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Research Assistant: Research Fundamentals

Popular Research Requests

For tips on conducting in-depth primary law research, consult one of our substantive libguides, or consult law libguides from other institutions where necessary.

Cases

  • Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg are the primary databases to conduct case law research.
  • For dockets and ongoing cases, access Bloomberg Law, and click Dockets on the main page under Popular Links.

Regulations

Statutes

Court Rules

  • Typically best found on the individual court's website. Note there may be multiple levels of court rules, down to the individual judge.

As a general rule, secondary sources are the proper place to begin your research. In your legal research course, you likely utilized California-specific encyclopedias and practice guides. Faculty research is likely to involve specialized secondary resources, such as topic-area treatises, 50-state surveys, and scholarly writing (next tab).

The library's Secondary Sources by Subject research guide will help you get started. 

Journal articles, a type of secondary source, are best located by searching for the journal name within the LMU and LLS catalog, and then accessing the corresponding volume, and finally navigating to the desired article. Do not search the article title. Here is a walkthrough on locating the following sample article. Sample: Jack Preis, Qualified Immunity and Fault, 93 Notre Dame Law Review 1969 (2018)

1. Access the Rains Library website.

2. Click the "Advanced Search" link under the catalog search box and then select "LMU+LLS Catalogs" to search the entire LMU and LLS catalog.

3. Run a search for the relevant journal name (e.g., Notre Dame Law Review).

4. Identify the type of holding. For electronic access journals (common), click the journal title link, and then the electronic access link. (Print items may be available in the library, or via ILL.)

5. At the journal's main page, navigate to the relevant volume number (e.g., 93). 

6. Expand the volume and locate the specific article by name or page number (e.g., 1969). Where available, search within the journal main page for the article name. 

View a step-by-step walkthrough of this process on the catalog. 

See the Using the Library Catalog research guide for additional detailed instructions. 

Other approaches:

1. Go directly to the journal's website (less effective with older articles).

2. Search bePress or SSRN, especially useful for unpublished articles.

3. Try popular search engines, like Google or Bing, for the journal name or article title. Quotation marks are a good advanced search technique for Google.

 

Additional popular journal resources:

Finding other academic journals follows the same exact process outlined in the prior tab: using the catalog, select the entire LMU and LLS catalog, search for the journal name, and then drill down through the volumes for the relevant article.

However, the majority of non-law journal articles can also be found by searching for the name of the article alone. Here is a walkthrough on locating the following sample article: Carsten K. W. De Dreu & Michael A. West, Minority Dissent and Team Innovation: The Importance of Participation in Decision Making, 86 Journal of Applied Psychology 1191 (2001)

1. Access the Rains Library website.

2. Click the "Advanced Search" link under the catalog search box and then select "LMU+LLS Catalogs" to search the entire LMU and LLS catalog.

3. Run a search for the relevant article name (Minority Dissent and Team Innovation: The Importance of Participation in Decision Making).

4. Review the results list to find your article, then click the article title, and then the electronic access link. (Print items may be available in the library, or via ILL.)

See the Using the Library Catalog research guide for additional detailed instructions. 

BrowZine

BrowZine is a browsing platform for our electronic journals. Designed to be used on your mobile device (and is also available in a web browser), BrowZine organizes Open Access and LLS subscription journal holdings into a newsstand experience.

In a web browser, go to BrowZine. Click the gear icon and start typing in LMU Loyola Law School. Enter your MyLLS credentials and you're all set; now you can browse e-journals at LLS.

In addition, you can create a personal user account in BrowZine by selecting the sign-up link. This allows the user for a more personalized experience and ability to create collections, save articles and add My Bookshelf to organize and track journals and sync bookshelf across all devices. 

For non-legal research outside of simple article retrieval, LMU and LLS have a wide variety of databases to conduct research, in addition to some of these publicly available resources.