Second Year Seminar - LexisNexis



Second Year Seminar

Research and Writing

Guide to Success

Section 1: Finding/Narrowing Your Topic

Section 2: Checking for Pre-emption

Section 3: Researching Your Topic

Section 4: Features Critical to Effective & Efficient Research

LexisNexis Tutorials: Finding a Note or Paper Topic

Starting Your Law Review Note

(Both of these tutorials will assist with Second Year Seminar.)

Use LexisNexis Customer Support (Free 24/7):

1-800-45LEXIS (5-3947)

Save Time by Utilizing Links to LexisNexis Sources

Many links to LexisNexis databases are contained in this document, making it EASY to launch searches. Utilize these links by simply clicking on a link and entering your Custom ID# & Password

General Tip: Whenever you see an [pic] square, you can obtain information about the content and coverage dates of the applicable source. Simply click on the [pic] for information.

Section 1: Finding/Narrowing Your Topic:

1. Use Search Advisor to quickly retrieve relevant Law Reviews, News Stories, Treatise sections &/or Cases. Law Review & News articles can be particularly helpful in regards to determining and narrowing your topic. Treatises are fantastic for getting a clear overview of a topic.

Click on the “Search Advisor” tab below. Then, use the “Find a Legal Topic” box or browse the Search Advisory hierarchy to pinpoint a relevant topic. Select that topic and click the ‘Analytical Materials’ tab. Then, click the ‘Law Review’ and/or ‘Legal News’ link.

Tip1: Use “Focus” to pinpoint the most relevant materials.

[pic] (Click on the Tab to Go to Search Advisor)

Law Review & News tips:

Tip1: Lexis provides brief summaries of every law review article. In addition, the first paragraph of ~every law review article summarizes the entire article.

Tip2: When using “Focus” in any NEWS source, pinpoint stories that cover your issue(s) in detail by using the ‘HLEAD’ segment. Click “Focus”, then type “HLEAD (your terms)”. This will restrict your results to only documents that have your terms in the headline or the lead paragraph of the story.

Tip3: A very valuable connector is: atleast# (your terms); e.g. if you entered: “atleast7 (public trust doctrine)”, your search would return only documents that mention the phrase, ‘public trust doctrine,’ 7 or more times. You can use this connector in any terms & connectors search.

Tip4: Another very valuable connector is: and not your terms; e.g. hypo – assume that if a document mentions ‘public trust doctrine’ and the phrase ‘air rights’, the document is always irrelevant. Enter the following search terms: “public trust doctrine and not air rights”; this search will weed out ALL documents that mention the phrase ‘air rights’. ALWAYS use ‘and not’ at the very end of your search query.

2. Search Law Review articles directly (w/out Search Advisor). Click on the link below to search all law review articles.

|[pic] |US & Canadian Law Reviews, Combined |[pic] |

Tip5: ‘Natural Language’ is often the best search engine to utilize when searching all US and/or Canadian Law Review articles. Try starting your law review search by writing a detailed ‘Natural Language’ as described here: Use the ‘Natural Language’ radio button to rank documents based on how frequently terms are used – e.g. if you select ‘Natural Language’ and enter lease conversion, the system will display documents that utilize ‘lease’ and/or ‘conversion’ most frequently. When using ‘Natural Language’, you must use quotations if you want the system to search for a phrase: e.g. you must enter “lease conversion” if you want to rank documents based on how frequently this phrase appears in documents. If your term is a verb, enter the verb’s singular & plural forms & all verb tenses: e.g. ‘disclose’, ‘discloses’, ‘disclosed’, disclosing’. Mandatory Terms: Use the ‘Mandatory Terms’ feature to require that certain terms appear in a document. If you want to include synonyms in your Mandatory Terms search use parentheticals: e.g. if in the Mandatory Terms box, you enter: “public trust”, water (river, ocean, lake), Lexis will return only documents containing ‘public trust’, as well as ‘water’ or ‘river’ or ‘ocean’ or ‘lake’.

