MANAGEMENT 2106 Finding Legal Cases
Using LexisNexis Academic to find your case
You will use this database to find your legal cases and commentary on them, as well as newspaper and magazine articles on your case. There are different links to LexisNexis, depending on your location: on campus or off-campus. You may want to view this youtube video on finding a case.
To search for your case, use either the legal research area in the sidebar as shown in the link above, or use the middle boxes in the search site to search for a case. If you get several results, look to the left for the groupings of the cases by the courts that heard them. Look for the latest or 'decided' decision.
When you click on a case, you will see the summary and the entire case. You can print, email or save it. (Look for the icons.)
If it's available for your case, you can use the "Case in Brief" link near the top of the full-text of the case to go to an "expanded summary, extensive research and analysis, and links to LexisNexis® content and available court documents" (from LexisNexis Academic description) If you find articles here you can use, check the library's Electronic Journals by Title list to see if the article is available electronically.
If it's available for your case, you can use the "Shepardize" button on the upper right to go to Shepard's Summary. Here you will see prior cases leading to your decision and later cases that cited your case. All the supreme court decisions that mention your case are listed first, followed by appellate courts, and so on down the line to state courts.
In addition to using the articles you may find in ‘case in brief’ or other articles you may find in the news section of LexisNexis, you may need to use other GALILEO databases to find articles.
After you access GALILEO (see the box above for how to get in) choose a subject area related to your case. You may not always choose business and economics subject area, but that’s a good place to start.
With most databases, you can use these search features:
· Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
· Set search limits such as scholarly journals, full-text, or document type
· Sort results by date or relevance
· Look at suggested subjects to narrow your search
· Use truncation (strateg* will find strategic, strategy, strategies, for example)
When you’ve found what you want:
· Use the email feature to send the citation and the article.
· You may choose to use the folder functions (see 'personal folders' tab on this guide) to save articles in a personal account.