Legal Research - 20th Edition by Cara O'Neill & Jessica Gillespie Gillespie (Paperback)

About the Book

Legal Research empowers readers by explaining how to find accurate legal information, including statutes, regulations, and case law in easy-to-understand language.

Book Synopsis

Take the law into your own hands

Do you have legal questions at home or work or as part of law-related coursework? Legal Research is the go-to book when you need the right answers fast. You'll learn simple research methods and standard legal writing styles that will help you quickly and efficiently:

• locate statutes, regulations, and case law


• ensure your research is current, and


• organize results into a legal memorandum for school, work, or court.

Completely modernized for the 20th edition, Legal Research covers both traditional research approaches and techniques for answering legal questions online. The examples and easy-to-understand instructions will help you master essential legal research tools in a snap, including:

• legal encyclopedias, periodicals, and treatises


• annotated and unannotated codes and statutes


• published state and federal court cases


• case digests and Shepard's Citations, and


• online search engines, free legal websites, and blogs.

Importantly, you'll also learn to narrow your results so you won't drown in an information flood when researching reliable, user-friendly online websites or in the local law library stacks.

Review Quotes

"Getting around the law library can be easy--if you just know where to look-and Legal Research the place to begin". Library Journal

"The 16th updated edition of Legal Research: How to Find & Understand the Law tells how to locate key laws and cases either online or in a law library, how to draft legal memoranda, and how to make the most of the Web and a legal library to locate statutes, cases, background information and answers to specific legal issues. Chapters offer keys to organization, "shepardizing", prioritizing, using indexes, and analyzing the effect of a case on your particular issue: in short, it outlines the basics of an attorney's research and judgment process and will help users save hundreds of dollars in attorney fees just by doing some of the legal legwork that anyone can do. Very highly recommended!" The Midwest Book Review

"The simplest, most concise and articulate description of the legal research process available." Tom Holm, Director of Lawyering Skills Clinical Program UCLA School of Law

Legal Research helps readers take the law into their own hands. When it comes to finding what they need, if it's out there, Nolo editors will help them find it. sirreadalot.org