Tip5a: Use the ‘publication’ segment to see articles from Hawaii Law Review or APLPJ; e.g. type “publication (Hawaii or asian pacific)”; this search will limit your results to only law review articles from UH Law Review or APLPJ. Use the ‘name’ segment to see articles written by a particular person; e.g. type “name (yamamoto w/2 eric)”; this search will limit your results to only law review articles written by Prof. Eric Yamamoto. Use the ‘author’ segment to see articles that a particular person contributed to; e.g. type “author (yamamoto w/2 eric)”; this search will limit your results to only law review articles that received contributions from Prof. Eric Yamamoto or were written by Prof. Eric Yamamoto.

Tip5b: If you find a Law Review article on point, you can Shepardize the article to find other relevant law review articles, cases or statutes. If you have a relevant article open (i.e. if you are currently viewing the article on lexis), you can retrieve the Shepard’s report by clicking on the ‘Shepard’s’ Tab. Click the ‘Check’ tab to retrieve the Shepard’s report.

3. Search Local & National News Stories. Click on one of the links below and enter search terms. Lexis national and international news coverage is Unbelievably extensive – more stories than any other content provider.

| |[pic]|The Honolulu Advertiser | |[pic] |  |

|[pic] |News Group File, Most Recent Two Years |[pic] |  |

| |[pic|News Group File, Most Recent 90 Days |[pic] |  |

| |] | | | |

Tip6: Pinpoint stories that cover your issue(s) in detail by using the ‘HEADLINE’ segment. Click “Focus”, then type “HEADLINE (your terms)”. This will restrict your results to only documents that have your terms in the headline. Two other great segments are: Hlead (terms) [see Tip2 for details] and atleast# (terms) [see Tip3 for details].

4. Search for recently passed Hawaii Legislation & Proposed Legislation.

You may search all Hawaii legislation passed after 1988 by using the following source. Click on the link below and enter terms. To review recently passed legislation, click the ‘Date Restriction’ drop-down menu & select “Previous Year.” Run search without any terms & then use ‘Focus’.

| |[pic] |HI - Hawaii Advance Legislative Service |[pic] |

You may also retrieve bills & bill status documents for the last session of the Hawai‘i legislature. Click on the link below and enter terms.

|[pic] |HI Bill Tracking and Full-Text Bills |[pic] |

5. Search Current Litigation News & Trends. Click on the link below and browse the Mealey’s publications. If you find a relevant publication, select and search that publication. Mealey’s is the nation’s PREMIER publisher of Litigation News.

|[pic] |Mealey’s Publications |

Tip1: To browse all recent articles, run a search with a “Date Restriction.” Restrict the search to the Previous 6 months and run search withOUT specifying any terms. You will then see all articles published in the last 6 months. Then, use “Focus” if needed.

6. Search Matthew-Bender Treatises. Matthew-Bender treatises provide Excellent overviews of a great number of topics. Click on the following link & browse the folders to find a relevant treatise. Matthew-Bender treatises are available exclusively on Lexis.

Matthew Bender(R)

7. Search the Hawaii Bar Journal. Click on the link below and enter search terms. The Hawaii Bar Journal often publishes articles on issues that are currently uncertain or controversial (good topics).

| |[pic|Hawaii Bar Journal |[pic] |

| |] | | |

Tip7: To browse all recent articles, run a search with a “Date Restriction” for the Previous 6 months withOUT specifying any terms. You will then see all articles published in the last 6 months. Then, use ‘Focus’ if needed.

