Nexis Uni can help you find a variety of legal materials, including:
Case Law. Case law is an important source of law in all areas, even those that are heavily legislated. It is the law developed over time by judges in superior courts. Each case or judgment delivered by these superior courts is the solution to the dispute between parties to the case. Once the judgment is delivered it becomes precedent that future disputes will be settled based upon.
Decisions made in superior (higher) courts form precedents and inferior (lower) courts must follow these precedents, this is the doctrine of precedent, or stare decisis.
Law review articles: a law review is an entirely student-run journal that publishes articles written by law professors, judges, and other legal professionals; many law reviews also publish shorter pieces written by law students called “notes” or “comments.”
FYI....
These can now be found on the Criminal Justice Discovery page as "Landmark Supreme Court Cases."
This video was produced for another academic library, so be aware that there are differences between that library and Bethel College. For example, BC does not have an option for logging in directly to Nexis Uni from off-campus. To use Nexis Uni when you're away from Bethel, use the remote desktop, following these instructions.
The Shepard's Citations Service provides a comprehensive case citation and treatment history to verify the validity of case law, statutes, agency opinions, and other legal documents. Only case law is covered in Nexis Uni.
Shepardizing™ is the practice of using the Shepard's Citations Service to validate a citation.
When you Shepardize® a case, Nexis Uni provides a report showing every opinion where that case has been referenced, all treatments of the case, and, most importantly, whether or not the case is "good law." If the case has been overruled, it is considered "bad law" and may no longer be cited as a legal precedent.
How Do I Do It?
1.) Login to Nexis Uni to begin.
2.) Locate a legal case. You may search by citation, parties, or topic.
For example, if you're looking at how case law is developing in light of the Supreme Court's decision to legalize gay marriage, you can search by:
Case citation: 135 S. Ct. 2584 OR 2015 U.S. LEXIS 4250 (these are references to where the full text of the decision is found in compiliations known as "reporters." You can often find them by googling the subject or people involved in the case.)
Parties: Obergefell OR Hodges. You'd probably prefer searching for "Obergefell" because it's a more unusual name and will retrieve fewer hits.
TOPICS: gay marriage or marriage same-sex couples
3.) Once you've found a case, you can Shepardize it (find related decisions) by clicking the Shepardize link at the right side of the page.
4.) This takes you to the Shepard's Summary page.
