Political Science and International Studies

Nexis Uni

Nexis Uni is the most useful library database for legal research. You can find cases and law review articles there.

Nexis Uni tips:

• Try the at least command, eg, atleast5 (contract breach), to have the keywords contract breach in the records at least 5 times.
• Law Review pagination.  Law Reviews articles on Nexis Uni are not in PDF files, but they do have page numbers. They are in  [ ] , eg,  [*561] .
• Shepard symbols for cases.  They may be added before the case titles.  Please see Shepard’s Signal indicators for which signal indicates what.

Other Resources

Federal Laws and Regulations

Court Decisions

Illinois Laws and Legislation

Legal Citations

The basic format for legal citations contains:

The volume number of title cited, the abbreviated title including appropriate series or notations, and a page or section number. It may include a date.

Note the following examples from the U.S. Code and U.S. Reports:

• 46 U.S.C. 761-68 (1970)
• 343 U.S. 579 (1952)

At times the popular name of a law or the names of parties in a court case are listed with the citation, as in the examples below:

• Civil Rights law of 1964, 28 U.S.C. 1447
• Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka, 346 U.S. 483 (1954)

At times a citation will include both a reference to the official reporter and a reference to a commercially published reporter, as shown in the following examples:

• Maxwell v. O'Connor l Ill. App. 1d. 124, 117 N.E. 2d. 326,328 (1953)
• Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 57 L.Ed. 2d. 750 (1978)

Common Legal Abbreviations

Legal citations can be confusing because they are so heavily abbreviated, but the abbreviations are somewhat standardized. A list of frequently found legal abbreviations is given below:

• A.L.R. Fed. American Law Reports Federal
• Am.Jur. 2d. American Jurisprudence. Second Series
• C.F.R. Code of Federal Regulations
• C.J.S. Corpus Juris Secundum
• Ill. Illinois Reports
• Ill.App. Illinois Appellate Court Reports
• Ill.App.2nd Illinois Appellate Court Reports. Second Series
• Ill.Rev.Stat.1977 Illinois Revised Statutes 1977
• L.Ed. U.S. Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition
• L.Ed. 2d U.S. Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition. Second Series
• N.E. North Eastern Reporter
• P.A. Public Act, passed by the Illinois General Assembly and signed by the Governor
• U.S. United States Reports
• U.S.C. United States Code
• U.S.C.S. United States Code Service
• U.S.L.W. U.S. Law Week

A complete list of legal abbreviations can be found in Doris M. Bieber's work, A Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations [Ref KF 246 .B46].

Other Online Resources