FINDING AND USING CASE LAW
A Guide for LAW 440


Prepared by Karen Kimber, Social Sciences and Humanities Team Leader
January 2008

How to Find Court Cases in LexisNexis Academic

• On the LexisNexis opening page, click on Legal in the red bar at the top
• On the resulting page, click on Federal & State Cases in the box on the right
• On the line that says Case Name, enter key word(s) from both parties. (It doesn't matter which party is first)
• click on the red search box on the right

Tips on Saving LexisNexis Information

• To print the case, click on the printer icon on the right, which lets you choose various options. (Note: Printing directly from the webpage works but is quirky.)
• To download the case, click on the diskette icon. Choose a format and click on the red download button. Opening the document (rather than downloading directly) seems to work best.
• To e-mail the case to yourself, click on the envelop icon and choose the format you prefer.

Background Information on Case Law

• How the Court System is Organized (http://www.wright.edu/~karen.kimber/case1.html)
• Interpreting Legal Citations (http://www.wright.edu/~karen.kimber/citations.html)