Law School Digital Repository: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/
Yale Law School Faculty: http://www.law.yale.edu/faculty/faculty.htm

Other Institutional Repositories in law: http://lsr.nellco.org/

CURRENT OR EMERGING TRENDS IN LAW

Researching current or emerging trends in the law can help you find an issue or important recent decision that could form the basis of a paper

BNA – latest news and analysis in various areas of the law: http://library.law.yale.edu/resource/bna-online

Bloomberg Law’s Homepage - latest news and analysis in various areas of the law:

http://www.bloomberglaw.com/start

Lexis Classic:  Emerging Issues Analysis

These are premium collections of commentaries written by top practitioners on new legal developments and cases. The commentaries examine a wide range of recent cases, regulations, trends, and developments. These accounts cover national, state and international issues and provide expert insight in important areas and legal developments. 

• Click Search tab; Go to Secondary Legal (right side), Emerging Issues Analysis
• Select All Emerging Issues, Combined by Area of Law
• Click the plus signs to open topics or run search through the full text or TOC headings

CLASSIC WESTLAW’S NOTABLE TRIALS: TRANSCRIPTS AND COURT DOCUMENTS DATABASES

Notable Trials Transcripts and Documents:  TRIALS-ALL contains official pretrial and trial transcripts and court documents from the individual notable trials databases currently on Westlaw.  Highly publicized trials can affect the U.S. justice system far beyond the jurisdictions in which they take place. The conduct and outcome of such trials are often subjects for legal scholarship.   Bloomberg Law’s dockets search is also very useful and comprehensive for recent court docket materials.

NEWSROOM DATABASES

1. Westlaw’s NewsRoom database gives you easy access to nearly 12,000 databases containing newspapers, magazines, journals, newswires, newsletters, and transcripts of television and radio programs. You can use these databases to retrieve the latest business information and news. Examples include newspapers such as the New York Times, magazines such as Business Week, and transcripts from programs such as 60 Minutes.
2. Classic Lexis’s News & Business tab has the largest news database available - Over 20,000 sources,  including TV & radio news transcripts and blogs.
3. Classic Lexis’s Mealey’s Litigation News Publications: the foremost publisher in litigation news and is widely read by trial and appellate litigators for the most cutting edge cases.
1. Source: Click Search tab to go back to News & Business tab
2. Select All Mealey Publications - Full Text - PLUS Court Documents (left side)
4. Bloomberg Law News Tab contains top legal news, foreign news and a rich news archive.
5. For more historic or local newspaper coverage, visit the Newspaper Archive database (http://access.newspaperarchive.com/) or Yale University’s News page: (http://sfx.library.yale.edu/sfx_local/azlist/default?lang=eng)

CIRCUIT SPLITS – Remember that it is generally recommended to stay away from “circuit split” articles:

Selecting a Topic Involving an Unresolved Issue or Circuit Split

New legal issues and issues causing a split in opinion among the federal circuit courts provide interesting subject matter for papers:

1. BNA United States Law Week for analysis of current and most significant federal and state cases.  This and the Supreme Court Weekly discuss unresolved circuit splits. http://news.bna.com/lwln
2. Supreme Court Blog: www.scotuswiki.com/
3. In Classic Westlaw, Preview of U.S. Supreme Court Cases (SCT-PREVIEW) with the Search: court circuit /s split & da(aft 1/2010); U.S. Courts of Appeals Cases (CTA) with issue question matter /s "first impression" novel & da(aft 3/2010); or National Law Journal (NLJ) with court circuit /s split & da(aft 9/2008)
4. In Classic Lexis, a search of federal cases or secondary legal publications of: circuit /s split! or disagree! and date aft april 2010

PREEMPTION CHECKING

More Information Available Here: http://library.law.yale.edu/research/preemption-checking

Legal Indexes – from the Library databases page at: http://library.law.yale.edu/research/legal-databases

1. Current Index to Legal Periodicals:  Weekly editions of the Current Index to Legal Periodicals, which indexes articles from more than 300 legal publications.
2. Index to Legal Periodicals: Index of law review articles and book reviews since 1908
3. Legal Trac: Covers law review articles and bar journals since the 1980’s
4. Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals: Covers journals on foreign and international law

Working Papers and Pending Articles

To determine whether pending not-as-yet-published legal scholarship preempts your work on your note topic, look at SSRN.com, which is reachable from the Law Library's Legal Databases page. From there click onto LSN, the legal scholarship network. The LSN homepage provides a link to a list of law and law-related journals and working papers who provide email abstracts of materials they have accepted for publication but have not yet published.

Law Professor Blogs: http://www.lawprofessorblogs.com/
Law Professor Blogs is a network of web logs ("blogs") designed from the ground-up to assist law professors in their scholarship and teaching. Each site focuses on a particular area of law and combines both (1) regularly-updated permanent resources and links, and (2) daily news and information of interest to law professors.

DEVELOPING YOUR TOPIC

Once you’ve chosen a topic, you can begin the research process.  Here are some suggestions for starting points:

AMERICAN LAW REPORTS

American Law Reports (ALR) contains annotations that review and analyze the complete body of state

and federal law. The attorneys who write the annotations search relevant sources, collect and analyze

the law on the issue, and prepare a detailed discussion of the general principles deduced from their

research. Each ALR article is a complete legal memorandum on a particular legal issue. Use the

American Law Reports database (ALR) to gather background information, determine the applicable

primary law, and find leads to other secondary materials such as forms and practice guides.

LIBRARY CATALOGS

1. Morris (Law Library):  http://morris.law.yale.edu/
2. Orbis (Yale University): http://yufind.library.yale.edu/
3. WorldCat (catalog of catalogs): http://www.oclc.org/us/en/worldcat/default.htm