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Finding Law Review Articles
Research Basics # - Dorraine Zief Law Library Handout
This overview — focuses on the general strengths and weaknesses of the
tools for finding law review (legal periodical) articles about your issue
or research problem. It discusses indexes (tools that do not contain full text, but do
cite to articles), as well as tools that contain the full text of articles. Specific
instructions on searching each resource are available in separate one-page "cheat sheets."
The cheat sheet Preemption Checks for Law Reviews offers advice
on conducting preemption checks. (For non-legal articles see Gleeson
Library's "Start Your Research" page. Access is for the USF community
only.)
[This guide discusses and links to various Lexis and Westlaw resources. The
Zief Law Library's contracts with Lexis and Westlaw limit our use of Lexis and
Westlaw to current students, faculty, and staff members of the University of
San Francisco School of Law. For information about who may use Lexis and Westlaw,
how to arrange your own subscription, and how to connect to Lexis and Westlaw
via the web, see the USF Law Library's introduction to Lexis
and Westlaw.
Authorized users who follow a link to a Lexis or Westlaw resource will first
need to sign on to Lexis or Westlaw before coming to the search page for that
resource.]
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There are three major online sources for full-text legal articles: HeinOnline and the
law review article resources on Lexis and on Westlaw. HeinOnline's "Law Journal Library"
is vastly more comprehensive than the full-text sources on Lexis and Westlaw — as is the
Zief Library's print collection of law reviews.
[Cheat sheet: HeinOnline's Law Journal Library —
"Cheat Sheet"]
HeinOnline's "Law Journals Library" is a collection of exact page images of
law review articles. Currently HeinOnline has virtually all U.S. law reviews from their inception
to the present, and it also has dozens of Australian, Canadian, and other non-U.S. journals.
HeinOnline for the USF
community is at: http://www.usfca.edu/library/databases/heinonline.html.
Advantages & Features
- Best online full-text coverage of law review articles — and only online source for
older articles.
- Increasingly sophisticated search engine (including ability to search individual journals).
- Page images reproduce the print articles exactly.
Disadvantages
- Key word searching of full text of articles can lead to overwhelming results.
- Many law reviews do not make the issues from their current volume available to HeinOnline.
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The Lexis and Westlaw law review article sources contain an extensive selection
of full-text articles. Coverage varies from journal to journal. Selective coverage
(some articles from selected journals) generally begins in the mid-1980s. Close-to-full
coverage (almost all articles from many — but not all — journals)
generally begins in the 1990's.
Each journal that is available on Lexis and Westlaw can be searched separately.
In addition, these Lexis and Westlaw sources allow you to search all available
journals with one search:
Advantages & Features
- Powerful, robust full-text search engines (including ability to search individual journals).
- Familiar interface — for regular Lexis and Westlaw users.
Disadvantages
- Key word searching of full text of articles can lead to overwhelming results.
- Lack of coverage of older (pre-1990) articles.
- Gaps in current coverage: some recent journals and articles are not included.
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An index collects citations to articles and organizes them carefully by their
subjects, authors, and titles. Legal indexes also often organize articles by
the statutes and cases they discuss. Online indexes may link to the full text
of articles, if the articles are available in digital form.
The main reasons to use indexes to find legal articles are (1) to take advantage
of the uniform and consistent "subject headings" (topical labels)
attached to each citation by the people who compile the index, and (2) to run
broad searches that would retrieve too many results in a full-text collection
of articles.
Features, advantages, and disadvantages of each of the major legal periodical
indexes are set out below. "Cheat Sheets" on using each index are
available in the Zief Library. This guide includes links to the web versions
of each cheat sheet.
[Cheat sheets: Index to Legal Periodicals on the
Web — "Cheat Sheet"
Index to Legal Periodicals on Lexis & Westlaw
— "Cheat Sheet"]
ILP is available in print, on the web, and on Lexis and Westlaw.
ILP in print covers 1770 to the present and is available at K 33 .I54
Law Reference.
The web version of Index
to Legal Periodicals (http://www.usfca.edu/library/databases/legalindex.html)
is available to the USF community, and covers 1908 to the present.
The Lexis⁄Westlaw version (available to USF Law School students, faculty and staff)
covers August 1981 to the present, and it covers more journals and a greater range of dates
than the full-text articles sources on Lexis and Westlaw. The Lexis source for
ILP is
Index to Legal Periodicals (LAWREV;ILP). The Westlaw database is
Index to Legal Periodicals (ILP).
Advantages and Features
- Focuses on academic law reviews — relatively few cites to non-scholarly
articles.
- Covers virtually all U.S. academic law reviews.
- Online versions offer flexible, powerful searching.
- Broad subject headings reduce the need to look under many headings for
one topic.
- Hard-copy version has tables of cases and tables of statutes.
