SOME SELECTED SPECIFIC TOPICS & FAQs
Bluebook!
We can fake it till we make it for a while, but eventually we need to learn how to ride this bike. A few helpful things. (1) check out the "Quick Reference" examples in the front and back covers. Inside the front cover are examples of Bluebook for a bunch of different types of sources for law review footnotes (RA's that is for you). Inside the back cover are Bluebook for court documents and legal memoranda for anyone writing memos at a legal internship. (2) I have on this website here, a Bluebook cheatsheet with examples (including some from NY) that is also for legal memos. Follow those examples and you can get close. (3) Note that both Westlaw and Lexis allow you to choose language in a court case, right click and choose "copy with citation (standard)" and it will try to give you a Bluebook citation with a pinpoint cite to the page. For cases, the citations are fairly good, but not always perfect. (3) Check out this other page I created for law review that also has a bit of Bluebook advice (which might be particularly useful for RAs). (4) Do you want more comprehensive training on the Bluebook. Lexis has something called "Interactive Citation Workstation" (go to their main page and check on the right under "Tools and Resources"). (5) Have an odd source you need to figure out how to cite? One trick is to run a search in the law review databases for citations to it - what you will often find are multiple different ways of citing the same source. Bluebook likes to make you think there is always one definitive right answer, that is often untrue.
Dockets and Court Filings
If you need to access a docket or get court filings, start with this page.
Family Law - New York
For NY Family law research issues, I have pulled together a set of links to relevant resources here.
Immigration Law
No matter how many times I have assisted people doing immigration law research, I always have to start by reacquainting myself with immigration research. There is a complicated mix of sources - statutes, regulations, case law, various forms of administrative decisions. I start with a research guide, like this one from CUNY Law, and then I look at secondary sources - there are some good ones on Westlaw, others on Lexis and others on AILA. See more links on this page.
International & Foreign Research
These research topics sound fun and interesting (and they can be), but they are also labor intensive, complicated and can be frustrating, but it is just good to know that going in. With these topics it is helpful to start by finding research guides on the general area (such as on researching international criminal law or researching the law of Egypt) to get an overview and then you want to see what kind of secondary sources might be available (law review articles are often helpful here). For more detailed advice, see this page for international law research and this page for foreign law research.
Legislative History Research
With any legislative history project, start by double checking whether it is necessary to start from scratch. Look for cases on the issue and use "legislative history" as an additional search term across them, sometimes a court has already examined the relevant legislative history. If it is federal legislative history, see this page. If it is NY legislative history, see this page. If it is legislative history from another state, start with some meta-research (researching how to research) and Google "research guide" and [insert state] legislative history. You will almost assuredly find sites like this one and this one about legislative history in Washington state. What is available for legislative history and what is traditionally used to illustrate it can vary from state to state.
Litigation and Procedural Issues
Think of these as separate legal research issues and note that there are both annotated versions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and NY Civil Practice Law and Rules (so like statutory research) and also some great secondary sources that help you navigate them. See discussion and links on this page.
Non-Legal Sources
If you need to do research that might touch social science research or other non-legal research issues, check out our page describing nonlegal electronic sources we subscribe to at CUNY Law.
NYC Legal Research
If you have a research issue that touches on NYC law, take a look at this page to get some background to get started.