HED 6501: The Law and Higher Education: Nexis Uni

Nexis Uni is available through the MC Library database page

https://library.mc.edu/collections-resources/databases

• Click on the link Nexis Uni

How to Find a Case Using Basic Search

There are two places to find a case on LexisNexis Academic.  The first is the "Easy Search" page.  Go to the section called "Look Up a Legal Case".

• To look up a case by citation, type in the citation for the case in the "By Citation" box and click on "Go".
• If the know the names of the parties, you can type them in the "By Parties" box and click on "Go".  It does not matter which order the parties are entered in.  You can run the search if you only know one party and the name is unique.
• If you are looking up a Landmark Supreme Court Case, such as Roe v. Wade, you may want to use the link provided at the bottom of the "Look up a Legal Case" form to go to the Landmark Cases search form.  This is a list of direct links to Landmark Supreme Court Cases sorted alphabetically by topic, then by year, then alphabetically by party name.
• It is recommended that if you want to find a case by subject or keywords that you follow the instructions below rather than using the "Topic" search on the "Easy Search" page.

     Examples:

     1) By Citation              834 N.E.2d 432
     2) By Parties               Brown  v. board of education
     3) By Topic                 free speech and campus  or -  free speech w/15 campus
     4) US Federal & State Cases:   free speech and campus
         (Switch the field from "Everywhere" to "At least 5 occurrences)  
     5) Combined Search: If you wish to broaden your search results,
         combine "fed. & state cases" and "Law reviews.  

How to Find a Case Using U.S. Legal: Federal and State Cases

You can also look up a case by name, citation, or search terms (keywords) by clicking on "U.S. Legal" on the left sidebar and then click on "Federal and State Cases".  This will bring you to the U.S. Federal and State Cases search form. 

• If you know the citation, type it into the "Search For" box, then click on the drop down menu and choose "Citation".  Click "Search".  If you don't know the format for the citation, click on the valid citation link in the "Tip" section at the bottom of the search form.
• To search by party names from this menu, type in the party names, separated by a "v" in the "Search For" box.  Click on the drop down menu and choose "Party Names" and then click "Search".
• You may want to search for cases on a particular subject.  Use terms that relate to important issues and facts involved in your research.  Do not use common words like "law".  Think of unique terms or phrases that describe your subject.
  • Once you have determined which term or phrase you are going to search, type the term in the "Search For" box.  Then click on "Search".  This search looks for the term or phrase everywhere in the case files..
  • You can narrow your results by retrieving cases that mention your search term or phrase at least five times in the text of the case.  To do this, type in your requested term or phrase and then in the drop down menu choose "at least 5 occurrences".  Click "Search".
  • You may only be interested in cases decided in the last several years.  You can limit your search by going to "Specify Date" and clicking on the drop down menu and choosing which dates you want to retrieve.
  • You can also limit your cases to a particular state or court, for example, Arizona or the U.S. District Court.  To do this, go to "Jurisdiction" and click on the drop down menu and choose the court/s that you want to search.

How to Shepardize a Case

• To Shepardize a case you are reading, click on the Shepardize link in the upper right hand portion of the screen.

How to View Results

• You can view the cases from your search in List format (default) or click on the dropdown menu under Show and then click on Expanded List, Full Document, Full with Indexing, Custom, or KWIC (keyword in context).
• Click on a case-name link to view that case in full.

How to Sort Results

• You can sort your results by Publication Date (default) or click on the dropdown menu under Sort and click on Relevance or Chronological.

