Lexis-Nexis is a massive database of news, law, and business documents. It is an incredible resource for students, whether they are undergrads looking for primary sources on a topic they are covering in a course, or grad students writing their dissertation. It is also used by professionals (lawyers, educators, journalists, etc.) It is the pre-eminent database for these purposes.

Use of the database costs money; luckily, UCSD has purchased a use license for its entire student and faculty body. This means that the database is available at the library, and is available online to anyone who accesses the Net using a "ucsd.edu" computer.

** If you access the Net through a commercial provider but are a registered UCSD student, there is a way to get access to Lexis-Nexis from home. See below. **

If you access the Net from a "ucsd.edu" computer:

 
STEP ONE: go to the Lexis-Nexis website at http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe.

This page gives you access to the different sections of the database. It is worth noticing everything that is available, so that you fully use this resource in the future.

 
STEP TWO: select "Legal Research"

There will be an icon that looks like this: Click it.

This page gives you access to a series of choices for what kinds of legal materials you want.

 
STEP THREE: are you looking for a law review article, or a court document?

Law review articles are essays written by legal scholars about specific cases and the legal principles they deal with. They appear in legal journals, and are not part of the judicial system -- although judges and lawyers do read them. On our syllabus, the articles by Peter Jaszi, Jessica Litman (but not the chapter from her book), and Elizabeth Shea are law review articles, and are available through Lexis-Nexis. (Seth Greenstein's article is also a law review article, but has yet to be published.)

Court documents are writings from actual cases -- Lexis-Nexis makes available everything written by a ludge on a case, but the definition of court documents might include original complaints, statements made by the defendants or plaintiffs, expert testimony, and amicus curiae ("friend of the court" documents). The LA Times v Free Republic "summary adjudication," the Universal v Remierdes "DeCSS" injunction, and the A&M v Napster appeals court revised injunction are court documents.

If you are looking for a law review article, select "Law Reviews"; if you are looking for a court document, select "Get a Case".

 
STEP FOUR: getting the actual document

In "Law Reviews," the search engine will work in familiar ways. best to type in the entire title of the article into the "keyword" field, and the author's last name in the "additional terms" field. The glitchy thing about this part is that any article that cites the article you want therefore has the title in its text, and will show up in the search results. You may have to scroll through the list of results. Be sure to change the "date" field to include the correct range of years -- or even better, limit the search to only the year the article was published.

In "Get a Case," the search engine asks for one or both of the parties to the legal action. Best move is to put in either both, or the one who is likely in fewer disputes (i.e. Free Republic rather than the Los Angeles Times, Reimerdes rather than Universal Studios). The search engine will retunr all of the legal documents it has on that case. For Free Republic, its only two; for Napster, its quite a few more. Scan the dates (of when they were filed) to find the document you need. (and, if the document you find is only about a page long, its probably not it.)

If you access the Net from a commercial service provider:

 
Instructions for how to use a UCSD "proxy" server are provided online by the UCSD Libraries system. They will help you configure your web browser so that it knows to use this proxy any time you attempt to use a UCSD-only like Lexis-Nexis. You will need to know your UCSD network username and password.