Legal Periodicals

Law Reviews and Journals, Bar Journals, and Others

Legal periodicals are published by many sources. There are – Law School Reviews and Journals – Bar Association Journals – Legal Newspapers – Topical and Special Interest Periodicals – Newsletters

Law Reviews and Journals

• are published by student-editors at law schools • can be general or focus on a specific area of the law • number of issues published per year varies by publication • often solicit lead articles from legal experts, generally law professors, which usually address narrow legal issues • are often heavily footnoted

Law Reviews and Journals (continued) • Notes and Comments are written by student members of the law review –

Notes

usually are critical analysis of recent court cases or new statutes.

–

Comments

interest.

are usually critiques on issues of current • Book reviews are included in some law review and journal publications.

• All law reviews and journals are included in the JLR (Journals and Law Reviews) database on Westlaw. Each publication also has a separate database.

Bar Association Periodicals • National, state, and local associations publish journals.

•

ABA Journal

is a leading bar journal.

• Bar association publications tend to emphasize more practical aspects of the law and do not crusade to change or criticize the law.

• These publications usually comment on recent legislation and court cases. Legal Newspapers • These periodicals can be local, state or national in scope.

• • The best-known weekly newspapers are the

National Law Journal

and

Legal Times.

American Lawyer

is published monthly.

Database: LEGNEWSL Search: “social host” /s liab!

• Newsletters – are published mainly by commercial organizations and public interest groups – usually focus on a narrow area of the law • brief reviews of current cases and legislative and agency actions – tend to be highly practical and technical – are valued because of their currency – are often the only publications that discusses a new and narrow topic

Online Access to Legal Periodicals

Westlaw databases include – LEGALNP –Legal Newspapers – LEGNEWSL – Legal Newsletters Multi-base – JLR – law school law reviews and journals – TP-ALL – all law reviews and journals, bar journals, other periodicals, texts, and treatises – Each periodical also has a separate database that can be individually searched.

– Database: TP-ALL Query: ti(“social host” /s liab!) retrieves 53 articles, most with helpful text and cross references.

Finding Legal Periodicals

Index to Legal Periodicals & Books

(ILP)

• Originated in 1908 • Indexes approximately 600 English-language periodicals • Access – Author/Subject Index – Table of Cases – Table of Statutes Database: ILP Query: ti(“social host” /s liab!) – Book Review Index • ILP database on Westlaw (cannot be accessed by all law schools) – can be searched using Terms & Connectors, Natural Language, or Fields.

Finding Legal Periodicals

Current Law Index

(CLI)

• Coverage begins in 1980 • Indexes approximately 850 worldwide including practice-oriented periodicals legal periodicals, • Titles are indexed in English • Issued monthly, with quarterly and annual cumulative issues • Access – Subject/Proper Name Index – Author/Title Index – Table of Cases – Table of Statutes

Legal Resource Index

(LRI) and

Current Index to Legal Periodicals

(CILP)

• LRI is the online counterpart of CLI.

– Updated daily – Contains law related newspapers and articles selected from non-legal periodicals that are law related • LRI database on Westlaw (cannot be accessed at all law schools) – Can be searched using Terms & Connectors, Natural Language, and Fields.

• CILP database contains the eight most recent weeks of the

Current Index to Legal Periodicals

.

Using KeyCite to Locate Periodicals

• KeyCite is Westlaw’s citation research service.

• KeyCite Citing References will list the periodical articles that have cited a case, statute, federal regulation, or federal administrative decision. • You can jump directly to these periodicals from KeyCite.

A portion of the Citing References for a Supreme Court case, showing references to citing periodicals .