8. Search Hawaii Law Review Articles. Click on the link below & enter terms. Articles often point out local issues that would be good topics. In other words, you can choose a topic that picks up where a previous article left off.

|[pic] |Hawaii Law Review |[pic] |

9. Search APLPJ. Click on the link below & enter terms. Articles often point out local issues that would be good topics. In other words, you can choose a topic that picks up where a previous article left off.

| |[pic] |Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal |[pic] |

10. Search Ka Leo. The “University Wire” source contains select Ka Leo articles. Click on the link below, enter terms and add the following to the end of your query: “and publication (Hawaii)”. This will limit your search to Ka Leo. Ka Leo often discusses controversial issues that may be good topics.

|[p|University Wire |[pic|

|ic| |] |

|] | | |

Tip8: Enter the following search to see recent Ka Leo articles: “publication (Hawaii) [w/ a date restriction of the Previous 6 months].”

Section 2: Checking for Pre-emption

General Tip: Three broad sources are listed below. While these sources do not include all published legal articles, these sources do contain a vast number of articles. In most cases, if you search these sources and do not find a prior article focusing on your topic, your topic is original. It is a good idea to search all of the sources provided below.

1. Index to Legal Periodicals: A fantastically broad index to legal publications. The index covers articles from more than 500 legal journals, yearbooks, institutes, bar association organizations, university publications, law reviews, and government publications. Fajans & Falk’s Scholarly Writing for Law Students recommends searching this source when checking for pre-emption. Note that this publication contains only titles and very brief summaries of articles. Therefore, broad queries are most effective when searching this source.

|[pic] |Index to Legal Periodicals |[pic] |

2. Law Reviews, ALR’s, AmJur 2nd & Restatement Rules Combined: This source contains all law reviews, ALR’s, AmJur 2nd documents, Restatement rules, and journals (except Bar Assoc. journals) that are available on . While this source contains less publications than the “Index to Legal Periodicals”, the following source provides the full text of articles rather than just summaries of articles. This additional content makes it easier to analyze if an article is pre-emptive.

|[pic] |Combined Restatement Rules, ALR, Jurisprudences and Law Reviews |[pic] |

3. Combined Bar Journals: This source contains Bar Association journals from the United States, most of which are NOT included in Lexis’ “law review” sources. While the Bar journals are likely covered in the “Index to Legal Periodicals”, the following source provides the full text of articles rather than just summaries of articles. This additional content makes it easier to analyze if an article is pre-emptive.

|[pic] |Combined Bar Journals |[pic] |

Section 3: Researching Your Topic:

General Tip: Don’t hesitate to call Lexis Customer Support (1-800-45LEXIS (5-3947)). Lexis Customer Support is very good at unearthing golden needles from large haystacks. You will generally get more experienced support personnel if you call between 5am-2pm Hawaii Time.

1. Utilize Area of Law – By Topic. Click the link below to see all of the areas of law offered by Lexis. Each area of law contains sources with detailed information for the particular topic area. These area of law folders include extensive collections of agency materials, including guidance documents for some agencies such as the EPA.

|[pic] |Area of Law - By Topic |

Tip9: If you cannot find a particular source, use the “Find a Source” tab to look for sources of interest. Note that this search engine only looks at the exact titles of sources. If you misspell a source name by one letter or if your query contains one word that is not in the title of the source, you will not find the source. Therefore, enter VERY broad terms whenever you use “Find a Source” (e.g. if searching for EPA Guidance documents, simply search for “guidance.”) If your search does not retrieve a relevant source, call LexisNexis customer service attorneys and ask them to search for the material - 1-800-45LEXIS (5-3947).

Utilize Research Task Pages – [pic]. Click on the “Research Tasks” tab (located on the top of the Lexis page) to see a list of pages that provide quick access to specific areas of law. Select the relevant page. Each page provides fast access to sources for that practice area, including materials such as: a) agency decisions, memos and guidance, b) legislation listed by Popular Name of the Act, c) legislative history, d) area of law journals and e) area of law news publications. Note that ‘Research Tasks’ Pages are not all inclusive. If a source is not listed on a ‘Research Tasks’ Page, you may still be able to find the source in the main LexisNexis research site. If stumped, call LexisNexis Cust. Service Attnys - 1-800-45LEXIS (5-3947).

