Finding the Law: A Beginners Guide to Legal Research

42 questions on finding the law, answered and cited by the UpLaw editorial team.

• Can a non-lawyer really do legal research?
• Can I cite a treatise instead of a case?
• Can I trust an AI chatbot to do my legal research?
• Does a red flag mean I cannot use a case?
• Do I need to validate statutes and regulations too?
• How do courts interpret an ambiguous statute?
• How does the end of Chevron deference affect reading older cases?
• How does the state court structure mirror the federal one?
• How do I know when I am finished researching?
• How do I know whose law even applies?
• How do I read a case citation?
• How do I read a statute or regulation citation?
• How good are the free citator substitutes?
• How many layers of rules can govern a single procedural question?
• Is every opinion of a mandatory court binding?
• What are the four forms of primary authority?
• What are the main types of secondary sources?
• What are the most common legal research mistakes and their fixes?
• What are the two questions behind every legal research task?
• What does a complete research project look like from start to finish?
• What does it mean to define a research question precisely?
• What does it mean to "Shepardize" a case?
• What does the pyramid of authority look like at the federal level?
• What does the reporter abbreviation tell me about a case?
• What do introductory signals like "see" and "cf." mean?
• What do you actually pay for with Westlaw or Lexis?
• What free legal research tools are worth knowing?
• What is a circuit split and who can resolve it?
• What is a citator and what does it tell you?
• What is a repeatable six-step legal research workflow?
• What is secondary authority and why start there?
• What is sub-regulatory guidance and how much weight does it carry?
• What is the difference between a holding and dicta?
• What is the status of a uniform or model act?
• What makes authority mandatory rather than persuasive?
• What three questions should I ask before typing a single search term?
• What two cross-cutting rules keep the authority pyramid coherent?
• Where are free research tools weakest?
• Where is the line between legal information and legal advice?
• Which citation style should I use?
• Why can't I just read a statute's operative sentence?
• Why is validating authority not optional?