How to Tag Results

• To select cases from a list for printing, emailing, downloading, or exporting, click on the box to the left of the number on the list

How to Print Cases

• Click on the Print Documents icon in the upper right corner of the document you want to print.
• Make sure that the Format, Document View, and Document Range are what you want, then click on the red Print button.
• On the next screen click on the Print button.
• On the Print Job Details Screen, you will be asked for an ASURITE ID.  This is the name of your print job, which can be anything, as long as you will remember it.
• Click on the Print button.
• Go to the print station located along the east wall of the Reserve Reading Room.
• You will need either a Sun Card or a library copy card to print; there is a card dispenser next to the printer.
• After you swipe your card at the printer station a screen with all current print jobs will appear
• Look for the user name of your print job under the “Owner” column. Click to highlight your print order and then click on Print. If you have any problems with the printer, please ask a member of the Circulation staff for assistance. This printer station is available during all hours the library is open. Please note: The printer will only hold your print request for 2 hours.

How to Email Cases

• Click on the Email Documents icon in the upper right corner of the document you want to email.
• Make sure that the Format, Document View, Range, and other options are set to what you want.
• Enter your email address and then click on the red Send button.

How to Download Cases

• Click on the Download Documents icon in the upper right corner of the document you want to download.
• Make sure that the Format, Document View, and Document Range are what you want, then click on the red Download button.
• The download screen will give you an underlined link to the document. Right click on this link and choose Save Target As…
• Connect your Flash drive to the USB cable marked with a white label or the USB port on the front of the computer.
• In the File name box, type either E:\ or F:\ (depending on the computer) and press Enter. The Save in box at the top should read “Removable disk.”
• Enter a file name for the document you wish to save and click the Save button.
• To remove your flash drive, click once on the green arrow in the lower right corner of the screen, then click on Safely remove USB Mass Storage Device.

To search by Area of Law, select the All Sources option under drop down Menu on the top Right  to find and select the Sources to search as follows.

1.  Select Area of Law  from the menu on the left hand side to begin browsing law sources.  Other possibilities are
     Publication Type, News & Business Topics, and Industry.

2.    Filter by Country (United States) and Publication Type (Cases or Legal News)

3.    Select a Category (Education Law) from which to view and select sources.

4.    Check the box in front of the source(s) you want to include.  Click "OK Continue"

5.    Enter search terms in box.

       Select your date or date range

       Click "Search"

6.    To narrow your search, use the Search within results box in the
       upper right-hand corner.

POWER SEARCH (recommended)

Tips: ! truncation mark. E.g. terminat! will find terminate, terminated, termination...  ; Using the W/n connector. E.g. free speech w/15 student; Segment search can be effective. This is how to select a segment: Source > Fed.& State Cases > Select a segment > e.g. OVERVIEW(due process and  player). Overview is the segment that describes the facts about the case; Show (options of displaying case documents): KWIC shows ONLY the segments in which your search terms occur; Full with Indexing  shows all but it could make a case reading difficult.   Ses some examples:

-   student! and dress code           
-   student! w/15 dress code            
-   student! w/20 free speech and Texas
-   347 w/5 U.S. w/5 483   [Looking for cases which mention the case 347 U.S. 483]
-   faculty and terminat! and retaliat! w/50 criticiz!
  
Supreme Court Cases
-  court ( supreme ) and denial and financial aid
-  court (supreme) and university and age discrimination

Path:  Power Search > By Type > select > US Law Review

Law review articles in Lexis are divided into three main sections: Title, Summary and Text. See some examples below:

-  title (affirmative action and admission w/5 program)
- summary (affirmative action and admission w/5 program)
- text (tenure w/5 denied w/20 race or gender or religion)
- affirmative action and admission w/5 program and hopwood w/10 texas    

The search summary(affirmative action and admission w/5 program) will find more than 120 articles. In one of the articles "A Current Perspective: The Erosion of Affirmative Action in University Admissions", you will find several important cases mentioned: Board of Regents v. Bakke; Gratz v. Michigan; Hunter v. Regents of the University of California; and Robert A. Lauer, Hopwood v. Texas. You could also do a TEXT search with parties' names to look for articles on your interested cases.

