Research Resources: Class Guides

BOS 332: Law, Ethics, and Society

I. SELECTED REFERENCE SOURCES

Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society 5 vols.

Ref HF 5387 .E53 2008

Encyclopedia of White-Collar and Corporate Crime 2 vols.

Ref HV 6768 .E63 2005

Encyclopedia of Law and Society 3 vols.

Ref Balcony K 583 .E53 2007

II. INDEXES AND DATABASES

Legal Research (Lexis-Nexis)

Legal resources, including law reviews, state and federal case law, patent law, and law school directories. For Mac Users - Please use Safari or Google Chrome as your browser.

Supreme Court of the United States

The official web site of the Supreme Court, with current and historic court opinions and other information about the workings of the Court.

Cornell's Legal Information Institute

This link takes you to the Supreme Court section of Cornell's site. This is a good current awareness tool, with an archive of cases going back to 1990. Links to related resources, like court briefs and oral arguments, are included.

Law Library of Congress

Provides access to court cases, legal information, and legislative resources - from the Library of Congress.

Business Source Complete

A comprehensive business research database, providing full text access for more than 1,100 peer-reviewed business publications and over 8,000 other periodicals. Covers marketing, management, accounting, finance and economics. Detailed profiles of 10,000 companies are included.Updated daily.

III. HOW TO FIND COURT CASES

• Go to Legal Research (LEXIS-NEXIS) on the A to Z list of Research Resources (see above).
• Select Federal and State Cases from the left-hand menu.
• Search for the party name and choose U. S. Supreme Court Cases in the Jurisdiction box. In Specify Date select previous 5 years for Citizens United v. FEC and all available dates for Grutter v. Bollinger.
• For a lower court case, such as John Doe v. Unocal Corp, use the same approach but select All Federal and State Courts and all available dates from the drop-down menus.
• The only drawback to using LEXIS-NEXIS is that you have to scroll through much summary and head-notes material before you get to the actual opinion of the court. However, this added material from LEXIS-NEXIS can be very helpful in understanding the significance of the case.
• An alternative method is to use the Supreme Court website to find the Citizens United and Grutter cases. The advantage of taking this approach is that you will see the official slip opinion of the court, exactly the way the opinion was published.
• Go to the home page of the U.S. Supreme Court website (see above).
• Type citizens united in the search term box at the upper right of the page and click on the 4th case in the list of results to see the opinion of the Court. The complete case is 183 pages in length.
• For the Grutter v. Bollinger case, it will be easier to search a different way on the Supreme Court web site.
• From the home page, select Opinions from the left menu, and then select Bound Volumes
• From the next menu, open Volume 539.
• The volume begins with a table of cases. Grutter v. Bollinger starts on page 306. This is also availoable in print, in U. S. Reports (see below).

Last updated: 3/4/13 tk, contact Tom Karel for assistance, 291-3845