At the request of Professor Lawton, this Library Guide was created by Senior Reference Librarian, Anne Hudson, for her 2023 1L Contracts class. While the purpose of this Guide is to introduce those students to some of the resources available at the Rinn Law Library, all students of Contracts are encouraged to use this Guide. Since Anne Hudson's retirement in 2025, Marcos Corona, the Government Resources and Reference Librarian, has taken over this Guide; and, as such, should you have any questions, please reach out to him directly at mcoron11@depaul.edu or visit the Research Desk in the library or visit Ask for Research Help on our law library website.
I look forward to working with you this year!
Marcos
Black's Law Dictionary -
For nearly 130 years, Black's Law Dictionary has been the gold standard for the language of the law. The greatly expanded 11th edition, with new material on every page, is at once the most practical, comprehensive, scholarly, and authoritative law dictionary ever published.
The dictionary is available in print inside the Rinn Law Library but is also available online via the Westlaw database using the password you created during orientation. Once you arrive at the Westlaw Black's law dictionary search screen just type in the word you would like to learn more about in the dictionary term field - ie offer, acceptance, consideration, breach, damages.
American Jurisprudence Encyclopedia -
AmJur2d provides an unparalleled breadth of coverage of all fields of American law – state and federal, civil and criminal, substantive and procedural. The articles collect, examine, and summarize the broad principles of American law and, at the same time, provides: Direct leads to supporting cases and Related annotations. An older version of AmJur2d is available in print inside the Rinn Law Library but is also available online via the Westlaw database using the password you created during orientation. Once you arrive at the Westlaw American Jurisprudence search screen you can either type in a contracts concept to learn more about or you can click on Contracts and then use the + sign next to the subheadings to learn more about specific topics like: formation of contracts, legality of contracts, and performance or breach.
