Finding Law Reviews
Law Reviews are scholarly journals that focus on legal issues. These are generally published by an organization of law students within a law school. Law review articles are lengthy substantive treatments of the law typically written by legal experts - law professors, judges, practicing attorneys. Other shorter pieces such as "notes" and "comments" are often written by law school students who are members of the review. Law review articles are a great way to become acquainted with a particular topic or area of law and provide many references to other secondary publications as well as primary sources including statutes, cases and opinions.
- Hein Online This link opens in a new windowCoverage of ~2600 U.S. and international law reviews, from their inception (most in the late nineteenth century) to the present.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowCoverage of ~130 U.S. and international law reviews from their inception (most in the late nineteenth century) to the past few years.
Finding Academic Journal Articles
Here are a few key databases in related academic areas to help round out your reading.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowThis multidisciplinary database provides access to articles from journals, magazines, and reference sources across all subject areas. Coverage is primarily from 1980 to the present, with some older content.
- America: History & Life This link opens in a new windowAmerica: History & Life is an index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. The database indexes journals from 1964 to the present and also includes citations and links to book and media reviews. Strong English-language journal coverage but also included are abstracts in English of articles published in more than 40 languages.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowDigitized, full-text versions of core scholarly journals across disciplines. Coverage of most journals from their first issue to about 3-5 years ago.
- NCJRS Abstracts This link opens in a new windowOver 150,000 summaries of books & reports, journal articles, program descriptions, and evaluations maintained by the National Institute of Justice's National Criminal Justice Reference Service. Includes U.S. material and selected international publications, in English. Topics include corrections, courts, drugs and crime, law enforcement, juvenile justice, crime statistics, and victims of crime. On October 1, 2014, the NCJRS Virtual Library began to focus primarily on the collection of informational materials and resources produced, funded, and/or sponsored by the bureaus and offices of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs (OJP).
- PsycINFO This link opens in a new windowProduced by the American Psychological Association, this database is a comprehensive index to the professional and academic literature in psychology, counseling and related disciplines. Covers 1860-present.
- Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new windowSociological Abstracts provides citations and abstracts to international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Content coverage includes culture and social structure, history and theory of sociology, race and ethnicity, social change and economic development, and more. 1952-Present. Individual publication coverage varies by title.
- Worldwide Political Science Abstracts This link opens in a new windowCitations with abstracts from more than 1,100 journals in political science and related disciplines. Coverage is international in scope, combining the former Political Science Abstracts and ABC POL SCI databases.
