Civil Litigation Lawyers

Case law research is where most of the depth and nuance in legal research lies. Judges rely on precedent, and your ability to find the most relevant, authoritative cases can make or break a legal argument.

A structured approach to case law research:

1. Start with landmark cases identified through your secondary source research.


2. Use Boolean search and natural language queries in your chosen database.


3. Filter by jurisdiction — prioritize controlling authority (cases from courts that bind your jurisdiction) over persuasive authority.


4. Filter by date — while older landmark cases matter, recent decisions often carry more weight and reflect current judicial thinking.


5. Read the full opinion — not just the headnotes. Headnotes are editorial summaries and can be misleading.


6. Follow the citing references — use tools like KeyCite (Westlaw) or Shepard's Citations (LexisNexis) to find cases that cited your key case and to see how the law has evolved.

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