First Year Legal Research Resources
Legal Research and Writing Tools
Understand the Sources of Law
- Sources of Law: Cases, Statutes, and Regulations (iTunes podcast)
- Case Reporters (iTunes podcast)
Find the Law
- How to use a Digest in Print
- Unpublished Decisions (iTunes podcast)
- Lexis and Practice Materials - Free Supplemental Materials For Your First Year Courses - (with Khalild Alkadhiry)
- Using the West Key Number System on Westlaw (vidcast)
- "More Like This Headnote" on Lexis (vidcast)
- Free California Case Law Online (vidcast)
Analyze the Law (and Find more Law by Topic)
- All About ALR (iTunes podcast)
- All About Witkin
- All About the Restatements
- Annotated Statutes
- Treatises and Practice Guides (with Josh Horowitz) (vidcast)
- Westlaw and AmJur - Free Supplemental Materials For Your First Year Courses - (with Khalild Alkadhiry)
Use Online Databases to Find the Law and Legal Analysis
- Westlaw Next - (accessible to UC Hastings students)
- LegInfo - the online source for official California legislative information, including bills and other legislative history materials
- Thomas - the Library of Congress' free online database of bills, treaties, committee reports, and other federal materials
Find Articles about the Law
- Law Review Indexes
- Index to Legal Periodicals
Update and Verify the Law
Prepare for Class and Exams
- Study Aids in the Library
- Nutshells, Outlines, Hornbooks and Study Aids (vidcast)
Supplemental Materials For 1L Classes
- Use the Library Catalog to find Free Supplemental Materials For Your First Year Courses - (vidcast with Khalild Alkadhiry)
- A Conversation about Civil Procedure Research and Secondary Sources (iTunes podcast)
- Jurisdiction and Controlling v. Persuasive Authority (iTunes podcast)
- Books for 1L's
1st Year Lectures on CD:
The Hastings Law Library has a collection of audio lectures on CD by distinguished professors from the "Law School Legends" series produced by Gilbert Law Summaries. They are available from the Circulation Desk. Students can check out the following CDs from the Library to listen or copy:
Torts/ by Professor Richard J. Conviser [Chicago-Kent]
Constitutional law/ by John C. Jeffries, Jr [University of Virginia Law School]
Real property/ by Paula A. Franzese [Seton Hall Law School]
Criminal law/ by Charles H. Whitebread [USC]
Law school exam writing/ by Charles H. Whitebread [USC]
Issued with the handout entitled: Eight secrets of top exam performance.Contracts/ by David Epstein [SMU]
Civil procedure / by Richard D. Freer [Emory Law School]
Introduction to Library Resources
- The Library Catalog (vidcast)
- The Online Reference Collection
- A Photographic Field Guide to the Law Library (by Hastings Alum Adam Englehart)
Updated July 29, 2010 by Catherine Deane