Writing for Law Review

Being able to perform legal research efficiently is of the utmost importance as a student on law review. While there is no one correct way to perform legal research, below is one possible way it can be:

1. Research Log - A research log will help you organize your research. Google "legal research log example" and pick one. At a minimum, the log should have the date, database searched, method used, what resulted, and a comment of its usefulness. 

2. Select a Topic - Pick something that is of genuine interest.  

3. Identify Sources - Knowing what topic is of genuine interest to you will allow you to narrow your focus to certain sources. 

4. Create a Plan - Record the specific publications on your research log so that you are able to systematically search the identified sources using your keywords.   

5. Generate Keywords - The answers to "Who? What? When? Where? Why?" are going to be your keywords.  Use a thesaurus to help generate keywords.  

6. Research - Following your plan, search by subject and by keywords to systematically search all of your identified sources. 

7. Find and Analyze Relevant Material - After searching your identified sources, record your results on your log and access your sources. You can use Lexis+ AI to summarize the source but always confirm its accuracy.  

8. Check Currency - Depending on your relevant materials, you may need to check to ensure your sources are premised on good law. You can use traditional citators to check currency and you can use Quick Check (like anything AI related, you must check its accuracy). 

9. State Thesis - After you picked a topic, accessed your sources and ensured they are premised on good law, you are now in a position to state a thesis.  

10. Perform Preemption Check - Once you have formulated a thesis you will need to check for its originally. A thorough preemption check should be conducted prior to any substantive writing. Note that you will need to continually stay up to date on any preemption possibilities as you write. 

11. Write - Start with an outline and develop it until it is polished prose. 

1. Digest - A digest is typically an alphabetized list of subjects and is used when trying to access a collection. You can use the American Law Reports digest to locate sources by legal subject. 

2. Index - An index is typically an alphabetized list of keywords usually found at the end of the publication and can be used to search that particular publication. 

3. Subject - You can use Westlaw's Key Numbers list to find cases by subject that can then be used to find other sources. 

4. Words & Phrases - You can conduct research using words and phrases. Simply type in the word or phrase and find cases where that term or phrase was defined. 

5. Field Searching - Field searching refers to your ability to search specific parts of a document. Title, author, and text are all example of field searching. 

6. Citators - Citators can lead to other sources that cite to a certain document. 

1. Terms and Connectors - Terms refer to the keywords or phrases that you are using in your research while connectors refer to how those terms are related to each other.  While many databases, like Westlaw and LexisNexis, have some have some overlap in their terms and connectors as applied, most have some variance. Be sure to check how terms and connectors operate on each specific database. 

2. Proximity Connectors - Proximity Connectors are useful if you are trying to identify resources that have your keywords that are within a certain range of each other. 

3. Boolean - Boolean search logic includes the terms AND, OR and NOT. You can use Boolean searching to help narrow your search. 

4. Nesting - Nesting is the grouping of like keywords and phrases. 

5. Natural language - Natural language searching is similar to the searching you do on most platforms, like Google. 

Legal Research in a Nutshell

Legal Research: how to find & understand the law