Legal Research: How to Find & Understand the Law

By Cara O'Neill Attorney

Legal Research: Take the law into your own hands.

Do you have a legal problem but don't know where to find the law? Legal Research gives you the skills to find the answers--fast.

Legal Research is the only comprehensive, plain-English guide to legal research written for nonlawyers. Whether you're handling a personal legal matter, running a business, studying for a legal career, or just need to understand a law that affects you, this fully updated edition walks you through every step of the research process.

You'll learn how to:

locate statutes, regulations, and court decisions at the federal, state, and local levels
research legal questions online using free websites and reliable legal databases
ensure your research is current so you're always relying on good law, and
organize your results and draft a professional legal memorandum for school, work, or court.

Topics covered include:

understanding the basics of case law, statutory law, administrative law, and constitutional law
identifying your legal issue and choosing the right resources
finding and using secondary sources, including legal encyclopedias, treatises, law reviews, and practice manuals
locating and using federal and state statutes, regulations, and local ordinances
finding, reading, and Shepardizing case law, and
validating your research and organizing it into a legal memorandum.

Legal Research also teaches you how to narrow your results so you won't drown in an information flood, whether you're working in a law library or researching online.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1413334334
• ISBN13: 9781413334333
• Release Date: May 2027
• Publisher: NOLO
• Length: 352 Pages