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Search Indexes to Legal Periodicals
Use key words to search for at least one relevant article in an index. Then find the index terms, sometimes called subjects, used to tag the article. Click on any relevant index terms to find all articles indexed with the same term. This lets you have more confidence that you have found every text that deals with the relevant concept in that index that could preempt your paper. With multiple keyword searches you never know if you have found every relevant text, but with an index someone has read each article and tagged it with index terms if it deals with the relevant concept.
- LegalTrac (Gale) This link opens in a new window
Index to articles since 1980 in more than 1,500 law reviews, legal newspapers, specialty publications, bar association journals, and international legal journals. Includes the full text for more than 250 publications.
To read articles indexed in LegalTrac that are not full-text, use HeinOnline. If you have trouble accessing this resource while on campus, then try this link. - Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Coverage as far back as 1908 from over 750 English language legal periodicals. Coverage includes annual surveys of laws by jurisdiction and annual surveys of federal court cases.If you have trouble accessing this resource while on campus, then try this link.
Get Electronic Access to the Articles that You Find
- Electronic Access to Law Journals, Books & More
Click here to access specific journal titles in electronic format.
Search Other Sources
Search Recent Articles & Working Papers with Keywords
Articles may be available here before they get included in the indexes above, and working papers that may never get published are also available here. Search the most recent texts with SSRN--but you are limited to keyword searching because the index terms that they use are not consistent across all content like in the formal indexes above.
- Social Science Research Network, SSRN This link opens in a new window
Authors upload their own articles and working papers to a number of specialized research networks in each of the social sciences, which includes the Legal Scholarship Network (LSN). This lets you find papers that have not been formally published, and so are not available in the indexes. Check with a Reference Librarian about getting free access to any pay content.
Papers are not all indexed or full-text searchable, so you cannot be sure that you have found all papers on a topic. Find relevant articles with keywords that you know from your previous research to be relevant to your topic.
Search Law Reviews with Keywords
Although these platforms don't index legal periodicals you can use keywords to search law reviews and discover any other relevant text.
While in the "Develop a Topic" page above you ideally already searched for information relevant to you paper on these research platforms, this is here in case you haven't yet done a search for just the articles in legal periodicals that could preempt your paper now that it is developed.
- HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Click through to a HeinOnline search narrowed to just Legal Periodicals to try to find an article that preempts your own. - Lexis This link opens in a new window
Click through to a Lexis search narrowed to just Legal Periodicals to try to find an article that preempts your own. - Westlaw This link opens in a new window
From the home screen click "Secondary Sources" and then "Law Reviews & Journals" to search just law reviews and journals for an article that preempts your own.