3. Hawai‘i Statutory & Legislative History Sources:

Whenever searching H.R.S., use the following source. This source lets you link from any H.R.S. section into H.R.S. Table of Contents, and lets you easily restrict search to any division, chapter or section. When viewing a section, click on the ‘TOC’ link (located in the top left of page) to go to the Table of Contents.

|[pic] |HI - Hawaii Code Annotated |[pic] |

Printing Multiple Sections of H.R.S.: Either browse to the relevant portion of the Table of Contents (TOC) or jump to the TOC by pulling up a relevant section & clicking on the TOC link at the top of the section. Once you are viewing the relevant portion of the TOC, click the white squares in front of any Sections or Chapter that you would like to print. To print the sections, click the ‘Fast Print’ button. Choose ‘Full’ if you would like to print the full text of the selected documents or ‘Cite’ if you would like to print a listing of the titles of the documents. If you are not sure what printer is tied to your ‘Fast Print’ button, click on the ‘Preferences’ link (top right corner of the page) and scroll down to the ‘Fast Print’ menu.

Start Legislative History research w/ the following source. For all H.R.S. amendments after 1988, the following source shows what text was deleted and what was added.

|[pic] |HI - Hawaii Advance Legislative Service |[pic] |

4. USE the NEWS !!!! INCREDIBLE collection of Hawai‘i, National & International News. Never underestimate the amount of info available in Lexis news databases. Lexis’ news coverage is Mind Boggling. Click on the [pic] next to “News Group File, All” to get an idea of how many news publications Lexis covers.

|[pic] |News Group File, All |[pic] |

| |[pic] |Non-US Newspapers & Wires |[pic] |

|[pic] |News Group File, Most Recent Two Years |[pic] |

| |[pic] |News Group File, Most Recent 90 Days |[pic] |

Tip10: Use “Focus” to pinpoint the most relevant materials.

Tip2-Repeated: Pinpoint news stories that cover your issue(s) in detail by using the ‘HLEAD’ segment. Click “Focus”, then type “HLEAD (your terms)”. This will restrict your results to only documents that have your terms in the headline or the lead paragraph of the story.

Tip3-Repeated: A very valuable connector is: atleast# (your terms); e.g. if you entered: “atleast7 (public trust doctrine)”, your search would only return documents that mention the phrase, ‘public trust doctrine,’ 7 or more times. You can use this connector in any ‘Terms & Connectors’ search.

Tip4-Repeated: Another very valuable connector is: and not your terms; e.g. hypo – assume that if a document mentions ‘public trust doctrine’ and the phrase ‘air rights’, the document is always useless. Enter the following search terms: “public trust doctrine and not (air rights)”; this search will weed out ALL documents that mention the phrase ‘air rights’. ALWAYS use ‘and not’ at the very end of your search query.

5. Public Records Public Records info may be useful depending on your topic. Lexis has extensive Public Records. Click on the links below to see what sources are available.

|[pic] |Jury Verdicts & Experts |

|[pic] |Judgments & Liens |

|[pic] |Uniform Commercial Code Filings |

|[pic] |Civil & Criminal Court Filings and Regulatory Actions |

|[pic] |Real Property Locator |

Section 4: Features Critical to

Effective & Efficient Research:

1. Stay CURRENT:

“Alerts”: Enables you to have Lexis run searches automatically every day or week. Lexis will then notify you via email or online when NEW information is found. Use these automatic searches to keep abreast of new law review articles, news stories, cases or new documents from any other type of Lexis database.

To use “Alerts” run a search, then click on the link “Save As Alert” (located in the top middle portion of the page). Complete the form and click save.

To view past findings, or Edit or Delete the Eclipse, click on the “Alerts” tab (located in the top middle portion of the page).

Tip11: Set up a broad “Alert” in the “Index to Legal Periodicals” and “News Group File, Most Recent 90 Days”. The ‘Index to Legal Periodicals’ source covers more secondary sources than any other source on , and it is updated weekly. The “News Group File, Most Recent 90 Days” covers an amazing number of news periodicals.

