This page provides starting points for information relevant to your journal and covers the following topics:
As always, if you need additional assistance, please request a Student Consult and we will be glad to help.
The Emory Law Journal has an editorial scope that is limited "only by the limits of legal scholarship and interest." Because of this, you will find yourself writing and spading in a wide variety of legal topics. In this section, we've suggested a number of general law resources where you can begin your research.
We recommend that once you've familiarized yourself with an area you'd like to explore further that you schedule a research consultation with a law librarian so that we can point you to more specialized resources.
Finding Guides by Subject:
You can limit your database search by title, subject, or most popular databases. Explore the available databases here:
Finding Treatises:
Study Aids and Introductory Sources:
Interdisciplinary Resources:
Legal news and current awareness tools are a good source for identifying developing areas of law ripe for new scholarship. These tools are general in legal topical focus, but there are many subject-specific or specialized blogs and current awareness materials available.
Current Awareness
For general current awareness, including legal topics:
Legal News
Legal Blogs
Circuit Splits
You will need to do a preemption check to make sure that your idea is original. To do this, you should do a thorough search of the legal literature to determine if another author has already published on your topic, using the same analysis as yours.
1. Compile a List of Search Terms: Start by compiling a list of search terms that will retrieve any articles similar to your proposed comment.
2. Search Law Journal Articles: Search for recent law review articles on your topic in the law journal databases on Westlaw and Lexis. If your proposed comment is based on a case or statute, you should also use Keycite on Westlaw and Shepards on Lexis to find articles analyzing the case or statute.
You might also search in Legal Research Index on Westlaw, using the index headings to find articles on your topic, and in the Current Index to Legal Periodicals on Hein Online, a weekly index service arranged by subject area. Both are good for finding the most recent law journal articles in a subject area.
3. Search For Interdisciplinary Articles (if applicable): Try JSTOR, Academic Search Complete, and Social Sciences Full Text.
4. Search for Books/Chapters: You should also check for books and book chapters that might have been published on your topic, using the Emory University Libraries catalog, and WorldCat, a catalog of the holdings of U.S. and international libraries.
5. Search for Unpublished Materials: To find working papers and pending law review articles, search the abstracts in the Legal Scholarship Network, a division of SSRN, and the articles in the bepress Legal Repository. Academic legal blogs, such as those in the Law Professor Blogs Network, sometimes post announcements of new legal scholarship.
*Be sure to keep checking for new articles on your topic, and other developments that might affect your research, using alerts on Westlaw and Lexis, and by following topical legal blogs and newsletters.*
Additional Guides on Preemption
Some other legal research guides on preemption include:
Academic Legal Writing by PDF images of original documents are the best sources for authenticity, page numbers, and checking quotations.
Published Opinions
Dockets
Journals
Government Documents
Newspapers
Historical Materials
Treatises
Many of Emory's ebook databases have books and treatises in PDF or other image formats. Find them by searching titles in Emory Libraries Search (the catalog)
For video tutorials on how to find books and articles, whether through Emory's collections or through interlibrary loan, see the Circulation page of this guide.
Finding an item at Emory:
Finding an item NOT at Emory (interlibrary loan):
What if I don't need the whole thing? (interlibrary loan):
Citations depend on the latest edition of The Bluebook. The 21st edition lists noteworthy changes from the previous edition. The T2 tables for foreign jurisdictions in the Electronic Bluebook are available for free.
The 21st Edition of the Bluebook is now available online. Individual subscriptions are available starting at $39 per year. For assistance with The Bluebook, ask the reference librarians for help at the service desk.
For a free, online alternative, try the Indigo Book, based on the Bluebook Uniform System of Citation. New (2022) Second Edition now available.
Database Tools
Library Guides
Interactive Training
Physical Materials
The Bluebook by
A Uniform System of Citation: The Bluebook is the definitive style guide for legal citation in the United States. For generations, law students, lawyers, scholars, judges, and other legal professionals have relied on The Bluebook's uniform system of citation in their writing. In a diverse and rapidly changing legal profession, The Bluebook continues to provide a systematic method by which members of the profession communicate important information to one another about the sources and legal authorities upon which they rely in their work.
Prince's Dictionary of Legal Citations by
Princes Dictionary of Legal Citations: A Reference Guide for Attorneys, Legal Secretaries, Paralegals, and Law Students, Ninth Edition** assists the legal profession in citing legal authorities according to the rules given in The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, 20th ed. (2015). This title is a companion to The Bluebook (not a replacement) and applies Bluebook rules to a representative collection of common legal authorities. The citations included are based on Bluebook rules, and the abbreviations are those found in The Bluebook or derived from its guidelines.
While The Bluebook strives to establish uniformity in citation form for court documents, the practitioner should remember that citation rules contained in local rules, state supreme court rules, rules of trial or appellate procedure, and statutes supersede Bluebook rules. Prince¿s includes both references to state court rules for citing cases and statutes, and examples of how to cite cases according to those rules.
What¿s New in the Ninth Edition
Besides updating both Bluebook and state court rule references, this edition has been updated to reflect all Twentieth Edition Bluebook revisions. The citations concerning Internet, electronic media, and other nonprint resources has been revised and expanded. Public domain information has been updated and includes additional domestic jurisdictions that now employ this form of citation. New or revised entries include ebooks, legal dictionaries, Facebook, Linkedin, online newspapers, newspaper editorials and opinions, plays, press releases, Twitter, American Law Institute publications such as Restatements, uniform acts, and model codes, and examples throughout the book citing to online sources.
Thank you for attending the orientation session on August 17. You can find the library's presentation here:
Academic and Journal Writing:
Basic Legal Research:
Multidisciplinary Research:
Emory Subject Guides
Guides Outside of Emory
Not finding a guide at Emory? Try outside universities and law schools!
MacMillan Library Hybrid Research Services:
Monday - Friday: 9am - 5pm
Saturday - Sunday: Closed
MacMillan Library Building Hours (August 19 - November 15, 2024):
Monday - Thursday: 8am - Midnight
Friday: 8am - 8pm
Saturday: 10am - 6pm
Sunday: Noon - Midnight
Reference Desk:
Monday: 10am - 4pm
Tuesday: 10am - 4pm
Wednesday: 10am - 12pm; 2pm - 4pm
Thursday: 10am - 4pm
Friday: 10am - 1pm
Saturday and Sunday: Closed
IT Help Desk:
Monday - Friday:
Saturday - Sunday: Closed
Emory Law Archives:
Physical archives: By appointment only.
Digital archives: More information available here.
Limited remote services are available on a case-by-case basis.
Questions? Email Anna Sturgill, Law Librarian for Archives and Assessment Services
