Stephen Elias & Editors of Nolo 
Legal Research 
How to Find & Understand the Law

Legal Research: Take the law into your own hands



Do you have legal questions at home, at work, or as part of law-related course work? Legal Research provides everything you need, laying out easy-to-follow research methods that will help you find the right answers. Find out how to:



locate and understand statutes, regulations, and cases

make sure your research is 100% up to date

organize your research results into a memorandum of law for use at school, at work, or in court.



Completely updated for the 17th edition, Legal Research shows how to use the Web to find statutes, cases, background information, and answers to specific legal questions. Even more important, you’ll be guided to the most reliable and user-friendly sites, so you won’t drown in an information flood.

Lots of examples and easy-to-understand instructions teach you how to use all the basic legal research tools, including:



Internet search engines

reliable free legal websites

legal encyclopedias, periodicals, and treatises

annotated legal codes and statutes

published reports of state and federal court cases

case digests and Shepard’s Citations

the best legal blogs

Table of Content

Your Legal Research Companion

1. Understanding the Basics of the Law

2. Finding Legal Resources

3. Identifying Your Legal Issue

4. Finding and Using Secondary Sources

5. Finding and Using Constitutions, Statutes, Regulations, and Ordinances

6. Finding Cases

7. Using Case Law

8. Validating Your Research

9. Organizing and Putting Your Legal Research to Use

10. Research Hypothetical and Memorandum

Glossary

Appendix

Topic-Specific Research Sites

Index

About the author

All Nolo legal editors specialize in certain areas of the law, and many are recognized as national experts in their field. They write books, edit books by outside authors, and in their spare time write online articles and blogs, develop legal forms, and create the legal content of Nolo software.