2. Quickly Paste Quotes, Pinpoint Citations & Links into

Your Paper or Outline – ‘Copy w/ Cite’:

“Copy w/ Cite”: Use this link to quickly & easily paste quotes, pinpoint citations and/or links into your paper or outline. When you are viewing a document on Lexis (law review article, case-law opinion, statute, etc.), simply select the text that you would like to copy. Then, click the ‘Copy w/ Cite’ link located in the top middle of the page. If you want to copy only the citation, click the “Copy w/ Cite” link without selecting any text. Once, the “Copy w/ Cite” pop-up window appears, select whether you would like the link to be copied as a hyper-text link. Then, click “Copy to Clipboard.” Open the Word document of your choice & paste the citation into the document as desired (move the cursor to the appropriate location & click “Edit” and then “Paste”).

3. Pulling Documents by Citation:

[pic] Get & Print

Use for Pulling One Use to Pull Multiple

or Two Documents Documents

Citation Format Assistant For Pulling Documents

Having Problems Determining the Proper Citation Format?

Click on the Link Below & Use the Search box to Find the Proper Citation Form

Citation Formats - For Pulling Full Text of Documents

4. SHEPARD’s: Capitalize on Shepard’s 125+ years of experience. Once you find a relevant document, Shepardize the document to expand your research. You can Shepardize a vast number of sources including: Law Review Articles, Federal AND State Court Rules (including HI Ct. Rules), all Federal & State Statutes, Fed. & State Regulations, and many other sources.

Shepard’s® Click this link to Shepardize by Citation. [pic]

Tip12: Use “Focus™ – Restrict by” link to narrow your Shepard’s reports to citations that:

1) reference a particular headnote from your opinion, 2) are from particular jurisdictions or publishers (such as A.L.R.) and/or 3) treat your document in a particular manner (e.g. to view cases that Followed your case).

Citation Format Assistant For SHEPARDIZING Documents

Wondering if you can Shepardize a document?

Click on the Link Below & Use the Search box to find the proper SHEPARD’s Citation Form. If you find a citation form, then you can Shepardize the document.

Citation Formats - For Pulling Shepard’s Reports

Tip14: Type: “Hawaii” and run search to see a listing of All Hawai‘i sources that can be Shepardized, including all HI Ct. Rules.

5. History Tab – All Searches Automatically Saved for 30 Days.

Click on the ‘History’ link to the left or on the ‘History’ link located in the top right portion of the Lexis page. You will be given links to all of the searches you ran that day. To view links to searches that you ran over the previous month, click on the [pic] tab. Alternatively, save your History: Select and copy your History and paste it into a Microsoft Word 2000 document. The links will remain active ~forever. In other words, thirty-one days later, if you click on a link, you can easily re-run the search.

6. Live Support – Get Support w/out Leaving Your Chair.

With Live Chat, Lexis Customer Support chats with you on the left side of your screen while remains active on the right side of your screen. Customer Support views the same screen as you and can easily guide you to the information that you are looking for. Live Chat is available 24 hours a day/7 days a week. Click on the link below to enter a live chat room.

[pic] (“Live Support” – the graphic to the left is a link to Live Support)

Use CheckCite to automatically verify Quotations from cases, statutes & law review articles. CheckCite retrieves quotations from your paper and verifies whether the citation was quoted correctly. CheckCite also shepardizes case-law citations.

CheckCite (free software – click preceding link to download) lets you quickly pull &/or shepardize documents by citation and launch “More Like Selected Text” searches directly from Word or WordPerfect.

8. Use LexLink to Launch Searches Directly from Microsoft Word or WordPerfect

LexLink (free software – click preceding link to download) lets you quickly pull &/or shepardize documents by citation and launch “More Like Selected Text” searches directly from Word or WordPerfect.

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