Did you know there are detailed legal research guides freely available on the Internet on virtually any legal topic you can imagine? Most of these guides are written by subject specialist law school librarians, although they can also be written by practitioners or government experts. Research guides are a great place to turn when you are first beginning your research as they give an overview of an area of the law and provide links to primary law, secondary sources, relevant government agencies, and more.
Interested? Start with our own collection of legal research guides at: http://guides.brooklaw.edu/. First year law students, make sure to take a look at the legal research guide that we drafted especially for you http://guides.brooklaw.edu/1l.
Also, check out http://www.loc.gov/law/help/how-find.php and http://www.loc.gov/law/help/guide.php, the Law Library of Congress detailed guides to the laws of the 50 states, the Federal government, and most of the countries in the world.
Looking for more ways to find high quality legal research guides? If you have a particular topic in mind, try doing a Google search: “Legal Research Guide [insert your topic]” or “LibGuide [insert your topic].” This type of search will nearly always turn up one or more law school library legal research guides on your topic of interest. A great way to get started on your research!
