Internal Database Training: NexisUni

Uses

• mainly for Legal research
• News
• Company profile - not the best for it. Business Insights: Global is much better
• Citation tool: one of the few databases that offers bluebook

Legal research overview (types of documents a student may be looking for)

• Laws and statutes (code, bills, laws)

• Case law (legal interpretations)

  • Jurisprudence (case law and legal code for comprehensive overview of crime)

    • Search "American Jurisprudence"

    • Click on title to only search jurisprudence. Summary at top and super specific

    • Click on Table of contents icon to find crime info (ctrl+f to find crime in TOC list and expanded options)

      • Summary and defined areas

      • Treated elsewhere - good topic ideas of more specific variations of the crime

      • Footnotes of case law are listed in summary

        • Code terms and case summary will be most helpful

• Law Review

  • Pulls from case law, legal code, news

    • Written by law students, legal practitioners (not always high quality)

    • Use of news articles can be opinionated (not objective)

Shepard's - system for evaluating the Case Law

• Appellate history of document

  • Has it been appealed or overturned?

• Green + = good/positive standing

• Blue “i” = Citation, # of cases that cite this case

• Yellow triangle = part of case was appealed

• Red stop = overturned

Limitations with Jurisprudence Searching

• If they want a single issue (plastic bag ban in CA)

  • Courts: local > state > federal circuit > supreme

    • Federal circuits are by region

  • Use filters (“plastic bag”)

    • California

    • Search within results (“ban” + “environment”)

    • Some red and yellow cases → use law review

When a student might want to use NexisUni

• Argumentative paper about current political issues

• Political science; pre-law student

• Defining what is legal and what is not within a project/paper