MORE ABOUT CONNECTORS
AND will retrieve all the term(s) from the same document.
W/N allows one to specify proximity between words. The rules of thumb are:
          student! w/5 dress code (same phrase)
          student! w/15 dress code (same sentence)
          student! w/50 dress code (same paragraph)
          student! and dress code (anywhere in the document).              
!    When used at the end of a word as in "student!", it will find student, students, student's and students'    

MORE ABOUT SEARCHING:         
Avoid using long phrases.  Example: university faculty promotion discrimination.   The search may get zero hits because it looks for documents with all those words appearing in that exact order. Solution: add "And" in between:  university AND faculty promotion AND discrimination, or use different terms: faculty and tenure denied and discrimination. You may also consider using "!" to optimize the search results, e.g.  deni! to include denial, denied or other variations.

Use W/N connector to construct more meaningful search sets.  Example: graduate admission rejected and disability.  You may change it to: graduate w/5 program and admission w/15 denied and disabl!  In this new search, you use W/N to break the long phrase graduate admission rejected into two subsets: graduate program and admission denied, and then combine them with the third component disabled or disability.
       
Specify in which SEGMENT your search terms occur. See two examples:
- OVERVIEW(due process and  player)
- OVERVIEW (tenure w/5 denied) and OUTCOME(reversed)

Goolge it. Example: legal cases tenure denial and sex discrimination. Then search Lexis with the name(s) or citation or keywords you found in Google.

See also the next topic - using law reviews to find cases.

HOW TO READ A CASE?
See How to Read a Case, p. 1-1 (College Administrator & the Courts). Basically, the decision is related to the facts of the case. So grasp the FACTS first, then ask WHAT THE ISSUE IS. This is to determine what the principles the case stands for. The next questions: how the court RESOLVED THE ISSUE & THEIR REASONING and WHAT ARE THE RAMIFICATION OF THE OPINION. Note: opinion does NOT equal decision. An opinion is the court's explanation for its decision; a decision either affirms or reverses the lower court or tribunal.

PSU also publishes an excellent guide on how to read a legal case:
     1. Begin with the name and citation of the case.
    2. Is this case being decided by a trial court or an appellate court? (Note: most cases you read will be
        appellate cases, because the opinions of trial courts have less precedental value)
    3. In the original case, who was the plaintiff and who was the defendant?
    4. What was the original complaint? (libel, invasion of privacy, violation of a statute, etc.)
    5. What were the facts that led to the complaint?
    6. What was the trial court's decision? (who "won" the case)
    7. What are the legal questions/issues that are being raised on appeal?
    8. What is the present court's decision (is the original decision affirmed, reversed, or remanded?)
    9. What rule or test is the court using to decide the outcome? This will relate to the legal question
        that must be decided.
    10.What reason does the court give for using this rule?
Url: <https://www.courses.psu.edu/comm/comm403_jsb15/howtoreadcase.html>

When reading a case, you may see headnotes here and there. A HN gives a brief summary of a point of law. When clicked, a HN whill jump to a specific court opinion in the text of the case, helping readers to understand the opinion relevant to that law. Please note that HN is only an editorial interpretation not a part of the court's decisions.

HOW TO FIND STATUE AND CODES
Path: Lexis> Legal tab> United States Code Services Title 1 through 50    
- higher education resources and student assistance programs   (if you know the name)
- heading ( title 20 ) and section ( 100* )    (if you know the Title and the section numbers)

You could also click Browse TOC (located on the left panel) to do a search by limiting to a specific section, say, EDUCATION, and then enter your search terms in the Quick Find.

HOW TO FIND FEDERAL OR STATE REGULATIONS AND ADMINISTRATIVE CODES
Path: Lexis> Legal tab>Federal and State Codes > select CFR from SOURCES   
- Heading (student loan)        (keyword search in the Heading section)
- 5 CFR 537.10*                          (if you know a specific CFR citation)

HOW TO FIND MISSISSIPPI CODES
Path: Lexis> Legal tab>Federal and State Codes > select MS-Mississippi Code, Constitution ... from SOURCES 
-  heading (higher education and control of funds)