Disadvantages
- Broad subject headings may mean combing through long lists of cites for
relevant articles.
- Time lag between publication of an article and appearance of its citation
in ILP.
- Occasional time lag between the creation of new law journals and the beginning
of coverage by ILP.
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Legal Resource Index and LegalTrac are essentially the same tool,
from the same publisher. Legal Resource Index is the version that
appears on Lexis and Westlaw; LegalTrac is the version on the web. Like ILP,
Legal Resource Index⁄LegalTrac covers more journals and a
greater range of dates (1980 to the present) than the full-text article sources
on Lexis and Westlaw.
Legal Resource Index: Overview, Advantages and Features
[Cheat sheet: Legal Resource Index on Lexis and Westlaw
— "Cheat Sheet"]
Legal Resource Index is available to USF School of Law faculty,
students and staff on Lexis and Westlaw. On Westlaw it is the
Legal Resource Index (LRI) database. The Lexis source is
Legal Resource Index (LAWREV;LGLIND). Its major advantages and disadvantages
are listed below. It shares most, but not all, of them with LegalTrac.
- Offers flexible, powerful searching.
- Covers virtually all U.S. academic law reviews.
- Covers major legal newspapers and non-scholarly legal magazines and newsletters.
- Allows limiting by jurisdiction (country, U.S. state), and searches by
jurisdiction are more effective than in other indexes.
- Often uses narrower, more precise subject headings than other indexes.
- The full citation of any article shows what subjects it has been indexed
under. This can suggest other subject or key word searches to try.
- Searches by jurisdiction are more effective than in other indexes.
Legal Resource Index: Disadvantages
- Use of many narrow subject headings can cause useful articles on related topics
to appear under lots of different subject headings. Searchers need to search
using multiple subject headings.
- Time lag between publication of an article and appearance of its citation
in Legal Resource Index⁄LegalTrac.
- Occasional time lag between the creation of new law journals and the beginning
of coverage by Legal Resource Index⁄LegalTrac.
LegalTrac: Overview, Advantages and Features
[Cheat sheet: LegalTrac on the Web — "Cheat Sheet"]
LegalTrac is the web interface of Legal Resource Index. LegalTrac
is available to the USF community at http://www.usfca.edu/library/databases/legaltrac.html.
LegalTrac shares most of the advantages and disadvantages of Legal Resource Index.
Its unique plusses and minuses are listed below.
- Offers several search modes: "Basic," "Advanced," and
"Subject Guide."
- In "Subject Guide" mode, LegalTrac suggests subjects related to
terms entered by the user, and suggests proper subject headings and statute
names if a researcher enters a commonly-used but incorrect heading or name.
LegalTrac: Disadvantages
- Jurisdiction searches are not as comprehensive or reliable as equivalent
searches of Legal Resource Index on Lexis or Westlaw.
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The University of Washington Law Library publishes CILP to let legal researchers know
about new articles as soon after they are published as possible. Citations to new articles
appear in CILP before they appear in other indexes — and sometimes before they are
available in online full-text sources. At USF, CILP for the past 12 months is at K 33 .C85
Law Reference.
Advantages and Features
- Most up-to-date index for academic law reviews.
- Focus is on academic publications — contains minimal citations to non-scholarly articles.
- Most recent eight weeks are available to USF School of Law students, faculty staff on Westlaw
(see below).
Disadvantages
- Print version is searchable only by broad topic heading. (Author, Case Name and
Statute Name searching are not available.)
- Searchers must search print version week-by-week; CILP is not cumulated.
(But because articles are grouped under broad topics, week-by-week searching proceeds quickly.)
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[Cheat sheet: Current Index to Legal Periodical (CILP) on
Westlaw — "Cheat Sheet"]
Recent issues of the Current Index to Legal Periodicals appear
as the
Current Index to Legal Periodicals (CILP) database on Westlaw.
Advantages
- Not limited to searching by pre-determined topic heading.
- Allows searches based on key words, statute names, case names, authors' names.
- Allows researchers to set up weekly "WestClip" searches to check automatically
for cites to new relevant articles.
Disadvantages
- Only most recent eight weeks are online. Must use print version to search beyond eight weeks.
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[Cheat sheet: Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals on the Web —
"Cheat Sheet"]
Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals covers journal articles from
non-U.S. periodicals, including articles written in other languages. IFLP in
print covers 1960 to the present and is shelved at K 33 .I522 Law Reference.
IFLP from 1985 to the present is available on the web to USF law school researchers.
For access, follow the
Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals on the Web link at the Zief Library's
Find Articles (Legal & Other) page.
IFLP in print allows searching by subject, jurisdiction (country and region),
and author. IFLP on the web also allows key word searches as well. Finding the journals
containing the articles it cites can sometimes be a challenge; some are rather obscure
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